Of Comanches. Methodists and Strangite Mormons

Quanah Parker was an active polygamist. There is historical proof he had seven wives (pictured to the right with two of them) and, at least, twenty-five children but my mother's father and his brother claimed to be the twin sons of his 15th wife. But they also claim to be the younger brothers to White Parker whose mother was Mah-Cheeta-Wookey, Quanah's third wife. The second claim has more historical substantiation as Mah-Cheeta-Wookey died in 1902 and left the care of her remaining small children to her oldest son White and his wife Laura Clark who began as Methodist missionaries to the Comanche Nation in 1914.

Family legend attests that a Methodist preacher named Sanford Francis Yarberry and his wife Mary Ann (Lively), en route from Benton Country Arkansas to the Colorado territory in 1903, adopted two sons of Quanah and Mah-Cheeta-Wookey who had been left in the care of White and Laura. There is no record of the boy's Indian names but their adoptive names were Rodney Herbert, my maternal grandfather, and John Milton Yarberry, John being older than Rodney by two years.

As a sidenote, Sanford Yarberry was heading to Colorado looking for his uncle from whom no one in the family had heard since he had gone West two decades earlier. At that time they had no idea that Uncle Milt had been a rather notorious gunfighter in Southern Colorado and New Mexico and had been hired in 1880 as the first town marshal for Albuquerque. After shooting to death, an unarmed citizen, the city hanged old Milt on February 9, 1883.

My grandfather married three women, although he was not a polygamist. His first wife was Maude J. Dunn, his second, an Indian woman known only as Tillie and my grandmother, Leota Winona Park (Miller). With his first wife, he had one daughter, my Aunt Betsy. With his second there is no record of any children born and with my grandmother he inherited two step-daughters, my Aunts Eileen and Denny, then they had one daughter together, Roxana Lee, my mother. My grandmother and grandfather met when their two husbands decided to meet weekly to play cards with the wives. Apparently Maude fell in love with Mr. Park and Mrs. Park, Leota, fell in love with Rodney and both couples divorces and remarried each other. They continued playing cards together until my grandfather went on a drunk in 1949. My grandmother died in 1955, when I was four years old. The whole thing caused quite the little stink in Pueblo, Colorado which, while pretty wild, was not all that progressive in their thinking!

My mother is the family genealogist and has determined to follow the Yarberry line since the Parker line is pretty muddy before Quanah's mother (who had been kidnapped by Indians when she was a child and raised with them). The Yarberry line wades through the generations and melds with the England line which eventually takes us to a serf with an unpronounceable name before it stops cold.

John Milton Yarberry, my great uncle, became the state superintendent of schools in Colorado as did his son. My grandfather became a raging mean alcoholic who spent 9 of the last 11 years of his life in the Colorado State Hospital for the Insane from whence he walked away boarded a bus and arrived on our doorstep in Killeen, Texas in 1957. I was six years old and had never met him. I was very afraid of him from the stories my mother told.

When he arrived he was clean and sober and, although my mother told him he could rot in hell, my father invited him to live with us. Mom eventually forgave him and he spent the last two years of his life sharing a bedroom with an obnoxious me. He has various and sundry grandchildren spread out over the nation but I was the only one who he ever got to know and I count is as a special blessing to me. His was the first funeral I ever attended and his remains now lie many miles from anyone who even heard his name, in a cemetery in Lampases, Texas.

My mother and father each joined the Church in 1953. She was married to my birth father and lived in Pueblo, Colorado (also my birthplace) and he, married to his first wife, lived in Kalamazoo when he wasn't stationed somewhere in the world. They both went immediately inactive and each got a divorce. They would not meet until 1956.

In that meantime, my mother decided to attend the church where her former in-laws went because she knew it was somehow associated with the Mormons. She went once and there she saw some long-bearded men with chaw-stained lips, preaching a weird religion while they made the women-folk sit in a section apart from them. These were one of the last enclaves of Strang's followers who had escaped from Beaver Island in Michigan and started a few branches of that church in Colorado. It was this connection of which I learned years later, that sparked my interest in studying the life of King James and found him to have been an extremely fascinating man.

My father, after his divorce, returned to the church in which he was raised. It was my Nana's church and the church in which I preformed my first musical solo for money (Nana paid me 10 bucks to sing 'Rock of Ages' when I was 9). She belonged to what Joseph Smith once described as the second-best church. She was a Methodist.

In 1956, my father went TDY to Fort Carson, Colorado and my mother had moved with another single mother, to Denver where she worked in a Woolworth store by day and did some modeling in the evening. Her roommates best friend was a the sister of my father's first wife, who remained a close friend of my dad's even after the divorce. She thought my dad might be a good catch for my mother's roommate and hooked them up.

The roommate was nervous about meeting a GI on a first date, so she invited my mother along. So my mother and dad met in a Colorado honkytonk and in that same honkytonk, 6 weeks later, after they had become engaged, they discussed religion for the first time. This is how my mother tells it:

"Bob (my dad) said that since we were going to be a family, we ought to have a church. I was smoking a Lucky Strike and drinking gin when I told him he wouldn't believe what I was because I wasn't a good one. I told him I was a Mormon.His eyes widened and he smile that famous Bob Quantz smile, took a drag and said I would be more surprised to learn that he was too."

Bob left for Germany but returned a few months later and he and my mother were married in Dallas, Texas, in route to Fort Hood, Texas in what turned out to be a stolen Studebaker with a curly-headed brat in the back seat.

Once at Fort Hood, as Providence would decree, my father's CO was the branch president. Dad and I were playing catch in the street in front of our house one Sunday morning when his CO drove up and strongly suggested that my dad get his wife, himself and me ready for church and be there in an hour.

We went and never looked back. Bob adopted me a year later, just weeks before I was baptized and then we were all sealed in the Hawaiian temple a few years later.

So from my mother, I inherited a legacy of drunks, outlaws, preachers and wild Indians; from my birth father (who remarried a Mormon, became active, had 8 kids and was just released as a temple worker in Ogden) a foggy connection with the early LDS Church and from the man who raised me? Well, that's another story.

(This was originally written December 21, 2005)

Some Fishing Memories

Autumn is nearly here.

Hunters look forward to this time of year because most of the game seasons begin. I look forward to Fall because most of the anglers crowding the waters are also hunters and their leaving for forests and fields brings peace and often solitude for those who prefer fishing when the air begins to chill.

Perhaps it's this chill that has me conjuring up old memories of rivers, streams and lakes of my past. I can't begin a recounting them though, without stating clearly that I hope my best fishing memories are waiting for me in the future.

My Earliest Memory

This experience happened so long ago that I am not sure my memory is of the event itself or of the various retelling of the story by the adults who were there with me. I wish it were more vivid because I feel wonderful thinking of it, even through the mists of my mind.

I was very young, not yet in school. Thinking of this now humbles me a little because I am not sure I would have taken someone so young on this kind of fishing trip. If I am not mistaken, there were three adult men and me. Two of the men were my uncles Tom and Walt. The other man was probably by biological father as this event occurred before my parents divorced. His face, however, is unrecognizable in my memory. Perhaps because he left when I was 4 and I never saw him again until I was 27.

I remember leaving in the late afternoon from Pueblo, Colorado, where we all lived at the time. Gear and people were loaded in my Uncle Walt's Army Surplus Jeep and we headed toward the mountains.

Anyone who has ever been to Pueblo knows it is not the kind of town shown in the travel brochures that entice tourists to Colorado. For years the main industry in town consisted of a Nabisco plant and a steel mill (pictured above). For Mormon history buffs, Pueblo was a layover town for the Mormon Battalion and the first white baby born there was born to the wife of the presiding elder in the area.

It sits in the desert. The mountains, on clear days, can be seen in the far distance. It is almost never green.

Bisected by the Arkansas River, one side of town, in those days, was reserved for the whites and the other for the Latinos. Only rarely did one tribe venture onto the land of the other. There was a large Italian contingent then. My mother told me that Pueblo was a hide-out for mobsters on the run but I suspect that was more legend than reality.

My bio-father, at the time, recently furloughed from the Navy, was working for the National Biscuit Company, as he calls it. Even today he won't refer to the plant as a Nabisco factory. I don't know why unless he's a little ashamed he ever made crackers.

Uncle Walt worked at the mill and my Uncle Tom was a roofing contractor. I am much closer to my uncles because they didn't leave when my bio-father did.

I am careful to differentiate between my dad and my biological father. Bio-dad's name is Fred Ferguson. He is a good man. I know him pretty well. After he left us, he remarried and raised 8 kids. My dad was Bob Quantz. He adopted me when I was 7 and never left. He wasn't a perfect father but he was there.

I seem to remember sitting in the back seat of the Jeep as the sun began to set and as we entered some canyon pass on some two-track road. I remember it being very dark and I was convinced we were traveling on the edge of some deep and dangerous ravine where, with one mistake by my Uncle Walt, we would careen to a fiery death. I am sure I fell asleep before we arrived at the cabin.

I really don't remember arriving at the cabin but I think I remember waking up to the aroma of frying bacon. Only one adult was in the place and I can't remember which one. The other two were in the stream trying to augment the bacon with freshly-caught trout. I headed to the stream all by myself.

Now this is something I would have never let a 4 year-old of mine do; run off alone in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, but it was a different time.

I found one of the men as he was landing a small Rainbow trout. He let me take the rod and reel the fish to the net. I remember being excited but knowing somehow, this was not really my first fish. It wasn't my fish at all.

Later that day, I was carried to a rock in the middle of a stream whose name is not part of the shadows. There I fished with my own Zebco rod and reel and there I caught my first fish.

Somewhere in the books of remembrance either in the Ferguson garage or the Quantz attic, there is a snapshot of me holding that fish. The look on my face was really no different than it is now when I land a fish. I am still 4 years old, on a rock, in the middle of the stream.

The First Time with Dad

My dad - that is my real father; the man who raised me... Bob Quantz - was more a hunter than a fisherman and he wasn't all that great a hunter. From the first time he took me hunting - rabbits on the ranch in Lampasas - to the last time, just a year or so before he died, on a dear hunt in Central Michigan, I was much more successful a hunter. When I was in college in Kansas, he and I went pheasant hunting 5 times and I never saw him take a bird. I remember him killing exactly two deer in 30 years and one of them was with the Plymouth.

I was always confused that he couldn't seem to hit the side of a barn because, as a professional soldier, he has competed on rifle and pistol teams and won most of them. It was only after his death that it came to me that he really loved being in the outdoors but found no thrill in the kill. When I figured that out, I all but gave up hunting because I have never found it either.

As lousy a hunter my dad was, he was worse as a fisherman except when it came to pure, cane-pole, baitfishing. He tried flyfishing and just couldn't get the timing down. He tried using all the hot lures with spinning gear and he would, on the first or second cast, get hung up and have to snap the line. Give him a cane pole, with a hook, bobber and a worm and he was happy and successful.

Shortly after he and my mother were married and we all moved to Fort Hood, Texas, on one sweaty Saturday, he asked me if I wanted to go fishing with him. I grabbed my little tackle box and my rod and reel as I cheered my answer. I was happy to go fishing, of course, but also elated that I would not be doing my normal Saturday chores as barked out by my mother.

I remember we drove down a country road somewhere outside Lampasas where we lived, and parked at the side of the road where a bridge crossed a river. We then walked down the bank to the shoreline. He found a comfortable perch and swung his line into the water. "Go ahead." he said, "But watch out for snakes."

It was a worthy warning as the place was crawling with Cottonmouths and Daimondbacks. The river was also crawling with fish. It didn't matter what lure I threw, something took it. I caught fish, one after another, for two hours and found my way back to my dad, who had also collected a nice stringer.

He asked me if I was ready to go. I remember clearly that my brain wanted to stay but I wasn't feeling all that well for some reason, so I sad I was. We packed up and I mentally prepared myself for the fish-cleaning that would happen when we got home.

Once back at the house, my dad said I wasn't looking good and told me to wash up and go to bed. If I had not been so sick, I would have been happy I didn't have to share in the fish-cleaning. I went immediately to sleep.

I awoke to the sound of my mother screaming and pointing at my face. My dad came into my room and got a look of his face that scared me. I finally stumbled to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My head was the size and shape of a basketball. Something was seriously wrong.

My folks rushed me to the emergency room at the base hospital where I was immediately admitted. A few hours later my parents were told I had something called Nephritis; a deadly kidney disease. The doctors explained that it would take two weeks of heavy antibiotics before they could even tell if I was going to live and that, if I did, I would be years in recovery and rehabilitation.

My folks had only recently become active again in the Church and my dad didn't have the priesthood yet. Two GI's who were returned missionaries in our branch were summoned to give me a blessing. They did. I was out of the hospital in 6 weeks and have never had a single problem since because of the illness.

The next time my dad and I went fishing was in Hawaii. On our way to the home of the man who would take us my dad made me promise I wouldn't get some fatal disease.

Security and Power

Helen Keller said "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable."

When I first read this, I didn't agree with her but the more I thought about it and the more I remembered her life's experiences, I was able to put the comment in its proper context. Helen Keller wasn't advocating the pursuit of dangerous activities or paths, but promoting a way of life that is not paralyzed by fear.

By "free spirits" I believe she was referring to those people who are not hampered by convention that has no meaning and not to those who abandon principles to participate in hedonism.

I remember clearly in the Sixties, when the term "free spirit" was bandied about by those who determined their world needed to be amplified by drugs and alcohol because they had difficulty seeing beauty in the realities of life. In truth, they were not free at all, but rather shackled by dependence on artificial happiness and counterfeit joy.

I have been watching the latest Ken Burns documentary on PBS, called, "The War". Here we see a horrible history of men killing other men for the spectrum of reasons both honorable and sinister. Amid the terrible tragedy are flowers of righteous purpose as he tells the stories of heroes who would not think themselves as such.

Last week my daughter attended the funeral for a fallen soldier in her community. As I read her account, I saw blossoms of hope amid unspeakable tragedy and sadness. I have asked for heaven's blessing to be with this hero's family as the hero has, no doubt, ascended into heaven for no man hath greater love...

Shortly after reading Helen Keller's words, I read other words, words written by a prophet of God.

Ezra Taft Benson said " When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest,
Then God will endow us with power from on High."

It occurred to me that this might be the key to finding joy and freedom to sustain us in this weary world. The question then, is, "How do we do it?". The answer, I believe, is found in Helen Keller's philosophy of living life courageously.

It takes no courage to ignore principles. It requires no bravery to follow the whims of the crowds when they abandon eternal principles in favor of indulging themselves on the tempting fruits offered up by Satan with his lie that those who follow him "will not die".

It takes monumental courage to say, in the face of terrible trials, "...nevertheless, Thy will be done."

I pray that God will grant me the courage to face the world with a desire for absolute obedience and that He might touch my children with that righteous desire as well.

Worth a Thousand Words

Passages

Because of some events of the past few days, it has become clear to me that even the strongest of friendships can weaken and die.

Without getting specific, people I believed would never stand against me are now taking a position that, for me, is unacceptable. It should not matter to me because the issue itself is really trivial in the grand scheme of things; but alas, I am human enough and weak enough that I can sometimes be hurt. Knowing that being hurt is all part of the Great Plan to teach us and which leads us, one day, to happiness, does not seem to mitigate the pain. I believe Paul taught that we are not required to enjoy the trials, but to patiently see them through.

Autumn is encroaching on my world. The leaves are changing, albeit slowly at the moment. A harbinger of that wintry sleep that looks a lot like death. Having lived the last few years in either Oklahoma or Utah, I have missed the colors of the hardwoods in the Fall. Even though it means the trees will soon be bare and ugly, I like it far better than the constancy of evergreens.

Perhaps I am the cause of the estrangement of my friends because I don't care for the constancy of friendship. I don't think so, but I suppose it's a possibility.

Perhaps too, it's the loneliness of my new job that hones the edge of my feelings. I have frequent telephone interaction during the day with subordinates, occasionally with my superior and often with contractors and vendors. Sometimes one of my customers calls. Only rarely, however, do I actually see anyone. Maybe it's turning me into that old man who chases kids from his lawn and eats in front of the TV with his Hungryman meal resting on a fold-up TV table.

If I listen to my ego, I would think that I am simply outgrowing some of my friends, but they are growing too; perhaps outgrowing me.

In any case, I still have a wife who loves me and children too. My grandchildren certainly light my life. So maybe the cycle of friendships is here to remind us that family is the only thing that really matters.

生け花

The Kanji in the title of this entry refers to Ikebana or the Japanese art of flower arranging.

In contrast to the massing of blooms typical of flower arrangement in western countries, Japanese flower arrangement is based on the line of twigs and leaves, filled in with a small number of blooms. The container is also a key element of the composition. The structure of a Japanese flower arrangement is based on a scalene triangle delineated by three main points, usually twigs, considered in some schools to symbolize heaven, earth and man.

I believe this style represents best how we are influenced in life by both the beautiful and the mundane. Sometimes, we are even made better by the ugly.

This entry focuses on several of my influential friends.

I think many people think of friends who are influential as being influential on a general level, as in important because of who they are and what they can get accomplished. My definition is different. I think of anyone who teaches me something that changes me for the better, as a friend, even if we are not friendly. Below is a partial list for people who fit my definition. I hope no one who knows me who reads this is offended if their name is not on the list. There are two reasons I have this hope.

First, omissions are inadvertent rather than intentional; and second, it's not all that great an honor to be on a list I create.

Mike Johns

I first met Mike Johns when we were on the same Pony League baseball team. I was one of the pitchers and played shortstop when I wasn't pitching. Mike was our 1st string catcher and my first experience with a catcher that knew more about what to throw at a given hitter than I knew as a pitcher. Because of Mike's understanding of batters, even at a young age, I was able to throw 2 no-hitters in a single season with one of them being a perfect game. It was also because of Mike that I never lost a game that entire season and our team went on to win the State Championship for the State of Hawaii. For all of his diamond wisdom, however, he was really a jerk and one teammate that I simply could not stand to be around.

After a particularly strenuous practice just before a play-off game, during batting practice (no machines... the coach pitched and Mike caught), I learned that Mike liked me about as much as I liked him.

The coach was throwing and I was peppering them. Mike decided to create game-like conditions and started trash-chattering me.

During games, when other teams chattered, I never heard it and it never bothered me; but when my own teammate did it, I heard it and it pissed me off. After telling him twice to lay off, he responded with some insult so I turned and smacked him, as my father would say, "upside the head" with my Louisville Slugger. Mike stopped the chatter and I was pulled out of rotation and missed pitching in the play-offs.

Mike and I did become friends and remained so even when we were on opposing teams the next year.

Thank you, Mike, for teaching me that there is value in turning the other cheek.

Ed "Beezer" Vail

In 1968 I was working, part-time, as a cook at Sambo's. My friend, Beezer, asked if I could get him a job there as a dishwasher. I did and we worked together all Summer. In late October, I conspired with another employee, not Beezer, to steal a case of eggs to throw on Halloween. Beezer, Earl, Lyman and I had a great time throwing 30 dozen eggs at innocent bystanders in the Shoreline area of Seattle. A week later I was in front of the Sambo's manager getting fired for stealing eggs... ratted out by my friend Beezer, who, in turn, got my cook's job.

I am thankful for Ed's example of character and courage. He hadn't approached the manager but had been interrogated by him and simply told the truth even though he know it could mean both losing a friend and getting the crap kicked out of him. Neither occurred.

Bonnie Vail

Bonnie was Beezer's mother and mother to 11 others when I met her. Should would eventually be mother to 13 children.

When my father was transferred from Seattle just months before my high school graduation, Sister Vail invited me to stay with her family through the end of the school year and my parents acquiesced.

My own mother, beset most of her life with bi-polar issues, was Martha to Sister Vail's Mary. My mother insisted on a house in perfect order all the time and would get physically ill if something was out of place even if that something was in a sock drawer in my personal dresser in my personal bedroom. Sister Vail's home was always disorderly and she never seemed to care. During a conversation she and I were having one afternoon, I complained to her about my mother's fastidiousness and Sister Vail taught me a great lesson.

She taught me that all people have their own bugaboos and that comparisons were never appropriate. She made me see how it was torturous to my mother to suffer with the compulsion of perfection and her gentle lessons helped me learn to love my own mother more and to never judge people by the snapshots we take of them.

Les Smith

Les Smith does not know I consider him a friend, if he is still alive, he surely doesn't remember me at all.

Mr. Smith was the most popular teacher at Shorecrest High School for a time. I never met any student who had him as a teacher who didn't count him as the best they had ever had. Of course, I didn't like him at all. Besides giving me the heeby-jeebies, I always thought he was more interested in his personal popularity than the success of his students in their pursuits of a higher education or just living in the world.

He taught English courses, literature mainly, but also the language arts stuff freshmen girl's dreams are made of. He also cultivated the appearance of the liberal, cool teacher who really listened to his students and who was more interested in having them worship at his feet than arming them with the weapons that would help them win battles in life. He was vocally unmarried and there were rumors of his inviting students to his apartment and letting them drink beer and wine while they discussed Sarte and Camus. There were other rumors too, dealing with a couple of the girls who could only be described as his groupies.

We clashed mildly twice and violently once. Our mild clash came at the end of a semester wherein, at the beginning thereof, he had announced that he would pass the grade book around at the end of the term and allow us to put the grade there we wanted. I remember clearly that announcement and wrote down the words. He hadn't said he would allow us to write the grade we thought we earned, but only the one we wanted. I spent the entire semester doing nothing in his class or any of the assigned homework out of it. I didn't read the books he assigned, I didn't write the papers he assigned and I didn't take any of the tests he issued, other than filling my name in at the top. I did attend class occasionally but because he had established this "cool" rule that skipping was okay, I skipped as often as I could find somewhere better to be.

When the grade book came to me, I boldly wrote "A+". He asked me to see him after the class wherein he began to chastise me for my dishonesty, telling me that we both knew I didn't deserve an A or any other grade above an F. I opened my notebook and read back to him, his words. He started to explain what he had meant and I merely stated that his intentions were not reflected in his words and that, as an English teacher, he should have said what he had meant.

It was a battle I might have lost except for the fact that the rest of the faculty and staff couldn't stand the man. Some of the resentment, I am sure, was born of jealously because he was so popular, but much was a result of his methods and, of course, the rumors. When I was summoned to the Vice-Principal's office and Mr. Smith there explained what I had done, I merely read Mr. Smith's own words to the V.P. He looked up from his desk at Mr. Smith and asked him what he had expected. Smith stomped out.

That Spring, Smith was slated to direct the school musical of the year. That year it was "Camelot". He actually got permission for the boys to grow beards for the parts. I had auditioned for the part of Arthur but was rejected because I couldn't grow a beard. I launched an official protest based on the fact that there was no literary evidence that Arthur had a beard and that in the popular novel upon which the play was based "Once and Future King", the only mention of a beard was of the one worn by Merlin. I did lose this battle, although the V.P. did say I had a very valid point (I might have won, however, except for a slight disagreement I had had earlier on another issue, with that same vice principal).

The violent clash came on the heals of me calling Mr. Smith a pervert.

He had shown a film in his class in which there was a sex scene between two high school students. One young woman was embarrassed and told her parents and the bruhaha erupted. I decided to attend a meeting held by the administration for the parents who were united in their objection to the film being shown. There were several members of his fan club there including a young man who was very vocal in his defense of the teacher. After he finished his diatribe against the parents, etc. I said, loudly enough for Smith to hear, something about the man being nothing more than a pervert who like to watch naked teenage girls.

I was immediately ejected by the principal, even though I could tell he agreed with me.

I hung around outside, trying to hear the rest of the proceedings, until the meeting concluded. I was heading to my car when the kid who defended Smith approached me and called me a name. When the kid made gestures that suggested he wanted to fight, I turned and laughed in his face. Then someone slapped me in the back of the head. It was Smith and he was fuming. He was also smoking and cursing me with clenched fists. I saw the cigarette quivering and interrupted him long enough to ask him why he was trembling like a little girl... That was all it took! He lunged, swinging his arms like windmills with this head down. I stepped to the side and kicked him in the stomach. he went down trying to find his breath and I got in my car and drive away. About an hour later, the police came knocking at my door.

Fortunately, I had broken my normal habit of not telling my parents anything about my life, and had told my dad what had happened. He invited the police inside and they asked me some questions about the incident and I told them exactly what had occurred. They said there was a witness who said I attacked Smith. I name the kid (I can't remember his name now) and said I wasn't surprised he had lied. Keep in mind, I was scared to death that I was going to get hauled away but not so scared that I didn't get mad at the false accusation.

No arrests were made but the next school day I was summoned to the V.P.'s office and suspended from school pending a full investigation. This action bothered by father to the point that he put on his dress blues with all this medals, etc. and when to have a talk with the principal. He said that my suspension was fine as long as the teacher involved was also suspended. When the principal said he couldn't do that, my father said he would call an attorney that day. The principal then, quickly agreed to let me return to school until such time as it was determined I was at fault.

Within a week of that conversation, several students came forth and told about the drinking parties at Smith's apartment and some of the other "rumors" became public. Smith was fired and the sword was removed from its suspension over my head.

Now, why is Smith my friend? He is because he taught me that being "cool" is really nothing more that thinking you're better than everyone else around you.

Barney Hadden

In the interest of time, I skipped a number of decades because I want to wrap this up and get out of here.

Some who might read this know of the great affection I have for Barney but some may not know our friendship started after a battle. It was a battle that meant nothing, really, but I was impressed with his thought process and even more impressed with this scalpel-sharp wit.

We somehow kissed and made up and have become close friends. I love the man but I am most grateful for the things he has taught me.

He has taught me to be a better father by watching him with his two sons. He has taught me to be a better husband by watching his devotion to those he loves. He has taught me to be a better Mormon by making me ask questions of myself and seek divine resolutions. He has taught me humility in the way he wears his foibles for all to see. He has taught me much more than there is time to describe here.

So when any of you wonder if the forums are merely diversionary, remember that some of my closest relationships were born there and that the best friend I have, excepting Deb, is a man who goes by the name "The Danite".

MIracles

I just returned from three days in Nauvoo where I attended a seminar related to work. It was a good experience and one from which I left with some new insights and new goals.

During the five hour drive home, I had ample time to contemplate my life's experiences and to evaluation my personal history. There are areas where I remain weak and others where I feel I might have something to offer that is either helpful or humorous or both. My thoughts then rested on the concept of miracles...

Christ would often refer to the sinners of the world as needing a physician. He would refer to Himself as that healer. I am sure His working of healing miracles among those who suffered mortal infirmities was one way He taught us about the healing power of the Atonement. Nowhere in scripture is this better demonstrated than in the account found in the second chapter of Mark:

"AND again he entered into Capernaum after [some] days; and it was noised that he was in the house. And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive [them], no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken [it] up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." (Mark 2:1-5)

The Scribes who were witnesses to the event began to entertained angry and jealous thoughts which the Savior perceived and which He answered by testifying of His personal mission and really, to who He was:

"And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, [Thy] sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house." (Mark 2:8-11)

As I thought of the concept of miracles, I thought of several things but most poignantly, my heart was focused on the friends of the palsied man.

Their friend, perhaps even a family member, was sick. They had the faith necessary to bring him to the Savior to be healed and they refused to give up when faced with the crowds that were keeping them from getting near Him. I thought of the families I neglected to home teach over the years.

Oh, there are several reasons why I miss families this family, but, as I read about these singular men who climbed on the roof with their friend in tow and tore a hole in it to lower their friend to the Savior's side, none of those reasons sounded all that good to me. I confessed my sin to the Lord in a silent prayer asking God's forgiveness for my lack of tenacity, which really was a lack of love for these families.

For the balance of the drive home, I tried to count the miracles in my life.

I remembered when I was the palsied man, lowered to the feet of the Savior. I remember His healing touch as He commissioned me to repent of my sins. I remember the weight of the world being lifted from my shoulders at that moment.

I remembered times before my journey adrift when I had witnessed the healing miracle of the gospel when it comes into the lives of the most humble of mankind when I served a mission. I remembered how I felt when I was sealed to my wife forever and the dark sadness I suffered when I walked away from that miracle.

I remembered the birth of each of my children and saw in them the hope of the world.

I remembered feeling somewhat like Alma felt during his repentance ordeal on the day my blessings were restored and the sealing to my wife and children reestablished. My exquisite pain replaced by unspeakable joy.

I remembered see this same miracle in the lives of my friends.

There are few men more blessed with miracles than me. I have been forgiven by God and friends and family. I have made close friends who are great examples to me and who love me, in spite of my flaws. Most of all, I have been blessed with a sense of the reality of Christ and His personal commitment to me. I love the words He uses as my advocate with the Father:

"Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified; wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life." (D&C 45:4-5)

Words cannot express my love nor my gratitude for my Advocate.

So, when the waves of life are boisterous and my faith wavers, it is comforting to know the Savior is there to keep me from drowning and that, more often than not, His lifeguards have names like Debra, Bret, Jody, Sam, Mary, Erin, Matt, Will, Barney and Paul.