July 22 - Snippet 2

It’s 9 pm MST of July 22nd. Mary Alma and I have had a quiet, reflective day. I had breakfast at 7:30 – and I was the late bird! I made myself oatmeal with frozen blueberries, plus a green jello square. We left for Church about 8, with Grandpa driving Grandma’s car. I helped Grandma straighten her seat. (Inside, she has a plastic cutting board to sit on: she has to sit on something hard or lie down for her back.) Mary Alma had trouble getting carsick yesterday, so she got the front seat.

I enjoyed the joy of Julia McGirt, who provided the organ (and piano) accompaniment for the service. I rejoice in good music and she was brimming with good music, to overflowing. We spoke our parts, and shook hands with others, and enjoyed it. The sermon by visiting pastor Keith Geitner urged us not to become obsessed with getting everything perfect, since it is God’s grace, not our efforts, that perfect us. He urged us to free ourselves to try things (e.g., be like people with a digital camera vs a 24-shot film camera).

We ate a little and talked a little in the overflow following the meeting. A community garden where members could take food (and make donations) or donate their own garden produce occupied a large table. Grandpa told me that Duke Ellis (a Stephen minister) ran that program. Grandpa’s class was a lecture from the Great Teachers series by a woman archaeologist who recounted the basics and the debate over Josephus’ account of the mass suicide at Massada. Apparently Josephus’ audience (Romans) were not particular about historical accuracy. Josephus employed the mass suicide motif more than once, a motif which would have shown the Jews to be a noble, worthy foe for the proud Romans to have defeated.

After the Sunday school class (all of the regulars contributed money: apparently, they are their own “corporation?”), Aunt Shelly drove Mary Alma and me over to the Franklin 2nd ward building, by the Nashville temple. We were greeted by numerous people, and profited from the lessons. Sacrament meeting focused on answers to prayer, and I felt that I would receive important answers and guidance for my life in the next few days. I’m on the lookout now. Sunday school was taught by M.D. Dan Follenger (?), a BYU grad with a scholarly spin. He spent a lot of time on Anti-Nephi-Lehies. Kent Jackson’s theory is that it should be Anti-Nephi Lehies (not from Nephi, descendants of Lehi). Plausible. He also encouraged us to see what doctrines had most impressed the recent convert, King Anti-Nephi-Lehi, judging from his speech to his people. In elders quorum, we had a thoughtful lesson on applying Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s talk: The Merciful Shall Obtain Mercy. One way to avoid getting mad is to note when we usually get mad and arrange our lives to avoid these situations (e.g., leaving early for work so we won’t be impatient).

At 2:06, Aunt Shelly picked us up, but we had to go to Sam’s for Uncle Billy (who was buying watermelon), so we didn’t get home till quarter to 3. We had a light lunch of sourdough bread, toasted cheese and Fleischman’s margarine, pepper and tomatoes + Gatorade (for me: Grandpa had bought me some at a gas station during our trip to New Johnsonville Saturday). We did Sudoku and I did show and tell with our photos from the first half of the vacation with Unc. At 5:45, we had dinner (soup, bread, crackers, tomatoes, and more of the frozen vanilla yoghurt + gluten-free peach/cherry cobbler – I was surprised to find cherry even better than the peach!).

Just like Christmas, I don’t want today to end. Do you know the feeling?

After dinner, Grandma showed me photos on their digital slide show that Andy had set up. I’m a little sad we haven’t seen more of Aunt Shelly and Uncle Billy, but they are understandably stressed with school and work, respectively, and I don’t want to be a drag on their time. Plus, I have a feeling my real happiness will not depend on making others do a single activity. I wonder if I am a vanishing breed, as I do not find as much pleasure in pursuing things that make me “busy” as I do in having people that I can become busy with doing things we all find worthwhile. I would rather give up what makes me busy to be busy with people I want to be my friends (and who want to be my friends, if there are any – I have hope).

To all my readers, what else should I tell about our vacation? Let me know in the comments or on Facebook or email, or when you see me in person. :) I'm going to do (at least) one or two top ten's in my next post: feel free to suggest what they should be about.

July 17th - A Snippet

For all you enthusiasts who want an unedited, live account, here's a journal entry from July 17th. I will be posting more vacation stuff in the near future.

Today, I woke up at 6:30, bright eyed and bushy tailed and went down to the parlor. It looked like it hadn't been visited in over a year: layers of dust to contend with, and a brown (caked dust?) coating on part of the keys, in spite of the dust cover. I eventually brought down one of the white fans to help clear the air, and commenced composing the waltz I had been trying to remember yesterday when Mary Alma watched me boot up Finale.

Around 7:45, Unc appeared, and I took a break. I was happy to find Unc's Book of Mormon, and sad to find it very dusty and unused, like so many other things in this large house. The contents were still fresh and snappy. I seemed to find things that spoke to Unc's situation.

I had breakfast (peach and Total cereal with icewater from the fridge), but Unc told me he doesn't eat breakfast anymore. He did call to announce the softball games on the message line of the Bristol VA Parks and Recreation. I thought he was doing it from memory but he later told me he was reading from a paper on the floor!

He began work alone on the gigantic fallen spruce. I was grateful I had packed my jeans, but I would later be sorry that I did not pack sunscreen. We were roundly toasted with the sun in the 80s and little cloud cover. I will have nice red arms, back of the neck and forehead for the next few days.

We got things pretty well cleared out by 12:30. I got some very sticky gum on one of my shoes which led to my wearing flip flops on our subsequent travels to see Unc's work, 35 minutes away in Bristol, VA. The main office is a converted home, with Unc occupying an upstairs bedroom. He had few wall adornments, among them his awards from the Optimist club!

First, Unc and his assistant Randy finished preparing the softball fields.

At Unc's invitation, Mary Alma and I left and meandered on the paved and rock trails around the sports fields and through some woods to Resting Tree Dr, which we crossed to get a look at the Resting Tree's historic marker. Here we learned the land used to belong to the Preston Plantation, and slaves of long ago were buried in the mulchy ground underneath the large spreading tree.

We enjoyed a nice lunch at Wendy's, where the wife and daughters of one of the softball coaches Unc knows said hi. Our touring continued, this time with Unc as guide. He drove us to his office where we met the first occupants, Samantha and Carly (tabby cats).

We met Pat Malone, who like Unc, has worked with the Parks and Recreation services for over 20 years. She was a nice Tennessee lady who offered us plenty of free stuff while we were there (free cats, free paper fans, free candy, etc.). We returned to the Beaver Creek Dam; much smaller than Boone Dam (which Unc showed us on our first day), but mounted on an impressively tall (and wide) hill, with steep grassy sides (roughly 50 degrees) and long concrete culverts and a water gate at the bottom. The culverts have caused at least one serious ski accident by Unc's account.

We saw one wreck - a new looking Subaru jeep had been rear-ended by a little car: the Subaru looked untouched but the car's hood was crumpled in over a foot. Leaving Wendy's, we got behind a wrecking truck carrying a red car that had been crumpled up to the driver's door, which was forced slightly open.

Unc returned to the fields to plug in the scorekeeping consoles. The first one was temperamental and only worked after unplugging and replugging it many times. The second worked almost instantly. We returned to the office and met the lady over the women's programs, a full time employee who can't wait to be retired (Joyce). She covered the night's games. Unc is covering tomorrow and Thursday, much to our chagrin, but what can you do? TN was suffering a horrible drought (along with much of the Eastern United States) and only last week did they have a solid week of rain-outs, pushing back the softball tournament schedule to our vacation week. So it goes.

We got home around 6:45 and after some TV and political talk, we carried turkey, condiments, drinks (including a tupperware container filled with refrigerator water), chips, a warmed can of beans, a radio (and more) to the dock. Unc likes nights on the dock ("It's so peaceful," as he put it). We stayed till after dark and talked and listened. Luckily, we have been doing bug spray faithfully and insect bites have been few.

Back at the house, there was more TV and (for me) some computer time, after I had finished the sticky task of cleaning my gummy shoe. Unc tried to help, chipping at the sole with a putty knife: I should have stopped him, because the soles are too soft to take it, but I didn't, and now I am missing a lot of rubber along with the sticky mess. I washed off both shoes with hot water from the stove, but I question whether I will not have to buy new comfy shoes for work. These have been stretched in a big way.

To be continued... :)