Getting Old...

Hey!  Blogger is back! I wish this outage would have happened last week when I was not in the mood to blog instead of when I had a couple of blogs ready to go. Oh well...

Man am I getting old! My little brother Nathan is graduating from high school. HIGH SCHOOL! And not just any high school but the same one I attended and graduated from 19 years ago.

All this old talk has worked me up. I better grab my cane and limp to the bathroom so I can take my pills.

My First Date

Day 324

It seems like forever ago.

FOR-EVER! FOR-EVER! FOR-EVER!

Okay, it is not that long ago. It was around this time 20 YEARS AGO! It has been so long ago that I just might not really remember it. It was Sky View's Homecoming Dance and my friends and I decided to get dates and go to the dance. I didn't think that I was going to go but at the last moment I decided to find a date.

There was this senior girl that I had seminary class (I was only a junior) with that I thought was a lot of fun. I knew she had a boyfriend from Logan High but I decided to ask her out anyway. Apparently this was just the start of a trend. I was always interested in older ladies that had boyfriends. I remember that I skipped my last period in school to whip up a fancy way of asking her to the dance. I don't remember what I did but I did include a picture of me when I was young in my fancy 70's style dancing suit and invited her to dance with a real star. Now that I think about it, I think I was striking a John Travolta-like pose in the picture.

Shannon answered me by filling up this insane huge bottle of M&M's and by making me count out all the colors and doing all this math. While I hated math, I did like eating chocolate.

But she did say yes and I had my first date!

I was a little nervous. I remember that I showered very early and got ready long before I was to pick her up. My friend Damond picked me up in his mini-van and we took off to corral the rest of the group. Damond's date was named Valerie and she was brand new girl that had just moved in. His cousin Kris came with us and his date was named Kara (I think, and I am too lazy to check) and Jester's date was Mykin. We went to pick up my date first and we got lost trying to find her house. Damond was so frustrated since we were so late. In fact we were about an hour late picking her up. We had to stop and ask someone and they pointed us to her house. Funny thing is that Damond got so mad at me for not knowing where she lived and I told him to calm down and he suddenly backed the van into this telephone pole. I felt bad until Jester laughed and laughed.

(Top Row) Me, Shannon, Damond, Jester, Kara

Valerie, Mykin, Kris

We finally got everyone and we went and ate at this place called "The Cottage" and then we headed to the dance. The dance was nice, I am glad that my first date was with someone that was my friend. I remember while dancing we would comment on everyone else and essentially "people-watch" the whole time. It was a nice and relaxing evening. I am not sure what we did after the dance, I think we headed back to Damond's house to play some games before we took the girls home.

Look how young I am...

Shannon was a neat girl that I still run into every once in awhile.

List-Mania: Cool Teachers!

Day 174

So far most of my columns that I write about school have usually been about how I hated it or some of the funny things that happened or about how I didn't get along with authority figures. And so far my List-Mania columns have been devoted to more fun things that I enjoy in life but this time both columns (to be combined into one) will be much different. Looking back I have found teachers that I have had that had a positive impact on me and today, I am honoring them. They are not listed in any particular order.

Ms. Archer (Sifton Elementary School)

I was fortunate to have Ms. Archer for 2 years straight. I had her in Sifton for grades 5 and 6. Not only did I think she was an excellent teacher but I felt that she cared more for me than just making sure I got good grades. Towards the end of the 5th grade I began to hang out with this other kid in my class and he was not the nicest kid. He would threaten other kids and bully some of them and threaten beatings and I wanted to be like this kid. Ms. Archer noticed this too and saw that I was changing and not for the good. So she made the decision to move my desk away from him and back to some of my other friends. And she asked me to stay after school for a couple of minutes. She told me after school that I was not being true to myself and that I should stop trying to be like this kid. She then told me that I was not being nice and I would lose people's respect and friendship. At the time those words hurt since I liked Ms. Archer a lot but walking home and thinking about it, I knew she made sense. So I eventually stopped hanging around this kid and went back to my normal circle of friends. What she did had nothing to do with school work, nothing at all to do with my grades. But she cared enough about me to take the time to set me straight. Something I will never forget.

Mrs. Baugh/Letham (North Cache Middle School/Sky View High School)
After Killarney I moved to the United States and I had to start the 8th grade in a new school and a new country. I tried to fit in but unfortunately the U.S. also had its share of bullies. But this grade was much better than Killarney and I made some good friends but more importantly I had some good teachers. My favorite was Ms. Baugh, my English teacher. I had no problems in reading plays and characters in class which made me one of her favorites. But it was the writing assignments that I really liked and she knew I liked. One assignment that I had was to write about an invention. I thought about some sort of sorting vacuum cleaner and eventually the story morphed into something completely different. Something that I was really proud of. I handed it in and a few days later she wanted to speak to me privately. She handed me back my story and explained the assignment and I realized that I screwed up. My story was completely different from the assignment. I felt like such an idiot but she told me it was the best story she had read in years. Then she told me not to worry about the assignment, I wrote a story that I should be proud of and that she would reward me extra credit for going all out on a story. She asked if she could keep a copy of the story so she could read it to her 6th graders as an example of how to write creatively. I was honored. Later on I became her assistant my senior year and she still remembered my story and encouraged me to try to get it published. I still have that story and I have worked on it occasionally and I think it would make a great children's book. Ms. Baugh (later it became Mrs. Letham) really knew how to push me creatively and taught me to embrace it instead of shy away from it.

Mrs. Burningham (Sky View High School)
I had Mrs. Burningham for two classes my senior year in high school (it was her first year teaching at Sky View) and they were my favorite classes. I had her for Painting and also for AP Art and AP Art is where I learned the most. At this point I wanted to be a comic book artist and she really helped me understand that I need to know and learn all forms of art so I can be a complete comic book artist. But she really knew me as a person and understood when I was not feeling art. Every once in awhile I would just sit and talk quietly with my friends or do some reading and she never bugged me about getting my projects done. She knew it was more important to recharge batteries and she trusted me enough that I would get my stuff done.

Ms. Spicer (Killarney Junior High School)

I didn't have too many bright spots when I attended Killarney Junior High but she was one of them. She was a great teacher that tried her hardest to not only teach but also to help us form our own opinions. She appreciated what each student had to say and she went out of her way to make all of us comfortable so we would give our opinion. I was mostly a quiet student but in her class I felt like I could talk and add to the discussion. She cared about her students as well, I remember a couple of times where she could see that I was struggling and she would talk to me personally. There were many times that I was threatened to get beat up and she would always allow me to come to her class after school so I could escape. She made such an impression that she was a character in my first novel. She of course was a teacher that helped one of students choose a better life.


Mr. Churchill (Sky View High School)
I know a lot of people didn't like him but I really did. I had him for a variety of classes from Driver's Ed to Sociology to Weight Training. He demanded a lot from you in class and made sure you succeeded. I remember in Weight Training he gave me a goal of how much weight I could bench and he kept trying to add more weight and demand more from me. I eventually ended up going over my goal by 16 pounds because he kept driving me. What I respected about him the most was that he told it like it was. He himself was never disrespectful but when he was (or any of us) were disrespected he really would hit you over the head. One time in weight training some kid put in a tape (Guns and Roses Use Your Illusion II) for use to listen to when we were lifting. Now Mr. Churchill was not a fan of profanity and when a song came on that was loaded with it he stopped lifting and ran and got the tape and broke it in half and threw it outside. He did warn us in advance that he doesn't tolerate that sort of stuff. And he did exactly what he said he would do.

There were other teachers I had throughout my life that made an impact on me too but these teachers stood out the most. I appreciate that they took the time to be an example to me and taught me more than what was expected in the classroom.