Summer Reunions

Most people I know gather together with family during the summer months to reconnect and catch up with one another. My Mother and her seven brothers were always so good to do that every year and they would go fun places and do exciting things for their week-long reunions. I haven't attended one of those reunions since I was still a kid and we went deep sea fishing off Baja, California.

My Dad's family had such an interesting history with his Dad divorcing his Mom after she was institutionalized in the State Mental Hospital back in the 40s. The five kids were scattered to various relatives and the youngest adopted out-right to strangers. So reunions have been rare and strange on that side of the family.

Since my father passed away nearly four years ago and Rob's dad passed over eight years ago, our families have only gathered all together once and that was for Dani's and Kelly's wedding last June. Thank goodness for weddings which pull families together to celebrate a happy time. Funerals can pull us together too, but it isn't the same joyful reunion, usually.

This summer I haven't seen my brothers or my mother at all. My brother, Jim came from Colorado and my Mom from Arizona in February when Bryan was leaving on his mission, but I haven't seen Mark and his family since Kevin, Bryan and I were there in November 2009. Typically, families do summer vacations together and meet up for some kind of reunion, but that hasn't really happened in either Rob's or my families since our Dads passed away. Maybe gathering family for reunions was a father's role?

I did; however, have a couple of fun reunions this summer. My 30th high school reunion was held on July 2, 2010 in Delta, Utah. That was an enjoyable evening of seeing people I knew slightly but enjoyed visiting with since we have so much of our past in common. I found we had lost several members of our class to death since our 20th reunion and that seems to have drawn us even closer together.

Two of my best friends from high school were unable to make it to the class reunion, so we held our own "Hinckley Girls" reunion a week later at a restaurant in Orem. We had such a great time remembering old times and laughing. I've known these women since we were three or four years old, we literally grew up together in the same small town. We all went to different colleges and got married and have had varied experiences since then, but how fun it was to renew those relationships. The evening wasn't long enough to say everything to bring us completely current, even though we stayed quite late. We vowed to not wait so long to get together again as we separated at the end of the night.

Reunions are important; I wish I could reunite with family members on a more consistent basis. Visiting with those from our past helps us remember who we are, where we came from, and how much those people mean to us. It is also helpful to rediscover our past and perhaps visit some suppressed memories. I'm grateful to those who share a common history with me; they are becoming more and more valued with each passing year.

Delta High School Class of 1980

20th Class Reunion 7/1/2000

30th Class Reunion 7/2/2010

Hinckley Girls Reunion 7-9-10

This Past Month

Most of those who read my blog are aware we’ve had an unusual experience at our house this past month involving our son, Bryan.

Bryan has been serving a mission in Budapest, Hungary and having a marvelous time working in that part of the Lord’s vineyard. He had been learning an extremely difficult language and had already connected with many Hungarians and with the other missionaries serving there with him. We loved our weekly emails from Bryan which expressed his happiness at being a missionary and serving in this part of the world; all felt right in our lives for the past four months.

On July 15, at about 10:00 a.m. I received a call from President Baughman, Bryan’s Mission President. He said that Bryan had been having trouble with his knees and had been sent to have an MRI. He said that if the local orthopedic deemed surgery an option, they would probably send Bryan to Germany to have the operation and then keep him in the Mission Office for a couple of months while he recovered. At 1:00 that afternoon, I received a second call from President Baughman telling us that due to the severity of Bryan’s knee issues, he was being sent home to have the surgery and would be arriving at 11:30 p.m. the next evening.

It was shocking news and suddenly everything was different. I immediately got an appointment with Dr. Pepper Murray, a highly recommended orthopedic surgeon from Bountiful for Monday morning and made changes in my work schedule to accommodate Bryan’s return and eminent surgery. The next night, Rob, Kevin and I were waiting at the Salt Lake International Airport for Bryan to come walking down the concourse.

He looked great and it was wonderful to see him again, but it just didn’t (and doesn’t) seem right that he was home already. Bryan felt it too. He has been trying to keep a positive attitude about being here, but it has been very difficult.

On Monday, July 19, following his examination, Dr. Murray said he definitely required surgery on both knees; we scheduled it for the following Tuesday, July 27 at Lakeview Hospital.

That was a very long day and we were a little discouraged to receive the news from Dr. Murray following Bryan’s operation that he discovered osteoarthritis in Bryan’s joints and that this surgery was not going to be a permanent repair. The surgery turned out to be more involved than originally thought. Dr. Murray had to file down bone, clean out the back of both knee caps, cut out most of the cartilage in both knees and remove scar tissue from the left knee.

Since that day, Bryan has been following the doctor’s orders and striving to rehabilitate his knees so that he can return to Hungary. The surgeon has expressed his opinion that Bryan won’t be able to return to an Eastern European Mission because of the rigors of cobbled roads and too many stairs in 10-to 20-story buildings without elevators...too hard on bad knees.

We appreciate all the prayers and concern we've received from friends and family on behalf of Elder Crouch. Please continue to keep him in your thoughts as he heals. We hope that in the next six to eight weeks he will be able to return to full-time missionary service wherever the Lord sees fit to send him.

The Currant Bush By Hugh B. Brown

Below is the Talk by Brother Hugh B. Brown called the Currant Bush which I referred to in a recent blog post (this is for you Sheri).

You sometimes wonder whether the Lord really knows what he ought to do with you. You sometimes wonder if you know better than he does about what you ought to do and ought to become. I am wondering if I may tell you a story that I have told quite often in the Church. It is a story that is older than you are. It’s a piece out of my own life, and I’ve told it in many stakes and missions. It has to do with an incident in my life when God showed me that he knew best.

I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and went after it, and I cut it down, and pruned it, and clipped it back until there was nothing left but a little clump of stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it, and smiled, and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush talk. And I thought I heard it say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me, because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.” That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and some day, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down, for caring enough about me to hurt me. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’ ”

Time passed. Years passed, and I found myself in England. I was in command of a cavalry unit in the Canadian Army. I had made rather rapid progress as far as promotions are concerned, and I held the rank of field officer in the British Canadian Army. And I was proud of my position. And there was an opportunity for me to become a general. I had taken all the examinations. I had the seniority. There was just one man between me and that which for ten years I had hoped to get, the office of general in the British Army. I swelled up with pride. And this one man became a casualty, and I received a telegram from London. It said: “Be in my office tomorrow morning at 10:00,” signed by General Turner in charge of all Canadian forces. I called in my valet, my personal servant. I told him to polish my buttons, to brush my hat and my boots, and to make me look like a general because that is what I was going to be. He did the best he could with what he had to work on, and I went up to London. I walked smartly into the office of the General, and I saluted him smartly, and he gave me the same kind of a salute a senior officer usually gives—a sort of “Get out of the way, worm!” He said, “Sit down, Brown.” Then he said, “I’m sorry I cannot make the appointment. You are entitled to it. You have passed all the examinations. You have the seniority. You’ve been a good officer, but I can’t make the appointment. You are to return to Canada and become a training officer and a transport officer. Someone else will be made a general.” That for which I had been hoping and praying for ten years suddenly slipped out of my fingers.

Then he went into the other room to answer the telephone, and I took a soldier’s privilege of looking on his desk. I saw my personal history sheet. Right across the bottom of it in bold, block-type letters was written, “THIS MAN IS A MORMON.” We were not very well liked in those days. When I saw that, I knew why I had not been appointed. I already held the highest rank of any Mormon in the British Army. He came back and said, “That’s all, Brown.” I saluted him again, but not quite as smartly. I saluted out of duty and went out. I got on the train and started back to my town, 120 miles away, with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. And every click of the wheels on the rails seemed to say, “You are a failure. You will be called a coward when you get home. You raised all those Mormon boys to join the army, then you sneak off home.” I knew what I was going to get, and when I got to my tent, I was so bitter that I threw my cap and my saddle brown belt on the cot. I clinched my fists and I shook them at heaven. I said, “How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?” I was as bitter as gall.

And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.” The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness and my bitterness. While kneeling there I heard a song being sung in an adjoining tent. A number of Mormon boys met regularly every Tuesday night. I usually met with them. We would sit on the floor and have a Mutual Improvement Association. As I was kneeling there, praying for forgiveness, I heard their voices singing:

“It may not be on the mountain height
Or over the stormy sea;
It may not be at the battle’s front
My Lord will have need of me;
But if, by a still, small voice he calls
To paths that I do not know,
I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in thine:
I’ll go where you want me to go.”
(Hymns, no. 75.)

I arose from my knees a humble man. And now, almost fifty years later, I look up to him and say, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.” I see now that it was wise that I should not become a general at that time, because if I had I would have been senior officer of all western Canada, with a lifelong, handsome salary, a place to live, and a pension when I’m no good any longer, but I would have raised my six daughters and two sons in army barracks. They would no doubt have married out of the Church, and I think I would not have amounted to anything. I haven’t amounted to very much as it is, but I have done better than I would have done if the Lord had let me go the way I wanted to go.

Time Traveling (Again)

Last summer on an early morning jog I happened upon a Honeysuckle bush which instantly transported me to 1969 Phoenix, Arizona.

This morning as I finished my run at the Weber High School track, a bush once again zipped me to another place and time. Actually I’ve been looking at this bush for the last few months and had identified it as a Black Currant Bush. I haven’t seen one in years, yet was positive from the shape of the leaves and then the small blossoms that it truly was what I thought it was. This morning that little currant bush had ripe berries hanging on it. I stopped midstride and plucked a handful of the darkest, plumpest currants from the bush and walked home popping them into my mouth—and that is when it happened! I was instantly in Hinckley at the Main Street house where currant bushes grew in several locations on the property. My Mom made currant jelly once, but decided it was way too much work and bother for the little bit of preserves she was able to extract from two hours worth of picking. After that they just became kid or bird feed and were free to whoever could eat them first. Black Currants are tart and tangy and have tiny, little seeds and they ‘pop’ when you bite them. They are extraordinarily high in Vitamin C (I looked it up on the internet and a ¼ cup serving provides 302% of the daily recommended allowance of vitamin C).

I keep finding myself transported by sight, smell and taste to other times and locations. I must watch out for those 'time traveling' bushes. Of course, the ultimate lesson to be learned from a currant bush was expressed in that timeless talk given by Hugh B. Brown entitled, "The Currant Bush". I think I need to go read that one again...

The Raspberry Report

We have what appears to be the start of a bumper crop of raspberries this year. We always have way too many raspberries, many more than our family can use. Over the years I've tried to think of creative ways to use up the millions of berries I am forced to pick every other day (because we planted the Everbear variety and I can't seem to con enough people into coming over and picking them).

Raspberry freezer jam is usually the first line of defense. I put up batch after batch of jam until the freezer is stuffed and I give away many that won't fit. I've already made several pies this year and I gave one of those away this week too. I always freeze trays of whole berries to use in pies through the winter, but my favorite way of using the berries is to juice them and bottle the raspberry extract. It is truly delectable and beautiful mixed with 7-Up or lemonade.

This morning I went out early and enjoyed the buzzing of the bees among the blossoms on the canes and the new day just starting fresh and cool as I picked a couple of cups of fresh raspberries to eat on our breakfast cereal.

I'm putting out the call to anyone within driving distance to come and pick berries at my house. You should show up before 8:00 a.m. or after 10:30 a.m. to miss the sprinklers. Long sleeves are important because the canes have stickers and scratch up your arms if they're not covered. The perfect raspberry picking container is a five-quart ice cream bucket with a handle to hang over one arm leaving both hand free to pick berries.

Raspberry Days have started--come on over!

Dani, you make me LOL

My children are hilarious! Every time I talk to them, they make me laugh. A few days ago when I told Danielle my Chicken Moving Story (see the next post), she sketched out the mental picture which formed in her head and emailed it to me.

When I opened it, I laughed so hard I cried.

Dani's narration reads:

"When all resuscitation attempts failed,

the Shumway children cleverly disguised

the chickens as what they hoped could be

described as 'nonchalant'."

Chicken Moving Day 1978

In my last post I mentioned a move onto Main Street from our 'farm' when I was a teenager. That was a pretty tough time for me, but looking back it sure created some memorable moments. One of those memories was the moving of the 50 or so chickens we still owned. There were times in my childhood that we had hundreds of chickens, but a few years before the move we stopped ordering new day-old chicks every spring and had been weeding out the older hens which weren’t laying well.

My Dad built a small coop and chicken run at the end of the long L-shaped lot and had assigned Jim and I to take a gunnysack each to transport the hens. He informed us that we were to put two chickens in each bag and carry them from the old coop to the new making as many trips as necessary. Jim and I started this task and had made a couple of trips back and forth with two hens in each sack. We figured how many trips it was going to take us to move the rest of the chickens and decided that we’d get done quicker if we put more chickens in each bag each trip. So the next trip we put three chickens in each bag and when we arrived we dumped them out and ran back for the next load. Being 13 and 16 years old and knowing everything, we decided that if it speeded up to carry three in each bag, we could hurry it up even more if we carried five each trip. When we got back to the old coop and started stuffing birds into bags, it suddenly became a contest to see who could get the most chickens in a gunnysack and carried to the new place. Let me say, a gunnysack with five or six plump hens in it was heavy and so instead of carrying those bags, it became more of ‘drag’ race. Back we ran for the next installment of chicken stuffing. There were about 20 chickens left strutting around that old coop and we chased and wrestled seven or eight of them into the bags and then realized if we just stuffed in a couple more to each sack it would be mission accomplished!

The gunnysacks were stretched so full of feathered bodies and were so heavy, we could hardly heave, push and pull them across the ground the few blocks to the new place. It took us longer to haul these birds and when we finally arrived our arms ached and our hearts pounded with the exertion. We tried to dump the loads of hens out, but they were so wedged and squished in, it really took some hard shaking to unload those sacks. As those last chickens fell out of the bag, they were as flaccid and limp as if they were dead. Jim and I realized we had asphyxiated more than a third of our flock. We were patting those chickens and trying to figure out if mouth to bill resuscitation would work when we heard the familiar sound of the back screen door slamming and peeked out and realized Dad was heading down to the chicken coop to check on our progress. “Oh, no!” I whispered, “What are we going to do??!” We were panicked because we knew that our Dad would find no humor in the smothering of 20 good laying hens. We were picking up the little heads on floppy necks and shaking them hoping they would somehow revive and save our backsides from the skinning we deserved.

It seemed like a movie with the camera cutting between Jim and I and our pile of lifeless chickens and to my Dad who was distractedly moseying down the path making his way to the coop. Just as he reached the door, those poor hens started to come to and were drunkenly getting to their feet, some of them staggering badly.

Dad asked us how it was going and we tried to act nonchalant as we picked up our gunnysacks and told him we had just finished. He commented that we had done that job much faster than he had expected we could and we told him some story about how we had run back and forth to make such good time. He just smiled and wandered back up to the house. Jim and I felt as wilted as those hens had been minutes before when we realized what a bullet we had dodged. We leaned against the wall of the coop for awhile and watched the chickens exploring their new home before we found the strength to make our way back to the house.

Theoretically, we learned something about doing the job right and not trying to take shortcuts, but in reality we probably just learned that we could cut corners if we were really lucky.

Cows Aren't As Dumb as You Think

Everyone thinks cows are stupid, but since I was 16 I’ve known they were much brighter than people give them credit for being.

Every hot July day I think of my sixteenth summer when I discovered that cows had at least some intelligence. Our family had moved onto Main Street earlier that year to an old home with a large lot that ran behind Morris Mercantile. (I will Blog about that move some other time, there was some adventure involved in that.) My Mom planted a large garden in the lot behind the store and that July we had quite a few watermelons ripening on their vines. My brothers and I kept asking Mom if we could pick a watermelon and see if it was ripe yet and day after day she kept telling us they weren’t ready. We must have about pestered her to death with our appeals to eat watermelon from the garden. The Merc had a great variety of junk food and candy to purchase, but at our house you wouldn’t find treats in the cupboards. The best cereal we ever had was Raisin Bran, we usually had soaked whole wheat or Zoom for breakfast. We rarely had ice cream and never popsicles in the freezer. Cookies or other treats sitting around for snacking was unheard of in my Mother’s very healthy house. That made the ripening watermelons even more appealing to us three kids.

Finally one day in July or perhaps it was August, my Mom announced that the next day we could pick a watermelon and eat it. We went to beds that night dreaming about deep red, juicy watermelon flesh dripping with refreshing sweetness. I pictured us sitting under the trees in our yard enjoying the best summer treat known to mankind.

The next day as we got started with our chores (we still had a chicken coop full of chickens—that is part of the moving story I will share another time), suddenly a wail of anguish shattered the quiet morning air. Jim came running in shaking with anger. He was trying to tell us something, but could only gesture and jabber unintelligibly. He got us to follow him out to the garden where our beautiful watermelon patch was now nothing but a few teeth-marked rinds and hoof prints smashing the vines and leaves of the plants into juicy mud. The neighbor’s cows had pushed over the fence to get to our watermelons on the exact day they were ripe enough to eat. Those cows had been on the other side of the fence from our garden for months without making any attempt to break through, but somehow they knew when the watermelons would be at their most deliciousness and waited until the very day they were deemed to be ripe to break in and steal them. There has to be some intelligence involved to be that devious, that mean, that conniving.

I only lived in that house for a couple of years before going away to college, but I never looked at those cows on the other side of the fence in the same way. I always thought they were listening and learning and devising more dastardly schemes to make our lives miserable.

Years after college and living away from Hinckley I considered that it was very odd that you could live on Main Street and still have cows (very devious, watermelon eating cows) for neighbors.

Shades of Pink

About half of this day I spent working in my yard. I found joy and peace as I planted three new Hydranga bushes, pulled lots of weeds, trimmed and edged the lawn, swept out the garage, and watered, watered, watered.

The Hollyhocks are starting to bloom and I always marvel at how many shades of pink there are in this little corner of my yard. Hollyhocks remind me of my Mom. I remember when she planted some in our yard in Hinckly. She found a sheltered spot where the wind wouldn't blow them over and we planted seeds. I remember how they grew taller than me and sprouted blooms starting at the bottom of the spikes and going up. My Mom told me how when she was a little girl she used to pick Hollyhock blooms in her mother's garden and pretend they were dolls dressed in fancy ball gowns. Isn't if funny how you picture your parents as children living in a black and white world? I always did until my Mom told me that story.

'Wood'in It Be Nice?

For eleven years I have lived with carpet under our dining room table and at the back door. Isn't that horrible?! I've said to Rob numerous times over those years that I would rather live with plywood than the carpet, at least I could sweep or wipe it if something got spilled (and believe me there have been spills over the last 11 years!).

So last week, I finally got my wish and we pulled up that carpet and threw it out on the back patio. I kicked the roll a few times just to vent 11 years worth of disgust and frustration. Then we carried in thousands of pounds of wood flooring. On Monday, our new floor started going down and the existing hardwood in the kitchen and entry got a refinish job.
Tuesday the new floor was down, holes filled and sanding started. By Wednesday evening, the stain and first coat of sealer was on the wood. Thursday two more coats of finish was applied and we were amazed at what a difference it makes in our house. We are so excited to have our new floor down and the old floors refinshed to match.

Now we need to sand down and repaint all the moldings and walls, replace all the upstairs carpet, get new light fixtures, buy new furniture, get the granite countertops and glass tile backsplashes installed....

Anniversary Wishes

One year ago today Dani and Kelly were married in the Logan Temple. It was a remarkable day. I have the joy of that wonderful day stored in my heart like photographs pasted in a scrapbook. I visit those memories often and drink again and again from the happiness of the rare love that brought these two together and the sealing power which binds them together eternally.

I have not ceased to marvel at the way things have worked out for Dani and Kelly since they met more than five years ago. It was a storybook romance from the first and their commitment to one anther has grown exponentially since then.

Just two days after their wedding, the Aherns undertook a five day, cross-country drive to Baltimore, Maryland with almost everything they own in and on a small car. It took a great deal of faith for them to leave home and family and start their new life together alone in a strange new place. In the last year, they’ve had many adventures and experiences that would cause an older, more mature couple to tremble; but it has not shaken Dani and Kelly. They have grown closer and stronger and have learned to depend upon the Lord and to rely on one another.

My sincerest wishes are for Dani and Kelly to continue to cherish each other and be ‘one’ in all things through many, many more years and into eternity.

A Strange Start to the Day

This morning at 4:50 a.m. as I turned the corner to head up to the track, a ball of fury flew at me and was barking and growling in the most menacing and scary way. I stood stock still hoping this dog wouldn't start tearing me apart. After what seemed like a long time, but was probably less than a minute, its owner (with a flashlight and a very soft voice for the owner of such a vicious mutt) approached and called off her dog. She didn't apologize for nearly scaring the living daylights out of me, she didn't latch a leash on her charge, and she didn't answer back when I yelled, "That dog belongs on a leash".

I finished my walk up through the parking lot of the school with my heart still racing so fast I probably didn't need to run to get my cardio workout; when a little cat came darting across my path and I nearly passed out. At the track as I stretched and tried to calm the fluttering in my chest, I could hear laughter and the noise of a bunch of kids climbing the chain link fence at the other end of the track. Then I remembered it was the morning after high school graduation, historically that means "Strangeness at the Track".

Last year there was a large group of kids just sitting on the track in a big circle with loads of snack food wrappers and soda cans they apparently had indulged in a junk food orgy all night. The year before that, I arrived at the track to see a row of sleeping bags on the football field. As I jogged, there was no movement in those bags until the sprinklers came on, then five or six boys emerged and started dragging their belongings out of range of the water. They dispersed pretty quickly except for one who couldn't locate his keys. Feeling sorry for him, I took a break from running and helped him in his search. We did find the keys in the soggy grass and I went home soaking wet that morning. The year before that, there were about 25 sleeping bags lined up on the track and during my 45 minute run, no one stirred and I just ran in the outside lane and jumped over shoes and clothes laying in my path.

So this morning when I heard the sound of happy graduates, I didn't think too much about it as I started my first lap. It was pretty dark at the west end zone so those boys must not have seen me coming and they were making so much noise they certainly didn't hear me so I really gave them a shock when I rounded the corner and found five young men stripped down to their nothings preparing to race. They were so shocked to have me pass them in that state, they all fell silent. When I was a about fifty feet down the track, they all started laughing and I could hear the sounds of them climbing back over the fence. By the next lap, there wasn't a single boy (dressed or naked) in sight. I finished my laps and made my way home wondering what the rest of this strange day was going to bring.