Park City - A Beautiful Place With A Questionable Birth

We went to the Park City Art Festival over the weekend.  

Friday was a perfect day.  Not too hot, not at all crowded and Park City was charming as ever.  I even bought myself a beautiful porcelain vase.  Carl even let me stay four hours which was the capper to the whole perfect time enjoying artist after artist after artist.  

Lunch?  A delicious steak with a side of sweet potato fries with fry sauce at Bandits’ Bar and Grill.  My kind of day.

But it was bittersweet.  I know what Park City was.

When I taught at Brighton High School Seminary, one of the custodians up there was raised in Park City and had lived in one of the charming little houses that line the main streets in the original city.  

He would tell me great stories of when he was a kid, of when everyone’s dad was a miner, when everyone’s mother stayed at home and everyone had lots and lots of brothers and sisters.  He told of how things were when they, having a blast, lived the life they did in a remote little village, where everyone knew everyone else, where life was simple, fun and personal.  He’d regale me with anecdotes of him, his friends, his family.  He’d talk of his, school days, church, daily life, places, people, seasons.

But one day things turned differently.  He literally cried as he told me how people came in from California, I believe, and deceived the people as to what their property values were and bought their homes out from under them, leaving them with no place to go and with nothing real to fall back on.  It was like breaking up a family that had no place to go, with nothing to fall back on.  They had no real education, no land and nothing but mining in their blood.  It was awful.

What a beautiful place Park City is.  But I think there is also something ugly about it too.  I don’t suppose the beauty of what it was could ever be restored and those children are now grown and probably those miners are very old or dead.  But it does hurt a little to look at it still.  

Improve On This, I Dare You

Sometimes the old standbys just can't be beat.

Here we have some Lincoln Logs we bought in desperation in Yellowstone Park last year for our granddaughters because they just don't have any Barbies there in the Park stores.   Anything much that's pink anyway, and we'd all ready bought some stuffed animals.  Not many girlie things.

It was just a small set, came in the bag you see in the above picture, and is not much improved over the set your great grandparents had.

Yet it's hauled out often by Sophia and Ali.  In fact, Sophia built a house yesterday and Ali made the special request that it be preserved over until today.  It was modified from the picture and a little dog pen was built after the playroom was rifled through for the dog.

If you could see inside, there is a tiny doll asleep on the floor of the house and some animals stabled in the little barn.

Sophia played with it for over an hour with it again today.

There are very few toys that are allowed to stay in the family room.  Only a couple because if a mess if to be made, someone has to go to some trouble to make it.  Games stay in the breezeway.  Toys are mostly upstairs in the toy room.  But the Lincoln Logs are in the family room.  They've earned it.

FAULTS

Poetry is not liked too much by many of us.  I like it because of the English classes I took back in the day and also, I think because of scripture.  

But I think most everyone will like this one because it’s simple, to the point, and because most of us would like to be liked because of, and not just in spite of, all our faults.  

It’s also a nice thought for a Sunday afternoon, don’t you think?

Sara Teasdale

FAULTS
They came to tell your faults to me,

They named them over one by one;

I laughed aloud when they were done,

I knew them all so well before, —

Oh, they were blind, too blind to see

Your faults had made me love you more.

BY SARA TEASDALE

Magic Happens With Age

Here we are --  final vestiges of the 50th Reunion Committee meeting to figure out who gets to take charge of the next (55th, of course) reunion, to laugh some more and to eat a little more as well.  We do look a little weird because our mouths are full.  We just stopped chewing for a second for the photo.

Front and center is Kathy Davis Allman, whom I've known forever, to her right is Susan Fields Walles who came from Flushing, New York our senior year.  Linda Wightman Fleming I've known since 1st grade when we moved to Provo and Kathy Ostler Fryer was the head of the Decorations Committee all these months.  Jeff Brooks was wild and crazy through high school and now drives a Jaguar, Doc Hansen was the heir to Hansen Candy Company, Wayne Clarke was and is the the most devilishly handsome and married Ann Sumsion and is still married to her and Naoma Gammon Bird, sitting next to me, was not a close friend in high school, but became a very close friend in college. We still are close friends.  Taking the picture is Bob Valentine who was in charge of the reunion.  He gets credit for almost all of the great success of the Provo High School Class of 1960 50th Reunion.

Now here's something for you.  We really didn't belong together.  I knew all these people in high school, of course, and liked them all well enough, but we didn't exactly belong to the same cliques.  But we really did become great friends during the preparation for the reunion.  

Those of you who aren't going to high school reunions for any reason, consider this -- things change.  Like Bob Valentine said, "In high school we had groups, but now there's just one group -- the old one."

And for good reason, we seem to all like each other and finally have time for each other.  We laugh, we talk, we explain things and finally kind of figure things out.  The old mysteries are really a thing of the past.

And our intention is to keep on meeting.  At least the Decorations Committee plans to.  We've got our next meeting planned for September.  We also have our class of 1960 website paid up for the next three years.  And there's also good ole Facebook.  We won't let go again because we like each other again.  And this time, even better.

The reason is this:  We have made lots of friends since high school.  Many of those friends are better friends than those we had in high school.  But it's important to remember that there's no universal rule that says there's a limit on friends.  No need to discard the old when the new come into play.

And those friends from high school?  They may have been cuter, faster, and looked better in a pair of jeans back then, but I can almost guarantee you you'll like them even better after they've aged a bit like the storied good wine, fine cheese and old friends are supposed to do.  It just happens.  Just like it's supposed to.  

Chess - A Fine Moment Indeed

That's Todd on the right

Our Yellowstone Trip brought up great memories, not the least of which was one of the finest coups of my life.  

The Britsch brothers, Todd and Lanny, who went on to greatness at Brigham Young University, drove their sister, Merlene, and I to Old Faithful Inn to work for the summer in 1961.  I don’t remember much about trip except that we had to wait around for a couple of days because they didn’t want to hire us until everyone from farther away had arrived for work because people from close by would likely pack it in early and leave before the summer was over.  Good thinking.  But, I don’t remember much else.  Maybe we slept in the car.  Maybe we ate bear droppings.  Maybe we bathed in the geysers.  I don’t remember many details.  

What I do remember was that Todd was a little more than weird, quite arrogant and thought that he was 57 IQ points smarter than anyone he encountered.  He probably has wised up since then.  Hope so.  Anyway, that point is germane.   

Anyway, backing up a bit, my brother, Brent, had just the previous year, as a high school sophomore, been a member of the “Chess Club” in school.  The “Flying Geek Squad”, if they had such a term in those days.  Somehow, I’d given him the time of day at one point and he’d shown me three, maybe four moves that would give you “check mate” if your opponent didn’t know what you were doing.  

Todd was bored and wanted to play chess with me.  Probably no one else would play.  I hate chess.  I said "no" dozens of times for more than a few reasons.  But I finally relented and though it seemed too simple, I tried the moves. And choke, sputter, gasp, they worked.  CHECK-MATE!!  Todd could not believe that Merlene’s idiot friend had beaten him in so few moves.  I was electric with glee.  

Not being a fool, I refused to play him again.  I knew he was not the genius he thought he was, but I was no fool either.  I did not underestimate him.  I couldn't take the chance I could pull it off again.  

I don’t remember the moves now and I’ve asked Brent since if he does.  He doesn’t even remember ever knowing them.  I suspect he doesn’t remember even being in the Chess Club.  Silly boy.  It probably wasn’t his finest hour.  

Chess definitely wasn’t mine either.  But it did provide me with one of my favorite moments.  I love those little chess men for that.  There's nothing prettier than a nicely set up chess set to my eye.  Such a nice reminder.

Ripped From the Pages of the Origami Resource Center

I presume you've hidden out in the bathroom from time to time.  I also presume you've forgotten to take in a magazine. 

Here's a little something to do while passing the time while providing an unexpected treat for the next person to come along. 

Let's just hope it's not one of those persons who doesn't want to spoil your special work and ends up using his/her sleeve.  That would ruin the specialness of your gift.  

Click here for detailed instructions:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/16l0XJ/www.origami-resource-center.com/toilet-paper-origami-pleated-tuck.html

Walt Oleksy -- Just Another Reason to Love Facebook

More than forty years ago, Walt Oleksy bounced in and out of my life.  Then less than a week ago, there he was again, friending me on Facebook!

He sat behind me in a bullpen at the Home Office of Allstate Insurance Company located in Northbrook, Illinois.  We were writers of various employee publications for the company and I loved it.  I did the Home Office publication "All Hands".   Walt hated it.  There were about four of us, maybe five.  All of us were happy except Walt.  

Never a corporate man, he’d slide his face down daily holding his cheeks with his enormous hands and would groan something like “Kill me, get me out of here now.” Often I couldn’t understand what he was saying because his face was smashed into his desk.  Most writers were thrilled with a steady paycheck to supplement their freelance work, but not Walt.  

Ultimately, I was never sure whether he was fired or if he quit or if it was something in between, but I talked to him on the phone afterwards one day, and he was blithely researching an article which involved a tennis racket and an ironing board as I recall.  He really didn’t like many people a lot, and men in suits weren’t people at all to him, I don’t believe.  

Then he hit his niche.  He wrote articles galore and something like thirty books.  He’d grab hold of a topic, work it like a pit bull, write a book then move on to another topic that was totally unrelated.  Here's a list:  http://www.ranker.com/list/walter-g-oleksy-books-and-stories-and-written-works/reference

He’s amazing and fascinating.  He has at least one website devoted to old movies, loves Errol Flynn, his dog and has lived in the same place, I think, for as long as I’ve known him. Eccentric, interesting, always ready with book recommendations, never married and nobody’s fool, Walt is worth keeping track of.  I found one of his books in a library once and then I found him on the web, got an email address somehow back when and we chatted a little but now this.  

I love Facebook for more reasons than Walt, but he’s reason enough.  What a guy.  I feel sorry for people Facebook scares.  Consider what they might be missing!