I Hope They Call Me On A Mission (Part 12 of 12)

A counselor in the mission presidency welcomed us. He introduced all the missionaries by language. A few of the missionaries who thought they were going to learn one foreign language were informed that their assignment had changed slightly and they were now going to learn another. Some of the languages were ones I had never even heard of before. Then we watched a slide show of what to expect at the missionary training center. After that, we met President Joe J. Christensen, the mission president of the MTC and his wife Sister Christensen. They gave us some ideas of how to write to each other. Somehow I had a premonition that as soon as this meeting was over, it would be time to say good bye. My loving family. The people who meant more to me than anyone else on Earth. My parents who had been with me all my life. They had supported me through trials and accomplishments. They were with me when I began kindergarten and when I graduated high school and all the school activities in between. My brothers and sisters who had come along over the years. They were all my dearest friends. And now the time drew near to leave them.
Then President Christensen pointed to a door on his left. “The families will go out this door and the missionaries will go out that door,” and he pointed to a door on his right. Big tears gushed out of my eyes. I put my arm around Dad. We both stood and hugged even more. “Good bye,” I sobbed. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me!” I hugged Mom and said the same as best I could. The building up of emotion throughout that morning was unleashed as I hugged each of my sisters and brothers, Vera, Karen, Julie, Lisa, Christopher, Johnny, and Little Lori. “Good bye. I love you all!” And then all their teaching and all their training over the years kicked in and I walked out the door to my waiting mission for the Lord Jesus Christ.

The End

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission (Part 11 of 12)

My heart skipped a beat when we saw a sign for Provo and Brigham Young University. In a few more minutes we arrived at the front entrance of the missionary training center. Dad went to park the van as the rest of us proceeded in the building. In the lobby, a lady placed a red sticker on my suit jacket lapel, indicating I was a brand new missionary. Dad joined us and we continued on our way. We were ushered down the main hall. We passed by the cafeteria and saw for the first time the missionaries that were eating. White shirts and ties. Elder Kyle Hunter came out of the cafeteria. He had entered the MTC just a week before. He welcomed me. His smiling face will forever be etched into my mind. There was a large room on the left and we were instructed to put all my luggage in there. A lot of other missionaries’ suit cases were in there as well. One of my sisters placed an ice cream bucket full of left-over cookies from the open house on top of my suit cases. We then turned and went down another hallway. It was lined with tables and at each table was a person who gave each missionary a packet of something or other. One packet had my address on it. Mom quickly jotted down the address so she’d know where to send my mail to. Another lady gave me my black missionary name tag which said, “ELDER LOVELESS.” And then the name of the Church in Portuguese, which I recognized, yet couldn’t pronounce, yet. We turned left again and went down another long hallway. We went in a room which was actually two large rooms with an open divider that was normally between them. We were ushered into seats near the front. I was in the back of my family’s group, but everyone sat on the same long row. Dad was the only family member that I sat next to, Mom and the rest of the family were next to him. We waited for more missionaries and their families to come in. When the room was full, the orientation meeting began.

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission (Part 10 of 12)

Thursday, October 30, 1980 dawned overcast, but turned into a bright and sunny day. I woke up at 5:00 and made a final trip up to the attic with some items from my room. I then dressed in one of my missionary suits. I made the final packing preparations with my suit cases. I had a sad feeling looming over me. I knew I was doing the right thing. There was no doubt about that. But after this day I would never be truly at home in this house. After the mission I would probably go away to college and then marriage. My wonderful house! I had lived there since I was four years old. Not quite fifteen years – a short time really. But most of my growing up years were centered around on that house. My crayon drawings on the cement floor of the basement I had made as a little boy were still there. Symbolically I said good bye to all these things I had so dearly loved. I went to the back yard and said goodbye to the sandpile where I had played and built imaginary cities. Then I said good bye to the grape stake fence I had climbed on and gotten slivers. The old boards in the side yard I had built huts with. The electric lawn mower with its cord patched with a hundred pieces of black electrical tape fixing where I had run over the cord. I bid farewell to the big, wonderful swing set where every kid in the neighborhood had played at one time or another and where I had imagined to be a space fighter pilot. Tears were very close to the surface.
And then I went back inside. We had scriptures and prayers and then breakfast. Toast and scrambled eggs and jam. I went back down stairs and got all three of my suit cases and carried them up the stairs. A few days before I had zipped Christopher inside my largest suit case, Johnny inside the middle one, and Lori in the smallest. I carried all three up the stairs in this fashion, then after letting them out for a minute I put them back inside and carried all three back down the stairs. This time there was no going back. I saw little Lori as I paused a moment before carrying my suit cases outside. “Lori, I wish I could take you in my suit case again.” Little Lori. She would change the most in my two-year absence. Did she understand where I was going? Johnny would change a lot too. How I had loved these final few months to be home more with those two tiny children. I continued carrying the suit cases out to the van waiting in the drive way. I put all three in the back. Everyone piled into the van and we were ready to go. Dad drove the forty miles or so to Provo, Utah where the missionary training center was located.

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission (Part 9 of 12)

I picked up Melanie that evening and we went to a restaurant to eat. I looked over to the same booth where I remembered that we had sat as a family eleven years before when we celebrated my baptism. Now I was going on a mission!
After dinner as Melanie and I were walking out to the car, she put her arm around me and pulled me close. In the car she gave me a kiss on the check. I’d wear that kiss for a long time. We had never kissed on the lips and somehow that kind of kiss didn’t seem needed at that moment either. We got to my house just as the family had pulled into the driveway from going to pick up Grandma Winnie. Then we all went in the van to the stake center where Grandpa and Grandma Loveless were waiting for us. We sat around and talked for a while until President Banks came in the room. He then joined with my Dad, and Grandpa Loveless in a circle as they placed their hands on my head and with the Priesthood, gave me a special blessing and set me apart as a full-time missionary.
We got back in the van and took Grandma Winnie home. Then it was time to drop Melanie off at her house. I walked her to the door. But I noticed Dad was also coming with us. Oh, yeah, that arms length thing, and always being with your companion. I shock Melanie’s hand and said good bye. I’d see her again at the airport in two months anyway. And we’d write. I had seven anxious children and my mother watching from the car to see what happened next. Dad had a yearning look on his face. “Do I get the kiss?” he said. We all said good night and Dad and I walked back to the van together. Later that night I wrote all those events in my journal as I finished it out. “This is the end of my childhood,” I wrote.

(By the way, this post is the 300th post of this blog!)

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission (Part 8 of 12)

The next night Larraine (an old flame) took me out for barbequed ribs at the Old Salt Lake City Jail restaurant. At the end of the date she wanted to kiss me and I wanted to kiss her, but she felt that might not be right since I was one day away from getting set apart as a missionary.
I spent the next day cleaning my room out and getting things up to the attic. Karen had been eying my room for a long time, and now it was finally going to be hers. We packed my suit cases. Mom gave me a last minute lesson on how to iron. It was as if she were saying, “Oh no, so little time is left and there’s still so much to teach him!” She marked many of my clothes with my name. It was like I was packing for scout camp, but this would be a two-year-long scout camp. This was the greatest Church outing ever! Every other Church activity was just a preparation for this one. Mom had gotten me a bottle of one-a-day vitamins. She wasn’t sure how nutritious the food would be. I think she was still thinking that I was going to the Amazon Jungle and not to São Paulo, the third largest city in the world.

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission (Part 7 of 12)

The next night was our last Family Home Evening together as a family. Mom fixed a fabulous meal for dinner. It was of pot roast, bacon, potatoes, onions, and carrots all cooked in one pot. We also went to have a family portrait taken. In a family of amateur photographers and professional printers, it was our very first commercial sitting. We were joking with each other trying to smile. But the funniest one was when little Johnny said, “Christopher, your eye is falling out!” We burst into laughter at that.

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission (Part 6 of 12)

The next day was Sunday, and my missionary farewell. The opening song was “Scatter Sunshine!” My Mom and Dad spoke. Christopher, who was eight years old, sang the same song I had sung when I was eight. “I might be envied by a king, for I am a Mormon Boy!” My brothers and sisters sang, “Our Heaven Is Our Home.” Then I spoke. I drew an analogy from my ninth grade science fair project. “Technology is such that we can now take a beam of light and combine it with sound waves and pass that over a long distance. That is how Heavenly Father communicates with us. Pure light emanates from the Holy Ghost and this is coupled with the knowledge that the Lord has for us. This is then transmitted to us and we feel peace, calmness, tranquility, pure knowledge entering into our whole soul, or a burning in the bosom.” The ward choir also sang, and I sang with it for the last time. After the meeting was over people came up to me to wish me well. We had an open house at my house with lots of cookies. After several hours of that and as the party began to die down, I sat on the couch, exhausted. And I feel asleep.

Picture: My ninth grade science fair project -- light wave communication

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission (Part 5 of 12)

For my nineteenth birthday I got a tape recorder and a camera, two very important items for a missionary. I still had more than a month to go. Then finally a week to go. The highlight came when Mom and Dad took me to the temple for me to receive my endowments. In the Church there is no higher ordinance that a person can receive than the endowment. Unless you consider that being married in the temple is the highest ordanance. Actually, the sealing for time and eternity (or temple marriage) is a continuation of the endowment. Obviously I wasn’t going to do that yet. But being in the Salt Lake Temple, where I had always dreamed of getting married, was a special experience. And I was there with my Mother and Father. And I was able to participate in temple ordinances with them. When I passed into the celestial room for the first time, the room that signified being in the presence of Our Heavenly Father, Dad came up to me and said, “Welcome to the Celestial Kingdom!” Then I was asked to stand as proxy for a couple who had died years ago and were now to be sealed for eternity. The man performing the ordinance, the sealer, was made aware of me going on a mission in one week. He gave me some special instruction. “Temple marriage is the crowning ordinance of the temple. And when you get back from your mission, you’ll bring a lovely young lady to be your bride and I will perform your marriage.” At that time, I thought that was going to be Melanie. A few days later, I went with Melanie to a University of Utah Football game with her father and his new wife. I could tell the whole idea of her parents’ divorce was very hard on Melanie.

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission (Part 4 of 12)

Everything went very quickly after that. I went down town on the bus and went to Deseret Book. I bought a tourists guide to learning Portuguese, a Portuguese Book of Mormon, and a wall map of Brazil. I bumped into my friend from high school, Laraine while downtown and told her the news.
A few day later my parents and I went on a huge shopping spree for me. We bought suits, extra dress pants, ten white shirts, an overcoat, ties, socks, and an umbrella. We bought luggage and shoes. The sales man told me they were called Forward Thrust the same kind of shoes a mailman would wear.
I decided to ask a young lady in our ward to the Cottonwood High School homecoming dance. Her name was Darlyn Webb, and she had just been called on a mission herself. To ask her I copied the music of a primary song right out of the primary book. But I re-wrote the words. I presented her with a sheet of music that said:

They’ve already called me on a mission.
But first, I must prepare to go.
For two whole years I’ll be at arms-length.
So I’d like to go to the homecoming dance with you.

Darlyn had graduated a few years before me, she was the daughter of a former bishop of mine, and she had a prestigious job working at the Lion House downtown. I was very awed by the fact that she even consented to go with me. And we had a great time.

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission (Part 3 of 12)

Everything was on track for me to be on a mission by the earliest possible time, which was my nineteenth birthday. I had even heard that a young man could turn nineteen in the Missionary Training Center as long as he was nineteen years old by the time he entered the mission field. For English speaking missionaries this was a one month time. For foreign speaking missionaries this was two months. Yes, I was on track to being a missionary in a few more months. I was sustained in stake conference in June to become an elder and my Dad ordained me to that Priesthood Office on June 29, 1980. And then it happened. Russia invaded Afghanistan.
I had to register for the draft and I thought I would be called into military duty. Instead of preaching the gospel of peace I’d be shooting Russians. And since our nuclear weapons were pointed at them, and theirs at us, I didn’t have much hope for the future. As it turned out the worst thing that happened as far as the United States was concerned was that we boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The absence of our athletes was apparently enough a statement that the United States did not approve of the Russian invasion.
So in mid August I had missionary recommendation interviews with Bishop Kenneth D. Hunter and my Stake President, Ben B. Banks. And then we turned in my mission papers. On August 21 my mission call came. It was in a gray envelope. The papers inside where folded in half. I was fixing myself a cheese sandwich for lunch. The mail came and Mom got it. Somehow I knew that the mission call had come before she even said anything. Mom walked into the kitchen. The hopes and dreams of twenty years of marriage sparkled in her eyes and now her first son had received his mission call. She handed it to me. Time seemed to stand still for a moment. We looked at each other as I fingered the envelope. I knew inside there was a letter signed by President Spencer W. Kimball himself, President of the Church, calling me to a particular mission with the date when I was to report to the Missionary Training Center. I continued to hold the envelope. Mom was brimming with excitement. “Well, open it!”
“Mom, I can’t. I’ve got to wait until everyone is here.” Mom called Dad and told him that Billy had his mission call. We set on a time in the early evening when everyone would be able to be there. I called Melanie and told her. I wanted her to be there, as well. Then I had an assignment at the Murray Bishops Storehouse to help clean up. So I went to do that. When I came home I was very nervous. I went to my room and grasping the mission call envelope I knelt and prayed. “Where am I going? I know I’ll find out soon enough. Oh. Let me be accepting of this mission call and where I’m to be assigned.”
Finally the hour arrived. I sat in the orange rocking chair in the front room. Everyone else was seated on the couch or on chairs brought in from the kitchen. Then I opened it. I pulled out the mission call. I looked at the location I was to be sent to. And then I jumped up and ran downstairs. Our TRS-80 Model I computer was already turned on. I typed the word BRAZIL into the computer and pushed enter. Big letters proudly heralded the words, “I’M GOING TO BRAZIL!!!!!!!!”
Everyone followed me down the stairs as quickly as they could. Karen was the first and she looked at the screen and started screaming. Whenever I heard the word Brazil, I thought of first the Amazon River. So I immediately figured I was going to the Amazon River. The only other thing I knew was that there was a temple of the Church in Brazil. I thought maybe it was on the bank of the Amazon River. We examined the mission call letter more closely. We saw the date I was to report to the Missionary Training Center, October 30, 1980. And the name of the mission, Brazil, São Paulo. On the third reading of the letter I picked up the word “South” on the name of the mission. “So, Brazil, São Paulo South.” Then I thought maybe the temple and my mission are on the South bank of the Amazon River. We looked in a large world atlas at where I was going, but for some reason it didn’t really sink in where São Paulo really was. I was later to learn that São Paulo is the third largest city in the world and thousands of miles away from the Amazon River. I learned also that there are two missions with headquarters in that city, the south and the north missions. Brazil itself had a phenomenal number of six missions!

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission (Part 2 of 12)

I was preparing my whole life for a mission. And everything I did in the Church was in some way a preparation for it. I had looked forward to the summer of 1980 as the time when I would be able to devote a large portion of my time to preparing even more. A mission loomed closer and closer for me. I was excited as well as terrified. I would be a representative of Jesus Christ, Himself. In June of that year I went on my first split with the full-time missionaries. I spent a morning with one of the full-time missionaries and his companion went with someone else. We went trackting in the Three Fountains East Apartments. The elder I was with was surprised at my poise at doing my first door approaches. I felt like telling him I’d only been practicing door approaches by myself since I was twelve.

(Picture: Our family and some of the first full-time missionaries assigned to Salt Lake. About the time when I was 14.)

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission (Part 1 of 12)

I hope they call me on a mission
When I have grown a foot or two
I hope by then I will be ready
To teach and preach and work as missionaries do

I always wanted to go on a mission. And as I was growing up I always wanted to go where my Dad had gone on his mission in the 1950s – Denmark. When my Dad was growing up, he idolized his bishop’s son, Kay Brown. Kay was a little older than Dad and he went on a mission to Germany. Then Dad followed him into the mission field when he went to Denmark. At the end of Kay Brown’s mission, his family went to pick him up. Their airplane landed in Denmark and Dad was able to visit with them. Kay Brown married. Dad married. Years went by. Then one Sunday in the late 1970s, when Dad was in the bishopric, he was attending Junior Sunday School and he heard the children sing a song, I Hope They Call Me On A Mission. He made a point of looking at the music for that song. To his joy he saw that the words and music were by Newel K. Brown.

(Note: The picture is of Dad in Denmark.)

Accomplishing Goals (Part 9 of 9)

Enter the great time for accomplishing goals in the summer of 1980. I did this at the same table in my room where I also did my scripture study. I often played music on my stereo as I did this transcribing. I spent many late nights making sure I stayed on schedule to finish the Joseph Smith Oratorio. As I finished it in mid August, I knew it wasn’t going to be performed at that time, but I was very pleased. In all it had 56 legal sized pages of music. I went to a copy center and had two copies made of it. I kept the original for myself, I gave one to my girlfriend at that time, and I gave the other to my parents. I left it in their room one day. Dad later came and commented on it. “We were sure impressed, Billy. Thank you.” I told him about the Joseph Smith Oratorio’s creation, but I was very careful not to take any credit for it. In the few months that remained before I went on my mission, my parents played it on the piano and I played through it as well.
At the end of the summer I knew the time for going on a mission was drawing very near. Soon I would be leaving my family. I had been able to spend more time with them, too. But it was tremendously satisfying to have so many goals and be able to work on them, and achieving them.

Coming Tomorrow: I Hope They Call Me On A Mission

Accomplishing Goals (Part 8 of 9)

Another goal I had was to write music, particularly an oratorio. When I was sixteen, I had realized that no body had written yet an oratorio about the Prophet Joseph Smith. There was of course The Messiah, which Handel had written hundreds of years before. And in recent years there was An Oratorio from the Book of Mormon, which was written by LeRoy Robertson. I decided then and there, on December 23, 1977, that I needed to write one about Joseph Smith.
I started by selecting a group of scriptures from the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Then I started writing the melodies to each scripture. These I recorded by hand in a musical staff notebook. I felt that each melody was a musical revelation from the Lord. I felt that I needed to live my life accordingly to be able to receive such wonderful things from God. By the time I finished my Sophomore year of high school I had written the melodies for all the numbers. I was sick one day in the spring of 1978 and I took advantage of that time to put everything in the order that I wanted it.
The big task of harmonizing the melodies now occupied me. First I had to learn how to do that. I bought a very old book called Modern Harmony and studied it carefully. Over the next few years I worked off and on harmonizing and re-harmonizing the Joseph Smith Oratorio. I felt that I couldn’t tell anyone that I was working on it. I didn’t feel I could take any credit for it because it was like the Lord had given it to me. I took Music Theory my senior year in high school and that helped me immensely. I also increased in my piano playing skills so I could play what I had written. I had written all original music for our ward road show and it was neat to hear the music played on the piano by someone who could play it. My Grandpa Loveless had given me a special pen. It
was the kind that one dipped in ink and then it could make a five line music staff. This was a great addition to my Osmroid music writing fountain pen that I already had. By the time I had graduated from high school I had completed the harmonizations. Now all I had to do was to write it all out neatly which the choral parts and the piano accompaniment.

Accomplishing Goals (Part 7 of 9)

Over a year before we had gotten the first home computer, the Radio Shack, TRS-80. Dad had taught me a few things about programming it in BASIC. Now I felt that it was time to learn that computer language more fully. So each day I spent a portion of my time learning to use a few features of BASIC and writing programs that would do a certain thing. That summer we got a new feature put on the computer. It was a disk drive. Before that all applications and programs were stored on cassette tapes. Word processing, for example was called “Scripsit” and took five minutes to load. Hopefully there wasn’t a blemish in the tape or else the whole process would fail. The disk drive really would speed up everything. The five-and-one-quarter-inch floppy disk held 180K of information and was quite an innovation to have on a home computer.

(By the way, in 2011, I still have that original TRS-80 in my storage room!)

Accomplishing Goals (Part 6 of 9)

I had this idea that when I got back from my mission I would try-out to be the kicker for the BYU football team. I had never even played football. So I felt I had to practice now, before my mission, so I could pick up where I’d left off when I got home. I practiced kicking in my backyard and when that got too small, I’d run over to the football stadium at the high school and practice kicking the football through the goal posts. I guess the whole thing was the same as I thought when I was fifteen. If I can get on the football team, then girls will like me more. Whatever the reason, I became a pretty good kicker, but I never did anything with that skill.
Running was one of my goals. I was planning to run the Deseret News Marathon again that summer, so I wanted to be ready for that. I had a program called The Mile Sprint. I would start out by sprinting for 100 yards and each day increase that by ten yards until I was sprinting one mile. After my mission I could do it again to quickly become the fastest middle distance runner in the world. I’d get myself ready for the 1984 Olympics. That goal didn’t pan out either.
I knew that as a missionary anyone who could play the piano would be in high demand. I set a goal to play five hymns on the piano. I practiced faithfully every day and I did learn five hymns, but they were still a bit shaky. When I was on my mission there were times when I played the piano. In one branch I played their pump organ for Sacrament meeting. I had practiced all week and I thought I had done okay. A young man in the branch came up to me and said, “Don’t ever do that again!”
Another goal was in reading LDS Church books. When I was seventeen my Dad figured I wasn’t reading enough Church books, so he decided to bribe me with a penny for every page that I read. The only catch was that I was to show him a card with the main points I learned from reading the book. He stopped after I presented him with a bill for $32.00 which represented a year’s worth of reading. He paid me that money but said I’d probably do it anyway. He was right, by the time I went on my mission he would have had to pay me well over a hundred dollars. There were heavy and heady books like Daniel H. Lulow’s Doctrine & Covenants commentary and Bruce R. McConkie’s Mortal Messiah. Then there were books which were a lot lighter reading. I had a stack of eight books which I called “The Stack.” I’d read a chapter before going to bed from the book on the top of the stack. Then I’d put it on the bottom. The next night I’d read the top one again. Thus I rotated through all my books that way. When I finished reading a book, I would get another one and start it. If I had a lot of time in a particular day, I’d plan to read a chapter from each book, for all eight books. My parents couldn’t figure out how I kept them all straight, but I did.

Accomplishing Goals (Part 5 of 9)

Preparing to go on a mission was something I had done over my whole life. But I had long-wished for some unstructured time when I could study the scriptures. The summer of 1980 afforded me that time. I started a program I called Rip-A-Part. This consisted of reading a chapter of say, the New Testament, and then going back over it and underlining important verses. I’d then read it again but this time going through the cross references. The only problem was that, to me, every verse was important, so I underlined most everything. Then I also did role plays with myself and would pretend to explain to a minister of another Church a particular LDS doctrine by using the Bible. I also used various study aides that were written by LDS authors. All in all I did about five hours of scripture study a day. It was the most intense time of scripture study in my life and I loved it.
My mission preparations also included becoming an elder in the Melchizadek Priesthood. Dad ordained me and my Grandpa Loveless also stood in the circle. This happened on June 29. 1980.
For some reason I had wanted to learn how to crochet. My sister Karen taught me how to crochet, and then I worked on it each day. I made a round doily-type rug that was about two feet in diameter. When that was done, I marked off that goal on the chart and then didn’t work on it anymore.

Accomplishing Goals (Part 4 of 9)

So, I was a free man!
I still worked at the grocery store, so I did that three or sometimes four times a week. I knew my nineteenth birthday was coming up and that meant a mission was very soon in the plan. I wanted to do everything I could to prepare for that. But I wanted to have fun along the way, too. My idea of fun was a little different than someone else’s. Fun to me was accomplishing goals. So I made a huge goal chart out of a piece of poster board and displayed it prominently in my room. Everything hinged on that goal chart. The main categories were: Daily scripture study, Crochet, Football kicking, Running, Piano practicing, Reading, BASIC computer programming, and Joseph Smith Oratorio.

Accomplishing Goals (Part 3 of 9)

That night we gathered again in the auditorium, this time for real. I was in the Orchestra pit playing a prelude number with an orchestra ensemble. We played some ragtime music. I then joined my classmates in the auditorium proper. We sang the school song and then it was time to march in. We got up from our seats and walked out. We assembled behind the stage, with many of us lining up outside the outside doors. Our class had a habit of playing tricks on people. We were each given a marble and told to give it to the school district official as we shock his hand. right before we received our diploma. As the marching in progressed, we heard the laughter from the audience as the poor district officials were running out of room for all the marbles they were receiving. First they filled up their pants pockets and then their shirt pockets and then the pockets in their suit coats. A few teachers finally saw what was going on and came back stage to collect the marbles from us. They said, “Whoever gives a marble will not receive a diploma!” I had to give up the marble that I had been given, but I have thought since that it was an idle threat because how would they know who gave it or not. (At our twenty year high school reunion in the year 2000 we were each given some marbles to commemorate that event.)
After we all marched in, we listened to the valedictorian and others speak to us. We also heard from our principle, Mr. O. Grant Rowley. I went up to the stage to sing with the concert choir as our song wished everyone farewell and good luck. And then it was all over. I felt an emptiness inside. It was all over! School was done. It was a happy feeling, too. Mom and Dad soon joined me and we went to Snellgroves to get ice cream to celebrate.

Accomplishing Goals (Part 2 of 9)

On the last day of school, the graduating senior class met in the school auditorium for a rehearsal of the graduation ceremonies for that night. I had participated in the graduation the year before by singing in the Concert Choir. I cried when it was over because most of my friends were in that graduating class and I wished I could go with them. My senior year, as stunning and impressive as it was, seemed anti-climactic to the steller junior year. At my graduation from high school, I was just glad to have it over. And rightly so; it was time to move on.
Still it was a special occasion. And we practiced it very seriously. That is until we practiced marching in the auditorium to get our diplomas. We had to write our full name on a card as we marched back-stage. Some kids wrote big long names that weren’t their real names. Everyone thought it was very funny. However, it caused those who were announcing the names to be leery when they announced them for real that night. As a result they announced me as William Duncan Loveless and leaving off the “the fifth” from the end, even though I had marked on the card that this was my real full name.

Accomplishing Goals (Part 1 of 9)

The culmination of thirteen years of school was now upon me. It was time to graduate from high school. It seemed like every teacher had resigned his or herself to the fact that the last two weeks of school were practically worthless. And they probably were, with all our activities. One of those was yearbook day. The whole day was devoted to passing out year books and then signing them. It was an all-day process. There were a lot of good feelings created that day as I later read all the thoughtful things people said to me. I hope I was just as sincere in my expressions in other peoples’ yearbooks. David Ferguson and Jeff Howe, and I capped off our high school experience by going back to Twin Peaks Elementary School and visiting our kindergarten teacher, Miss Aramaki, who was in her very first year of teaching when she taught us. She recognized us instantly which was amazing judging by how we had grown since she saw us.

The Glory Of Being A Teenager (Part 12 of 12)

My Senior year I decided to take Drama. Mrs. Haun, the drama teacher, would have preferred that I had started out in drama as a sophomore, but she waived that requirement and allowed me to start in the second year class, even though I was the only senior in there. One of the first assignments was to come to class the next day prepared to do an impression of an inanimate object. I surprised the class by being a tube of toothpaste squirting toothpaste on a tooth brush. My act only lasted a few seconds but everyone was laughing wildly and Mrs. Haun asked me to do it again. She said it was “Slendifferous!” I also developed a pantomime routine called “Putting Frosting On A Cake.” For this my act was to pantomime mixing cake batter and then putting it in the oven to bake. The doorbell rang and I visited with someone, forgetting all about the cake in the oven. When I finally remembered the cake, it was on fire. I shot it with blasts from the fire extinguisher. I cried that my cake was ruined. Then I tasted the “frosting” which was really the stuff that came out of the fire extinguisher. It was pretty good and I had a piece of the cake with the weird frosting.

Now, in the year 2000, I have teenagers of my own. I often just sit and listen to them talk. Everything in the world is so new to them and so very exciting. I can relate to what challenges and joys they face. Their Mother and I lived those teenage years as well. It is my feeling that a teenager can do anything they put their mind to. I often think how fortunate I am to live now in middle age, with the opportunities in the world that I have as an adult. But I am very grateful to have these youthful, excited, enthusiastic teenagers among us at home. And I often remember with fondness, those wonderful years when I was able to bask in the glory of being a teenager.

Coming Tomorrow: Accomplishing Goals

The Glory Of Being A Teenager (Part 11 of 12)

The teacher of the business law class was Mr. High. He was the also assistant track coach over the hurdlers. Since not very many people except me and a few other guys were involved in the hurdles, almost no one else knew that Mr. High was a coach at all. I always got strange looks from the rest of the class when I referred to him as “coach.” In that class we took a memorable field trip to a place were they verified checks when stores called them to see if there were proper funds for a check that was being written. Another time we went to small claims court and saw some deliberations in the regular court for the infamous Hi Fi Shop murderers.
I had always had a love-hate relationship with my gym classes. In seventh grade I hated gym. In eighth, I loved it. I loved it so much I signed up for a whole year in ninth grade which I also enjoyed. I thought my feelings would be the same for my first year at Cottonwood High School, but I ended up hating gym again. Then I found out that I could sign up to have track as my gym class. For my Junior and Senior years I took track as a class and I loved it. Not only could I get credit for it, but I didn’t have to stay after school as late for cross country or track practice. Another thing I liked about it was that it was co-ed. It wasn’t just a bunch of boring guys. There were girls who were on the track team in the class too.

The Glory Of Being A Teenager (Part 10 of 12)

There were various classes that had fund raiser projects from time to time. I never have been a gung-ho salesman. Once we had to sell big Christmas candles that were in a tall, thin glass. I figured I was good for buying one myself and that my parents would buy one. Another time we sold calendars. I took a sample with me to my Business Law class. The kid next to me said, “What’s this Bill?”
“What?”
“What’s this you’ve got here?”
“Oh, this? It’s a calendar.”
“I can see that, but why do you have it?”
“It’s to raise money.”
“For what?”
“For the Concert Choir .”
“What for?”
“I told you, for the Concert Choir.”
“I know it’s for the Concert Choir, but to do what?”
“So we can go to California.”
“So are you selling these calendars?”
“Yeah.”
Long pause.
“So, Bill, are you selling them?”
“I guess so.”
Another long pause while the kid looked sideways at the calendar.
“Bill.”
“What?”
“I might want to buy one of these from you.”
“Well, I guess you can if you feel you need too.”

The Glory Of Being A Teenager (Part 9 of 12)

Several of us who had that Physics class were also in English together. We eventually became known as “:The Breakfast Club.” We took turns bringing different kinds of dry cold cereal each day to class to share with the guys in our little group. I must have been too distracted by “The Breakfast Club” activities because I didn’t get much out of the novels we were supposed to be reading. I really enjoyed the teacher, Mrs. Neilson.
I took Trigonometry from Mr. Park and really enjoyed that. The first few weeks I had to do multiplication and division of huge numbers with pencil and scratch paper. Luckily my 17th birthday came and I got a TI-30 calculator which really helped. The next year I took College Algebra from Mr. Park. I don’t remember a thing I learned in that class, except for the jokes Mr. Park told. A fun thing to do with our calculators was to figure out our bio-rhythms. We first had to figure out how many days old we were. Then there were some cycles that we calculated to see where we were on a given day such as physically, socially, and emotionally. I was going to take a math class in computer science, but they were going to program the Granite School District’s time-share computer with stacks of IBM punch cards. I figured (correctly) that I could learn more on our home computer, the Radio Shack TRS-80, Model I.

The Glory Of Being A Teenager (Part 8 of 12)

The first day of school was really just a time to get acquainted with the teacher and to find out what we were going to learn that year and how we were going to learn it. Not much real school work was done on the first day. However, a few teachers assigned homework. After the first day though, we settled into the routine of school. My over-all memories of high school are great. Although I maintained slightly above a B average in my years of high school, I did my best with out over-stressing on everything. I studied for tests and if I did good, that was great, and if I did bad, well, I gave it my best shot. As a girl later told me, “Don’t let school get in the way of your education.” I think all in all I came out of high school pretty well educated.
One memorable class was Honors Physics that I took in my Junior year. Mr. Duncan was our teacher. In that class I was nicknamed “Force” because some formula had the initials “B. I. L. = force.” When ever Mr. Duncan called on me, he always referred to me as “Force.” The rest of the class called me that, too. The whole science department was in an area of the school which had tiled floors. Whereas the math department was in an area of the school which was carpeted. Mr. Duncan was always saying things like, “In the imaginary world of mathematics, over there on the carpet . . . while over here on the tile, in the real world of physics . . . .” We also had fun by calling the physics students “the Physics Bunnies.” I loved the experiments we did. Once we converted water into oxygen and hydrogen, with electricity. Another time we put water into pop bottles and blew across the top to make certain notes. That was simple enough, but we had to calculate how much water to put in to sound a certain note. Since a large percentage of us were also band and orchestra students, we particularly enjoyed this experiment. Another time, some students built bridges out of balsa wood and the BYU civil engineering department came with a special machine that put weight on them to see how many pounds of pressure could be applied before they broke. The winner was over seven hundred pound of pressure. We also built little race cars which we powered by nothing else than a mouse trap. Mine had a large plastic fan blade that the mouse trap propelled downward and it cased a wind to shoot the car forward. It didn’t go very far, but everyone was amazed at my creative thinking.

The Glory Of Being A Teenager (Part 7 of 12)

Every year at the beginning of school we would go through pretty much the same rituals, if they can be called that. It started in early August when we each sat down with Mom and went through the Sears Catalog with her and we ordered our school clothes for that year. A week or so later she would go pick up her huge order. She came home from Sears and we’d all go crazy trying things on. If something didn’t quite fit she’d put it in a pile for returning it and getting the right size or right color. She made sure that we thanked Dad when he got home from work for paying for it.
The night before the first day of school Dad took us each into his room where Mom was waiting and he laid his hands on our heads and gave us a father’s blessing by authority of the Priesthood. He used to do the school blessings with us all in the same room, but that only caused us to get the giggles and the spiritual nature of the blessings made it so we shouldn’t have been giggling.
Then the first day of school arrived. We all dressed in our new clothes. That morning we’d assemble in the living room for scriptures and prayers. Mom would fix an extra hearty breakfast and then we’d be off. Vera and I would leave first for the bus to take us the two miles to junior high. Dad was there with his camera to take our pictures on that first day. And then we walked just down the street to our bus stop. When the younger children left for elementary school which was only a block away, Dad took their pictures as well. Christopher and Johnny stayed at home with Mom of course, since they weren’t old enough to go to school. And Dad went to work as soon as his picture taking duties were done.

The Glory Of Being A Teenager (Part 6 of 12)

When I turned sixteen years old, I advanced to the Priests Quorum. This was a group of young men that I had grown up with. Our first adult leader was Doug Quayle. He not only taught us on Sunday in Priesthood Meeting, but was there on Wednesday nights for our activities. One memorable activity was traveling up to Hill Air Force Base and taking a tour. Another was going to the Salt Lake Temple to do Baptisms for the Dead. And then Bishop Hunter called another man to be the Young Mens President, and to be our advisor. This was Stan Snarr. He usually had lots of books spread across the table for his Priesthood lessons and we all enjoyed them immensely. When Bishop Hunter called him to that position he gave Stan the instruction to “get those guys on missions.” And Stan did everything he could, to do that. He was there for our activities and played right with us in games.
He soon discovered that most of us enjoyed dating. So we had a few activities that were date nights. One was with another ward’s young women. They all attended Brighton High School and we were matched up with them by Stan’s wife, Linda and the young womens president of that other ward. Another time we went tubing up Big Cottonwood Canyon and we each got to bring a date.
One Sunday Morning we had a pancake breakfast at the bishop’s back yard. The breakfast ran over time and we ended up missing Priesthood Meeting. We figured since we were at the bishop’s house it was okay. Stan felt we still need a lesson so he gathered us all around him, just before we were to leave and said, “Okay, guys, here’s the lesson:” He paused and with a twinkle in his eye said, “Be Good!”
Another lesson involved each of us writing one good thing about each other on a sheet of paper. The next week Stan gave us a typed sheet with everyone’s comments on it about us. Another lesson was on repentance. “But,” Stan said, “I can’t teach you how to repent until you’ve learned how to sin.” So we spent two weeks going over a list of sins and talking about each one. We all had a pretty good rapport with Stan and a very high percentage of us young men did in fact go on missions.

The Glory Of Being A Teenager (Part 5 of 12)

One Sunday afternoon at the dinner table when I was sixteen, my Dad, who was in the bishopric of our ward, the South Cottonwood Eleventh Ward was lamenting that he had to find a primary teacher for my brother Christopher’s class. That class had gone through many teachers already and everyone had given up and had asked to be released. I immediately said, “I’ll do it!” Dad, who was sitting right across the table from me, did a double take and looked right at me. “You will?” He was very surprised. He thought very quickly, and then realized that idea just might work. He then aid, “Meet me in the bishops office right before Sacrament Meeting today.”
A few hours later, I met Dad in the bishops office. He sat at the bishop’s desk and said, “Billy, for sixteen years were have been pouring Gospel knowledge into you. We now want some of that back out of you. We are calling you as a primary teacher for the Star B class. And we know you can do it.”
I was sustained in Sacrament meeting a little later on. Several guys my age were shocked to hear that I was going to be a primary teacher. Others thought it was very funny, and snickered openly. My first day of teaching came up a few days later. I prepared the lesson the night before. I sat with the class during opening exercises and sang the songs with them. Of course I sang an octave lower than everyone else. Children looked back at me. They weren’t used to hearing a lower voice in primary. There were six children that regularly attended, among which was my brother Christopher. I had been warned how wild they were. They were all in kindergarten and I figured they just needed someone who was closer to them in age. Someone who understood them very well. Since I had a vivid recollection of kindergarten, we all hit it off from the very first day. Christopher later said he could understand my lessons better than anyone else’s.
In those days, primary was held on a Tuesday afternoon, right after the elementary school got out. Since high school got out an hour earlier, I went to track practice, and then ran directly to the church with my gym bag in hand. I changed my clothes in the bathroom and made it just in time for opening exercises. Once, I got to the church a little late. Some boys in my class were goofing off in the hall when I came in the building. They followed me into the bathroom and talked to me while I went in a stall to change. I had encouraged them to go onto opening exercises, but they insisted they would wait for me. Weren’t we a sight when all three of us came walking into opening exercises, fifteen minutes late! And there happened to be stake leaders there too that day.
I enjoyed being a primary teacher very much. I had attended lessons in church all my life, now I was able to teach some. And the Primary Presidency was very encouraged that I hadn’t given up. When summer came, Primary changed to Tuesday Mornings and I was able to change with it. But with the approach of the fall, I told the Primary Leaders that I would be involved in the school musical and probably wouldn’t be able to fit teaching Primary into my schedule. So they released me, but they had me called again the next year, after my schedule changed slightly, for the same group of children. It was a great opportunity to teach Christopher and it started me on the road to formal Gospel teaching that I have never left.

The Glory Of Being A Teenager (Part 4 of 12)

About the only other sport that I was good in, except for running, was volleyball. Even though I just barely missed making the team in ninth grade, I was still interested in playing. Somehow I found out that our ward’s team was playing it’s last game of the regular season. The other team forfeited and we won for our stake and that meant we could go on to region. All the games for the region championship were to be held on the same Saturday at a stake center high on the East Bench of Salt Lake. K.C. Sullivan, our junior leader took us all in his car. He would also be our coach. There wasn’t much excitement in this tournament since no other people but us came from the ward.
It was with great difficulty that we finally found the Church where we were to play. When we got in the gym, we saw that every other team had full volleyball uniforms on, compared to our tee-shirts and shorts. That should have been an indication right there that we were in trouble. But the first game of the double elimination tournament was a strong indicator of that as well. We lost badly. We rested a bit for the next game and K.C. gave us a pep talk. “Okay, we are going for blood.” Someone else replied, “Whose blood, there’s our ours?” We ended up losing that one as well. So much for volleyball.

The Glory Of Being A Teenager (Part 3 of 12)

The Church has various sports programs for the youth to participate in. I was not that interested in playing these sports, especially basketball. So I definitely avoided that. When it was softball season I made it a point not to sign up for that. But one year our ward’s team made it to region. Our leaders felt they needed some extra practices to get ready. Even though I hadn’t even cared about playing before, I was asked to come to the practices, and being the sunshine athlete I was, I decided to go try it out. In the first practice the coach had us play every position and rotate after someone got a run. He wanted to see who was best at what. When we played our first region game he gathered us around to tell us the starting line-up. “Well, guys, Billy was putting them in there pretty good the other night, so he’ll be the starting pitcher.” Nobody protested but I could feel a few guys rolling their eyes.
I was first up to bat. I hadn’t even touched a softball bat for the last two years since grade school, except for the few practices I had attended. My first swing was a strike. But on the next ball I connected and the ball went sailing over the first baseman’s head. It was just barely good so I ran for first base. But the player in the outfield got the ball and threw it to first before I got there. I was out. Soon it was my turn to pitch. The couch had me practice a few times before play began. Everyone from our ward, was cheering for me. The players and spectators. Even Bishop Webb was there. They were all cheering for me. I’m afraid I let them all down. Every ball I threw turned out to be a hit for the other team. Our opponents got off to a commanding lead right there in the first inning. When we finally got the other team out three times, I walked quickly to the dugout. The coach approached me and told me he was going to go with someone else as pitcher. “Good,” I said. If he hadn’t replaced me, I would have requested him to do so.
Our team played a valiant game and ended up coming back to win. In our next game we won handily. I didn’t play, but I felt I was still part of the team. It was a calm summer evening. All of us piled into the back of our coach’s pick up truck. He was taking us for an ice cream cone to celebrate the win. We had also found out our next game was to be the Multi Region Championship. We all chanted, “We’re number one! We’re number one!” A particularly pessimistic boy kept saying “or two” every time we yelled, “We’re number one!” We realized that even if we lost the next game, we’d have second place.
I didn’t play in the next game either. I was glad. No way would I even want to be out there with that team. Many of the boys on the other team had huge biceps. These were supposed to be 14 and 15 year-olds, like us, but some of them had full beards! Our team put up a great fight and it was a close game, but we lost.

The Glory Of Being A Teenager (Part 2 of 12)

Oh, those were the days! The wonder and the absolutely fantastic days of being a teenager. There were challenges, of course. A teenager undergoes tremendous physical and emotional changes. Once I was so upset over some emotional thing. I locked myself in my bedroom and threatened to nail the door shut. I figured they could pass food to me through the space between the door and the floor. Another challenge was my face. Any teenager has acne and I felt I was no different. I used Clear Skin Astringent and other soaps on my face. All I wanted for my birthday one year was a tube of Clearasil, which was the most popular skin care for teenagers at the time. Another product was called Mud. It was too expensive for me, so I never used it. But I still remember the jingle on the radio ad for it, “Mud pulls, Mud draws, Mud helps open up your pores.”
On morning when I was in eighth grade, I woke up with a particularly red pimple just slightly off the center of my nose. It was embarrassing! I tried washing it and squeezing it. But the more I worked on it, the worse it got. I looked like an elf with a long nose and a wart on the end of that. I went back to bed and tried to deal with the problem by ignoring it. Mom came down to my room to check on me.
“Why aren’t you up, Billy?”
“Hugh?” I moaned with fake sleep.
“Aren’t you going to school today?”
“I just don’t feel well, Mom.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I – just – don’t – feel well, that’s all.”
Mom paused. I don’t think she was convinced.
“I feel sort of achy” I said.
I looked at her. She still said nothing. “All right,.” she said after a long time. And then she was gone.
(I stayed in bed until the time of when school started and then I suddenly had enough strength to climb the basement stairs and see about getting breakfast. I entered the kitchen with my pajamas on and my hair tousled. Mom felt my forehead. Maybe she saw the big red zit on my nose that was causing this whole fiasco. She said, “Okay, Billy, you may stay home today, but I have a whole list of jobs for you to do.”
I was more than happy to do those jobs. Anything to avoid being seen by girls at school with that big red zit!

The Glory Of Being A Teenager (Part 1 of 12)

“Vera, it’s almost on.”
“Oh good, I wanted to vote against ‘Seasons in the Sun.’”
“You can’t do that. That song has been number one for week and weeks.”
It was 9:30 on a school night and the KCPX radio station was about to have its nightly phone-in-and-vote competition between two popular songs of the day. It was the Battle of the Records. In Salt Lake, in the early 1970s where Vera and I found ourselves, any teenager who wanted to be cool, had to listen to the radio station, KCPX. Soon the gentle strains of “We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun” were heard on the radio. It had been the number one song on 1320 KCPX for over sixty days, longer than any other song on the Battle of the Records. When it was over, they played the challenger song. Vera listened to it, but didn’t really care what it was, she just wanted to vote against the one that was so popular. She really had nothing against Seasons In The Sun, just that they had played it so much that it was on every body’s nerves. Everyones accept mine. I could listen to it a thousand more times and then some.
Vera stepped out of my room for a moment. She picked up our gold color rotary wall phone and dialed the number. I rushed out of the room and tried to stop her, but she screamed something about having her free agency and told me to get away. Then someone at KCPX answered the phone, and Vera said, “Yes, I’d like to vote for ‘The Night Chicago Died.’”
Vera hung up. I was stunned. I had never even called in to vote before and here was my own sister voting against Seasons In The Sun. In a few minutes they announced that The Night Chicago Died was the new champion for the Battle of the Records.

My Sister Lori (Part 6 of 6)

As I got closer to age nineteen I knew my time was getting near to go on a mission for two years. My feelings were mostly happy as I anticipated that event, however I was sad because my little brother Johnny and my sweet little sister Lori, would change the most when I was gone. They were at the ages of four and two and I have always had tender feelings for children of those ages. In the fall of 1980, after I had received my mission call, I took Johnny and Lori on a picnic up Big Cottonwood Canyon. We stopped at a fast food restaurant on our way to the mouth of the canyon and then drove up a ways with our hamburgers to a picnic spot. We leisurely ate them and had a great time. Then it started to get dark and cooler in the canyon so we decided to head for home. We went back to the car and to my horror, I saw that the keys were still in the ignition and I had locked the doors! Fortunately, after several tense minutes, a car pulled just ahead of us and stopped. I asked if they had a coat hanger. They did! The driver of the car got out and started looking for the coat hanger in his trunk. The lady in the front seat instructed me to bring the children and have them wait in the front seat of the car. The heater was on and it was nice and warm. I lifted them up to the front seat. Lori was oblivious to what was in the back seat and so was I, but Johnny stood on the front seat, motionless. He was petrified and staring straight into the teeth of a great big German Shepard. Just then the man had my car unlocked so I thanked the people and quickly took Johnny and Lori back to our car and we were on our way back to our warm home.

Coming Tomorrow: The Glory Of Being A Teenager

My Sister Lori (Part 5 of 6)

I took Lori with me as often as possible. I especially liked to run errands with her. Once when I was eighteen and Lori was almost two, I took her to Blooms flower shop on Highland Drive and 3900 South to pick up a corsage for the Junior Prom. I walked in carrying Lori. The sales girl said, “Oh, is this your little girl?” I said with pride, “No, she is my little sister.” We went many times in the van as a family. Dad would drive most of the time, but sometimes let me do the driving. When we pulled into the driveway of our house Dad would always say, “Here we are.” When Lori was two she started to talk, but she would never open her mouth. She would say something, but it would come out muffled. Since Dad always said, “here we are” Lori would repeat that, but her version came out, “uh-uh-uh” with the same voice inflection and accent as if she had said, “here we are.”

My Sister Lori (Part 4 of 6)

The drives we went on were great. If Dad was out of town, he’d leave the car home. Yes, I could have taken the big and spacious van, but the car was smaller, easier to drive, and more quiet. I could strap Lori into the seat next to me and actually see her and talk with her as we drove around. Lori loved to ride in the car. The gentle vibrations were very soothing to her. She rarely fell asleep, but even as a newborn, she could tell this was an event. We mostly just drove around town. And I would talk with her as we rode. She was too small to see out the window, so I would describe everything to her as we drove by.
Our drives could have proved deadly, though. Back in 1978, big commercial trucks, like dump trucks had blinker lights that could be stuck on. They would always blink, like they were signaling to turn left or right when they really weren’t. The instructors had warned us about this in Drivers Ed, but there was really nothing we could do about it except always be on guard. This happened to Lori and I on one of our drives in the summer of 1978 at the intersection of Redwood Road and 5400 South. Nowadays there are left-turn lanes in all four directions of that intersection, but back then it was a lot less busy. Each corner was nothing but fields except the north-west corner which had a store called Grand Central. Lori and I were going south on Redwood Road and then attempting to make a left turn, onto the eastbound lane of 5400 South. I saw a large dump truck coming the other direction. The truck had its blinker on and looked like it was slowing down to make a left turn onto the westbound lane of 5400 South. I pulled into the intersection and all appeared clear for me to make the left-hand turn. I began to do so and then I saw that the truck was continuing on into the intersection and going straight. Heading right toward us! I slammed on the accelerator pedal, but our car was kind of gutless in situations like this so it hesitated for a split second. My whole life passed before my eyes and I’m sure Lori, if she had known what was happening, that her short life would have passed before her eyes as well. Fortunately, the engine kicked in and whisked us away to safety. Just as the truck barreled on past.

My Sister Lori (Part 3 of 6)

Mom and Lori came home from the hospital a day or so later. We were informed that we would all have to take on a greater share of the responsibility at our house. Mom was 37 and after having her eighth child, she wasn’t able to spring back after this pregnancy as well as she had in the past. We were each assigned additional housekeeping jobs and we each had to watch Lori for at least one hour each day. Since I had my driver licence, I conveniently took Lori in the car for my hour each day. My older sisters were a little upset at that since none of them had a driver licence. All they could do was watch Lori at home. Or they could at least take her on a bike ride. Have you ever seen a newborn on a bike? My sisters did it a lot. Lori was on a bike so often in her first three months of life, that I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if she started riding it herself. Of course, if Mom had realized what was happening she would have put a stop to it sooner. Here was her precious newborn baby siting precariously on a banana-bike seat while the young bike rider steadied her with one hand while grasping the handlebars with the other hand, riding down the street without any caution of automobile traffic whatsoever. It’s no wonder that Mom put a stop to that practice as soon as she happened to see it. This made my sisters more unhappy with the situation. “At least Billy could still take the baby in the car with him,” they’d jealously say. With a car, Lori could be firmly strapped in her seat, although nowadays we think of baby seats as being very safe, and we did too back then, but in actuality we would be very surprised to see a seat from the 1970s and one of today, compared side to side. First of all, the seat was made for a four-year-old. To get Lori to fit in it we had to wrap her in blankets and prop her up with another one. We also had to stuff one blanket in the seat to keep her from slipping out. The seat was blue with a padded seat and a padded bar that came down over the person. It had bars that curved around the back of the seat that it rested on. We thought it was the most safe device for car safety ever invented. (You ought to see what I had when I was little.) Seven years later when I became a father of my own baby, that blue car seat was still in existence, but it had been condemned by every automobile safety group and pediatric group in America. But of course in 1978, it was perfectly safe.

My Sister Lori (Part 2 of 6)

For me, Lori was born right before Yearbook signing day in 1978. On the day we were to go up to the hospital to see her and Mom, a girl who had not spoken to me for several months, asked if I’d sign her yearbook. And she asked me to call her in the summer. Of course I was thinking about her later in the day when we went up to the hospital, but the important fact in life was that we were going to see my new little sister. Lori had been born on the eighteenth anniversary of my parents’ getting engaged. I’m sure when Dad proposed marriage to Mom that neither of them foresaw what would take place exactly eighteen years later. Actually they talked of having twelve children in those first years. But practice is more difficult than theory. When Mom had her sixth child she said to my Dad, “Okay, I’ve had my six, now it’s your turn to have them.” However, Mom eventually had two more children. And here we were, at the hospital seeing the eighth one. With excitement we all peered through the glass window of the hospital nursery. The new baby was so tiny! Even though we had all seen a younger sibling shortly after birth (except two-year-old Johnny) we were amazed at how small she was. Children grow so fast and we had forgotten how small new-borns are. All of us were overcome with joy at seeing our new little sister. Hospitals had just relaxed rules about even letting children in to see a new baby. With the other children, the first time we had seen the new baby was when he or she came home from the hospital. This was quite new for all of us. Mom had also been allowed out of her room and came out with us to view the baby in the nursery window. Afterward we sat in a waiting room and visited with Mom for a while.

My Sister Lori (Part 1 of 6)

Lori, my youngest sister, and the last of my parents’ children, was born when I was sixteen. I was already into the dating world and I could drive a car at the time when she came along. It was near the end of my Sophomore year in high school when it was time for her to be born. My mother was due in the first part of June. The Explorer Scouts in my ward, of which I was one, had a river trip planned about that time. I was going to go of course. My Dad had looked forward for many years to the time when he could go with his son on a river trip, and my bishop was going as well, both as the bishop and as a father of one of the boys. But our bishop was also Dr. Kenneth Hunter, my Mom’s obstetrician. Mom was in a position to put her foot down, as wife of a counselor in the bishopric. She said, “I will not have my oldest son, my husband, and my doctor all out of town on my due date.” We ended up changing the date of the river trip to later in June.

(This was one of the first chapters I wrote for this book. It was probably written in 1995 or earlier. Long before Clint ever came into the picture as one of Mom's children.)