Get A Real Job (Part 2 of 7)

My Dad suggested I call our home teacher, Jack Robinson, who was the manager of a grocery store. Jack had been a marvelous scout leader to me and countless other boys, and still was. And we all knew about “Jack’s Store” as we called it. Every time we had a camp or an outing we always bought the food from Jack’s Store. I drove the three miles to his store. It was called Country Farm Save More. Sometimes they spelled it SAV MOR. Jack said to me that they weren’t hiring right then, but he’d take my application. I filled one out. I explained my situation and how because of my commitments to Granite Youth that summer I couldn’t get a “Real” job. I cringe, now, every time I think of that. I’m sure Jack was saying to himself, “Of course this is a “real” job. It’s very real to me every day.” Jack took my application and wrote on the top in big letters, CANNOT WORK SUNDAYS! I sure appreciated that.
Then my seminary teacher from a few years back called me and asked me to help him gut out an old grocery store in the avenues. Two summers before I had helped him build a peaked roof on our house. I had personally lifted every 3/4th inch sheet of plywood up to the roof. So I guess Brother Steele wanted me to help him again. He’d pick me up after my Granite Youth practice and we’d go up to work. We worked until very late when we were done, only stopping for a short while to eat our sack lunches under a shady tree. After we were done with that project, we built up two chimneys for people who were later going to get peaked roofs. Even now, when I drive by those homes, I point out with pride to my children that I helped build those chimneys.

Get A Real Job (Part 1 of 7)

As my junior year of high school was nearing a close, I felt that I needed to get a job for that summer that would possibly continue on into the next school year. I applied to be a dishwasher at a near-by restaurant called Poor Richards, but they didn’t need me. As one who would later recruit and hire lots of dishwashers for several restaurants, I almost can’t understand that they would turn down a tall, dark, and handsome seventeen-year-old (me). But they did. I applied at other places too, but with no luck.
So school ended and I still had no job for the summer. My situation was difficult because I was in the Granite Youth Symphony and the practices took most of my mornings. Also I would be gone for two weeks later in the summer. I then saw an ad in the newspaper for temporary laborers. I thought, “Problem solved. I’ll do that.” So on the first day of summer vacation I boarded a bus going down town. I had a sack lunch in hand. I got down town and walked several blocks until I found the location of the temporary agency. I had to go down a scary alley to get there and when I did I was appalled. It was a large smoke-filled room with a few very grungy men sitting around. The room was bare cinder blocks with a cement floor. It looked like it was under construction, except for it also looked like it had been that way for a long time. I hesitantly went up to a window and asked about work. They had given out all the assignments they had, but I was welcome to wait and see if anything else came up. I elected to get out of there as fast as I could! I spent the rest of the morning at Temple Square. I then waited for the bus on Main street in front of a giant hole in the ground that would become the Crossroads mall. When the bus came, we road one block south and I saw a very old man who was standing there with a dazed look on his face. He also was drooling all down the front of his old blue over-coat. I thought, isn’t somebody going to help him? Then I thought, isn’t someone going to help me? What am I going to do?

My Brother Johnny (Part 7 of 7)

By the time Johnny was ready to go to school, he already knew addition and subtraction, and was anxious to learn multiplication. The rest of the children in our family, when we had trouble holding still in Church, we would draw a picture of the person speaking. Johnny was different, he would hand me a clean sheet of paper and would say, “Billy, make me some math problems to do.” I’d fill the sheet with 3 digit multiplication problems, he’d do them in a few minutes and then have me correct them. I corrected them while trying to listen to the speaker as well. Johnny would look over my corrections and point out where I had made mistakes in correcting them. It is no surprise to any of us that Johnny is now an electrical engineer.

Coming Tomorrow: Get A Real Job

My Brother Johnny (Part 6 of 7)

Johnny's affinity with numbers prompted him to put together a book. He got a fairly good sized binder and started to put lined, notebook paper in it. Then he hand numbered each page. He somehow coerced my parents to buy more notebook paper until he had the notebook pages numbered up to 1000. He was very pleased with his one thousand page book. But a short time later he was working to make it 2000 pages long. He needed a bigger binder so he made a binder with some heavy wire for rings. I showed him how to make pages by taking some old teletype paper rolls and cutting them to the 8 1/2 by 11 inch size. And then he used our three hole punch. I came home a few days later and he showed me his 2000 page book. He called it, "Old Two Thousand."

My Brother Johnny (Part 5 of 7)

As Johnny grew older we could all tell he was going to be very smart. He seemed to have a greater comprehension for math and numbers than the rest of us children put together. We figured it was a combination of his fall as well as the disease. He was fascinated with numbers. He was very attentive to any numbers. He would always look at the speed limit signs and then look at the speedometer in the car and let you know if you were going too fast. "Billy, that signs says 40 and you are going 50, so you better slow down!" I must say that in other areas of traffic rules (without numbers) he had no comprehension. Once he and I were driving in the van and waiting to make a left turn at a busy intersection without a separate turn light for left turns. Johnny said, "Why are we waiting?"
I explained that we had to wait out in the middle of the intersection until the cars were done going through, or until the light changed yellow. He couldn't figure that out. He said,
"Well just crash through them!"

My Brother Johnny (Part 4 of 7)

My parents called me at home and told me to call Uncle Dave and have him let the family know. We were also to get Earl Gubler to come over and help my Dad give another blessing. I dialed Uncle Dave's number.
"Hello"
"Is Uncle Dave there."
"This is Dave."
"This is Billy Loveless."
"Hi Billy. What can I do for you?"
"Johnny, well, he...."
"Did he fall out the window again?" (I think Dave thought I was making a prank call.)
I chuckled. "No. He has a disease."
"He does!" Dave sounded very surprised, yet not believing any word of my supposed (as he thought) fake alarm. "What kind of disease?"
Dave's response made me giggle while I tried to explain this serious condition. "It's where his throat closes off and he can't breath. I think it's called, ah, epiglotumus or something like that."
"Oh my that's terrible!"
It was apparent that Dave wasn't buying any of this. This time I couldn't stifle my laughter because Uncle Dave was acting so nonchalant about it all. "The doctor says..." (Laugh) "...that he's only seen five cases of this and they..." (Laugh) "...have all died." (Laugh)
"Where is he know?" (By now I'm sure Dave thought I was joking about the whole thing.)
"My parents are coming home..." (Laugh) "...from the doctor's with Johnny..." (Laugh.) "...and my Dad and our neighbor will give him a blessing..." (Laugh) "...and then they will take him to the hospital." By this time I had tears in my eyes from trying to repress (unsuccessfully) all my laughter.
"What hospital is he in?"
"Primary..." (Laugh) "...Childrens Hospital." I managed to get out between dry heaves of laughter.
By the time I was mercifully off the phone, Earl Gubler arrived and then my parents came home with Johnny. Dad and Earl gave him a blessing and my parents started off to the hospital. The rest of the children and I came close behind in the van. We even stayed in touch by CB radio. We were very worried for Johnny, but we knew he was going to be okay. We waited outside the hospital. A while later Dad came out and updated us on his condition.
"Well, kids, they were able to get a tube down Johnny's throat before it closed off entirely, so he can still breath."
We each breathed our own sigh of relief.
"Will he always have to have that tube in there?" Vera asked.
"No, they'll give him some medicine to make that open back up gradually. We're lucky though, if we hadn't have gotten him here in time they would have had to cut an air hole right here." Dad pointed to a spot on his own throat just above his collar bone. "He would have had that his whole life."
The medical staff took lots of pictures of Johnny in the hospital so they would know how to treat such a condition if they saw it in the future. After a few days Johnny was able to come home from the hospital.

My Brother Johnny (Part 3 of 7)

We called home to make sure everything was okay and to let everyone know what was goin on. They moved Johnny to a crib and he looked sort of funny in that crib with a black eye. But we were sure glad he was going to be okay. As a result of the fall he did have a slight twitch and he winked his eye occasionally for several years afterward. Once we were visiting my Granny Annie in the nursing home when she was well past ninety years old. Some other ladies were there too and one commented to the other, "Look Mable, that little boy is winking to me."
I talked with Johnny about his fall most every day. He always had a good attitude about it. However, almost two weeks latter I was talking with Johnny about the fall. His two-year-old attitude had changed. In fact he was very mad that it happened. His behavior with everyone else was vastly different as well. He slammed doors and yelled at people. We all thought, "This is not Johnny." He had difficulty breathing so my parents took him to see Doctor Wilkinson. It was a late Saturday afternoon, yet it sounded serious enough that the doctor agreed to meet them in his office. He examined Johnny. There was some worry that this was related to his fall two weeks before. The symptoms were different, though. Doctor Wilkinson, who had been practicing medicine for a long time said, "Get this boy to the hospital immediately. He has epiglottis. I have seen only five cases over the years and they have all died!” They were going to take Johnny to Cottonwood Hospital, but Doctor Wilkinson told them to take him directly to Primary Children's Hospital. He called ahead to let them know what was happening.

My Brother Johnny (Part 2 of 7)

On that same day, in the spring of 1978 Johnny also fell down the basement stairs. Then that evening I and my Dad were going to take back a big pan to my Grandmother. I had barely gotten my driver license so Dad let me drive. I was backing out the driveway. The headlights shined onto the carport. Suddenly, as I was backing out, what appeared to be a big doll dressed in a red bedtime sleeper fell out the bedroom window of Christopher and Johnny’s room. It bounced on the hard cement floor of the carport. As I looked blinking at the doll, I realized to my honor it was no doll. It was my brother Johnny!
"Oh no!" I put the van back in park, opened the door, and jumped out of the van. Dad hadn't seen the fall and wondered what had happened to startle me so much. Then after I ran to Johnny’s side he could see what had happened. The window screen had also come out and was laying a few feet away from Johnny.
Johnny had been up on the top of the bunk bed when he heard the van start up. He wanted to see us drive away so he looked out the open window. The screen was in place and he couldn't get a good view. He pressed against it. It was barely held in place by some metal prongs. These soon gave way to Johnny's two-year-old weight. And Johnny fell onto the hard cement below.
As soon as I reached him, I wanted to pick him up from off the pavement, but I realized he might be seriously hurt so I didn't want to make things worse. Then Dad reached me and he agreed we shouldn't pick him up just yet. By this time Mom realized there was some commotion going on outside so she came running. She checked him over and then we picked him up. Dad had gotten our neighbor, Earl Gubler to come over and help give Johnny a blessing. After the Priesthood blessing we took him to the emergency room of the hospital which was just a few miles away. Dad and I waited in the emergency room waiting room while Mom was with him in the examination room. She came out a while later and updated us on Johnny's condition. "Nurelogically he's okay," she said. But he's temporarily paralyzed on one side due to the fall and he has a sprained wrist, plus he's developing a black eye. But we are pretty lucky, the doctor said that such a fall could have killed him."

My Brother Johnny (Part 1 of 7)

Most two-year-olds are curious about many things. But my youngest brother Johnny was consumed by three things, lamps, plugs, and screws. They dominated his life.
At age two, Johnny's favorite toy was a plastic case of little screwdrivers. He carried this with him everywhere and when ever he encountered a screw of any kind he un did it. He would take apart doors or anything that had screws holding it together.
Almost every day he patronized the metal strips that separated the carpet of the front room and the linoleum of the kitchen. This was the best place since there were so many screws all in a row. Johnny had extraordinary finger coordination and hand dexterity for a two-year-old. He would place one of his screwdrivers on the head of the first screw and turn away. Sometimes it was funny to see him carefully turning the screwdriver. He had to have his tongue sticking out his mouth in just the right way so as to do it correctly.
After taking out all the screws, Johnny would then carry the metal strip around the house. Even though he was very adept at unscrewing, Johnny still had trouble with screwing the screws back in. I, or my dad would usually help him when it was time to put things back together again.
My four sisters each had a little lamp by their bed. These were all the same except for the shade, which had a different pattern on each lamp. Johnny had always been fascinated by electrical plugs but these lamps were quite intriguing. You see, they had little screws holding them together.
He went to each room, got the lamps and carried them to an electrical outlet. Here he would plug each in. He was amazed how they lit up immediately. Electricity is truly a wonder for a two-year-old. After that, he proceeded to take the lamp apart. We tried to get him to unplug the lamps first but this didn't always sink in. Johnny got shocked more than once. It is a wonder that Johnny made it past age two. He had many close runs with electricity.
I soon became the official lamp-putter-back-togetherer. Johnny took the lamps apart and I put them back together. I didn't mind that Johnny took them apart as fast as I put them back together.
When Johnny plugged something in, it was like this: He placed his fingers on the metal prongs to get his grip on the plug and to guide it into the slots of the electrical outlet. He usually didn't remove his fingers until the very last minute. And sometimes he didn't and he would get shocked. Like I say, it is a wonder he made it past the age of two.
I tried to teach him that electricity can hurt you. I hooked up our (toy?) shocking machine to a big black extension cord we had. I was on one end of the house with the shocking machine end, and Johnny was fifty feet away on the other end of the house. After a while he couldn't resist the pug of the extension cord. He picked it up and got a jolting shock from the extension cord. All it did though was make Johnny cry and make me feel bad that I had shocked him. As far as any teaching about the dangers of electricity, Johnny was back playing with the lamps within the hour.
One Saturday, we all left the house for a short time. For some reason Johnny was left home alone briefly. When we returned, we found that the main 200 amp circuit breaker to our house had been tripped and all the power was off. We don't know how it had happened, but we looked at two-year-old Johnny and immediately suspected him.

Granite Youth World Tour 1979 (Part 12 of 12)

Though I had plenty to keep me busy the rest of that summer, I still had a hole in my heart for that Granite Youth Symphony tour. I think it was being with those wonderful friends that I missed most. I participated for a week-long music experience called the National Youth Symphony at the University of Utah. One day we even got to play along with the Utah Symphony, through luck I was able to play next to the string bass section leader of the Utah Symphony and he gave me some very good pointers. I came to love one of the pieces, the Dvorak Eighth symphony. Most of the time we were prepared by Terry Hill, but on the final day we played a concert that night with our conductor who was none other than Crawford Gates. I had now played the string bass for seven months. The other bass players had all played much longer than me, but my Dad, who is a violinist said my vibrato was the fastest and the steadiest of anyones. I finished out the summer by attending a music workshop at Cottonwood High School. I got individual instruction on the bass by a man from Summerhays music.
My senior year in high school began with me in the Granite Youth Symphony again. The practices were every Wednesday and I loved them. Most notable concerts were the Salt Palace main arena for the Utah Education Association convention and our final concert in the Spring of 1980 with Robert Henderson, assistant conductor of the Utah Symphony, conducting. At all Granite Youth concerts I played with many people on the string bass, but for the Cottonwood Symphony Orchestra I was the only bass player. The adjudicator for our region orchestra festival, Ardene Watts who had been the assistant conductor of the Utah Symphony, said that I did very well on the string bass all by myself. And then at the end of the year I won a trophy for being the most improved senior that year. The string bass is an instrument in high demand. I was asked to accompany the Madrigals, which I was already a singer for. And after my mission, I was even invited by Mr. Chatelin to play with the Granite Youth Symphony for their Christmas concert in 1982. But I graciously declined that. I played one semester in 1983 in the BYU string orchestra. And then too many other demands took over my life.

Coming Tomorrow: My Brother Johnny

Granite Youth World Tour 1979 (Part 11 of 12)

The next day was the last day of our trip. It was time to head for home. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t taken any pictures on the trip. And I hadn’t seen the hot pots of Yellowstone yet, either. I took the camera and ran to see the hot pots. I stopped long enough to snap a picture of each and made it back to the bus just before it was ready to leave. I sat with Vera, but everyone was too exhausted to say much. We pulled into Salt Lake that afternoon. We thanked Dr. Worthen and Mr. Chatelin and our parents picked us up. That night Vera had arranged for she and I to see a movie with some Granite Youth friends. We saw Rocky II and that got us motivated to start training to run the Deseret News Marathon in a few weeks. I also found that I had a job waiting for me at Country Farm Sav Mor grocery store.

Granite Youth World Tour 1979 (Part 10 of 12)

The next day was the Fourth of July (for the United States) and we pulled into Yellowstone National Park. We stayed in the cabins near Old Faithful. We went in the school buses to a creek and went swimming. There was a tire swing hanging over the creek and it was sure nice and cool. On the way back a group of girls led us in singing many verses of Oh You Can’t Get To Heaven. One of the verses went like this:

Oh you can’t get to heaven,
In a Kleenex box,
Because the Lord don’t want,
No little snots!

That night we gave a concert at the Old Faithful Lodge for the tourists that were there. Our final number of the concert, was the Stars and Stripes Forever. All the string basses had little American flags that we placed on the top of our basses. We had played that number in most every concert on the tour. Now I was over-come with emotion. I was practically bawling and trying to play at the same time. I really lost it when all the brass instruments stood up – all of them my friends – and played the fanfare, Three Cheers For The Red White And Blue! Here I was back in the United States, I was with such a great group of friends, and we had been playing such good music. I feel the same way, and I think about that moment every time I hear The Stars and Stripes Forever. And all this was going to end. Sure I missed home and I missed my family. But this fabulous tour of the north-western part of the United States and Canada was coming to a close. We had our usual dance but most of the tourists were much older and didn’t want to attend a rock dance. And the rest of us were tired of dancing with each other. It seemed that most of the tour romances had fizzled and everyone was either just friends or on each others’ nerves. A large group of us went to a cabin and had an impromptu testimony meeting. Yes a bunch of sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen-year-olds can do very good things even when left to their own devices. It was actually one of the most spiritual testimony meetings of my life.

Granite Youth World Tour 1979 (Part 9 of 12)

The eight of us who stayed the night, were invited to eat with the family at their special Dominion Day family Sunday dinner. It was a delicious meal of smoked pork. The full-time missionaries came over and spent the afternoon laughing and joking with us. The next day we moved on. We were heading ever-southward and we stayed for the first time of our tour in a motel. The boys were on the second floor and the girls on the first floor. We enjoyed a day of swimming in the motel’s pool and we also went walking around town. Vera and I went to the grocery store and bought yogurt, milk, and bread. We had always been amazed in Canada that every product was labeled in English and French. I was also invited along with Vera and the other three oboe players to go eat at a pizza restaurant.
The next day we crossed over into the United States again and played at a community auditorium in Montana. All the guys had been involved in a contest to grow a beard. After two weeks nobody could tell that we were trying to grow anything. It was pathetic but thinking about it years later was very funny. That night the eight of us were back together again in another house. We didn’t have a dance that night so we went home and watched TV. The show wasn’t too bad but a few parts were somewhat questionable. The father of the host family came to check on us at the worst possible moment of the show. He didn’t know what to think about these Utah Mormons and their corrupt TV shows. He even asked us to change the channel but nobody did. He just went back upstairs shaking his head. With-in two years almost all of us would be on missions and I think we could have behaved a little better.

Granite Youth World Tour 1979 (Part 8 of 12)

The next day we were in Calgary, Alberta. It was a Saturday night and we played our concert and had our dance. The family we stayed with had a big basement which they let eight of us stay in. Like most teenaged guys, we stayed up late and watched Saturday Night Live. Then an ad for pizza came on the television. Jeff Archuletta (Yes, he became the father of David Archuletta) was suddenly excited about ordering a pizza. He memorized the number and called. They said they’d send it right over if we’d just give our address. None of us had any idea what the address was. Suddenly Jeff was up the stairs and knocking on the parents’ bedroom door.
He had to wake them up first with his pounding.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
The rest of us were downstairs and wondering if we’d be sleeping in the street that night.
“I just need to know your address.”
“Why/”
“So we can order a pizza to be delivered.”
Long pause.
Soon Jeff bounded down the stairs and told the pizza guy where to come. In twenty minutes a rap came at the door, probably waking up the family, again. But the pizza was good, and Jeff had ordered Sprite as well.
The next day was Sunday, July First. Dominion Day. The equivalent of the Fourth-of-July for Canada. After our late night pizza party we all started fasting because it was also Fast Sunday. Once again we swelled the numbers for the ward we attended that day. I got up to bear my testimony. With the usual non-tact of a naive teenager, I said. “Hi I’m one of the youth symphony people. I have enjoyed my stay in Canada. I think it’s a neat country. I like to think of Canada as just some additional United States to the north.” Wrong thing to say! When the counselor in the bishopric got up to conclude the meeting he used humor to diffuse any hurt feelings I might have caused. He said, “I too, like to think of the united states as some additional Canadian Provinces to the south of us!”

Granite Youth World Tour 1979 (Part 7 of 12)

We all had developed nicknames. I was “Bill Bass.” Another bass player was named Robert. He became “Bob Bass.” On what was a particularly long day of traveling, Robert was playing around with someone else’s guitar. He ended up playing the string bass part of the Brandenburg Concerto.
The next night we performed at the auditorium of a small community college. As our host family was taking Gil and I to the concert, we drove past an empty field. The man said, “You probably won’t believe this, and I think it’s top secret anyway, but in this empty field is an underground building that goes down fifteen stories. It houses all the communications for the Canadian Military.” Since we had entered Canada we included in our program, the song, O Canada! Of course my Grandmother was Canadian and she loved to hear that song when ever it was played. She must have passed her genes for liking “O Canada!” on to me because I loved it. Once I was in a downtown area of a Canadian city and I heard O Canada! Played on a bell-tower carillon. I could have cried, it was so beautiful.
We made our way to a town called Kamloops. It was a city very high up into Canada and the farthest north we would go. We stopped at an elementary school where we would have the concert later that night. Four of us got into the car of the family that would host us. In addition to Gil and I, there was Jeff Archuletta and Evan Bateman. It was a hot June, Friday afternoon. Sweat was dripping from our foreheads. The man said to us in a deadpan voice, “So, how do you like the frozen north land?” The next day we traveled through Banff National Park and the turquoise lakes with glacial silt were breathtaking. That night we stayed in some cabins at a youth camp. We had the opportunity to swim in the lake, but only one or two people actually did it because the water was cold. We ate dinner at the lodge and then returned to the cabins to change for the concert. The area was heavily forested and when Mr. Chatelin got up to lead the music, he found not his baton waiting on the music stand, but a small branch of a tree. He lead the first song with that branch just to show what a good sport he was.

Granite Youth World Tour 1979 (Part 6 of 12)

I was spending more time with Vera. My tour romance had failed and I went through a few days of depression, where I’d have sworn I’d never like a girl again.. Then in true teenaged boy fashion, I bounced back and was in love with just about any girl that smiled at me. But I sat with Vera on the bus. The other bus, which seemed more social than ours, had someone who was putting out a newsletter. One article was about Vera and I. “Bill and Vera Loveless are not having a tour romance. And don’t think they are married either, just because they have the same last name. They are brother and sister.” There was a viola player named Nola. She was known as Nola Consola. If a person was very sad about the breakup of their tour romance, they could go to Nola. She was Nola Consola who plays the viola.

Granite Youth World Tour 1979 (Part 5 of 12)

Our next concert was in the State of Washington, near the coast. I was amazed at how wooded and green everything was. We also stayed over the next night since it was Sunday and we didn’t travel on Sunday. We all went to Church that day. There were only one or two people who weren’t LDS, so Granite Youth payed for them to take a taxi to their churches. The ward we went to didn’t have any young men so we all attended the Seventies Quorum for Priesthood meeting. After Church, back at the host family’s home the father handed me several wooden pieces of a puzzle. He said, “Put it together into a perfect cube.” I fumbled with it for a few seconds and was about to hand it back to him saying, “I’m not very good at these things and I really don’t have the patience for them anyway.” Then, purely by coincidence, the puzzle fell into place and I was holding a perfect cube. I was utterly shocked. The man looked at me like I was some sort of puzzle guru. “How did you do that?” he said with great surprise and shock in his voice. “We’ve never been able to put that together!” That night, the family gathered to watch the movie, The Ten Commandments on television. Beforehand, they had taken the time with their little children to read the Bible and become familiar with the story before watching the movie.
The next day was Monday and we were back on our way. We rested for lunch and pulled up to a Dairy Queen. We were to use our own spending money to buy lunch. I proved that I could be trusted in situations like this and bought a huge strawberry Sundae for lunch, and an ice cream cone for dessert, followed up by a caramel sundae for good measure. That night we played a concert near Seattle. Since one of our songs was Finlandia, Mr. Chatelin commented that it was written about a country which was green and had lots of trees just like the State of Washington. It was a statement that only a person from dry, yellow Utah would make. The next morning we ate breakfast with the family who had put Gil and I up for the night. It was a rather rural area even though it was close to Seattle. We had fried eggs. The father complained grumpily, “From the look of these eggs I’d say our boys aren’t feeding the chickens like they’ve said they have been.” The eggs looked fine to me. But I was impressed that I was eating eggs that had recently been laid by a chicken and not purchased at a store. Later in the day we had a chance to see Downtown Seattle and the Space Needle. We also saw our second zoo of the tour. There was one building where animals walked in and out with the people. There was also a big tree with some of the roots that had grown up above the ground. These were nice to sit on after one was tired of walking around. The tall buildings of downtown Seattle looked on as we sat there and relaxed.

Granite Youth World Tour 1979 (Part 4 of 12)

The next morning we made a stop at the Boise Zoo and then we were off to LeGrand, Oregon which was the sight of our next concert and dance. Among the pieces of music we played were Finlandia, Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto Number Three, and a medley of Disney songs, only to name a few. Each night the concert was recorded and the best ones were combined into a tape that we were able to keep. (It was while listening to that tape a few years later that an aquaintance of mine, Rhonda Noveroske, decided that I wasn’t such a bad guy after all.)
It was at the dance that second night that I began my first “tour romance.” I met a violin player, and though I had only been to every rehearsal with her for the past three weeks, I had never really noticed her. We hit it off really quickly and we danced a few dances and then mostly talked. As was usually the case, I was instantly infatuated with any girl who showed the slightest signs of liking me. For the next few days I was with that girl almost every time I had a chance to be with her. However we never progressed to the point of actually sitting by each other on the bus. We were in different busses anyway. I guess if a tour romance really got serious, the couple could have appealed to Mr. Chatelin, our director, or to Dr. Worthen, to let them be assigned to the same bus. My tour romance broke up with me a few days later when she sent unspoken signals to me that she was tired of me always hanging around her. I did date her once, though, later in the next school year.
Just before the dance at that Oregon stake center, the mother of our host family came up to me and said, “We are going home now. We have a van in the parking lot on the west side. You can just drive that home to our house and let yourselves in.” Then she handed me the car keys! What trust!

Granite Youth World Tour 1979 (Part 3 of 12)

In the Granite Youth Symphony we practiced for three solid weeks and then we had two concerts in Salt Lake. One was at Liberty Park and the other at Granite High School where we had practiced. Dr. Ellis Worthen, the head of all music instruction in the Granite School District, spoke in the middle of the concert. He told about the good grades of the students in Granite Youth as well as the high cost of the students’ instruments. It was all very impressive even though my grade point average was below the average he mentioned and I didn’t own my instrument. I borrowed it from the school.
The next day we set off for the tour. We gathered in the parking lot of Granite High School. We took two school buses, numbers 278 and 279. Someone had painted flames coming out the sides of each bus at the very front. There was also a truck which helped haul luggage and instruments. In a few minutes we were off to the first leg of our journey, Boise Idaho. We were pretty quiet that first morning. We really hadn’t had time to develop friendships with anyone yet, except for the people we already knew. By the afternoon we pulled into Boise. We were then assigned to the people who would be our hosts for the first night. I was assigned to my room mate, Gil Bennett. He was a trombone player from Olympus High School. We were both so shy that we had never spoken to each other yet, even though we had known for a week that we’d be room mates. That first night there was just the two of us staying with a family. On other nights there would be four, six, or even eight of us. Gil was a year older than me. In five months or so I’d be attending his missionary farewell. We had spaghetti for dinner that first night. That must have been a private joke because it seemed everyone else had spaghetti too. Then the host family took us to the LDS stake center where we were to have the concert. We set up and then put it on. The concert went well. Each night that we did a concert, which was almost every night thereafter also went well. Many were in LDS stake centers. But others were in schools, community auditoriums, community colleges, and one was at the lodge of a youth camp. The itinerary was un relentless and I loved every minute of it!
It was also the costom to have a dance for the youth of the area after most of our concerts. First we played a classical music concert and then a few of the guys, members of the orchestra from Skyline High School, who also had their own rock band, provided the music for the dance. Their group was called Desolation and since we were going to Canada they all had T-shirts made up which said, “Desolation World Tour 1979.”

Granite Youth World Tour 1979 (Part 2 of 12)

I talked to my friend, Frank Stringham. He played the trombone and had been in Granite Youth before. Surely he would have made it. But he didn’t get a letter either. “I heard,” Frank said, “that the letters were delayed. They are being mailed out today.” So there was hope. The next day I was at a track meet. I looked up at the stands and Mom had just arrived. She held an envelope in her hand and she was shaking it excitedly in the air. I raced up the stadium stairs to where Mom was. I torn open the letter. I had made it! And my sister Vera had also made it!
The practices began each morning after the summer vacation started. We arrived at nine in the morning and we rehearsed until noon. One morning we had sectional rehearsals. The cellos and the basses went in a room and we were instructed by a cello player of the Utah Symphony. The other instruments were likewise instructed by Utah Symphony people. After practice, I went to help a man, Jesse Steele, who had been my seminary teacher in ninth grade. We were clearing out an old grocery store. It was a corner market in the Avenues area of Salt Lake. I discovered that living right next door was the cello player who had instructed us, that very morning. I was dirty and sweaty, but I said “hi” to him and pointed out that I knew who he was, that I had been in the sectional that he instructed that very morning. He asked what we were doing. “We are gutting this old grocery store and getting it ready for them to convert it into a laundromat.” He looked at the huge dumpster we had completely filled up. “Sometimes you have to do work like this to be able to support yourself playing music.”

Granite Youth World Tour 1979 (Part 1 of 12)

I had been playing the string bass for about three months when I decided I had progressed far enough that I could try out for the Granite Youth Symphony. This was a group of the very top high school musicians in the Granite School District. I had tried out once before, at the end of my ninth grade year, but of course at that time on the drums, and of course I did not make it, although I had played the drums for six years. Now with three months’ experience on the bass, I was going to try out again, on the bass. I thought it was somewhat of a long shot, but you couldn’t blame me for trying.
But what to try out with? We were supposed to have a few scales to demonstrate our ability to play them and that was no problem, but one also needed a solo piece to try out on. It took me a while but I found one. Then I drove to the try outs at Granite High School. When it was my turn I entered the orchestra room nervously and stood before the review panel. All those men looked at me glumly as if to say, “Go ahead kid, make our day!” They had me play my scales and then they asked me to play the musical selection I had. I put the single sheet of notebook music paper on the music stand in front of me. I began to play but first one of the men asked what it was I was playing. “It’s a song we sing in Concert Choir called Cantante Domino. It is the tenor part transcribed down two octaves for the string bass.”
“Who transcribed it for you?”
“I did.”
That alone probably impressed them that I could transcribe anything. And I sounded okay, too. When I was done another of the men said, “If you make it we’ll let you know in a letter by the seventeenth.”
The time for waiting was on. I waited and waited. I had several friends that had tried out For Granite Youth as well. They were extremely good in playing their instruments. They waited, too. The seventeenth arrived and still no letter. I felt pretty bad. I didn’t make it! My main reason for wanting to be in Granite Youth was the same reason why I did just about anything. I was motivated by girls. I knew the musical group was going on tour and I knew there were lots and lots of girls in the organization. The ones from Cottonwood High School that were already in, I liked. The prospect of seeing them every day for the first third of the summer was exciting to me. And I didn’t get a letter!

Music In High School (Part 6 of 6)

I had always had a fascination with writing music since I was in second grade when I had to study the lives of composers as an assignment for my piano lessons. Several times over the years I had dabbled in writing songs. I wrote those songs just by figuring everything out by ear though trial and error on the piano.. I did buy a book on music theory, and that helped me a little. In my senior year of high school, I had the opportunity to take formal instruction on how to write and arrange music. The class was a college level class called Music Theory. Years later, in college, I took a similar class, but by comparison the high school class was harder. There was myself and seven other students that took the class. The best part about it was the personalized instruction as well as the more intimate interaction between Mr. Frohm and the other students. We spent along time learning rules of musical harmony and writing our own melodies. We also took “dictation” every day. Mr. Frohm would play a melody on the piano and we had to write it down on musical staff paper with the exact notes, rhythm, time signature and key signature. I never really mastered that, but I did improve. Every so often we had tests. Mr. Frohm was notorious for his tests. Occasionally he’d throw in an extra question. Just before Christmas he included this one for extra credit: “Name, in order, and with proper spelling, all eight of Santa’s Reindeer.” At the end of the school year we had one final project. We had to write and harmonize a song and then have people come and play it. I wrote a quintet, with two violins, a viola, a cello, my sister Vera, playing the oboe, then switching to the English horn. I directed it as we recorded it and I passed it off. I thought it was very nice and the cello player said it was beautiful. Music Theory was a great experience for me.

Coming Tomorrow: Granite Youth World Tour 1979

Music In High School (Part 5 of 6)

In my orchestra class my senior year, we practiced the music for the musical, Guys And Dolls. Even though I wouldn’t be playing it, because I was in the chorus on stage, I learned it. Mr. Frohm asked a ninth grade string bass player to fill the void in the actual performances. However, I really wanted to be a part of the orchestra. And I figured out how to do it. There is a part of the show where the action moved to Havana, Cuba. There was a long stretch of time when the mission group, my part, was not on stage. On one of the nights of the actual performance, I went down below the stage, had my black suit hanging there, changed into it, entered through the door to the orchestra pit, picked up a string bass which was right by the door, and began playing. Mr. Frohm looked up and was very surprised to see me there. But a smile on his face showed that he also thought it was funny. So I had the distinction of playing in the orchestra and acting and singing on the stage in the same production. On the last night we had a party at the home of one of the leads in the musical.

Music In High School (Part 4 of 6)

The year before, when we were practicing for Brigadoon I noticed that a girl was playing the only string bass in the orchestra. I knew that she had been a long-time cello player. So I figured, correctly, that the orchestra needed bass players. I had long wanted to play a more musical instrument than the drums. Now was my chance. I probably could have asked Mr. Frohm, the orchestra director if I could start learning to play the bass. But the year before I had quit playing the drums rather abruptly and so I wasn’t on the best of terms with him. I felt like I had to learn on my own and then ask him. The only way I knew how to start learning the string bass was to make one. So I looked carefully at the string bass in the orchestra pit while we were rehearsing Brigadoon. I drew on paper what I could and then drew out a string bass that I could make myself.
On a Saturday morning I cut it all out from old plywood using a skill saw. I hammered it all together and it was really a big upright rectangular box. I cut out scrolly looking “F” holes and it really reverberated well when I knocked on it. Because of it’s shape, it stood up by itself. I attached the neck. I had carved this out of a piece of wood from our roof when we had re-done it a few summers before. It still had tar on it in a few places, but I carved that off. The scroll was not as detailed as I would have liked, but I was very limited with what I could do. The tuning knobs were tinker toys I had robbed out of my little brothers’ toy box. For strings, I checked into buying some real string bass strings, but the cost made me use electrical wire instead. When it was all done I went to Summerhays music store and bought a beginning string bass book and learned how to play it. At first I used a violin bow to play it, but this didn’t work too well on those electrical wire strings, so I just plucked the strings. I was able to tune the strings to their proper pitches. After I had practiced for several weeks I felt I was ready to ask Mr. Frohm if I could transfer into the orchestra. I put off talking to him until the middle of January just before the semester change. Finally I decided to do it. I was very nervous. I hadn’t even told my family what my real intentions were for building that bass. I caught Mr. Frohm in the small hall-way which separated the orchestra room from the chorus room. I said, “Mr. Frohm.”
He turned to look at me. I knew exactly what he was thinking: “This is that jerk drummer who quit last year!”
I had practiced what to say many times over. This was even more scary than asking a girl out on a date! “I am interested in learning to play the string bass. And I was so interested that I even made a bass.”
At this point Mr. Frohm’s eyes raised up. He was intrigued. I felt encouraged, and continued, “I’ve been learning on that but it doesn’t work too well with a bow. I have to pluck it.”
Almost snobbishly he said, “You mean pizzicato? “ This was the first thing Mr. Frohm said. And then he said, “Would you like to transfer into orchestra next semester?”
By the end of the day I had to call my Mom to pick me up from school because I had a real string bass to take home. Mr Frohm also signed my card to transfer into orchestra and I felt so proud when I turned that card in and it said SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA on it.
The next week was my first day of class. We started playing Mendelssohn’s violin concerto. Despite all my practicing I only knew were B flat was, so I only played that note when it came along in the music. But very quickly I improved.

Music In High School (Part 3 of 6)

Starting with my Junior year I was in the chorus of the school musical. It was the fall of 1978 and we put on the musical Brigadoon. That was a magical time for me. Great friends and great music combined together to put on a fine production. We started by having chorus practices at 5:00 A.M. every school day. Then later, we practiced on stage after school and sometimes all day on Saturday. I was taught to dance. Yes, me dancing! And all the guys had to wear kilts. The opening scene was a town square with everybody on stage singing and dancing. There was a girl in the chorus that I wanted to ask to upcoming senior prom. We put the musical on four times. Once for the area elementary school students and three times in the evening for paying people to come see it. On one of those nights just as we were going off stage, I handed a note to that girl as she was going off the other direction. It turned out that she was already going to the dance with someone else, but I dated her a few times after that. On the final night of the musical at the very end, we ran off the stage and down the hall-way to the dressing rooms as we were directed. I was so excited I was running and jumping.
The next year’s musical was fun and enjoyable. We did Guys and Dolls. I had never seen or heard of the musical before so fortunately we watched a movie of it. I was in the chorus but I had tried out for one of the main parts. I didn’t make that, though, and it’s probably just as well. I don’t know how I would have been any busier during my Senior year than I already was. I was in the mission group. We started out with our early morning practices. Later these were after school and then we put it on. I was made up to be an old man with make up and also learning to walk that way. We put on another play after the musical where I also played an old man. That character became so much a part of me that even months later I gave a talk in Church and Mom said that as I got up and down from the pulpit I still looked very much like an old man.
There is a scene where the dancing girls had to do a striptease, or act like they were doing it. The stage crew had built a runway that went out into the audience, just for this scene. Our theatrical director wanted some guys to go gawk in front of them and cheer while they were doing their act. In the actual show this was to be done by the guys who played the gamblers, but they were rehearsing another part so the regular chorus guys were asked to go up. Both “guys” and “dolls” were of high moral standards so everyone was embarrassed and mortified by this act. But we all realized it was all in fun.

Music In High School (Part 2 of 6)

Another time we had an early morning appointment to sing as the Madrigals at a breakfast held at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake. It was on a morning of a day off from school. We sang and then they paid us. We all went to breakfast ourselves (at McDonald's) with the money we earned.
Even though we had our informal activities after performances, we also had parties. We had these several times a year and they were at someone’s house for Madrigals or Jazz Choir, or they were at an LDS ward house gym as in the case of Concert Choir parities. At the parties we played big group games that I was leery of at first, but proved to be events of side-splitting hilarity in a few moments. One game in particular was called "Hah" Everyone laid on the floor and rested their head on another person's stomach. (This was not a good game for an un-chaperoned party, but fortunately nothing else happened.) We had a long chain of people like this. Everyone had a head on their stomach. Then you started saying "hah" really using the great singer's stomach muscles. The other person's head would bob up and down. This would cause you to giggle, and that just made the other person’s head bobble faster. It wasn't long before everyone was laughing hysterically. Another game we played was called "Pass the Body." Everyone took off their shoes and sat in a big circle with their legs straight and their stocking feet placed in the center. Then one person stood in the center wedged into all the feet. That person placed his hands crossed over his chest and fell forward. The people of the circle pushed him up with their hands and he fell over to some other people to push up.

Music In High School (Part 1 of 6)

High School was a wealth of opportunity as far as music went. My sophomore year I was in the band and also one of the few sophomores in the Junior Choir. Some friends suggested I join a club called Sub Debs and Squires. This club went to Utah Symphony concerts at drastically reduced rates. We also got to go to special rehearsals of the Utah Symphony and even have private meetings with Robert Henderson, the assistant conductor. One very nice thing about Sub Debs and Squires was that it was made up mostly of girls. Pretty girls! Pretty girls that liked guys who liked classical music!
My sophomore year when I was in the Junior Choir, I sang bass. My junior year, I was in the Concert Choir with all the friends I had made in Junior Choir. I sang second tenor. I was also in the Jazz Choir. As a senior I was in the Concert Choir as well as the most elite singing group of the school, The Madrigals. My voice had moved up to first tenor. Somehow I thought when you grew older your voice got deeper. I was just the opposite.
Cottonwood was on an eight period block schedule. That meant we had eight classes, but only attended four a day. On even days we had 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th periods, while on odd days we went to 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th periods. When I was a senior, I had madrigals second period on even days and Concert Choir 5th period, on odd days. Mr. Lee our director got a little upset at me because I kept falling asleep in Concert Choir. I still sang in my sleep though. You can understand why I kept falling asleep. In addition to the groups I mentioned, I also played the string bass in the school orchestra as well as the Granite Youth Symphony. I was in the school musical, on the track team, and I was the captain of the Cross County running team. Add to this, working until ten, three nights a week at the grocery store and I wonder why I didn't fall asleep more often.
It wasn't just being in these choirs that mattered, it was the association with great people that did. Although all the rehearsals for these choirs were during school hours, as regular classes, we had our performances which were usually at night. There was a lot of car pooling to and from the places we sang at. After a performance we sometimes did something else as a group or as just a few friends.
Once we went to Pipes and Pizza after a performance. Several people who drove announced they were going there so anyone who wanted to, could come along. I was riding in Roger Lobrot's car. I was sitting next to Roger who drove a 1960's model Chevy Malibu. We drove right next to another car with our friends in it. Quickly, Roger told me to take a hold of the steering wheel and drive. I did so, just as Roger popped out the driver's side window and began rowing like he was in a boat.

My Brother Christopher (Part 9 of 9)

When Christopher was a few years older he was in-turn an older brother. Another baby boy, Johnny, had joined us. One day Christopher was explaining the LDS doctrine that man could become like God, to the two-year-old Johnny. He said, “When I become a Heavenly Father I will create a world where every kid will have a pet dinosaur.” Christopher was fascinated by dinosaurs. He was probably too young to remember, but we had gone on a family vacation to Utah’s Dinosaur National Monument when he was very small. This area was affectionately called by everyone Dinosaurland. When Christopher was in elementary school in second or third grade he even wrote a little book of fiction called “There’s a Hole in Dinosaurland.”
As Christopher grew up he never lost the spirit of having fun that he possessed as a little child. And he always did things in his own original way. I had tried to do things differently that others did them, but I always seemed a little forced. Christopher did things in a naturally funny and weird way. My sister Karen was babysitting a girl who was in Christopher’s school class. The girl confessed that she was in love with him. Karen asked why and the girl said, “It’s because he’s so weird!” That’s the way it is with Christopher. We all love his unique and original approach to life.

Coming Tomorrow: Music In High School

My Brother Christopher (Part 8 of 9)

We have a cousin named Davy who was born about the same time as Christopher. Once Mom took Christopher to the same Church building for Relief Society as Davy’s family went to. As Christopher entered the nursery room, Davy’s eyes brightened and he said, “Fur-fur!” Davy’s Dad has called Christopher by that name ever since. One Sunday I was assigned to give a talk in Church about how I was preparing to go on a mission. One of the ways I brought out was financial preparation. I didn’t know how to show my bank savings account so I got Christopher to help me. I was at the microphone up at the pulpit. Part-way through my talk I said, “I’d like my brother, Christopher to come up here for a minute.” My family was on the second row of the chapel and Christopher knew that was his cue. He quickly moved through the others seated by him. Just before he got to the end of the bench, one of my sisters handed him a large Planters Peanuts bottle, with the label taken off and a homemade paper label glued on. The few coins in it jingled as he bounced along. With pride he carried the bottle up to the stand. He climbed the stairs up to the stand and came up to where I was standing at the pulpit. I picked him up and asked hin, “What is this bottle for?”
“Mission,” Christopher said into the microphone with as much seriousness as he could muster.
“What are you putting in here, Christopher?” I said.
“Money,” Christopher said.
“What is this bank for?” I asked.
“Mission,” Christopher said again. Then I put him down and he bounced back down the stairs and back to the family bench.

My Brother Christopher (Part 7 of 9)

We had an area of our yard at the side of our house that was for me to build huts and other things. There were lots of old boards as well as broken radio equipment Dad had put there. Over the years it had been the scene of underground huts, wooden towers, pretend space capsules, as well as deep holes. In fact, we called it, “The Hole.” When Christopher was two, I had built a neat hut with a wooden floor, wooden walls, and a roof. (Other huts I had built didn’t have quite all those features.) The hut had some radio equipment in it and it even had a radio operator’s microphone. Christopher and I would play for hours in that hut. We pretended that our station number was CZ6 and it was heartening to hear Christopher, who could barely talk, holding the microphone to his mouth and saying, “C-Z-6. C-Z-6.” Those were crisp fall afternoons and Christopher wore a little blue furry coat with a hood. The image I have in my memory of him and I playing together in that hut will always be with me.

My Brother Christopher (Part 6 of 9)

Dad was learning Spanish and he was always studying and taking advantage of every moment to learn a vocabulary word. We all supported him in that and we were proud that he took a Spanish class at Westminster College. Christopher had a book called, “Ike and the Ilk” about a boy and a monster. One night Dad was studying Spanish at the kitchen table. Christopher was supposed to be in bed because it was quite late. Even he was proud of Dad for learning Spanish. He watched Dad for a few minutes and then announced, “I know how to say Milk in Spanish.” Dad looked at him.
“Ilk,” he said. Dad wasn’t too amused since Christopher was supposed to be in bed, but I thought it was a very cute thing for Christopher to say.