CRAIG JESSOP RESIGNS FROM CHOIR

Not living in the SL Valley, I miss out on many Church related news items. I just learned that Jessop quit the Tab Choir abruptly a few weeks ago. He missed 1 or 2 practices, and a Sunday broadcast then on the next Tuesday practice, he walked in late, read a prepared letter and left! Not the way you expect a Professional to leave his position.
It is interesting him leaving so close to Pes. Hinckley's death. He served almost from the first of Pres. Hinckley's service as Prophet.
Based on the manner he left, I can only surmise that something traumatic has taken place in his personal or professional life.
What, if anything, does anyone know about this event?
Dad

BEN MAKES IT ... TO SECOND BASE AT LEAST!

Here he is, ready to make the run into home, if only one of his team mates can get a hit.  Did they?  Sorry, I can't remember.

MORE BASEBALL

Here is Lenny behind the plate.  He was the only one crazy enough to catch Aaron.  Aaron threw a pretty mean fastball.  I wouldn't let him try to pitch curves.  Too hard on the arm at that age. Lenny also had to dodge the batters and foul balls.  Next: Will Ben make it home???

ENGLISH WELL DONE

You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out,
but you gotta suit up for 'em all.

J. Askenberg

DIVERSE VERSE

DOG'S DEATH, by John Updike

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.

Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn

To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor

And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog!  Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction

The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.

As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin

And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed

And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngsters bed.

We found her twisted and limp but still alive.

In the car to the vet's, on my lap she tried

To bite my hand and died.  I stroked her warm fur

And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.

Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,

Nevertheless she sank and, stiffened, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,

Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame

Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor

To a newspaper carelessly left there.  Good dog.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Bail out the poor speculators? Bail out the banks and mortgage companies? As you read and listen to the pundits and others discuss how to ease the U.S. out of the recession we are most certainly in, note how easily they talk about transfering taxpayer's money to private people and companies.

Very few talk about prosecuting these people for the scams they either perpetrated or participated in.

In our country more and more often we see corporate welfare spreading. The bigger and more influential the company the more taxpayer largess flows into it. The fat cats want to and are becoming very successful in PRIVATIZING THEIR PROFITS AND SOCIALIZING THEIR DEBTS.

However, ask if we could spend some taxpayer dollars to provide health care for our citizens and the name calling rises to a crescendo. Socialist! Communist!

Now, I'm not sure if we should go down the road Canada has gone or other socialized medicine plans. But don't you find it ironic that the same people who clamor desparately for help to ease the pain of this recession also shout down socialized medicine? I guess it depends on who's "ox is being gored".

INTO THE WILD

We watched a great movie the other night.  Well directed by Sean Penn.  It is a true story about a young man who grew up in an abusive family.  He graduates from college, gives his money for grad school to a charity and goes on an Odyssey, through the American West.  His goal is to go to Alaska and live in the wild.  But on the way he meets, associates with and touches the lives of several people.  He finds in many of them the family he never had, but persists in his dream of going into the wild.  In the end he finds that he had found what he was looking for in the loving relationships he nurtured on his travels.

In life, I think, we all tend to search for something better, often to find that the "better" was right in front of us all the while.  We humans are always planning, planning, and plan we must.  I know why I love dogs.  They live in the moment.  All there all the time.  They don't look back and they don't look too much into the future.  I think that attitude is what the Savior meant when he said, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow ...".  Like in the song, Live Like You Are Dying.  Because in truth we all are.

More Gomma Gooma Men

Here's the rest of the fearsome foursome.  Q wasn't on scene yet.  We couldn't afford a swimsuit for J.  He was deep into the Gomma Gooma world when this picture was taken.  Trance would be a good description.  I think that is the A Team swim patch on Ben's arm??

Gomma Goomma Men

When living in Albuquerque we often went up to the Jemez Wilderness.  Great rocks to climb on and a clear mountain stream in which to escape the heat.  The Boys loved it and played endless games.  They never wanted to leave.  

Obama and Reverend Wright

I believe Obama's 20 year association with the Rev. Wright reveals more about Obama than most of the media would like to admit.  Indeed, reveals more about Obama than he wants to admit.

Before I get into my concerns let me say that I will not go into the details of Wright's comments.  At least a representative smattering of his "sermons" are, by now, out there for all to see and hear.  Suffice it to say they are hateful, racially bigoted, full or half-truths, and outright lies. 

There are now 2 well-documented incidents that open a small window into Obama's soul:

* Michelle Obama's comment that for, "the first time" in her adult life," she was proud of America.

* The 20 year relationship Obama and his family have with Rev. Wright, their avowed "Spiritual Leader".

Let me admit that I can agree that you sometimes must tolerate a less that savory blood relative.  Even in that case, most people will try to limit contact to as little as possible. However, the Rev. Wright is not Obama's uncle as much as he would like us to buy that analogy.  Obama has freely subjected himself and his family to this man for 20 years.

We are now supposed to believe that this man, Wright, has been Obama and his family's "Spiritual Leader" for 20 years, yet Obama condemns the hate and lies that this man spews regularly?  Further, Obama wants us to believe that he was unaware until recently of Wright's venom.  I'm sorry, this stretches credibility beyond all hope of reconciliation.

To some extent we are whom we chose to associate with.  It is not normal for a person to freely associate with someone who has strongly held beliefs that are considered detestable and condemnable by that person.  It is even less common for that person to hold the person in such high regard as to call him, "my Spiritual Leader".

Let me put this another way.  Would you believe me if I said that I condemned and deplored the racist and bigoted views of David Duke if I had associated intimately with David Duke, took my family to hear his speeches nearly every week for 20 years, and considered him my spiritual advisor?

Where do you think Michelle got the view she had about her country?  Could 20 years of listening to Wright spout his garbage create that warped view of history?

Senator Obama is not being honest with the American people.

MORE ON THE HALLOWEEN PICTURE

I remembered some more about that picture after visiting with J.  The Hippy movement was very new in 1965 and even more mysterious to us sheltered BYU students.  The closest thing we could come to dressing like hippies was the Beatnik style that we knew about from the 50's and early 60's.  The Hippy style evolved into tie dyed shirts and flowery dresses for the girls.  No makeup, etc.  The guys had long hair and really grungy clothes.  

Anyway, we thought we were cool and on the edge.  Especially on a campus that did not allow blue jeans, hair over the ears, T Shirts, beards or mustaches.  And girls had to wear dresses, even on the coldest of mornings.  Of course the dresses had to touch the floor if someone in authority had you kneel on the floor.  No pants except at the bowling alley in the new Wilkinson Center.  And it goes without saying that the Center had no pool tables.  An instrument of the Devil for corrupting the youth.  

The University had no rules against playing cards, but Joseph Fielding Smith had written that spotted playing cards were of the Devil.  So my room mates and I would sit out on the front porch of the Boyack House where we lived (near the site of the present Marriott Center) and play Hearts.  Our poor Dorm Resident would come by regularly  and ask us fervently to play the cards indoors as it upset the faculty that drove by. We continued to play on the porch.  When it got too cold to play outdoors we played in front of the picture window with the curtain open.  We were rowdy boys.

DIVERSE VERSE

SONNET XXV

Let those who are in favor with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
And in Themselves their price lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foil'd,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
Then happy I, that love and am beloved
Where I may not remove nor be removed.

William Shakespeare

WHERE AM I AND WHY AM I IN THIS HANDBASKET?

My aim is to have several, call them, departments on my blog. I'll try to display a picture about once a week, with a short commentary. That's the Window Into the Past. Also the blog will have a quote about once a week; sometimes deep, most times not so deep. Once in a while, a bit of poetry that I find enlightening. And ever so often a discussion on life, past, present, or future. I'll review a book occasionally too.
And I hope you will feel free to comment or create a discussion on any of them. I haven't yet figured out how to have a comment placed below a picture so feel free as J did to just drop it in anywhere. Maybe soon I'll figure it out.

BOOKS

Comanchee Moon, by Larry McMurtrey is the second in the Lonesome Dove Trilogy. Set in pre and post Civil War Texas, the book introduces the reader to the Lonesome Dove heroes, Gus and Woodrow in their middle years. You'll get to know Maggie and wonder, again, why Woodrow didn't marry her. And you will confirm your understanding of why Clara doesn't marry Gus. McMurtrey presents both the White settlers and the Native Americans honestly with no hint of patronizing. He can portray the bravery of the Comanchee Warrior culture and their savagery with equal honesty. The whites with their sanctimonious view of the "savages" are portrayed along with their own materialistic society. Read it. If you've read Lonesome Dove, you will fall in love with Gus and Woodrow all over again. And you will find some new interesting and lovable characters. You will love Fancy Shoes!

ENGLISH DONE WELL

"I wish it need not have happened in my time." Said Frodo. "So do I," Said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

JRR Tolkien - The Fellowship of the Ring