Pappa Hardy's Musings on Life.

I had a disturbing conversation with a friend and business associate the other day. We were discussing the disturbing state of affairs in the United States and the World with regard to crime, drug abuse, and particularly, the safety of our homes and our children. That thought immediately took me back to my childhood and my experiences.

I remember days of playing outside during the summer, and the winter, and not having a care in the world. I didn’t have a care, and while I am sure my parents had cares, they really didn’t need to worry much about the safety of their children playing in the neighborhood. Those were days of playing baseball from morning till night. Those were days of building snow forts and having neighborhood snow ball fights for control of the imaginary turf states that we held. Those were days of not worrying about strangers coming along and either kidnapping us children, or of trying to get us to use substances that would be bad for our health. When I became older, I knew that there were bad things in the world, but my neighborhood and my home were a fortress held inviolate and bad things of the world did not find me there.

How times have changed. I remember the first fear in Detroit in the 1980s, where we lived in a neighborhood that had drug houses across the street, and where we had a man stop and try to get our daughter to get into a car. It was only the speedy reaction of my wife that saved our daughter in that instance.

We had a respite in Cheyenne, when our children could go out and play and we didn’t feel the pressure that we felt in the “big city”. We moved to idyllic Payson, and also heard the screams and yells of children other than ours now, playing in the neighborhood, and it was music to our ears even though our young kids by then were grown and gone.

However, not all is well in Zion, or anywhere else for that matter. We also hear of a huge meth problem, or drug use going rampant amongst even the “good kids”. Neighborhood homes are broken into randomly, probably by friends of neighborhood kids who may have a drug habit to feed. You can’t leave your garage door open anymore for fear that a lawn mower, a car, or something else may disappear. You have to be careful about the appearance of your house. You can’t let you daily living habits signal to “bad” people the times that you and your aren’t at home. You have to worry about your house getting broken into, and putting in security systems that may or may not secure your home. What have we allowed this world to come to. The big problem is, we could trade our freedoms for guarantees of security from the government. If we do so, we will have neither security nor freedom. We indeed live in perilous times, and other than convincing the world to live according to the precepts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I have no idea how we can cure the world of this disease. Yes, if fear that there is “No Safety for our Children”.

For some reason that must be in our race subconscious, Bacon tastes better if you eat it amongst the pines, or the tress, or at least somewhere in the great outdoors. I think we as a people enjoy being out amongst nature. I know I do, and it tastes even better if you are having a nice conversation with a group of people that you care about. Being a loner, in the sterile inner city environment does not afford as nice an experience than when you are among friends.

My two oldest sons are fans of a band called Barenaked Ladies. My oldest son in particular really loves this band. While I knew of the band, and had heard some of their songs, I really didn’t see anything special about them. As we all grow older, we tend to take new things and not embrace them, simply because we have too much emotional baggage invested in the old, and to bring new in takes a lot of effort and energy.

However, I sometimes eventually will move on. Recently I started to listen more to this group and have come to find I like them. In fact, I claim a father’s privilege of having my oldest son take me to the next BNL concert that occurs in Utah, if in fact he comes to attend. The group has catchy lyrics and tunes, and I believe they would be enjoyable in a concert setting. Come on Chris, break loose and take your old dad.

My IPAQ is dying. I have usually seemed to go through PDAs really quick for about a couple of years, but for the last 5 years or so my IPAQ has functioned adequately. Now, it is dying. I am having trouble with the power function and I fear that it is going the way of all good things.

I am sorry for the death of my old friend. It has served me well. I am not quite sure what I am going to do without it. I must now think of replacing it. I am not quite sure that is a correct thing to do, but I don’t know how I otherwise will live without out. I feel so badly about the death of an old friend.

Who in the heck is HIF? Well, he was our cat Snowball. I named him HIF because he reminded me so much of an Emperor, of the Lord of the Universe. I called him HIF because that means his Imperial Furriness. He strutted around like he owned the world and this family, which of course he did.

He was always in the middle of the steps if I wanted to go out into the garage. He was always demanding that we feed him, and it had to happen before we left for work or did something much less important. After all, a cat needs to be fed in the morning so he can get a lot of sleep to digest his food before he went out for his walks in the evening.

He was always shedding or causing hair to accumulate in the garage where he lived. Why, didn’t we humans need something to keep us warm at night or to cover our clothes so they wouldn’t get dirty from dirt? Yes, he was always thinking of our welfare. The question was, whose welfare was the most important.

He was always there to greet me when I would come home from work, not because he wanted to make sure that I had a pair of slippers on my feet or my dinner cooked, or some other such nicety. No, he wanted to be fed again, or petted, or whatever needed to be done to take care of his needs.

I miss my cat. He was a good cat and I grieve for him.

Those of us that are somewhat older than the majority of the membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints remember Elder LeGrande Richards of the Quorum of the Twelve. He was a great man. He was a former Presiding Bishop of the church, and his roots in the church ran way deep.

No one who ever heard him speak will soon forget him. He would wind up (with no written talk in front of him) and get going, almost screaming out the words with force as he bore his testimony regarding the great latter day work of the church. He was an incredible man of great testimony. Those of us who knew of him, knew that we loved him. The church is a poorer place due to the lack of his testimony now.

In my life I have seen lots of changes. As I grew up, I can remember party lines. We had one phone in our home, and when one picked up the phone, you had to listen to make sure that “another party”, another family, wasn’t using the phone. We had three TV Channels and if the President of the United States was giving an address, there was no other options in watching TV. You watched the President.

Now, when strolling through a mall, you see about every other person strolling along with a cell phone to their ear. Once, we hardly could communicate on one phone on a party line, and now, everyone has their own private phone and can keep in touch anytime, anywhere. I wonder sometimes when life was better, easier, and less stressful. It is nice sometimes being in touch, but at times, I think I would prefer that we be out of touch.

A lot of years ago we lived in student housing at the University of Utah. It was our second encounter with student housing, in a place called the East University Village. While living in that student housing complex we lived in a branch of our church called the University 2nd Branch. It was a branch consisting of primarily graduate students and their families. We were all young, all pretty much in the same boat, and we pretty much were all poor.

Well, approximately 2 months ago I was contacted by a member of that branch about attending a Branch reunion, 30 years after the Branch President, George Pingree, was released. Being the curious sort, I convinced Bonnie we should go. Man, what an experience. First, we were the only ones from the years 1977 to 1978 at the reunion. Second, most of the people who were there were long time members of the branch, us being there only one year.

It was a different experience. We knew no one, and no one knew us. The one thing that was interesting was one lady came up to us, called us friends, and then realized that she never knew us. There was some interesting backpedaling going on. I thought we would know somebody, but we knew no one. This was the first time since we have gone to reunions that we came up with a big zero. It was good seeing our old Branch President (they had no clue who we were) but that was it.

Why is it that I just am getting more and more tired all of the time. I am sure that has something to do with my health situation, but I also fear that old age is creeping up on me. I was in a family get together the other night. It was pretty late, and while I was enjoying the people we were talking with, I found myself nodding off and out of the conversation all together. I could not keep my eyes open at all. It was embarrassing for me because I really wanted to listen in and be part of the conversation. Instead, I gave up and went to bed. More and more, if I am just sitting rather than moving, I am falling asleep. That is what I have seen my parents doing a lot of. Now, I am becoming my parents.

I was looking at my blog recently and read an entry that talked about how much weight I had lost. I was a Shadow of My Former Self. Well, that is no longer the case. I am fighting a battle of epic proportions, and the portions that I am eating don’t help me out.

I have gained back some 60 pounds from my former shadow self. I am vowing to fight the good fight and lose the good weight. I will once again be a Shadow. I just need to remember that I have to walk the walk, rather than talk the talk.