Pappa Hardy’s Musings on Life.

We live in an extremely stressful time. Normally, it is stressful to make a day to day living. You have concerns about being laid off, of having enough to live on. You worry about your children, and whether they will be healthy and happy. You worry about uncontrollable things such as the weather and natural disasters. It just seems like there is always something to worry about. I do believe we need to get away from this stress, and make our lives easier. Of course, that is easier said than done.

Stress is killing us. It is causing our health to deteriorate. I think I am a prime example of that. I believe that it contributes to our cultures tendency to overeat. We need to make sure we stop our stressing out on things.

Last night I sat next to Congressman Jason Chaffetz of the Third Congressional District of the State of Utah. In college, I roomed with Robert Bishop, Congressman of the First Congressional District of Utah. The experiences have taught me a few things.

When I was much younger, I thought of these people as heroes of the largest order, larger than life, and as people I would never be equal too. Now having had the opportunity to know people who have influence in our country, I have come to know that they are human, just like me.

They are human, but they are good people because they care for and love this land the same way that I do. They are human because they are subject to the same foibles that we all are, but they doing their best to do what is best for this country. I think it is great that we can have the opportunity to know these people and share with them our love for our country. It was a wonderful opportunity for me. It was our annual Chamber Installation Banquet, and I enjoyed hearing about how they make a difference. I can make a difference too.

When you drive a car somewhere, hoping that you will get their close to the agreed upon time, you will inevitably be lucky if you arrive there within 15 minutes of the planned time. This is greatly aggravated if you are driving cross country for 500 to 1000 miles. Yet, you get on a cruise ship and the ship will leave port within 10 minutes of its scheduled departure time, and will arrive at the destination almost to the minute. How in the heck is this possible. Well, one reason is the use of GPS systems and computers. With computers able to link into a GPS satellite to locate itself on the face of the earth, and then have a computer that can quickly calculate the amount of speed, directional control, and outside forces like wind, it makes it so the computer can drive the ship much better than the old seaman used to, or us car drivers can do now. It is amazing to have the Captain tell you we will be docking at 7am in the morning, and then actually do what they tell you the ship will do.

There are days when life is tough, when things have become such a challenge that you wonder if you can handle it any more. It is on those kind of days that you hope for a safe port, a place where you can go and have all the hurts taken care of and the concern washed away.

For me, that was the Old Homestead, a house on 97 Dixie Street where my parents lived. I could go there, sit amongst familiar walls and know that I was home and that I would be taken care of. There are places like that for all of us. I am grateful for parents who made a home for me that gave me a place of refuge where I could be loved and taken care of.

Today, as I fought a freeway of ice and danger, I longed for the old homestead. I longed to be able to go there and have the fear of the unknown taken away and my feelings and concerns soothed and blown away. I longed for a simpler time when mom and dad would take care of it all. I longed for the Old Homestead.

I hadn’t been in the ocean for a long time. It has been years since I have taken the opportunity to get in the water at a beach and experience the action of waves. I suppose that most of the reason for that is my getting older and older, and the fact that you lose some of your adventuresome experience you have as a younger person. I also know part of the reason was because the water is cold. Well, that is not the reason in the warm Caribbean waters of St. Marteen. We had the opportunity recently to visit the Orient Beach in French portion of St. Marteen. There was a danger we might see nude bathers there, but on this day that was not a problem.

However, the one thing I had forgotten about doing waves and the ocean is that when a wave hits you, that it is a wall of water of substantial force both because of the mass of the water hitting you, and because of the intense tug back and forth. The sand on that beach was also so fine that it literally washed away the sand underneath your feet. One time in particular it hit me so hard that it knocked me off of my feet and almost put my head under. I did get some salt water in my mouth, and yes, it is salty. I will never forget that wall of water throwing me right on my back.

1-I actually spent a night in a county jail at age 18 though I never committed any crime or was ever accused or convicted of a crime.
2-I once ran for city council and placed 7 out of 8, which eliminated me from the General Election. A similar incident occurred in Junior High School, when I placed 5th out of 5 in the election for Class President and didn’t advance to the primary election. Despite that, I love politics.
3-I once accidentally dropped a tape recorder out of a train door while the train was moving 20 miles an hour, and almost jumped out of the train door into a rice paddy to retrieve it.
4-I used to love to toss baseballs up into the dark air at night, guessing when and where I would see them come down out of the dark. I lost one of my front teeth because of that. Guess what I don’t do for fun anymore.
5-I once was a baseball star in little league baseball. I pitched the game that won the city championship, which was the exact fulfillment almost play by play of a dream I had experienced more than a year earlier.
6-I listened on a radio in a tent, during the 9th National Boy Scout Jamboree, when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. I have never looked at the moon the same again.
7-I watched the Space Shuttle Challenger explode live on network TV in 1987. Despite that trauma, had they asked for volunteers to ride into orbit the next day on the shuttle I would have done it.
8-I always wanted to fly jet fighters and dreamed about being an astronaut, quitting that dream only after I found out that I had to have uncorrected vision in order to apply.
9-I was a Mathematics Sterling Scholar in High School. I didn’t last more than a year in college as a math major and use no advanced math in my current job.
10-In college, I was on campus on the day four students were shot and killed at Kent State University and witnessed the burning down of several campus buildings at the University of Utah as the result of that event. On that day, I was proud to be an American.
11-I have seen each one of my 5 children born into this world. It was the most incredible experience I have ever had. I consider each and every one of them to be more intelligent and accomplished than I am.
12-I value my testimony of Jesus Christ more than anything else in the world.
13-I lived one of my most important dreams when I visited Kennedy Space Center in 1999.
14-I am married to the World’s Greatest cook.
15-I always wanted to be a space explorer, yet ended up working as a commercial loan officer in a bank. Go figure.
16-It has always been my dream to be an explorer. I love to travel and see new places and experience new things.
17-I speak Mandarin Chinese but you wouldn’t know it now.
18-My grandmother was Miss Utah.
19-My dad was a High School Basketball Star.
20-I have sat in the “Big House” on many occasions and watched the University of Michigan play football.
21-I roomed with a currently serving Congressman during our first year of college.
22-I consider Taiwan to be my second home and the Ho Family of China as my “other” family.
23-My wife is my best friend.
24-I love to write. I have currently written over 30 volumes of diaries.
25-My grandfather lived to be a 103. I will be lucky to live until I am 70.
26-My father in law was one of the most Christian people I ever have known.
27-I love to take cruises. As Princess Cruise Lines say, I love to escape completely.
28-Since I grew up in the 60’s, my favorite Rock group has been the Beatles, followed by the Moody Blues. However, I also love Country Music, Classical, and much more new stuff.
29-One of my ambitions is to visit all the continents of the world, plus the Arctic North Pole.
30-I graduated from the best schools in the Universe, Davis High School, The University of Utah, and the University of Michigan.

I hate traveling during the winter. I am getting older, and it shows in my huge distaste for traveling during the winter. On Saturday we traveled from Payson to Laramie and it was just crazy, traveling through the huge storms, out in the middle of nowhere. I just hate the worry of whether we are going to end up in a ditch somewhere. We were traveling through snow so thick that I could barely see the reflectors on the side of the road. Trucks would come by (in a hurry of course) and cause a whiteout. It wears on you in a hurry, and I have 500 miles of this to go through when we travel in the winter. I am hoping that I can move somewhere warm in the winter and not have to deal with snow forever more.

Recently I traveled on a jet plane across this great country of ours. We traveled at speeds of in excess of 550 miles per hour. Yet, when I drive to Salt Lake City on I-15 I get worried when I am driving along at 80 miles per hour. I guess it is all a matter of relativity. In a jet plane, I can’t feel the speed. The only times you feel it are when you see another jet plane go flying by, which happened twice on my recent trip to the east coast. The first time was when a jet came right across our bow, trailing a plume behind it. Several hours later another jet came by, probably no more than a half mile away. Both times it was too close.

Driving on a freeway is way too close. You hurtle along at 80 miles an hour, only feet behind another vehicle that hurtles along as well. If something goes wrong, there is no time to change things or make a correction. I wasn’t worried on the jet plane because I can’t see the road ahead. In my own car, it is much to clear what lies ahead of me. Life is sometimes much the same. It is like driving a freeway and believing that everything is out of control.

Recently I have been cruising on the Atlantic Ocean in the Crown Princess. Usually I was no more than a 100 to 150 feet above sea level. On the Grand Turk island, I was all of maybe 10 feet above sea level (you could easily see the ocean on both sides of the island as we approached the island on the ship.

The thing that is hard to believe is that I also saw a picture I had taken in Kingman, Arizona. That sign said, “This spot is 3333.33 above Sea Level. It is so interesting to realize the variety of landscapes, the differences in altitude, and the differences in plants and animals that inhabit this good earth.

Recently I was on the Sun Deck of the Crown Princess in the Caribbean Sea. It was so windy. The wind was whipping across the deck, hitting me in the face and blowing doors shut. All of a sudden I was comparing this desert called an ocean with the desert called Wyoming. Both are just so windy, in fact I would stay that the ocean, based upon the three trips that I have been on, are perhaps the most windy places I have ever seen before.

Why is that the case? I just realized that all of the geography lessons may actually mean something. I remembered that the “trade winds”, as these winds may be, or caused by the warming of huge masses of air. They are also caused by the rotation of the earth, and the blessing of these winds allowed our ancestors to cross the ocean when they didn’t have the blessing of a huge engine room that developed the power to drive the screws that drive the ship. It was a wonderful revelation. Yes, I have come to the conclusion that the plains of Wyoming are nice and wild and windy. Moreover, I love the wild windy ocean. I love the site of the waves breaking against the side of the ship. I love the dolphins jumping out of the water, and watching the ocean fish doing the same thing. I love the wild windy ocean.