Pappa Hardy's Musings on Life.

Here I sit, listening to an easy listening piece sung by Olivia Newton-John called “Hopelessly Devoted to You”. I am sure that it is not a piece of deep meaning, or one that a whole lot of people love, or one that may find its place in someone’s top 20 lists. However, what I do believe is that it represents how much listening to music has changed.

When I first became interested in music, it was on a transistor radio that I had just received for Christmas. I was at the mercy of some DJ that was playing the top 40. Of course, it exposed me to a lot of different artists, and the early 60’s (there, you know how old I am) were rich with an incredible variety of artists and types of music. So much then was new and different and exciting.

You only had three ways to listen. Being a poor teenager, it was either listening on the transistor radio or buying a 45 rpm record (with Side A and Side B) songs. Going to an actual concert was something I could only dream of, so I had to wait on change to come. Of course, you were at the mercy of mom and dad because of money issues, or sometime, someone might actually buy you your own stereo for a birthday present. I finally convinced mom and dad that they should do that and then I was in listening heaven. I could put on a whole album of music from my favorite artist of the moment. I went to sleep at night listening to records.

Of course, there could be problems or accidents. One time I was really sick and listening to a record on my parent’s stereo and fell asleep because I was so sick and drugged up. While asleep, something fell on the needle and wore a big groove into my Sgt. Peppers record. I was sick; there was a deep rut in the middle of “A Day in the Life”.

Overall, it was great. Getting together with buddies to view their collections influenced my tastes in music through the discovery of brand new artists and different types of music. Now I am a lover of rock music, classical music, folk music, western and modern western, pop music, Jazz, Blues, or new age, and the list goes on and on.

What has made it even greater is the revolution in listening technologies. First, the records gave way to 8 tracks and you could listen in your car. Then, tape decks became the rage and you could have a whole collection of cassette tapes that could make your music collection mobile. You could also listen to more, because most cassettes could be bought in times of 60, 90, or even 120 minutes. My heavens, two or three albums could go on one tape and it was stereo no less. You could buy the music prepackaged, or even better most of us started recording our own collections onto tapes and individualize our collections.

In the mid 80’s I started hearing about CD’s. Of course, my first thought was that those marketers were just thinking up new ways to get you to spend your money (and they were of course) but oh how it opened up the horizons. You could get even more music on one disk, could carry them more easy, and the offerings multiplied.

That takes us to today. I-tunes, or MP3 players, or whatever you want are now the rage. It has given us the ability to carry your whole music library with you. You can tabulate how many times you listen to a particular selection. I have spent the whole weekend listening to just a wide variety of everything. On my IPOD I can listen to any CD I have ever bought, or I can even download music and not have to purchase a hard copy of anything. I have my faith’s scriptures on my IPOD and also every conference the church has ever conducted and put on CD. I keep hoping they will make available a lot of talks and older conferences on CD so I can rip them to my IPOD.

I can listen to books, and now I have college courses produced by the The Teaching Company as part of their Great Courses series. I can listen and learn while driving. I have learned ancient Egyptian History, about the weather, about our climate, modern European History, and the list goes on and on. It is all there in one electronic gadget. I can make greatest hits lists, genre lists, and lists by artists. It is great. It is easy, and it is making music even more of a pleasure to listen too. What a blessing modern technology can be.

It’s that time of the year. I do love Christmas, I really do, but I could sure do without 12-18 inches of snow and 15 hours of darkness. We had 12 inches of snow here in Payson yesterday, and another 4 inches this morning with more due to come. I would love to see more sunlight and less cold. My age is showing. I can remember when it didn’t bother me nearly as much. I am ready to move to a warmer climate. I also need more sun. Just two more weeks to the shortest day of the year and then we start to climb back out of this mess.

Today I was released as the 2nd Counselor in the Page Ward Bishopric. I had served in that position for almost 4 years. When you serve in a position like that for as long as I have, you come to feel a huge loss when the situation is changed. I enjoyed serving with some fine men and women in the Page Ward. I now find myself without a calling. I am sure that will change soon, but it is an unusual feeling for me. I praise the Lord for the opportunity that has been mine to serve with such wonderful men.

I have never really been a fan of black Friday. For some reason I just don’t get a thrill of getting in the hunt for a bargain at 3am in the morning. I know that some people love that, but I am not one of them. I would much rather sleep in until my normal 5am get up time.

Unfortunately, I am the type of Christmas shopper that ends up not getting Christmas done until Christmas Eve. Somewhere, there must be a happy medium. I am unfortunately not it.

nice to have everything all bundled up and you would know when this or that would happen, and certainly, nothing bad or hard would ever happen. However, the creator in his wisdom knew that if that was what happened, we would never grow.

It sure doesn’t make it any easier, but that is the way that life is. One day you may be employed, then next, without a job during the middle of a real bad recession. One day your car may be in great shape, and the next it stops running or you are hit by another motorist. The worst of course is our health. At my recent 40th High School Reunion it was amazing how many of our classmates were dead, or are very sick and in the process of dying. So far, I have been blessed health wise but I do have my challenges. Yes, life is uncertain. We just have to do our best to have a positive attitude and cope with as best as we can.

Whenever I have gone cruising now, I feel the strong call of the seaman. I think I could have taken to a life of travel and work upon ocean going vessels. One thing that I have decided is that there is so much that I want to see around these big oceans that mark our planet, and so little time to go and do it. I am in the later parts of my life now and feel that I have run out of time to do some of the exploring and things that I really wanted to do. I wanted to be able to travel and explorer, see new things, do new things, and not be trapped in a job that has robbed me of new things. Well, I have only myself to blame. I don’t feel bad about the people that I have come to know and the family that I have, I just wish I had followed my heart more.

I am beginning to really feel my years. It doesn’t help that I am carrying around extra weight again, and I must lose that. However, my back, my legs, my feet, my hips, all hurt to some extent or other. I feel like I have old bones and an old body. I am really starting to realize that I am getting older. I hate it when you seem to hurt everywhere. Surely, there is some cure for advancing age, and I don’t mean death. Someone should invent something.

When I was 19 and called on a mission to Taiwan, I was pleased that I was going to learn to speak a language that is spoken by about one in four of everyone that lives on this earth. At the time, China and Taiwan were considered to be second or their level countries. No more. China and Taiwan or now leading out, and it makes me wish that my Mandarin was not a Second Language, and one poorly spoken at that. When I am around Mandarin speakers now (primarily Chinese who have it as their first and primary language) it makes me wish I had followed up on my intentions to study Mandarin and become fluent in its use. Instead, I am just a hack of the language and don’t understand. I wish Mandarin were my first language, or at least I could pretend so.

Here it is my 58th birthday, and I am experiencing it sitting in my stateroom on the Golden Princess. I have come to love the motion of the sea, that is except when it might make me sick. It is such a pleasure to see the waves go by, the unending expanse of water providing a place for a cruise liner to play. It has been such a wonderful vacation that I am experiencing.

I have come to Seattle so much now that I almost call the city my own. I lived and went to school at the University of Washington on beautiful Lake Washington in Seattle, for a total of 6 weeks spread over to 3 years.

I remember one of the most incredible sites of my life being a beautiful, clear, sunny day followed by a sunset in which I saw Mt. Rainer off in a distance, across Lake Washington, and watched the mountain as it changed to many different shades of a golden hue as the sun set. Following that was the rise of a full moon over the beautiful lake. It was a tremendous site.

This trip, I have been seeing the beautiful country side and greenery and thinking, you know, despite the rain and the clouds, I could live here. It is a real beautiful place.