What a glorious Christmas Day we have. We have a white Christmas, family all around, and the sun is shining outside. It is also different. It is 1pm and we haven’t even opened presents. I love to have it as a relaxed day, but the compulsion to work and keep on top of things is also with me. I have so much to do. This is a family day, not a work day. I must remember what is the most important.
While recently on my cruise I saw a very interesting meeting. I was walking through one of the buffets when I came upon a meeting that I did not at all expect. We had previously observed a group of orthodox Jewish people on the ship. They had kept to themselves when eating and we noticed that they had a rabbi so they were eating most likely Kosher food, blessed in some way by the Rabbi.
The night in question, a Friday night, I came upon them in the back of the boat, meeting together around some tables in that buffet, chanting and singing. For a moment, I wondered why they were doing what they were doing until I realized that since it was a Friday night, it was the beginning of their Sabbath. I thought it special that they found a unique sanctuary for their service, and could meet even on the high seas in such a busy place as a buffet on the stern end of the Crown Princess. This world is an amazing place, and I am privileged to be here.
There is nothing more sweet than celebrating Christmas morning with the kids and the grandkids. This is the first Christmas with both grandchildren old enough to participate in the activities. They were still not very interested but they had a good time.
Christmas is a grand time of the year. It is a wonderful time to be able to think of the life of the Savior and of the goodness that he has provided for us. I love this day.
Here it is again, turkey day. It is that time of year when we go out and see how much we all can eat so we can get sick from eating too much. Supposedly this is a family event, but it doesn’t matter, we spend more time making it, talking about it, setting it out just right, and then consuming it, than really intermingling as family.
Sometime there are some subtle family tensions and currents visible as we meet together. Our families love big events, and as such you are bound to be breaking bread with someone that you either don’t like, or don’t approve of what they are doing or how they are living their lives. With this being the case, those little problems seem to pop in droves.
I think sometimes I prefer Thanksgiving as a quiet holiday that you just have as an immediate family and keep the fun down to just a few. I hate being part of 30 or 50 people. It loses it for me when it gets that big. At least this year it isn’t being held at my house. This is the ultimate test for the politician, to be out among the people meeting and greeting them. I fail this test time and time again, and thus really shouldn’t be considering running again for political office.
Oh Thanksgiving, I enjoy you, but I also hate you.
As I am getting older, I take more pleasure in the simple things of life. Of course, some of these simple things have changed since I was a kid. Tonight is Halloween. When I was a “youngster”, which my children will say never occurred, I remember getting dressed up in our rather simple costumes (I always went as Freddy the Freeloader) and we would run around the neighborhood, getting our trick or treat candy.
Now, we do it differently. In our neighborhood here in the land of Payson, we have a cul de sac near our home. The whole neighborhood gathers and we have what is affectionally called our Cul De Sac A Treat. The parents, who are usually dressed much more than the kids, come and then hand out the goodies to all the kids (and some of the bigger kids, aka adults). You sometimes have the same people come around three of four times, but what the heck. It is so fun seeing all of the kids all dressed up, it takes about an hour, and everyone enjoys the chance to get together and chat.
Later on, we don’t have many kids come to the door, but it is so fun to just see the little ones enjoy themselves. It helps to defray that gnawing that comes from knowing that we are missing the Halloweens four our own grandkids. I would have loved to visit with them.
The Rise and Fall of the Malls
Once upon a time, in a land long ago, a new entity was born. This place was called a mall. It was a huge, magnificent building that was constructed for the sole purpose of selling goods in an atmosphere of comfort for the buyers. These buildings were the result of cheap fuel, transportation systems (automobiles) that allowed people unlimited mobility and opportunities to leave there homes and travel somewhere to shop.
Later on, a new concept arose called an Outlet Mall. The shoppers desire to get those name brand goods at ever cheaper prices caused outlet malls, so named because they were name brand stores in an outside mall, to sprout up all over America. These “new malls†grew up quickly in vacant fields, and were few and far between because they were supposed to be special.
Quickly they stopped growing because of several new changes. First, fuel became more expensive and the cheap outlet malls became more common and less competitive. Then, a thing called the internet grew up, and the new mall became the monster mall in cyberspace. Now, the ever diligent and suffering shopper can buy his or her goods without ever having to leave the house. All one needs is a good computer, a marvelous modem, and lots of band width so one can shop at ease without leaving the home. Now, we can all shop in the cyber mall and the physical mall is becoming a thing of the past.
The World has truly changed in my lifetime. Nowhere is this more evident than in Las Vegas, but you can see it everywhere. When I was young, children had to know how to play because organized sports and activities for them were few and far between. We would play baseball in someone’s backyard, or on the street, or at a play ground for hours. We had a great time. We had snowball wars, we built snow forts, we played catch, we played hide and seek.
There wasn’t much to watch on TV. We only had three channels, and often times the TVs were not working because we had electronic tubes in those TV’s, that had rabbit ears, and they were darn expensive to replace. Of course, black and white TV was the norm and you only dreamed of color TV, that we heard the rich people had.
We had one phone in the home, and it was hooked to a party line. We got our information from newspapers and from talking to people, and we “weren’t in touchâ€.
Now, we live in a world where nearly everyone has a cell phone. On that cell phone you can get live internet feeds with news, entertainment, text messages, and of course, you can talk on the phone. Text messages have taken over as the way to communicate, rather than talking to someone live. We are detached as a people. Everyone has color TV, and of course, they are big, huge flat screen TVs, sometimes hung on a wall in the living room and taking up a whole wall. You can view hundreds of channels (with absolutely nothing worth seeing on them) and the selection of various channels available is mind boggling.
A major event around the world is known by everyone in a hurry. We are a people in touch, yet strangely enough, I believe we are more out of touch. People want to interact with other people less, preferring to be able to text message each other where they can measure and edit their responses rather than talk to people live.
We have huge buildings and massive ways to entertain ourselves. Everything is programmed for us, and nothing is spontaneous. I miss a lot of the old world. I think we had a lot more fun then. I am not sure our change has brought us happiness.
My generation has often been called the Baby Boomers. I come at the tail end of that group of people, and now is the time when you finally see evidence of our dominance wherever you go, for good or for ill.
Icons of that generation are evident everywhere, and no place is more evidence than at shopping malls. I was in a mall recently and saw prominently displayed pictures of The Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley. When one thinks of the 50s and the 60s, those are icons that will forever be indentified with us. It was a great time to be alive and to be young. Now, it is just as good a time to be alive and be old.
However, there will come a time when my generation fades out of the collective consciousness of the masses and they will not remember us like they do now. Our son Michael the other day told me that the last of his missionary companions was coming home. I told him that now Elder Hardy will just become a legend in the Raleigh North Carolina Mission. Soon, people will forget he was there, except for some members who will remember him with fondness. The legend of Elder Hardy will slip away. It is much the same with my generation, the icons and the memories of us will slip away from people and they will hardly know that we were here, unless we make histories and recordings of who we were and hope people will cherish them.
One of the traditions that exists in Taiwan that has spilled over into my very American home (with the exception of our entry room, which is very Chinese) is that we all leave our shoes at the door. There is an unspoken rule in Taiwan that you leave the shoes at the door, to keep the homes clean and to show respect to your hosts.
Likewise, my very Chinese/American wife requires that we leave our shoes at the door. We do that so that we can keep the house clean. In fact, she is very strict about this practice and doesn’t allow us to bring dirty shoes in the cars even. While most people have floor mats to cover and protect the floor carpet in your car, we have towels to cover the floor mats, to cover the carpet. I have asked my wife when we will have more towels, to cover the towels, to cover the floor mats, that cover the carpet. Sometimes, I think we have adopted the Chinese traditions to the extreme.
One of the few things that I didn’t get to do on this last trip to Mexico was para-gliding. That is where they pull you behind a speed boat and you become, such as it might be, a human kite. That looks like so much fun to be sailing high above the water, master of everything that you see. Sometime in the future, I hope to have lost enough weight to qualify to do it, then have the guts to pay the money and go be a human kite.
The other two things that I would have liked to do was to go scuba diving (not qualified and certified for that one) or go play with the dolphins (way to expensive). One thing that made me feel better about not doing either one of those in Cabo was the fact that they had a lot of people stung by jelly fish while we were in port. Still, there are a lot of things in life I would still like to do.