Author Archives: Roger Baker-Utah

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About Roger Baker-Utah

By profession a 28-year municipal attorney, my real loves are story, poetry, music, and nature. My publications include Rabbit Lane: Memoir of a Country Road (non-fiction), and A Time and A Season (poetry). My most recent writing projects include Reflective Essays, and vignettes about aging and elder care my a new page, Courage at Twilight. And I cannot forget Amy's bearded dragon lizard, Sunshine. I hope you enjoy!

Courage at Twilight: Works of Art and Treasure Maps

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Nearly two years after immersing myself in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, and cooking many dozen delicious and beautiful dishes and desserts, I received as Christmas gifts two new baking cookbooks, which I had been not-so-secretly coveting.  The first is Baking with Mary Berry.  The second is Paul Hollywood’s 100 Great Breads.  You may recognize both names from The Great British Baking Show, to which my daughters introduced me a few years ago.  We have watched, with pleasure and intimidation, Great Britain’s expert amateur bakers, glad the hosts’ withering critiques were not aimed at us.  With no judges but myself and my admiring parents, I spent January making several recipes a week.  Hollywood’s first bread recipe is for a “wheat sheaf loaf.”  He promised if I can bake that, I can bake anything in his book.  Well, I did succeed in making a beautiful loaf.  (Beware: cut the insane volume of salt by at least half.)  Each of Mary’s recipes fits on a single page, faced with gorgeous photos.  They have all turned out wonderfully so far: magic lemon pudding cake; magic chocolate pudding cake; white chocolate muffins with strawberry jam centers; double chocolate muffins; French pancakes; and, oat-butter-crunch “flapjack” bars (nothing like American pancakes).  But the most beautiful so far is her orange-chocolate mousse cake, which I offered at Hyrum’s birthday.  I heard on National Public Radio that millions of people have taken up the baking hobby due to Covid pandemic cabin-fever isolation.  For me, the motivation is different.  I love the metamorphic magic of taking an assortment of powders and liquids and combining them to create an edible work of art.  Not to mix metaphors, I consider each recipe as a treasure map, some harder to follow than others, but all leading eventually to an unexpectedly delightful treasure.  I hope I my cartographic talent is steadily growing.  Mom and Dad are happy for me to practice on them.

   

Mary Berry’s Orange-Chocolate Mousse Cake

 

     

Paul Hollywood’s Wheat Sheaf Loaf

Courage at Twilight: A Fox in the Dell

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Mom’s and Dad’s retirement home is located near the Dimple Dell natural recreational area, a series of deep sandy ravines and canyons carved by rainwater rivulets and a trickling stream. Trails winds their way through the bottoms, beside the stream.  I have attempted to ride my mountain bike on the trails, but always become mired in deep sand or get bucked by river cobbles.  Still a runner when he retired, Dad enjoyed jogging a six-mile course every day on the river bottom trails.  During one run, Dad saw a gorgeously burnished red fox trotting along the trail in front of him, looking back over her shoulder at him as he ran.  Dad thought to try an experiment.  He stopped jogging.  The fox stopped trotting, and they looked at each other for a few moments.  Dad sat down.  The fox, in turn, sat, and from a distance of about ten feet, Dad began talking to the fox.  “You are such a nice, beautiful fox,” he complemented.  “You have a very bushy tail.”  The fox simply gazed back at Dad as he prattled on.  As Dad stood to resume his trail run, the fox resumed his trot along the trail.  Soon the fox veered sharply off the trail and climbed a hill.  Perhaps the fox’s den is nearby, Dad wondered.  He began thinking about what the fox had available to eat in the Dell, and whether the fox might like some chicken from the grocery store.  After his run, Dad went to Smith’s to buy the chicken.  He selected a raw chicken, but questioned whether the fox might prefer a cooked chicken.  So, he bought both a raw chicken and a cooked rotisserie chicken, took them into the Dell, retraced his steps, and climbed the hill where he had seen the fox climb.  He found the fox’s den, and placed the chickens about 15 feet away, so the fox would not suspect a trap.  Dad returned the next day on another run, and the chickens, of course, were gone.  He knew he could not, and probably should not, provide many chickens to the wild fox, but he hoped his gift had been enjoyed.  He, in turn, had very much enjoyed the gift of his friendly encounter with the wild red fox.

(Above image by Here and now from Pixabay.)

Dimple Dell against the Wasatch Mountains.  (Photo from AllTrails.)

Courage at Twilight: A Warm Blanket and a Smile

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You may remember our homemade greeting cards made from pressed leaves and flower petals, with the message “You Are Loved” artistically rendered inside.  The cards were included in humanitarian hygiene packages sent to refugees around the world.  The same NGO, Lifting Hands International, combined with our local Church leaders to organize a blanket drive.  On a Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., we could drop off new blankets, which would be distributed to refugees the world over.  After Mom announced told Dad and me that she wanted to participate, she and Dad drove off to Target.  Leaning heavily on their shopping carts, they shuffled the miles and miles to the back stacks of the bedding section.  Mom picked out a fluffy gray fleece, queen-sized, wrapped in a charcoal ribbon, and brought it home with a smile.  Before the day of the drive arrived, the community had already dropped off over 100 blankets.  At 11:00, Mom trundled off to her trusty Subaru, hugging her blanket, and drove off to make her contribution.  I felt very proud of her.  A blanket is a small thing.  A thousand blankets are a thousand small things.  And every small thing matters.  But there is nothing small about my mother’s heart.

Afghan refugees with their new warm blankets.

(Photo from Lifting Hands International.  Used pursuant to the Fair Use doctrine.)

Blanket Drive Update: Lifting Hands International received 414 blankets from Mom’s community for Afghan refugees.  Here are photos of the drive organizers and blankets, used with permission.

Stake Blanket Drive2    Stake Blanket Drive1

Courage at Twilight: Meager Meals

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I emerged from my sick room, double masked, to figure out a mid-day meal, and opted for summer sausage slices, gouda cheese cubes, Wheat Thin crackers, and sliced apples. A pleasant snack.  Mom commented from her corner recliner, “What a perfect snack!  Isn’t it nice to have so many good foods to choose from?  I feel so blessed.  I feel so grateful.  I thank Heavenly Father in my prayers.  I was often hungry as a child.”  I stood stunned at the thought of my mother being hungry as a child, and asked her about it.  She explained that her family had been poor.  They ate healthy foods they grew in their own garden, but their meals were meager.  She told me about thinning the carrot and beet rows, of squashing the tomato hornworms, of gathering the eggs from protective hens, and of dunking dead chickens in scalding water to pluck their pungent feathers.  Her father was a junior high school teacher, and worked odd jobs during the summers, as a milk truck driver, supervisor at a pea vinery, county roads crew member, school bus driver, laborer at a munitions factory, and custodian.  He kept taking classes at the University of Utah, and eventually made a better salary as a junior high school guidance counselor.  But as a younger child, a skinny, slight child, there were no snacks between small simple meals, and Mom’s stomach often growled as she lay in her bed at night.  As I munched my lunch in sick-room isolation, I pondered my mother not having had enough to eat, and likewise thanked my Heavenly Father for our bounty.

Pictured above: Mom with her father, mother, and little sister.  Circa 1944.

 

Mom’s house, built in her birth year of 1939.

 

Mom’s house in 1957.

 

Mom in the family farm fields with her father and little sister.  Circa 1942.

 

Mom in the wagon while dad cuts the grass.  Circa 1940.

Courage at Twilight: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

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Whenever Dad says, “That reminds me of something,” I know a story is coming—a story I have heard many times before—a story as good on its fifth telling as on its first.  Some of my favorites are of his maternal Grandpa Greene.  William T. Greene, an immigrant from England, lived in Utah’s Great Basin in the first decade of the 20th Century, on a ranch on the Ute Indian Reservation, near the town of Vernal.  He was a sheriff there, and his philosophy toward outlaws was to make peace or make arrest.  If the outlaws would agree not to cause trouble in his jurisdiction, he would leave them alone.  If they made trouble, they went to jail.  Grandpa Greene knew Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but he never arrested them because they never caused him any trouble, and were even friendly to him.  In his old age, Grandpa Greene lived in the Salt Lake valley, in a two-room shack with no plumbing and no electricity and a wood stove for cooking and for heat.  Dad loved his grandpa.  As young boys, Dad and his brother Bill would ride their one bicycle, with Nelson pedaling, from 1700 South to 5900 South on 900 East—more than 40 city blocks—to see their Grandpa Greene.  He was their friend, and treated them as equals.  Dad had heard his sheriff-grandpa was good with a six-shooter pistol, and asked him about it.  Grandpa Greene answered, “You bet I was good.  When I was younger, I could shoot a silver dollar right out of the air.”  Dad’s uncle Forrest was an eye witness: Grandpa Greene would have someone flip a silver dollar high into the air, and he would draw and shoot a hole through it.  A true story.  Grandpa Greene taught Dad how to catch trout with his bare hands from the stream meandering through the meadow near the shack.  The technique involved wading quietly upstream, gently feeling under the bank for the tails of the trout.  Pointed upstream, the fish did not spook at the touch of Dad’s fingers.  He slowly moved both hands into position under the trout, and suddenly lifted it up against the bank’s underside, slipped his fingers into the gills, and brought the fish out, tossing it flopping onto the grass.  Dad grew so good at this technique that he once caught two trout at the same time, one in each hand.  His brother Bill was there, and affirmed the story.   A game warden stopped by one day and barked at Dad and Bill about what they were doing, and threatened to haul them off to jail for poaching.  It turns out he was a friend of Grandpa Greene, who had told the warden to give Dad and Bill a good scare as a practical joke.  One day, Dad caught an enormous fat native Brook trout, and ran proudly to show it to his grandpa.  Grandpa Greene exclaimed, “Hey!  Now that’s a trout!  Let’s cook it up for our breakfast!”  And he started a wood fire and fried the fish in butter and salt in his iron skillet.  That every child had a Grandpa Greene.

 

(Photo courtesy of the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.  Used pursuant to the Fair Use doctrine.)

Courage at Twilight: “I Am a Jew”

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Dad retired from Johnson & Johnson in 1998, after a 33-year career. In the 1970s, he traveled to Europe several times for a series of meetings with European executives and scientists from J&J companies.  The meetings aimed to standardize the ingredients and raw materials for J&J signature products, like baby shampoo, which until then had been made according to varying recipes and materials sources and qualities in each different manufacturing country.  During the seventh meeting, held in Germany, a German executive commented to Nelson that his only regret about World War II was that Germany had not finished the job with the Jews.  Dad wrestled for an infuriated moment with how to respond to the bigot.  Johnson & Johnson nurtured an inclusive and diverse company culture, often ahead of the competition, and did not tolerate racism in its ranks.  Such prejudice was so antithetical to J&J culture, and to Dad’s own sensibilities, and he knew a strong reaction was required.  He announced to the German man, “You should know that I am a Jew.”  In fact, Dad was not Jewish.  But as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he knew he was a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph—he was an Israelite, like the children of Judah.  As such, the Jews were his brothers and sisters and cousins—they were family, respected and loved.  So, Dad declared, “You should know that I am a Jew.”  At this declaration, the man started, then stammered, “No, you’re not a Jew, you don’t look like a Jew.”  “No—believe me, I am a Jew.  And let me tell you something.  If I ever hear you say anything similar to what you have just said, ever, I will see to it that your career with this company is ruined forever.”  In the General Counsel’s office of J&J, Dad had the power to make good on his promise.  To his knowledge, the man never uttered his offensive and racist views again.  Throughout my life, I have observed Dad taking a fearless stand against bigotry, racism, prejudice, and oppression wherever he encountered it.  His children and grandchildren have all inherited from him a legacy of sensitivity to human dignity and worth, irrespective of race, religion, or ethnicity.  I am proud of that legacy.

(Image by Mauistik from Pixabay.)

Courage at Twilight: The Joy of Violins

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Mom’s elementary school music teacher Mr. Jeppesen hosted a music open house to which he invited all the children and their parents. One by one the teacher brought each child, including Mom, a 4th grader, to the piano where he sat.  “He was an older man, shorter, kind of hunched over.  He was a very good pianist, and he was very kind to me,” Mom remembered with fond appreciation.     Jeppesen plunked a few notes on the piano, and asked Mom to sing them.  The teacher then told Mom and her parents that she should play the violin.  Her father, Wallace, agreed, and took Mom to the music store to buy a very used violin, still at considerable expense for the struggling family.  Mom was a slight child, and the music store employee suggested a half-size or three-quarter-size violin.  Wallace said they would take a full-size violin, which is what Mom learned to play on, and grew into.  “We lived way out in the country, with no cultural advantages,” Mom explained about her joy to be playing the violin.  Sometime later, when Mom needed a better violin, Wallace found her one.  This is the violin she grew up with, played at the University of Utah, and took to Brazil in 1972 when she and Dad led a group of about 100 Church missionaries for three years.  At the end of their mission, they packed the violin in a shipping crate with other belongings, but upon opening the crate in New Jersey, the violin was gone.  The family pooled resources for Mom to purchase another violin.  With that instrument, she played in several community orchestras, including Highland Park (NJ), Bound Brook (NJ), Washington Square (NJ), and Murry (UT).  Covid-19 canceled rehearsals and concerts, and put an end to Mom’s public career.  She pulls out her violin once in a while, like during the Christmas holiday.  My granddaughter’s parents suggested Lila might like a violin, so I made one for her out of a cracker box, a yard stick, packing tape, spray paint, thumb tacks, and string.  And she loved it.  Pretending to stroke her strings with a red soda straw, Lila stood entranced as Mom played her real violin to her little great-granddaughter.  Mom just may have inspired another generation of Baker violinists.

Courage at Twilight: When Mom met Dad

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At a family party, we asked Mom how she and Dad met. She related how she met him at an Institute dance in late 1959.  Institute is the name given by my Church for an organized opportunity for religious instruction and for social interaction, mostly for young single adult members of the Church.  Mom was about 20 years old, a freshman at the University of Utah.  She remembers, “He was standing there, leaning against a door frame, looking very cute in his navy-blue suit.”  It was the suit he wore on his mission to Brazil (1956-1959), and was well used, but “still looked great.”  Mom’s friend, Dolores, whispered to her, “That’s Nelson Baker.”  Dad asked Mom to dance, and before the evening ended, asked for her phone number.  The very next day he called her on the phone, and came to visit her at the bungalow-style house her father built for her mother in 1932.  Mom and Dad went out a lot, to the movies, to dances, to visit with Dad’s mission friends, to the Frost Top for shakes and fries.  Dad drove her every morning to the University of Utah, where they both graduated with bachelor degrees.  “Your mom was very beautiful,” Dad boasted.  Sitting in his music appreciation class one day, on the third floor of the David Gardner building, he looked out the window to see Mom standing on a street corner waiting for a bus, to go to her elevator job.  Seeing her there filled his heart with sweet feelings.  They married on April 5, 1962, in the Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and will celebrate this year their 60th wedding anniversary.  Of course, they can get on each other’s nerves, but they are eternally devoted and kind to one another.  Now, that’s love.

Salt Lake Temple, in Salt Lake City, Utah

Courage at Twilight: To the Edge

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Mayo Clinic

Dad contracted polio in the early 1940s—so we believe—a mild case.  His left leg developed with smaller muscles and no ligament support in the arch of the foot.  Without thick homemade orthotics, he walks with his ankle bone on the floor.  Ouch.  Still, with resolve and grit, he compensated and persevered, taking up jogging as a health-hobby.  He typically ran seven miles during his lunch break at work, and often 20 miles on Saturdays, for two decades.  He clocked 13 marathons, and one 50-mile ultra-marathon (“I never got tired!”).  For years, his resting heart rate was about 35 bpm.  In his eighth decade of life, however, even walking has become nearly impossible.  And not just due to the weak leg and foot, or from age, but from post-polio syndrome.  No matter his exercise level, he cannot seem to strengthen, but continues to deteriorate.  The Mayo Clinic says post-polio syndrome is characterized by progressive muscle and joint weakness and pain (check), general fatigue and exhaustion with minimal activity (check), and muscle atrophy (check).  I have to remember, as we go to the gym, to walk the fine line between strengthening and debilitation, between rejuvenation and exhaustion.  The last time we left the gym, he clung to my arm and worried, “I don’t know if I can make it to the car, Rog.”  But Dad has such determination (“I am a fighter!”), and together we understand his desire to push himself right to the edge, to do all he can do, without tumbling over the cliff.

(This blog, author, and essay have no relationship with, and do not represent the views of, the Mayo Clinic.)

Courage at Twilight: Movie Night

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Tonight’s dinner came frozen out of boxes and bags: breaded pollock; cheesy scalloped potatoes; mixed vegetables. And I am not at all embarrassed to announce that we loved it and ate our fill.  Mom, Dad, and I sat at the dinner table—a family—conversing and looking forward to our after-dinner movie.  I have taken pleasure in showing Mom and Dad some of my old favorites, like Nacho Libre (2006) (because it is so absurd and makes me laugh and Jack Black is brilliant) and George of the Jungle (1997) (because it is so absurd and makes me laugh and Brendan and Leslie make such a cute hopeful couple) and Chariots of Fire (1981) (because of integrity and grit and glory and love and the thrill and cheer of victory against the odds).  During the Christmas holidays, we enjoyed Albert Finney’s Scrooge (1970) and George C. Scott’s A Christmas Carol (1984) and The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), always moved by the miracle of a changed heart.  Tonight, we watched The Scarlet Pimpernel from 1982, chuckling at Percy Blakeney’s foppish façade, sad for the tragedies of the French Revolution, and happy for the happy ending.  Missing Julia Child’s cookbook—I showed them Julie and Julia (2009), too—I baked a French chocolate soufflé during the movie, cutting the sugar with stevia-sweetened chocolate and mixing one part Splenda with one part sugar.  I am always so pleased and relieved when my baking adventures end well.  Pulling the jiggling masterpiece out of the oven, I felt quite over-the-moon giddy that the chocolate soufflé turned out perfectly, not quite a custard, not quite a cake, not quite a pudding—a pleasant satisfying piquing converging in-between of all three.    And I relished the reward of Mom and Dad loving it and asking for more.

Courage at Twilight: Memory Foam

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Dad announced his hips hurt when he slept, the mattress was too hard, and he was driving to R.C. Willey that very day to buy a memory foam mattress topper so he could sleep better.  The topper came folded tightly in a box.  We unwrapped and unfolded it, laying it out on the floor.  It looked terrible, all lumpy and crimped and uneven.  “Unfold on flat surface; allow to expand for 48 hours,” the instructions read.  “Forty-eight hours!” Dad exclaimed.  But by evening, the memory foam seemed evenly expanded, and we positioned it on the mattress and made the bed with pretty cotton flannel sheets that Mom liked.  As Dad climbed into bed at 3:30 the next morning, after reading and munching (and napping) since 11:00 the night before, he sank quickly and comfortably into the three-inches of memory foam.  Before long, though, he wanted to roll over, and found himself stuck in the conforming crater.  To make matters worse, the flannel sheets grabbed at his cotton pajamas like Velcro.  He could not move.  Mustering all his strength, he pushed and pulled himself out of the foamy abyss.  Instead of sore hips, that day he complained of intense pain in his chest between his ribs (left side) when he breathed.  Doctors and EKGs and imaging and blood tests ruled out a heart attack or stroke or blood clots in his lungs—he had simply pulled some muscles, though it hurt like hell and felt like death knocking at his door.  Back at home, he and Mom pulled off the “damned” memory foam topper, and it has sat on the floor in a crumpled heap since.  Maybe I will try it on my bed.

 

(Photo from Amazon.com.  Used pursuant to the Fair Use doctrine.)

Courage at Twilight: I Need a Hug

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Dad said to me one evening after dinner, as Mom and I bustled around with kitchen cleanup, “Rog, do you know how huggable your mother is?  She is the most huggable person in the whole world.”  He was too tired to stand just at that moment, and told Mom that if she ambled close to him, he would give her a hug.  She rolled her eyes, and she ambled.  “I need a hug,” Dad explained as he put his arms around her waist.  She patted him reassuringly on the arm.  “Rog,” Dad continued, “do you know you have the best mother in the whole world?  Aren’t you just so lucky?”  I do, I thought, and I am.  Indeed.  These occasional sweet expressions and displays of conjugal affection move me.  Mom and Dad get on each other’s nerves on a daily basis, but they love each other and are devoted to one another.  They cherish each other, and the family institution they have created.  I need their example—the world needs their example.  I need to believe marriage can work, and as they approach their 60th wedding anniversary, and as I see them work on their marriage every day, at being kind and patient and understanding, I can believe.  The next time they snip at one another, I may remind them about their mutual huggability, and suggest Mom amble over in Dad’s direction.

 

Pictured above: Dad (86) and huggable Mom (82), with my sister and niece.

Courage at Twilight: Late Lunch or Early Dinner?

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I try to leave work at 3:00 p.m. in order to arrive home at 4:00, ready to cook or shop or take Mom or Dad to a doctor appointment or do yardwork, knowing that I will go up to my home office and work remotely at night to catch up on work.  Sometimes I do not get home until 5:00.  Often, when I come through the door, I find Mom and Dad just starting to enjoy their “lunch” while watching NCIS.  Dad has his onion with ham and Swiss sandwich.  Mom enjoys leftovers with a Yoo-Hoo.  Sometimes they bring home Burger King combo meals—Whoppers, French fries, and Diet Cokes.  By the time they finish their lunch, I am ready for my dinner, having lunched at noon.  Some days, I will find a snack and head upstairs to work or blog until it is time to cook and eat dinner, between 8:00 and 9:00.  Other days, I just make a dinner for myself, often steamed vegetables and hard-boiled eggs, either swimming in olive oil and vinegar or mixed with melted butter and salt, or maybe a giant salad tossed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  Some days I cook.  Other days Dad cooks.  Sometimes we heat up a can of Campbell’s soup and call it good.  Having cooked for the family for 45 years, Mom is done with cooking.  I don’t blame her.  Now, Dad and I enjoy cooking for her.

Courage at Twilight: At the Gym Again

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As part of Dad’s mobility strategy, on Friday I drove him to the county’s Dimple Dell recreation center to begin working out again.  He had not gone to the gym since Covid-19 shut the country’s gyms down.  We are always starting over in life, aren’t we?  He is starting his gym workouts over at age 86!  We both rode the stationary bicycles for 30 minutes—I read a book, while Dad looked at a blank television screen because the County can no longer afford satellite TV.  Then Dad did his usual circuit, working out his biceps, chest, core, back, and legs.  I worked on my core, mostly with planks, and my arms and chest.  I think we will both be sore.  Dad was pleased to see his old friend, Daniel, who struck up an ebullient conversation with Dad before moving on to chat cheerfully with the lady on the treadmill.  Before starting our workout, I locked my wallet, phone, and keys in a keyed locker.  Retrieving my belongings on our way out of the gym, Dad told me he is the reason the county purchased the lockers, because during one workout years ago, he watched a man walk by the open cubicles and swipe Dad’s key ring.  Dad chased him down, called him out, and retrieved his keys with, “These are mine!”  The man just kept on walking and got away.  Walking to the car arm in arm with Dad, he commented weakly, “I feel pretty beat up, Rog.”  But I could tell he also felt happy and satisfied, and was looking forward to next Friday.  Me, too.

Sunshine: Santa’s New Elf

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Amy heard Santa needed more elves to get ready for Christmas 2022.  So, with a little help from Amy, Sunshine is ready to be a new Santa elf.  But don’t expect him to move to the North Pole any time soon.  Sunshine is an Outback desert dweller and needs his sunlamp!

Courage at Twilight: Putting Away the Lights

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Mom announced it was time to bring in the pine wreaths and Christmas lights. Being the second week of January, I suppose she was right.  The temperature dropped quickly as the sun dipped behind the Oquirrh mountains, and I got to work.  I gently pulled the light strings off the bushes and rolled them into balls.  Dad and I had wrapped each plug in black electrical wire.  He was quite proud that the lights did not short out even once in six weeks of rain and melting snow.  Now, I unwrapped the brittle black tape and rolled the strings into balls, stowing them in the light tote, consigned to the basement until next November.  Coiling the extension cords came next.  As I worked in a race with the fading daylight and growing cold, my angers and jealousies and heartaches crowded in upon my mind, shouting their false and hostile narratives.  I did not feel strong enough to change my self-talk, and shifted tactics.  I begin to sing, standing there on the busy street corner coiling lights.  Not just any song, but a song that could chase away my dark thoughts and replace them with light and tenderness.  I sang the beloved children’s primary song, I’m Trying To Be Like Jesus.  I know only the first verse, so sang it again and again and again, shutting out the dark voices.  I was able to finish my chores and enter the house with a smile.  Here are the lyrics:

I’m trying to be like Jesus.  I’m following in his ways.

I’m trying to do as he did in all that I do and say.

At times I am tempted to make a wrong choice,

But I try to listen as the still small voice whispers:

Love one another as Jesus loves you;

Try to show kindness in all that you do;

Be gentle and loving in deed and in thought,

For these are the things Jesus taught.

Courage at Twilight: Slippery Saturday

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I awoke at eight—early or late?—on a Saturday, with no obligation but to live. I cooked Dad’s favorite apple-cinnamon oatmeal, with cream, for our breakfast, sweetened respectively with sugar for Mom, Splenda for Dad, and stevia extract for me.  In the crock pot, I stirred the dry 15-bean soup mix, diced onion, minced garlic, ground chilis, leftover cubed ham, water, and the packet of smoke-and-ham flavored powder, and set it to simmering.  Hyrum turned 20 this week.  He is my sixth child, and dearly-beloved.  So, I started baking a cake for his Saturday evening birthday party.  And this was no hum-drum box-mix cake, but Mary Berry’s chocolate-orange mousse cake, and I hoped I could do the many-stepped recipe justice.  After finishing the cake and washing, it seemed, half the kitchen’s bowls and mixing utensils, I needed to get out of the kitchen, out of the house, and out of my head.  Nearby Bell Canyon beckoned.  The trail’s snow was trampled down and icy, and I had forgotten my aspen-wood staff.  As I slipped and tromped along, I began to ruminate, to puzzle over romance, over the panging hunger for romance, over the long absence from romance—I began to puzzle over love.  A puzzle.  Both uphill and downhill, the mountain trail presented many slippery slopes, and I stepped with care as I thought.  An attractive woman passed me, planting her steel-tipped poles in the ice.  She was smart to navigate the icy trail with poles.  I was not so smart.  I wanted to be there in the mountains, in the snow, in the crisp beauty—I was sincere and empty of guile—but I was un-smart in my own navigations.  Always a puzzle.  Hyrum and company, of course, loved the chocolate-orange mousse cake, and I was proud to have baked it.  I am proud of him, no longer a little boy, but a man, a man of the best sort, a chocolate-orange mousse cake sort of a man.

Bell Canyon Stream

 

Mary Berry’s Chocolate Orange Mousse Cake

Courage at Twilight: A Snake in the Bowl

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Water covered the floor of the tiny half-bath, overflowing from the bowl.  Dad had bailed and bailed to fill a five-gallon bucket, and had plunged and plunged until he was spent.  “Don’t go in there,” he commanded Mom and me from his recliner.  “I am going to fix it.”  We acceded, but I drove to Lowe’s for a coiled plumbing snake.  He tried and tried to feed the snake into the fixture, but it kept flopping incorrigibly out.  Finally, he called to me, unable to rise from his knees, with nothing for leverage but the bowl.  I wrapped my arms around his big chest and hoisted until he was vertical.  “Dad, let me try,” I offered.  “This is my home now, too, and I am part of the family.”  He consented reluctantly from his convalescence.  I struggled and struggled with that incorrigible splashing snake.  The coil advanced no more than a few inches during 30 minutes of effort.  I did not do anything Dad had not already done, but the water abruptly drained from the bowl, and I was able to pour in the five gallons of blackwater.  How nice it was to flush and watch the water swirl down, rather than up and over the brim.  We cleaned and disinfected the toilet and the floor, and then the bucket and even the snake.  We both hope to never need that belligerent snake again, but have found a place for it in the garage, just in case.

(Reader, please do NOT bring up this episode with Dad.  My life and happiness depend upon it.)

Courage at Twilight: It’s Got To Go

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Mom’s six-year molar suddenly started to hurt. Gently tapping her teeth together sent an eye-scrunching zing through the molar.  “It started to hurt a couple of days ago,” she explained.  “I’ve been chewing only on one side.”  The next morning, I saw her moving around earlier than usual.  “The dentist office said they could see me at 9:30,” and off she drove in her treasured Subaru.   Mom texted me later in the day, “I am without a tooth!”  The early molar, with deep amalgam fillings and a crown, had cracked in half and was not reparable.  “It’s got to go,” the dentist declared.  As he pulled the tooth, it came free of its roots and shattered, so he had to find and pull the roots one at a time.  But Mom was not unhappy.  She told me how gentle and kind her dentist always is.  I do not know anyone else who would come home from a tooth extraction praising, “I love my dentist.”  I think it is Mom who is gentle and kind, grateful for her dentist even as he sent her home toothless (well, without a tooth).  In the evening, with her face fully back to life, and the gap stuffed with gauze, Mom was pleased to tell me she felt no pain.

(Image by Paul Brennan from Pixabay)

Courage at Twilight: Prayers of the Innocent

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As a boy, Dad’s mother Dora prayed with him every night, saying, “Bless the cost and worn.”  He thought it a good thing to ask God to bless the cost and worn, whoever they were—their situation sounded grim.  Sometime later, Dad asked her, “Mother, who are the cost and worn?”  She looked quizzical, confessing she did not know.  They thought and thought and repeated the phrase together numerous times, eventually realizing they had meant to be asking in prayer for those who had “cause to mourn.”  Of course, God knew their hearts, and what they meant to say, and who the cost and worn were—and doubtless He accepted their petition.  Again as a little boy, Dad was asked in his church primary class to offer a prayer.  He stood dutifully in front of the class and ventured, “Heavenly Father, help us to beat the Japs.”  While one would never refer to the noble Japanese people in that fashion today, eighty years ago, in 1942, that very prayer was on the lips and minds of tens of millions of people.  Even a seven-year-old boy felt the weight of the great conflict that was World War II, and asked his God to end it.  I have heard many testimonials from young children who prayed to find something they had lost, and immediately seeing in their mind, or feeling an impression about, where the lost thing was, and finding it precisely there.  I have felt tempted to pooh-pooh this puerile witness of the Divine.  But then I remember that God loves little children (and wants us older folks to be like them)—He wants to bless them, and appreciates their simple supplications as much or more than my own more complex concerns.  Children love and have faith and hope.  And what sweeter exercise of faith could one encounter than a small child turning to God in momentary distress.  An excellent pattern we would do well to emulate our whole life long.  The next time I lose my car keys, I will pray to God to help me find them.  Tonight, I will pray for the cost and worn.

(Image by truthseeker08 from Pixabay)

Courage at Twilight: Making Out the Bills

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November Newsmaker Breakfast: Salt Lake City Mayor-Elect Erin Mendenhall - Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute

Mom exclaimed to me one day, “I’m so proud of myself. I made out all the bills!  I don’t owe anybody anything!”  “That’s wonderful,” I responded.  “I’m proud of you, too.”  I could imagine how liberating it would feel for her to have no financial obligations in a particular moment in time.  She had sat down with a stack of paper bills—utilities, doctors, magazines, insurance companies, credit cards—and written out a check to each one, sealing each check in an envelope with a stamp.  Worried understandably about mail theft from her mailbox, she drove the stack of sealed envelopes to Help U Mail, a few miles away.  With her exclamation, I began thinking about the fascinating dynamics of generational change.  When I began living on my own six years ago, I decided I did not want to deal with paper bills, checks, check registers, and mail, and set up online accounts with automatic deductions for all of my bills: rent, power, gas, internet, gym, insurance.  This made life so much easier, and I never looked back.  I could conveniently check balances on my bank app and utility apps, managing my money on my computer and even on my phone.  My grandfather Wallace, on the other hand, paid his bills, after pay day, by cashing his pay check at the bank, and driving around the Salt Lake Valley to each utility company and government office to pay in person and in cash.  When Mom was a young girl, Wallace often took her with him on these rounds.  Similarly, my grandfather Owen was acknowledged by the city clerk to be the most faithful child support payer in Salt Lake City.  Unlike the other “dead beats,” he paid his obligation in cash every week at the City-County building, and was happy to do it.  Then the bank draft (aka check) became a banking tool for the common man, and my grandfathers wrote out checks and put them in the mail, no longer needing to pay the bills in cash.  And now, my children do everything on their smart phones, from ordering retail products and restaurant take-out, to paying bills, to purchasing air fare, to managing stock investments, to shopping for engagement rings.  The entire world culture changes in a single generation.

(Pictured above: Salt Lake City Hall, formerly known as the Salt Lake City-County building.  Source: gardner.utah.edu.  Used pursuant to the Fair Use doctrine.)

Courage at Twilight: Elevator Girl

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“I got bit by the booster,” I texted my boss the Mayor when I asked to be excused from her staff meeting. I had put off getting my Covid-19 booster vaccination (shot #3) because I missed two days of work each with the first two shots, with fever, aches, and chills.  (My aged parents had no adverse reaction to any of their Covid shots!)  Knowing I might get sick, I needed to plan around Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Steven’s visit in early December, Laura’s visit in mid-December for Caleb’s wedding, and Jeanette’s post-Christmas visit, not to mention weekly City Council meetings.  I thought I had escaped Continue reading →

Courage at Twilight: Mobility Strategy

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I sat down with Mom and Dad recently, and asked Dad if we could discuss a plan to preserve his mobility for as long as possible. Far from defensive, he seemed grateful for the discussion: he and Mom know that him losing his mobility will dramatically affect quality of life for them both.  After our discussion, I typed and printed our Mobility Strategy, in big blaring pitch, and stuck it to the refrigerator with a magnet.  A day in the hospital, the Christmas and New Year holidays, and family celebrations interrupted some elements of the new routine, like going to the gym.  Other elements we started immediately.  I do not badger Dad about drinking water, for example, but every time I pass his chair, I hand him a bottle of cold water.  My message is clear.  And, to be fair, I hold my own water bottle even as I hand him his.  (Water intake can reduce edema.)  Here is our Mobility Strategy.  I will let you know how it goes.

  1. Stationary Bike. Ride the bike 6 days a week, for 30 minutes each ride.
  2. Gym. Go to the gym 2 days a week, weather permitting.
  3. Leg Compressors. Use the pumping leg compressors when reading at night.
  4. Walker. Use the blue walker between family room, kitchen, and dining room, as needed.
  5. Cane. Keep the “walking stick” handy for short treks in the house or to the car.
  6. Compression Socks. Order.  Wear.
  7. Elevate. When sitting, keep legs elevated.
  8. WATER. Keep several water bottles cold in the fridge.  Sip all day.

(Image by Willfried Wende from Pixabay)

Courage at Twilight: Five-Month Reading List

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During my first five months living with Mom and Dad and commuting to and from Sandy and Tooele, from August 1 to January 1, I have enjoyed listening to many amazing books, which have enriched my life tremendously, and have made the time and expense of commuting a blessing in disguise. I have enjoyed sharing these books with Mom and Dad and my children, sometimes just some stories, sometimes the books themselves.  I looking forward to “reading” many more.  How abundant good books make the world.

  • Hidden Figures (Margot Lee Shetterly, 2016)
  • How Will You Measure Your Life? (Clayton Christensen, 2012)
  • Beyond the One-Hundredth Meridian (Wallace Stegner, 1953)
  • How To Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie, 1936)
  • Alexander Hamilton (Ron Chernow, 2004)
  • Becoming (Michelle Obama, 2018)
  • Amos Fortune: Free Man (Elizabeth Yates, 1950)
  • The Truths We Hold: An American Journey (Kamala Harris, 2019)
  • The Pioneers (David McCullough, 2019)
  • The Great Bridge (David McCullough, 1972)
  • Searching for Joy (C.S. Lewis, 1955)
  • The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (C.S. Lewis, 1941)
  • Simply Jesus (N.T. Wright, 2010)

(Image by Lubos Houska from Pixabay)

Courage at Twilight: Life Is Better

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Mom, Dad, and I were blessed to have family visiting as we turned the calendar to 2022.  My sister Jeanette and ten-year-old niece Amy.  My oldest son Brian and his wife Avery and my two-year-old granddaughter Lila.  My son John and his wife Alleigh, expecting their first baby next month.  Others stopping by and video calling.  We splurged a bit on our New Year’s Eve dinner: Jeanette and I cooked sautéed bay scallops topped with a reduction of butter, drippings, and white wine, plus linguini alfredo and garlic bread.  And we allowed ourselves bowls of ice cream with crumbled Oreo cookies and M&Ms and brownie bits and caramel syrup and whipped cream, because we could and because it was New Year’s Eve and we were celebrating.  Earlier in the day we took the girls to the park to sled in the new snow.  On our first run, Lila sat with me in the toboggan, and as we crested the little hill she stiffened and grabbed my legs and I put my arms around her to help her feel safe, though I am sure the sled felt like a roller coaster toppling over the cantilevered edge of the ride.  At the bottom of the short hill she announced, “Out!” and spent the rest of the outing tromping happily in the snow and riding the swings and sliding down the slides, wearing her great-grandmother’s stocking cap.  And at home Lila carried around my Olaf and Winnie the Pooh and Little Growler the lion, calling “Papa Roger!” in her little bird voice, the prettiest sound I have ever heard, right up there with the house finches and cardinals and black-capped chickadees singing in the snowy spruce trees.  And after dinner we played Telestrations and Apples to Apples and laughed and told stories and watched a funny movie.  Life is simply better with good food and good friends and fun games.  Life is better with family.

Courage at Twilight: Stuffed Peppers

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Dad thought stuffed bell peppers would be a nice dinner for Mom and me. And he did not want me “slaving away” in the kitchen, as he put it.  So, he began to thaw the ground beef, cook the rice, cut and seed the green bell peppers, and mix in the seasonings.  Mom had given him two recipes for stuffed peppers, but they conflicted in critical respects, and caused some confusion in the kitchen.  Short on produce, Mom and I drove to the grocery store with our yellow-legal-pad shopping list, the items organized according to their location in the store and our usual circuit.  Home two hours later, we found Dad slaving away over his peppers, understandably utterly worn out.  But when they emerged from the oven 30 minutes later, the cheese crispy on top, the stuffed green bell peppers were beautiful and wonderfully delicious.  Thanks for dinner, Dad.

Courage at Twilight: Sledding and Gingerbread Houses

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My ten-year-old hot-desert-weather Arizona niece Amy came to visit for the New Year holiday week, bringing my sister Jeanette with her. The night their airplane arrived (actually one o’clock in the morning), a dark wall of low purple clouds dumped six inches of new powder on the valley, just in time for Amy to take us sledding.  Jeanette had dug their winter clothing out of her attic and checked a suitcase-full on the flight, so the girls were prepared.  Continue reading →

Courage at Twilight: Winter Holiday Crafts

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A number of years ago, Tooele City, where I have worked for 28 years, began to host craft workshops for the locals.  A color flyer showed the projects, often holiday themed, and we could order them online.  On the appointed evening, we gathered to collect our crafts, mostly preassembled, to paint and decorate them.  Several times I took one of my children for a crafting date—Hyrum made a small sledge.  I have made snowmen, scare crows, pumpkins, pilgrims, and Easter bunnies.  Often more than 50 people would come—and I was always the only man there!  Covid-19 shut the program down temporarily, but then it resumed, with the public picking up their projects from city hall, and taking them home to finish.  This Christmas season, I ordered a winter village scene (pictured above), which my daughter Laura and I painted during her short trip from Houston.  Mom ordered a wood block nativity set (pictured below).  These crafts have been an important activity for me, for the chance to socialize with nice people, and to exercise what little artistic inclination I have—not to mention having fun holiday decorations to exhibit on the front porch or on the dining room table.  I appreciate my town for providing this enriching quality-of-life activity, and for finding a way around a pandemic to keep the program going.

Courage at Twilight: Toe Surgery

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Dad found some of his toes beginning to rise above the others, rubbing painfully against the tops of his shoes.  The podiatrist promised simply, “I can fix that.”  The next week he poked into the sides of Dad’s toes with a tiny scalpel and nicked the toe tendons, to release some of their tension so the toes would drop back into place.  Dad felt great when he came home, and wanted to go to the gym and to the grocery store.  I implored him to sit down and elevate his foot, and placed an ice pack on his foot hoping to prevent and reduce the swelling and pain I knew was coming.  “Dad,” I remonstrated, “if you don’t take it easy today, you are going to pay for it tomorrow.”  And he paid, in the coinage of pain.  And Mom and I paid, too, because it was our job to take care of him.  Our gentle Dad turned into a cantankerous papa bear.  I barked back that I would be very unhappy if he did not take care of his toes and they became infected and had to be amputated.  Perhaps I reacted too harshly, but I needed to get his attention so he would contribute to his own care and healing.  He apologized later, and began following the doctor’s orders (that is, Mom’s and my orders).  Actually, though, he healed quite well, despite diabetes, and I let go my fear of amputation and all it would mean for his mobility.  Now, weeks later, the snow is deep and we are taking granddaughter Amy sledding.

Courage at Twilight: My Enormous Salads

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While I love to cook and eat an exotic French meal, I often opt for a salad for dinner.  The raw vegetables are good for my gut.  But mine is no ordinary salad.  Dad says my salads are the most gorgeous salads ever made.  Of course, I use the standard lettuce, celery, cucumber, carrot, and tomato.  Then I add diced apples, raisins, roasted mixed nuts, avocado, slices of hard-boiled egg, and ground flax.  (I leave out bell peppers and onions.)  Toss it all with salt, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil, and I have a wonderful (and large) bowl of salad for dinner.  I always make extra, offering some to Mom and Dad.  I even prefer this tasty salad over a good burger and fries.  It is so full of wonderful complementary colors, flavors, and textures.  I can eat as much of it as I want.  And after eating, I don’t feel like I have swallowed a hamburger bowling ball.

 

(Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay)

Courage at Twilight: December 23

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We moved our Baker extended family Christmas Eve party to December 23 this year. My (former) wife and I began the tradition in 1992 when we lived with my paternal grandmother Dora, in the basement of her little house, after our return from Portugal, where I had been a Fulbright student.  We enjoyed a simple “shepherd’s meal,” with bread and cheese and nuts and fruits and cold meat.  We recounted the birth of the baby Jesus, and we sang Christmas carols.  Dora, a cute 83 years old, dressed up as Mother Mary and held on her lap my two-year old son Brian.  This year Brian brought his two-year-old Lila as we continued the tradition with Mom and Dad and our extended family of Baker siblings and their posterities.  We moved the party from December 24 to December 23 to add Dad’s birthday to the Christ-child celebration.  We had planned the move for last year to celebrate Dad’s 85th birthday, but Covid-19 dictated otherwise.  So, we rescheduled for 86.  But Dad would not allow us to celebrate his birthday at the party.  Though December 23, this party, he insisted, was to celebrate the birth of Jesus, not the birth of Dad.  He grudgingly allowed a few gifts, but focused on his Savior, and on another notable birth, also on December 23, the 1805 birth of Joseph Smith, the founding prophet who established the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to whom the Father and the Son appeared in 1820.  Those two birthdays counted, Dad said, not his.  We rebuffed him with a respectful, “Yeah, whatever” and added Dad’s birthday to the trifecta celebration.  Card tables and folding chairs accommodated the crowd, which passed by the kitchen island for plates of ham, scalloped potatoes, and my French glazed carrots and parsnips touched with ginger.  And Sarah’s perfect homemade whole-wheat bread.  We sang Christmas carols and rounds and hymns.  We played a matching game with carol names and lyrics.  We played again our indispensable traditional “Left-Right” game in which the group sits in a circle, each person with a wrapped gift, and passes the gifts to the left or to the rights as those words appear in the story Mom narrated about the “Wright” family, with laughter and chaos and flying wrapping paper—one never knew what gift one would receive.  And Brian read the Birth story in Luke 2.  And Dad blessed us again with his Christmas message of love for his Savior and love for his family and how the two inseparably embrace.  The time came for everyone to disperse from whence they came, and Mom, Dad, and I felt content and happy and relieved that the Christmas Eve Birthday party—our 29th annual—had been a success, having celebrated the births of Jesus, Joseph, and Dad: quite our favorite trio.

(Pictured above: a family service project with Mom and Dad.)

Courage at Twilight: Christmas Bittersweet

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My thoughts and feelings on Christmas are bittersweet.  Since divorcing seven Christmases ago, the season brings sadness and uncertainty and a nagging sense of failure, along with the traditional excitement and joy and love.  I ruminate on knotty questions: Do I pull my children away from their mother? Will their mother pull our children away from me? How do I plan? What activities do I undertake? How do I think about gifts and meals and parties?  My seven children are mostly grown and gone, but orbit back frequently.  They are my life’s joy.  At Hannah’s holiday choir concert with the Millennial Choirs and Orchestra, six of my seven children were present, with their spouses and granddaughter Lila, even Caleb and Edie on the night before their wedding.  I am grateful for such times—they become joyful memories.  The children’s mother and I are peaceable, both devoted to the success and happiness of our children.  We have found ways to share the Christmas celebration together, to not pull the children apart, but to give them the best broken-family experience we know how.  “Broken family” is the 20th Century’s nomenclature for our family status, but I loathe the label.  We are still a family, and there is nothing broken about us, just different, a bit challenging, like in all families.  We are doing our very best for the family, for the children.  So, I try to set sadness aside, and work to find ways to give and to enrich, to find ways to remember Jesus, our loving Savior and Redeemer, who gave us the example of giving and forgiving.  I look for ways to celebrate Christmas.  So, I watched the children open their gifts, enjoyed the traditional strawberry waffles, talked and plunked the guitar, and played card games and board games and laughed.  And Hannah affirmed in a letter, “I love you so very much Daddy!  I am so blessed to have you as my father.”  Ways to celebrate Christmas.

 

After Hannah’s Christmas concert.

 

My children, with Mom and Dad.

Courage at Twilight: Weddings and Wheelchairs

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Some days are unabashedly victorious and joyful. They need make no excuse for their happiness, and deserve their delight.  One recent glorious day was my son Caleb’s wedding day.  He and his wife Edie found each other after years of mutual adventures shared by family and friends: rock climbing, kayaking, canyoneering, hiking, mountain biking, and missionary service.  My heart believes in them individually and as a couple, that they can be happy together for the long haul through life.  Caleb’s mother and I joined peaceably in the celebration of our son’s hope and happiness.  Not long ago he was a chubby grinning toddler—now he is a giant with as big a heart.  Mom and Dad, 86 and 82, were able to attend the wedding ceremony, pushed in wheelchairs by my sister Sarah and her husband Tracy.  The marriage was solemnized in the Jordan River Temple, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we took hurried pictures in a sunny 25-degrees.  The wheelchairs were wonderful tools for access and ability, and at the same time ominous portents of things to come.  My thoughts about marriage are tender and wounded and fearful and hopeful.  I want so badly for the marriages of my children, especially, and my friends and neighbors—everyone—to succeed, to be joyful even, knowing the disruption and agony of that particular failure.  What matters today is that Caleb and Edie are happy together, and they are determined to work with each other and for each other to keep it that way.  I feel so very happy for them.  And how content I am that Caleb’s still-living grandfathers and grandmother could join in the celebration, from the wheelchairs that made that joining possible and even comfortable.  Here’s to good days.

Courage at Twilight: Morning Light

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Mom’s and Dad’s open kitchen, dining, and family area has ten windows, facing east, which let in the wonderful morning sunlight as the sun peaks over the 11,000-foot-tall mountain peaks of the Wasatch range.  Sitting at the kitchen table, we watched a doe mule deer with her three yearling fawns stepping through the back yard snow.  When dark descends, Mom shuts out prying eyes by reaching her wooden yardstick over the chairs and sofas to push shut the thick plantation blinds.  In the early morning, preparing my breakfast and lunch for the day, I open the blinds so that Mom and Dad are greeted by sunlight as they begin their day.

(Yep, it’s a birthday–Dad’s 86th!)

Courage at Twilight: Bulk Pick-Up

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Sandy, Utah, where Mom, Dad, and I live, offers fall bulk garbage pickup days in November. On these days, the city’s whole population, it seems, puts their junk on the curb for the city crews to haul away.  Looking up the street before the pickup day, I saw grills, wheelbarrows, mattresses, bed frames, bicycles, benches, logs, pipes, boxes, bins, water heaters, microwave ovens, and most anything else you can imagine.  Mom and Dad do not accumulate much junk, so the items I placed on the curb comprised only six iron T-posts.  Metal scrappers scoured the city in their beat-up pick-up trucks, picking out metal items from the piles.  I went to sleep, with huge piles on the street, and awoke to find all the metal gone—only the plastic and wood items remained for the city to haul off.  A good result, I suppose, with the metals being recycled instead of dumped in the landfill. One neighbor removed dozens of rotting railroad ties from his landscaping and mounded them on the street.  I was appalled at the enormous pile, but the city’s front-end-loader made quick work of it.  While amazed at the waste of numerous seemingly good items being thrown away, still I appreciated the city for helping people de-junk and de-clutter and otherwise clean up their properties, contributing to the community’s aesthetic and reducing public nuisances.  I admire a local government that encourages its residents to be clean and tidy, following up with heavy equipment and trucks—lots of them.

(Photo from Sandy City, Utah, website.)

Courage at Twilight: Hair Cuts By Jen

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Every six weeks, Mom gets her hair cut. Jen, a daughter of a neighbor up the street, is the beautician who cuts Mom’s hair.  During the warm months of spring, summer, and fall, Jen comes to Mom’s house to cut her hair.  Mom sits in a camp chair in the garage while Jen works her magic, and Jen sweeps up afterward.  During the colder months, Mom sits at the kitchen table while Jen carefully snips here and there.  Mom’s hair cut is not fancy, but is cute, and matches her fun personality.  Once flaxen brown, Mom’s hair is now the prettiest white.  Attending Mom’s community orchestra concerts, before Covid shut down public events, my children and I always looked for grandma’s white hair at her violin stand, proud of her for being talented and engaged and happy.  Dad has always been fond Mom’s hair beautiful.  A few years ago, he told me of coming back to bed on a winter morning and observing tenderly his wife’s white hair as she lay sleeping.  Some time after, I wrote this short poem, entitled “Morning”: Warm sun in winter / hurtles white-capped / peaks and rushes through / wide windows / to halt and hover / over a head of tousled white / hair, aged, peaceful / upon her pillow.

(Pictured above: Mom and Dad after receiving their first Covid-19 vaccinations.)

Courage at Twilight: Stacks at the Top of the Stairs

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The stairs to the basement have become more and more difficult for Mom and Dad to go up and down the stairs to the basement.  Each step is a labor, descending a focused effort not to slip or fall, and ascending a herculean effort to climb.  Their trips to the basement to retrieve canned goods or to put their DVDs back on the bookshelves have dwindled to a minimum.  Mom piles clean folded sheets and cans of fruit and NCIS DVDs and rolls of toilet paper on the top stair, allowing sufficient accumulation to warrant the long trip to the cool dark basement.  I see these stacks as my cue to take the trip myself, putting things in their places.  The routine has become a game Mom and I play, with her piling the items neatly on the stair, and me running them downstairs to their nooks and shelves and cupboards.  I don’t mind—I like putting things away neatly in their places.  And we do not even need to coordinate—the task is simple and understood by us both, with not another word said.  Speaking of which, it is time for the next season of NCIS.

BFF

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Sunshine is two years old already.  He and Amy quickly became BFFs: best friends forever.  So glad Amy found her Sunshine.

PS. Such cute little toesies!

Courage at Twilight: Creamy Potato-Leek Soup

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One of the first French meals I cooked for Mom and Dad was Julia Child’s potato-leek soup.  This very simple soup is so hearty and delicious, and the texture thick and creamy.  In one big pot I boiled cubed potatoes, rings of carrots, and sliced leeks, yellow onions, and green onions, with a spot of butter, a shake of pepper, a sifting of salt, and a spray of aromatic herbs: thyme, bay leaf, parsley.  With the vegetables soft, it was time to puree them in their juices with a wand blender, adding cream to the perfectly pureed consistency.  Chopped spinach and sautéed mushrooms were the last to join in, adding color, flavor, and nutrients.  The soup turned out perfectly.  Mom, Dad, and I enjoyed every delectable sip from the spoon, together with bites of crunchy buttered sourdough toast.  Thanks Julia!

Courage at Twilight: Weekend Getaway

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I knew I needed a break.  And a good place to take one was at Harvey’s house, four hours distant, in the small isolated town of Enterprise.  I consider Harvey the hero of my book Rabbit Lane: Memoir of a Country Road.  Actually, my seven children are the principal heroes and heroines.  But Harvey is the non-family member that joins them on the podium.  During his long and colorful life, Harvey was a tanner of hides, a seeker of nature’s healing ways, a modern mountain man living in remote hills and attending rendezvous, and a friend to American Indians, earning from them the name Many Feathers.  Harvey invited me one day to an Indian sweat ceremony, where I languished for three painful hours while also reveling in Indian song and story.  And at the end I smoked the peace pipe handed me by a Navajo Sun Chief, to offer my sacrificial prayer of smoke from burning sage.  Harvey is 84 now, and I wanted to see him.  So, I waved farewell to Mom and Dad and made the voyage.  Skinny and bent, Harvey puttered with me around his house and yard, feeding his prize pigeons and meat rabbits, frying up potatoes and sausages in his black iron skillet, and telling stories about the old days.  After a long day, I slept in the bunk house he built, warmed by the flame in the pot-belly stove.  Before I knew it, I was waving good-bye to Harvey and Mary and driving the long miles home to Mom and Dad, but feeling renewed from my time with my friend.

Courage at Twilight: Here We Come A-Caroling

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“Can we come around 7:00?” she asked.  “That would be lovely,” I answered.  And they came, on a very cold Tuesday night, a small group of church youth with their leaders—two young women and two young men.  “Merry Christmas!” they cheered.  Mom and Dad brought them into the living room, where the group sat visiting on the sofas.  The leaders sparked up a Christmas carol, and the youth sang in shy murmurs.  Until Mom joined, that is.  Though the youth came to serenade her, she jumped right in with her cheerful choral charisma and had the small group singing enthusiastically.  After half-an-hour of caroling, the group called again, “Merry Christmas!” and filed out the door, Mom and Dad waving, everyone happier for the visit.  “We had so much fun,” Mom beamed when I came home late from work.  The youth left a beautiful gift basket with a poinsettia, various fruits, a loaf of Great Harvest cinnamon-raisin bread, Stephen’s mint truffle hot cocoa mix, and two pair of warm winter socks.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

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Let’s make a book on the Waldo model: Where’s Sunshine?  Or the Sesame Street jingle: “One of these things is not like the other”!  Sunshine fits right in with all of Amy’s cute friends, except that Sunshine is the cutest and best of them all.  Such a cute face!

 

Courage at Twilight: The Friendly Beast

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Near midnight, I lay in bed watching the snow fall outside the window, lit up by the strings of white lights on the eves.  Just inside, Olaf, Winnie the Pooh, and Little Growler also watched the pretty sight.  Morning brought the realization of the night’s big snow fall.  A week before, three inches had settled.  Before Dad and I got to the task of shoveling, our neighbor Terry plowed the snow off our driveway and sidewalks with his snow blower.  But this snow fall was a full 12 inches of heavy new powder.  I had not used Dad’s new snow blower before, but the pictorial instructions on the machine showed me how to prime, choke, and start the engine.  The beast of a machine ground eagerly into the drifts, throwing a twenty-foot comet tail.  My affection for the machine grew as it helped me with the enormous job, and I began thinking of it, perhaps appropriate to the season, as my Friendly Beast.  The Beast and I sliced off a foot-width of snow at a time, passing back and forth a hundred times.  The snow near the street sat on inches of slush, which stuck in the tines and snow chute.  Twenty years ago, I met an elderly church volunteer who had severed his fingers cleaning out a clogged snow chute.  With the memory of his bandaged stubs still fresh, I used a broom handle to ream out the chute, then plowed on.  Just then Kevin’s car slid and stuck in the unplowed ruts in the road.  “I’m stuck!” he shouted to me from his open window.  I brought two shovels, and we cleared the ice from behind the tires.  I had him back up slowly, careful not to spin the wheels, and he then was able to roll forward.  He waved gratefully as he drove away, and I went back to the Beast.  After two hours, the Beast and I finally finished the job.  Dad came out, all bundled up, to wave and watch, then we went into the house for mugs of mint truffle hot cocoa mix.

   

Courage at Twilight: Housecleaning

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On Saturday evenings in my childhood New Jersey home, Dad filled a bucket with warm soapy water, sank to his hands and knees, and scrubbed the kitchen’s linoleum floor.  I never felt the compulsion or even inclination to join him (but I worked hard in the yard).  I remember thinking his knees must be awfully sore.  Later, he purchased a carpet cleaner to clean the carpeted rooms himself.  The walls showed roller marks where Dad had patched and painted holes or stains on the walls.  He rubbed Murphy’s oil into the wood furniture, and vacuumed the carpets and rugs.  These helpful habits lasted long into Dad’s retirement.  But the day finally came, brought on by a knee transplant and age, that he could no longer descend to his hands and knees to scrub the tile floors.  The day came when Mom and Dad needed help cleaning the house.  That is when Ely started coming.  She comes every Monday morning with her smile and her cleaning supplies.  Mom and Dad love her, are happy to have her in their home, and are relieved at how clean Ely makes everything for them.  In addition, Dad calls Stanley Steamer to steam clean the carpets.  But Dad still breaks out the carpet cleaner to spot clean the trouble spots and wear paths and food spills from the most recent family party.

Courage at Twilight: Hidden Figures

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Hannah came home with me for the evening, and to spend the night. After a dinner of soup and toast, I invited her to pick a movie to watch with Mom and Dad.  She went to their movie archive—three basement bookshelves lined with DVDs and even VHS tapes—and came back with Hidden Figures, the story of the critical contributions made by three Black women to NASA’s nascent space flight program and to launching the first American astronaut into earth orbit in 1962.  That astronaut, John Glen, asked human computer and mathematician Katherine Johnson to recheck the new IBM computer’s go/no-go capsule re-entry calculations.  Mary Jackson broke through glass ceilings to help engineer the orbit capsule.  Dorothy Vaughan, a FORTRAM computer language expert, became NASA’s first Black supervisor.  I have seen the movie several times, and always find it inspiring.  These women, and many others, were both heroines and pioneers.  My favorite movie moment is when NASA Director Al Harrison, in a meeting with the nation’s top brass, transfers from his white hand to Ms. Johnson’s brown hand the stick of chalk, a baton, a metaphor for so many necessary human equity advances, including civil rights and women’s rights.  The book is high on my reading list, and I look forward to reading more about NASA’s remarkable hidden figures.

Courage at Twilight: Cheesy Onion Bread

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The Olympic games played on the television all day Saturday.  I was getting ready to bake cheesy onion bread with Gabe.  He wanted to do everything: measure out the flour, dump in the salt, even pour in the Guinness.  We pressed and pounded the dough and set it to proof in the lightbulb-warm oven.  Gabe and I laid on the floor in front of the TV building castles with the wood blocks.  As castle architect, he instructed me on exactly where to place each block, and where not to.  Just then Olympic wrestling came on the TV.  We watched the twisting and grunting, looked at each other, and launched into our own wrestling and tickling free for all.  Needing a break, we wandered outside to find Grandpa (Dad) fertilizing and watering his plants and flowers.  Gabe just had to get in on that action, though he preferred watering the landscaping boulders.  When the rocks were clean, he turned the hose on us.

Courage at Twilight: Tithes and Offerings

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Tithing

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, said Yahweh to Israel.  Thousands of years later, paying one-tenth of one’s increase continues to be the standard in my Church, a law both temporal and spiritual.  Temporal to help the poor, and to build schools and churches and temples.  Spiritual to show faith and obedience, spiritual to turn outward to others, spiritual to be sanctified through sacrifice.  Tithing and other offerings are used for Church buildings and programs, for Church institutions of higher education and missionary work, to help the poor, and to provide humanitarian assistance worldwide.  Every December, members of our Church are invited to meet with the local church leader, the Bishop, for a Tithing Settlement, where we discuss in private our tithe-paying status.  Mom and Dad put their names on the sign-up sheet for after Sunday services.  I followed the unconventional step of asking if I could join in their appointment, though we tithe our incomes separately and privately.  The Bishop thanked us for our offerings and reiterated Jehovah’s promise that for those who give to the Church, God will open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing upon us that we will not have room to receive.  Our vessels will be full to overflowing.  We consider ourselves greatly blessed.  And we are grateful.

 

(Photo from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)

Courage at Twilight: Decorating the Christmas Tree

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Steven and I pulled the black garbage bags off the high closet shelf.  Each bag held a section of the Christmas tree.  Boxes of ornaments and lights followed.  My brother Steven was visiting for the week from North Carolina, visiting his beloved, elderly parents.  We spread and fluffed the wire branches, wound bright tinsel ropes, strung strings of white lights, and hung red baubles and ornaments.  Many of the ornaments were homemade, some decades ago in our New Jersey childhood home.  Ornaments made from the lids of frozen orange juice cans, punched with nails in patterns, and painted by little children.  Steven was two years old when I left home for a university 2,200 miles away.  How does an adult brother have a meaningful relationship with a distant two-year-old in the 1980s when long-distance calls cost as much as mortgage payments?  He doesn’t.  But I am in my late 50s now, and he in his early 40s, and the ages no longer matter.  We are brothers, sons of common parents, and we are friends.  Steve laughed as he hung a particular ancient ornament, a humble thing belonging only on our family tree.  We turned the lights on with pleasure, and stood back and looked at the Christmas tree with pleasure.  And Mom’s and Dad’s faces lit up with love and smiles to see their little boy all grown up into the best kind of man.

 

Courage at Twilight: Pizza for Dinner

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For dinner tonight we pulled out a frozen pizza and slid it into the roasting hot oven.  While it bubbled and crisped, I made fruit smoothies with frozen strawberries, blueberries, and a banana, plus a little cream, milk, and ice.  Wedges of lettuce and sliced tomatoes, spread with mayonnaise, rounded out a nice, simple meal.  I have a good recipe for pizza dough, and my sister Jeanette gave me a pizza stone a while back.  I need to get some toppings and try homemade pizza.  Maybe with fresh mushrooms, or ground sausage, or ham and pineapple.  And you can’t go wrong with pepperoni.

 

(Image by Bruno Marques Designer from Pixabay)

Courage at Twilight: Pantene 2-in-1

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Dad lamented that his scalp hurt, and asked Mom and me to find a better shampoo that would be soothing to his head.  Back in the day, when I had hair, I liked Pantene 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner.  It softened and smoothed my hair and skin.  So, Mom and I brought home a bottle from the grocery store for Dad to try.  Within a few days, he beamed at how much he liked the new shampoo, remarking that his scalp no longer burned or stung.  (I suspect any shampoo-conditioner combo would have worked.)  The following week, at the grocery store, Mom told me to put five bottles in the shopping cart.  Only two sat on the shelf.  But now we know what works, and will add it routinely to the shopping list.