50th High School Reunion - Saturday & Sunday

Saturday morning (Aug 8) was the Cardston parade, and our class had a float in the parade. Barret’s band was also in the parade. They were in front of us, so I saw a bit of them but not very clearly.

Our float couldn’t hold all of us. I may have the numbers wrong, but I believe we had the following statistics.

Total graduated 130
Already passed 22
At the reunion 76

That means that that over 75% of those who could be there were there. I’m not sure what those people who didn’t make it onto the float did.

The parade was quite fun. People were throwing handfuls of candy to the kids, but I decided to take a more “targeted” approach.

I threw all my candy one piece at a time, and I focused on those who may not get as much candy as the others. If I saw a kid standing by himself and not running for the candy, I would throw to him. I threw it into every baby stroller I could find. An old man had his hat sitting in his lap and I threw one into the hat. A truck was parked on the side of the road, and a dad had his daughter sitting on his lap. I threw one into the truck window. Some Hutterites were in the back of a pickup and I threw several into the back of the truck. If I caught someone’s eye, I would throw to them and more often than not, they caught it. I threw some at the Mounties, but they didn’t seem impressed. I did this the entire parade route. It was fun.

At the end of the parade, they decided to drive the float back to the starting line because most of the people had left their vehicles there. They gave everyone plenty of warning, but when the trailer started moving, Ricky Williams wasn’t on the trailer. He ran and tried to jump onto the trailer, but it was high and we were going uphill and we were moving just a bit too fast so he could never make it on. A couple of people were trying to help him, but it wasn’t working out. Darlyn Boyson was in a chair, and she was reaching down to give him a hand when all the sudden she toppled off the back of the trailer, chair and all. Rick, Darlyn and the chair were all rolling down the road.

I thought she had grabbed Ricky’s hand and he pulled her over, but she said she didn’t have his hand. Rick finally confessed and apologized because he grabbed the leg of her chair and he pulled her over. Thankfully Darlyn had the presence of mind to duck and not land on her head. She had a bit of road rash on her upper arm, but she was OK. The float took us back to where the parade started, which was close to where Lisa was watching the parade. She wouldn’t answer her phone, so I used GPS to find her location and walked to where she was.

I wasn’t surprised to find her chatting it up with her newfound cousin Bodie Smith. This is where I need to give you the back story.

A couple of weeks ago Lisa woke up with a strong impression to call Lisa Smith. At first, she wasn’t even sure who Lisa Smith was, but as she thought about it, she remembered that several years ago she had received an email from Family Search telling her that someone had modified the profile of one of her ancestors. She has Family Search set up so that if anyone modifies any of her family on the Shaw line, she gets a notification.

She checked out the notification and found that a woman named Lisa Smith had added a record to her Aunt Jenny or Aunt Jenny’s husband. Aunt Jenny is her great grandfather’s sister. The two Lisa’s exchanged a few emails but then life got in the way and they lost contact.

After Lisa received this prompting to call Lisa Smith, she went through her emails and found that the last time they emailed was in 2014. Lisa fired off a message but never got a response so she started sleuthing. In one of her emails, Lisa Smith told Lisa Leavitt all about her family. She mentioned that she had a son named Bodie on a mission in England.

Lisa tried to find Lisa Smith on Facebook but there were far too many Lisa Smiths, but she did find Bodie Smith and she confirmed it was the right Bodie Smith from some of his mission pictures. They made contact and he gave Lisa his mother’s contact information. When she was talking to Bodie, she learned that he was going to be at the Cardston Parade. That is how they hooked up after the parade. It was cool.

We visited for quite a while and then we made our way up to Atwood Park for a picnic. The picnic was a potluck and there was a lot of amazing food. We visited for a long time and then headed to Lethbridge to visit Fara and her girls.

At one point during the picnic this guy came up to me and said, “Fred, it is good to see you”. He didn’t have a name tag on, so my standard response was, “Hi, you look familiar but you’re going to have to help me out with your name”. He said his name was Joe Paulson.

The name was familiar but, in my mind, I was trying to remember another student. Finally, someone said, “Fred, he was our physics teacher”. It all came back to me then. Physics was my absolute favorite subject in school. His class cemented in my mind my desire to become an engineer. I told him all that and tried to impress on him what an impact he had on my life. I told him that he was my favorite teacher ever, I told him that because of him I became an engineer, I got a graduate degree from UCSD, and I had done projects for NASA, JPL, DOE, NSF and a dozen other government agencies. I would never say that to other students, but I wanted him to understand the impact he had on my life. It was so good to see him.

I finally decided we needed to head to Lethbridge, or I wouldn’t have any time with Fara.

It was good to see Fara, her girls came over and we visited for quite a while.

Fara’s new apartment is quite nice and many of the tenants in her apartment block have formed a nice group that meets often and has parties. She has a good group of friends.

Her girls are currently all living in one house. Tina’s house has two rooms downstairs that she rents out so Karla lives in one of them and Barbie-Joe and her youngest live in the other one. I would love to have all my kids in one place. Oh well.

From Fara’s we went to Pat and Gary’s apartment where we had dinner, visited and then went to bed. After dinner Loni and Todd Snow stopped in for a quick visit.

It was good to see them. Todd just recently received an interesting calling. Todd and Loni live in Raymond but they got a call from the Stake President in Lethbridge asking if he could meet with them. That was strange but they just assumed that he was going to ask them if they could help provide food for a big party they were putting on.

They met and their discussion had nothing to do with food or a party or anything else, it focused in Todds past experience etc. Finally, he asked Todd that if he were to receive a call to be the Bishop over the older young adults in all Southern Alberta would he accept that call. Todd of course said yes and then they left.

As they were driving home, they were quite confused and Todd said to Loni, “did we just receive a call or not?” Several months later they received the call. What happened was that they were creating a new ward and when they sent the paperwork to Salt Lake for approval, they had to have a bishop’s name on the paperwork.

Their ward is for all young adults from 26 years old to 35 years old. I could be wrong on those ages, but you get the idea. Their ward boundaries go from the US border up to Nanton and from the BC border almost to Saskatchewan. They have 600 members and perhaps 150 are active but due to work commitments and other conflicts, they don’t all attend at the same time. Their attendance averages just over 100. They have their work cut out for them.

Sunday morning we attended Sacrament Meeting with Pat & Gary and then ate lunch with them and headed out. Our first stop was Lisa’s mother’s grave site. Lisa put a QR code on her grave marker like we did my parents and then we stopped at the Lethbridge temple site on our way out of town.

It kind of blows my mind that we are getting a temple in Lethbridge.

It is coming along nicely but as I’m looking at it, I see this weird looking pyramid sitting in front of the temple. I thought it was dumb to have the steeple in front of the temple and that it looked ugly.

Lisa then noticed that the steeple was supposed to go on top of the temple, like the picture on the billboard shows.

From the temple we headed to Welling to meet Lisa’s long-lost cousin. We met her son in Cardston after the parade, but Lisa really wanted to meet Lisa Smith.

They live on a farm closer to Raymond than to Welling but I guess they have a Welling address. We visited with them for over an hour and shared memories of the people they knew in common. I think I shared this before, but let me do it again quickly.

Lisa’s Great Grand Father, James Shaw, had a sister named Jennie who married George Edwards. They had a son also named George. George married Helen and they had two sons. One of their sons married and they had a daughter, Lisa Edwards Smith. Lisa’s parents divorced and Helen remarried a nice guy who we met, and he is in the picture. Lisa got married and had a kid named Boedie who I talked about earlier in this post. Lisa then got divorced and married a nice guy with the last name Smith and Bodie took his name. It is quite confusing and I hope I got it right.

In the picture, left to right is me, Lisa, Lisa, Lisa’s husband, Helen (Lisa’s mother), Lisa’s stepfather, Lisa’s daughter (Bodies sister).

We then headed to Great Falls to return our car and catch our flight back to Mesa. The Great Falls airport has this amazing display (if that is what you call it) with a cougar in the middle of a stream cascading down a hill. The whole thing is positioned between the up and down escalators. It was quite amazing.

The big coincidence with this trip is that Kira and Justin headed for Canada the same day that we did and at almost the same time. We also landed within twenty minutes of each other. Unfortunately, we were at different airports. It was late when we got home so we didn’t visit too long. The next morning, we had a relaxed morning and then headed home. I checked with GPS and found that it would only take ten minutes longer to drive home through Arizona’s new Bucci’s, so we went home that way. The drive may have only been ten minutes longer, but you don’t want to forget the extra hour we spent in the store. It was worth it.

It was a great trip, and I visited with a lot of people. 

--------------------trivia--------------------

When growth hormone production decreases as we enter our twenties, thirst perception also decreases.

----------------------------------------------

50th High School Reunion - Thursday & Friday

Tuesday, August 11, 2026

When I decided to head home for my 50th High School Reunion I wasn’t sure what to expect, but as it turned out. It was amazing.

We found a cheap flight on Allegiant Airlines that flew from Phoenix to Great Falls, so we decided to go visit Kira and Ben and take that flight and then rent a car out of Great Falls. We drove to Ben’s house last Wednesday (Aug 5). We decided to make it a surprise, and we totally surprised all of them. They didn’t know we were coming. We gave Jack his birthday gift, visited for an hour or two and then went to Kira’s. We gave Kira and Justin early birthday gifts and then we went to bed.

Our flight on Thursday was in the afternoon, so we spent the day with Kira. We met Ben for lunch at Little Miss BBQ.

That place is amazing.

We boarded our flight pretty much on time but then we sat on the plane at the gate for an hour. They then unloaded us and let us sit in the terminal for another hour and then reboarded us where we sat for most of a third hour. Thank goodness for the one-hour reprieve, sitting on a plane that isn’t going anywhere is miserable. To make matters worse, it is a budget airline with cheap seats that have no cushions and don’t recline. By the time we got to Great Falls my back was killing me.

We were expecting to be at Kari and Barret’s before midnight, but it was after midnight when we finally got in our rental car. Just to make things worse, we waited in a line at the border crossing for nearly an hour. It was well after 3:00 AM before we finally crawled into our beds.

Friday morning, we went to a temple session. It was wonderful to visit the temple we both grew up with and where we got married.

After the session we checked out the grounds for a bit and then I noticed what looked like a big bug cruising across the lawn. Suddenly it turned and headed straight towards us. It was a little freaky but very cool. It was also dead silent so it must have had a scroll type of blade.

Apparently when they first got them (there are three of them) it took a while for the robots to figure out where all the trees are. There is a Facebook page for the temple, and it was common to see a post saying, “a robot is stuck in a tree”.

We then cruised around town a bit and saw the house I grew up in. It doesn’t look anything like it did when I saw it last.

This is the church across the street from the temple. This is where I went to church until I left for college. I have been inside that steeple.

After the temple, we went and visited Mom and Dad’s plots in the cemetery. Lisa put these little QR codes on their graves. If you scan the code it takes you to their Family Search profile where you can see their family tree and read all about their lives. Here are their QR codes. Maybe you can scan them and check them out.

We had planned to go to Waterton on Friday morning, but we decided to check out the Remington museum instead. Dad did a lot of the finished carpentry in the museum so on top of a visit to an amazing museum, I got to see some of Dad’s handiwork.

The museum had hundreds of carriages, and they were all displayed and described in a way that made sense. I loved it. They even had a good description of the transition from carriages to automobiles and how some of the big guys in the carriage business refused to see what was coming. They figured it was a fad.

This phone is very similar to the one we had on our farm. They have a little crank on the right side, and you could use that to call other people on the same line or just a long crank to call the operator who would connect you to people on different lines. I really wish I could remember what our call sign was. I need to ask Dixie, I’m sure she remembers. The signs were kind of like Morse code. I remember mom and dad used to honk the horn to make the code as a sign that we needed to come home. Something like a long, short, long, long similar to morse code,    - • - -

Kari then took us to this amazing place called the “Pop Shop”. They make these very delicious slushies.

Friday night was the big dinner. It was held at the High School Cafeteria. There was no cafeteria when I was in High School. While the outside of the school isn’t too different from how I remember it, the inside is completely different. I did a little exploring, but I didn’t get a chance to do much. The Physics and Chemistry rooms are in pretty much the same area but the buildings where I went to, band, auto shop, wood shop, drafting and photography are all gone.

From 6:00 to 6:30 was a “meet and greet” and then we sat down to an amazing prime rib dinner. We visited with the guys at our table and then they had a program.

I saw Royce Leavitt and we visited for a while; Royce is married to Marina Russel. We had a good visit about him babysitting me. Royce’s dad and my grandpa were brothers. Uncle Devere and Aunt Margrete.

The cafeteria was done very well. They had paintings on the walls of each of the small communities that feed into Cardston. They even had the town of Leavitt.

The theme song we used for our graduation was “Do You Know Where You’re Going To”. The reunion committee wrote new words for the song and sang it for us. One of the girls was on a flute and played very well. The entire song was well done.

The words went like this:

Do you know where you're going too

Do you like the things that life is showing you

Where are you going to

Do you know?

Do you know where you parked your car

Do you even know exactly where you are

Where is that doggone car

Do you know?

And the only silver that does shine

Is in our thinning and receding hairlines

Yes, we all loved it but it wasn't meant to be

That Farrah Fawcett look for you and for me

Have your kids moved back home with you

To your downsized home that's only built for two

What are you going to do

Do you know?

Instrumental

In the end they'll put you in a home

So they can spend your money and freely roam

And this is morbid but we know our own demise

The kids will pull the plug to charge their device

Kens, Dineaway, and the Grove are gone

And the radio plays such a different song

Those good old days are gone

Where'd they go?

We have lived in the best of times

When the music and all the lyrics rhyme

Oh! What a groovy time

YES we know.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Today, more pictures are taken every two minutes than were taken throughout the 1800s. It is estimated that ten percent of all photos ever taken were taken in the last twelve months.

----------------------------------------------

Grandpa's 85th - The Trip Home

Friday

Thursday and Friday it was only Kira’s family and mom and I left in Canada. Everyone else had left Wednesday.

Friday morning Justin and his family headed out in their van in the wee hours of the morning and left their rental car for mom and I to drop off at the airport.

During the entire trip mom has been trying to get some French fries and gravy. French fries with gravy is very common in Canada, but we just never had the opportunity to get any. Guess what mom found at the airport?

While we were travelling home everyone else was gathering at our house in San Diego. Kira had invited about fifty friends to the San Diego temple open house and they, along with Ben and his family were there before we were. We landed late and I forget who picked us up.

Thankfully the Knaphus’s were out of town and turned their house over to Kira and her many friends.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Commercial Airplanes get about 100 mpg per person

----------------------------------------------

Grandpa's 85th - Little Qualicom Cheese Works

Thursday

Thursday was a rainy day, but we made the best of it. We decided to check out a small cheese factory that wasn’t too far away.

It was fascinating and I am impressed by how they have turned it into a bit of a show. It was cool to see how they made the cheese, but I wish they would show us more of the operation.

The best part of the visit was the milk dispenser. They have a sign posted showing what the milk fat is for the day and the milk that we bought was 3.9% fat. It was delicious.

The whole time we’ve been driving around we keep seeing "Piper’s Cove" on the map. We had time, so Justin and I figured we had to see it.

It was a beautiful cove, but it is was interesting to see how it completely empties out during low tide. I didn’t get a decent picture of the cove, so I pulled these two pictures off the internet.

--------------------trivia---------------------

33% of elephants in Mozambiques Gorongoas Park are being born without tusks. In some areas it is as high as 50%. Historically, only 3% of elephants were born without tusks. Evolution is in action to protect them from ivory hunters.

-----------------------------------------------

Grandpa's 85th - Cathedral Grove

Wednesday

Wednesday we all met at the Shaw house for breakfast and then we left grandpa behind and Carol took us to the Cathedral Grove. First, we went to visit Doug’s grave.

After some time, we bid Doug farewell and headed on to the grove.

The Cathedral Grove is amazing. All the trees are huge, but some are spectacular.

It was a short walk of only a mile or two, but it felt like a sacred place.

At one point we came to a river and a tree had fallen over the river. 

We spent most of our time there playing on the banks of the river.

This is the tallest tree in the grove

When we were done at the grove we headed to a Parksville a park in north Nanaimo. But on the way we stopped at the “Goats on Roof” store. It is nothing more than a glorified convenience store but the fact that they have goats on the roof of their store makes it quite unique. 

Their donuts and ice cream also make it worth the stop.

The park was quite amazing. Some of us headed straight to the beach but others of us hung out in the playground playing with the kids. 

They had a cool zip line that was made safe for little kids, and they had these swings with two seats, one for an adult and one for a child.

Eventually most of us made it out to the beach. For those of us who were used to San Diego beaches it was surprising at how fast and how high the tide came in. It was a fourteen-foot tide and our typical tide is maybe five feet.

The coolest part were the sand dollars. There were hundreds of them and most of them alive.

We searched through them all until we found a few dead ones that we could take home.

We played around in the water until we were all ready to head back to the house. It was an amazing playground right on the beach. They should do this with La Jolla Shores.

Back at the house we just relaxed for a few hours, played games, ate dinner and called it a day.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Every single kernal in a cob of corn has a tube attached to it. It extends from the top of the cob and we see it as "corn silk". If a strand doesn't get fertilized by wind blown pollen, then that kernal of corn won't develop.

----------------------------------------------