Who Do I Remember?

It was a great trip, and I visited with a lot of people. I didn’t get this recorded right away so I have probably already forgotten a lot of the people I visited with and I may have their names wrong but, in an effort to record as much as I can, I took a list of everyone on the contact list from an email that was sent and I am recorded (as best as I can remember) any interaction I had with them. I have everyone listed in my journal but since most of my interactinos were a simple hello, I will only record the ones that you may be more interested in. I talked to thirty six people so that is about half of the seventy six people who were there.

 

Brian Eakett

Weird story about Brian. Brian was a friend in high school and we visited for quite a while at the reunion and then he started telling me that two weeks ago he was diagnosed with liver cancer and he was told he had six months to live unless he got a transplant. Canada wouldn’t do the transplant because he wasn’t sick enough, the US would do it but it would cost a couple million dollars so he was considering going to Turkey to get it done.

Brians wife is from Edmonton so Lisa and her hit it off at our last reunion and were having a long visit at this reunion. A while after I had visited with Brian I went over to Lisa and Brians wife and I mentioned how it sucks about Brians liver. At first she pretended not to know what I was talking about but when she realized that Brian had told she got mad and said that they had agreed not to talk about it yet. I guess he needed to get it off his chest and talk to someone.

Later when Lisa and I were visiting with Todd and Loni, I shared some of these stories and Todd mentioned that Brian is an interesting guy. He worked at the IGA in Cardston for a few years as a meat cutter. He left because they got unionised. He spent everything he had and bought an old run down gas pump and convenience story directly across the street from the Raymond High School. He then found some damaged chocolates and candies from somewhere and sold them to the high school kids for a rediculously cheep price and made millions. He then sold the gas station and bought several properties in Lethbridge.

I mentioned that maybe he could afford a transplant in the States. Brian wore and old T shirt and had a long scraggly beard. He did not look like a millionair.

 Cyndi Cameron Palmer

I had the biggest crush on Cyndi, she was friendly and pretty and was in my ward. Her mother and my mother were friends. She was also very pretty.

When the Calgary Temple was having their open house Kira and Justin volunteered at the open house. At the time they had been given the opportunity to adopt Cameron and since they already had a handicapped son it was a big decision to adopt another one. They were at the temple dedication when they learned that Camerons birth parents were in town and Cyndi and her husband were able to help them find a quiet place to make some phone calls. I don’t remember all the details but lets just say and Cyndi and her husband played a part in Kira and Justin adopting Cameron. I had a short but good visit with Cyndi and her husband. 

Dawna Folsom Baugh

I remember Dawna, she was our Prom queen or what ever they call that in Canada. She also MC’d the entire dinner. Lisa remembered from the reunion that Dawna recently retired from teaching at BYU for thirty years as a home economics professor. She was heading out on a big European tour to celebrate.  The next Sunday Lisa was talking to Lorraine Henry and realized that Lorraine knows Dawna quite well and is going on the tour with her. What a small world.

Deborah (Deb) Jones Prete

I knew Debbie well. She was in my ward and her dad was my bishop for a long time. He always called me King Frederick. Debbie was my first date. She didn’t attend the last reunion I went to, but then I saw her in the bookstore and I told her she should have gone to the reunion. When she saw me at this reunion she told me that she came to the reunion because of what I said the last time. Good.

Ed Mackenzie

Ed and I were pretty good friends but he was from Mountain View and we never got to hang out. What I remember most of Ed was that one of his front teeth was a silver tooth. He had lost his tooth when a pool ball took a nasty bounce and knocked his tooth out. We had a good visit and his silver tooth has been replaced with a more natural looking one.

Fred Holland

I had to say hi to the only other Fred I knew growing up. I had a good visit with Fred and his wife. She is suffereing from cancer and it is kind of sad.

Gary Zemp

Gary and I never hung out but his mother taught me piano lessons when I was a kid. We had a good visit but he didn’t believe that his mom taught me piano lessons. I then asked him if his house burned down when he was a kid. It had. I told him that I remembered that well because for a few weeks she taught me piano lesson in a hotel room.

Ginny Williams

Ginny was the face of the reunion committee and sent out all the emails. In high school she was very popular and dated a very popular guy. I doubt I said two words to her in all of high school. She ended up marrying Rick Williams who was way more outgoing than I was but still not considered one of the popular kids.

Rick and Ginny Williams were Jackies next door neighbor when Ross and Jackie lived in Cardston and I got to know them a little better then.

Hal Sloan

Hals family owned a service station in waterton so we saw each other often. We were sort of friends. We had a great visit at the reunion.

Kathy Cahoon Russell

I had a really good visit with Kathy. I believe her dad and Aunt Nola are first cousins. Her dad was also my band teacher in Junior High.

Lance Bevans

Lance was always kind to me but we ran in very different circles. We were never friends but always cordial.

During the reunion he sat right next to me but at a different table. They were projecting class pictures from various grades and seeing who we could recognize. My third grade class picture came up with Mrs Grant. I mentioned to Lisa (but loud enough for everyone around me to hear) that’s Mrs Grant she was the worst teacher. Lance heard me and asked if I remembered how that year she pulled the two of us out of class. I remembered it clearly and that was the biggest reason she was my absolute worst teacher. He then proceeded to fill me in on the rest of the story.

First, let me give you a bit of background on why I “disliked” her so much and maybe why I wasn’t her favorite student. Mrs Grant was recently married and had been Miss Sheffield before getting married. I found it crazy that she was a newly wed because she was a crabby old lady who wore huge “coke bottle” glasses and was still half blind.

We got off to a bad start because I usually put my long legs out into the aisel rather than keep them cramped under my desk. Most teachers would step over them or tell me to get them out of the aisle, but she was blind and tripped over them. Boy did she get mad.

One day during recess I caught a garter snake on power house hill and in a naïve attempt to gain her favor I thought I’d bring it into class and give it to her as a peace offering. That went over like a lead balloon and once again I suffered her wrath.

So one day after recess, Mrs Grant comes into our class with this little kid who looked around the room and pointed to me and Lance. She then hauled us into this small interegation room and slapped us both. I don’t actually remember getting slapped but that is how Lance remembered it and I totally believe it to be true. That is what she was like.

Apparantly this kid who pointed us out was beat up during recess and his glasses got broke. He accused Lance and I of being the culprits. It felt like we sat there for hours with Mrs Grant screaming in our faces saying things like, “you know you did it so just confess”, and “why are you lying about this”. It was torture. Finally after what seemed like hours, my imature mind decided that if I just confessed then it would all be over. Well that didn’t work, I confessed and suddenly we ended up in the principals office. The principal was a breath of fresh air after what I’d just been through.

They finally released us and I went home and never heard about this incident again. I never thought about poor Lance. Lance lived on a farm and they had held us for so long that he missed his bus home. I guess his dad worked in town so he walked to where his dad was and told him what had happened.

As fate would have it, Lances dad had “Miss Sheffield for a teacher when he was a kid and hated her just as much as we did. He took Lance and headed right back to school and let them all have it. It has been sixty years since this all happened but suddenly I felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction. Thank you Lance and Lances dad for not caving in like I did.

Loni Sheen Price

Loni was very popular in High School and her dad was my 5^th grade teacher. As it turned out, Loni’s daughter Sheena and her husband Matt became very good friends with Kira and Justin when they lived in Calgary. They still see eather other frequently. I asked Sheena a couple of times if her mother remembered me. I guess she didn’t (which is not at all surprising) but at the reunion Loni and I had a great visit and talked about our kids and about her dad who as an infamous teacher.

He is the guy who gave me my one and only strap in all my years of school. I was quite proud of that. Mr Sheen would be writing at the board and if he heard someone talking he would whirl around and throw the piece of chalk at the kid. He was fast and deadly accurate. In case you’re wondering, I got the strap for chewing gum in school. Who would have thought. I hate gum.

Lori Larson Morrison

I remember Lori well and we had a good visit. I was surprised to see her in a wheel chair. When I first saw her I thought she might have type 3 SMA but she told me she has Familial Spastic Paraparesis. It is genetic just like SMA where both your parents have to have the gene and then the kids have a one in four chance of getting it as well. She is one of five kids and three of them have this disease.

Shirlee Watson Miller

Let me tell you a story about Shirlee. We were in the same ward so I saw her often and she was always nice to me but she was a girl so I was too scared to every carry on much of a conversation. Back then we would have “Road Shows” every year. Those were short little plays that the youth in each ward would put on for the other wards.

One year we did a play wehre Shirlee and I were the parents of this family and I had to kiss my wife (Shirlee) on the lips. I think I was coming home from work or something and just gave my wife a quick kiss. In any case I was terrified but the kiss was the highlight of my young life.

I shared the story with Shirlee and she asked if “she was that scary”? She wasn’t scary at all, she was just that beautiful. I asked if she remembered it and she didn’t so we assumed that if it had been bad she would have remembered it but at the same time it wasn’t so great that she remembered it.

Sterling Martin

I have a story to tell about Sterling, he is from Glenn Wood so he went to school there until High School when they bussed into Cardston. He was always nice to me (or so I thought). In auto mechanics one year we formed teams and each team tore down and rebuilt an engine. I was teamed with Keith Webster, another social outcast like I was but we were both pretty smart. When were putting our engine together long before anyone else. The remainder of the class decided they needed to slow us down so unknown to us they filled the cylinders of our engine with motor oil. That is kind of a dangerous thing to do because it could break a piston rod but we soon figured it out and were still the first ones to get our motor running.

Years later while we were in Rosemary, Sterling was visiting a relative in Rosemary and saw me. He told me he needed to confess to me and that he needed my forgiveness, he said his concience had been bothering him ever since and he needed to confess. It was quite funny. We had a good visit.

Terrie Olsen Bullock

Funny story about Terrie. At the reunion she comes up to me and says hi. She remembered me right away but it took me a while to place her. When we had our motels we would move up to Waterton in early May and stay there until late September. That meant that we had to take a bus while school was still on. There was a bus that took the Waterton kids to Pincher Creek but no bus to Cardston. We had to drive a few miles towards Mountain View where we caught a bus to school. The name of the family that drove the bus was Olsen and Terrie was one of their kids. I rode that bus for years and I obviously new Terrie but I never talked to her (she was a girl after all) and I never realized that she was in my grade. I don’t think she knew that I was in her grade either.  I guess this is another missed opportunity. I should have just talked to her.

Todd Wolsey

He was there and we visited for a bit. Not long ago, our friend Ken Wolsey told me that he was planning a trip to his fathers homeland. It turns out that Kens dad grew up in Cardston and him and Todd are related. I introduced them to each other via email and hopefully Todd can show Ken some family history up there.

Walter Armsworthy

I remember Walter well and we had a good visit but I just learned of a cool new connection. Walters son and his family just moved to St George and his grandaughter Jo Jo and Ella are becoming good friends. How cool is that?

Larry Harlty was into music big time his entire life and continued with it as an adult. I think he was even in a band. He wrote a song dedicated to the class of 1976. It is a rock song and while I’m not a fan of the genre, the song is pretty cool. Lisa told him he needed to play that song on repeat while we were riding the float. He did. Here are the lyrics of the song.

1976 Cougars, SONS OF THE PIONEERS

Off the rocky banks of Lee's Creek, in the shadow of old chief...
There's a certain storied High School, with classmates beyond belief.
Their mascot is a Cougar, and their History stands tall
You can hear the stories whispered, up & down the old school hall...
Onward Cardston Cougars, back then we had no fears...
1976 Cougars, the son's of the pioneers, sons of the pioneers, yes the sons of the pioneers...

In the gym you'd find Tim Tallstrip, like his name, yes he was Tall,
He and Joker ran the show there, taught us how to move the Ball.
Walter & Todd, ...Daryl, Shane & Hal.., on the court bringing down the house
But no-ones as cool as Lance Bev-an's, cause you know what, He's Got Cows!!
Onward Cardston Cougars, back then we had no fears...
1976 Cougars, the son's of the pioneers, sons of the pioneers, yes the sons of the pioneers...

 

Cheering them on to the provincials... was a Squad full of who's who,
Lori & Loni, Paula, & Marni,
Ginny, Dana & Cindy too..
...Football, Wrestling, Track & Drama,
Great "INDIGENOUS" Mates too.
Lots of class came from these classmates,
"Hard to Beat" would still ring true!
Onward Cardston Cougars, back then we had no fears...
1976 Cougars, the son's of the pioneers, sons of the pioneers, yes the sons of the pioneers...

 

We look back on those days fondly, now it's over 50 years.
There've been joys and there's been heartache, lots of laughs and several tears
We accomplish tons with loved ones, but now our Grand Kids get our Cheers.
Still the Bonds that Shaped us way back then. . .
Echo Fondly across the years!
Onward Cardston Cougars, back then we had no fears...
1976 Cougars, the son's of the pioneers, sons of the pioneers, yes the sons of the pioneers...
Onward Cardston Cougars, back then we had no fears...
1976 Cougars, the son's of the pioneers, sons of the pioneers,
...yes the sons..., ...of the pioneers

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For good measure, here are the words to our fight song.

Forward Cardston, Forward Cardston,

Forward Cardston High!

Fight with Valour, and with Honour,

Win or Lose or Tie,

On to Victory, On to Glory,

For our Blue and White.

Mighty Cougars, Lead us Onward,

Fight! Fight! Fight! 

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

Research has already shown that the more time children spend playing with screens indoors instead of outdoors, the more likely they are to develop myopia. In fact, some experts predict that nearly 5 billion people (or 50% of the world's population) will be nearsighted by 2050.

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 Friday, August 28, 2026

Lockdown!!

Today someone called in a bomb threat to a few schools in the area. One of those threats was made to Westview High School where Lisa works. Because Lisa starts work late this year, she was kind of caught in the middle and she didn’t think the system dealt well with people caught in her situation. She decided it might be useful to share her experience with those people in charge. Here is a copy of the email she sent.

From: 
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2026 11:45 AM
To: 

Subject: Lockdown Experience and Safety Protocol Feedback 8/28

Hello,

I wanted to share my experience today during the lockdown because I believe it may be helpful when reviewing safety protocols and procedures for the future.

I start work at 9:05 a.m. and arrived on campus just before 9:00. When I pulled in, I noticed a police car and several parents who looked concerned. I assumed there may have been an issue involving their students. I parked and called my husband while I was getting my things out of my car. While I was talking to him on speakerphone, I walked toward the staff door and noticed another police car drive by and stop in front of the gate where Food and Nutrition staff and deliveries enter. The officer got out of his car as I was walking toward the staff door, but he did not stop me. I opened the staff door and entered the school.

I was halfway through the cafeteria, heading toward the quad, when I noticed I had a text message from Dave MacMartin saying that we were on lockdown and that it was not a drill. The message had been sent about 20 minutes earlier, and I didn't know whether we were still on lockdown. I decided to go to the office to see what was happening, but the door I went to was locked. I assumed we were still on lockdown, so I walked down the hallway toward the WV Center to see if I could find someone or figure out where I was supposed to go. Everything was locked.

I knocked on Christine Cudmore's window, knowing she most likely would not open the door. At the time, I was also sending a voice text to Katherine. Christine eventually opened her door and quietly asked me to come in. She had peeked through the blinds and recognized that it was me. I am very grateful that she let me in, although I realize this was outside of the normal lockdown protocol. At that moment, I simply had no idea where I was supposed to go or what I was supposed to do.

I am especially grateful that Dave sent me the text message. Without that message, I would have continued walking through the cafeteria and quad toward my first-period class. I have a key to that building, and even though the door would have been locked, I would have used my key to let myself in. I realize that could have been alarming to both the students and the teacher.

Even after the lockdown was over and I was able to get to my classroom, the door was locked and I had to use my key to let myself in, which surprised the students and teacher.

I am sharing this because I think my experience may highlight an opportunity to clarify the procedures for staff members who arrive on campus after a lockdown has already begun. It would be helpful to know exactly where staff should go, how they will be notified if they are not already inside the school, and what they should do if they arrive while the campus is in lockdown.

Thank you for taking the time to consider my experience. I am sharing this with the hope that it can help make our safety procedures as clear and effective as possible moving forward.

Sincerely,

Lisa

Instructional Assistant

Westview High School

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Commercial Airplanes get about 100 mpg per person

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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