PART TWO – September 1971 to June 1977
Our family moved into a new house, in a row of new houses on Moorgate Avenue, in Granger, at the start of my fourth grade year. My mother continued working at the Mountain Fuel Supply Company (Questar). My father stayed home every day, coughing and wheezing.
With no more grandchildren around to look after, my grandmother was convinced to sell her house on Crystal Avenue, and live with her daughter, Ann Brown.
While I did meet many new friends in Granger, none of them seemed any better than those I had in South Salt Lake. I wanted to maintain my friends from South Salt Lake, especially Jimmy and Steven, although they had moved to new houses in new neighborhoods. I did a few sleepovers, which stretched my courage and trust. However, those friendships died in the wake of other interests.
Nora had learned about a warranty deed, signed by my grandmother in 1965, which made Nora the sole heir of the Stratford Avenue house.
Grandmother Kamilla and my Aunt Ann, together came to our house in Granger, on a mission to convince my mother to release her claim on the Stratford Avenue house. They wanted her to sign a paper. There was a buyer interested in the four adjacent lots (two on Stratford, and two on Crystal) as a package deal. Nora’s warranty deed was the only obstacle. Some suggested that my father pressured his wife, Nora, to retain her rights to the Stratford Avenue property. In any case, Nora would not sign the paper. “I don’t wanna sign it”, she said.
Kamilla was very calm about it, as far as I could tell. Aunt Ann, who was acting as administrator for Kamilla’s properties, burst into tears. At one point she said she was the one who had convinced Kamilla to put Nora’s name on the warranty deed, out of concern for Nora’s welfare.
I didn’t know much about this disagreement, but felt the stress it brought into our family. Over the next few months, our house was in turmoil. My mother shed many tears, and had many arguments with my father. According to my father, Nora’s siblings were “all mad at her”.
Some of Nora’s siblings felt she should renounce her warranty deed, so that Kamilla could sell the property and divide profits equally among the eleven Hendriksen children. Having no written evidence of Kamilla’s intentions, I can only speculate what Kamilla intended to do with any such profits.
For a few years, my parents became landlords, renting out the Stratford Avenue house. Their first tenant was my cousin, Doug Hendriksen. After Doug left, I returned to help clean and paint that house, I noticed the same ugly worn-out carpets from when I lived there. My father borrowed a shampoo machine, in a lame attempt to clean the carpet. I was puzzled about my father and that machine. How could he expect it to clean a carpet simply by rubbing shampoo into it with no rinsing, no suction, no suds extraction?
My mother enrolled me in a swimming class at the Granite High School Swimming Pool. It was sponsored by the Red Cross. There were about five boys in this class, and the instructor was a tyrannical young woman who expected strict obedience to her commands.
I didn’t enjoy that swimming class, but I did learn basic swimming skills.
One of the first people I met in Granger was Jessie Cluff. He had no shoes, and was wearing oversize pants, which he held onto with one hand to keep it from sliding down past his underwear. He and his family were Mormons like us, but they didn’t attend church. His parents and older brother carried on a nasty smoking habit.
One day, I was walking down Mooregate Avenue with a schoolmate, both of us heading to a cub scout meeting. We passed Jessie, who happened to be wearing a scout shirt. I greeted him, but was too self-absorbed to notice his scout shirt. Jessie was too shy to ask us directly if he could come along with us to the scout meeting. When we passed his house, his older brother questioned why Jessie wasn’t going to scouts with us.
“He was headed to your house just now, and he was wearing his scout shirt.”
Our excuse was that he didn’t submit an application with parental permission, or pay the scout dues. I don’t think Jessie ever appeared in our cub scout group, but later he did join our Webelos group for basketball games.
Sometimes Jessie would come over to my house and ask for a ride to school. My father complained about the smell of cigarette smoke on his clothes. During winter, Jessie had no warm coat to wear. He had to make do with an old insulated denim jacket. It puzzled me, how his parents could always pay for cigarettes, but not for a warm coat for their son.
Jessie had a difficult life, to the point that he killed himself. I’ve often felt bad that I wasn’t a better friend to him.
As my father had plenty of time on his hands, he did lots of socializing. He developed a reputation for giving unsolicited advice. This annoyed my mother, who murmured, “I wish he’d mind his own business.”
During the summer months, Roscoe liked to sit in the front yard, digging dandelion plants, watching for the mailman. When the mailman came, he often parked his mail truck in front of our house for an hour, while he chatted with my father.
One of the girls on our street warned me, “You better tell your dad to stop telling everybody what to do, or we’ll sue him.”
In Granger, my favorite play area was a grove of trees along a canal, a short walk from my back yard. Many children walked through our yard to get there, and they called it Sherwood. Many of those same trees were still growing, when a noise wall was built along the west side of Bangerter Highway.
Two of my friends, Jerry and Mike, sometimes roamed with me in Sherwood. We selected tall, narrow trees on the west side of Sherwood; thin enough to bow under our weight, but thick enough not to break. We bounced up and down on them, pretending we were riding a horse. We also cut flexible branches to fashion into a bow. We used kite string to hold the bow flexed, and cut smaller sticks for arrows.
One day, Jerry and I stood behind my house, when we saw two strangers down in Sherwood, acting strange. They appeared to be hiding from someone. They kept peeking around the bushes.
Jerry and I walked down the trail to investigate. When we got close, one boy leapt out and grabbed me, saying “I got one”.
A second boy leapt out and grabbed Jerry, saying, “I got the other one.”
These deviants pulled us into partial cover of bushes, but not totally out of sight. They may have been using illegal drugs, to give themselves some sort of power rush. They placed their hands over our mouths so tightly, it restricted our breathing. I could hear my father and sisters in our back yard, calling for me. Jerry’s mother came looking for him, with a few other people from the neighborhood. They all stood in back of my house, frantically yelling at us, as if that would do any good.
The deviants suggested we tell the people that we wanted them to kidnap us. Jerry and I would not agree to it. After about twenty minutes, Jerry and I were released, with no explanation or apology. We walked back to my house, and the deviants went the opposite way. When we met our relatives, they spoke to us harshly, as if we had committed some great sin.
My mother told me to get in my room and sit quietly in a corner. She didn’t want an explanation; she wanted to punish me.
If I missed the school bus in the morning, I could still possibly get to school in time if I walked, and ran. I often made the trip cross the canal, through the long field where Bangerter Highway now lies, to the community near the church wardhouse and Robert Frost Elementary School. When my father saw so many children getting wet while crossing the canal, he built a crude bridge out of scrap wood.
The orchestra class at Robert Frost Elementary was in a basement room. Few students outside of orchestra ever entered the basement in that school. I had the same problem with this orchestra as I did at Madison Elementary School; there was no alarm or reminder to tell me when to leave my home room class.
The music teacher had a peculiar name, which I seldom pronounced to his satisfaction. He was a strict man, who ran his orchestra in a way that made it unpleasant for me. Whenever I missed a rehearsal, he would grill me about it the next day, or threatened me: “If you miss another class, I’ll tan your hide.”
The man instilled fear, and I actually took my mother with me to one of my last rehearsals, to be sure that he didn’t tan my hide. I was tired of getting criticized for missing orchestra, and decided it was better to quit. They found another boy to play the acoustic bass instead of me.
As for piano practice, there wasn’t much I disliked more or put off as long. My father said “If it was up to me, I’d let you quit. All the money that we’re wasting, and all the time isn’t worth it.”
My mother paid two dollars per child, each week, for the lessons. We visited Mrs. Chipman every week for lessons lasting thirty minutes each, until she retired from teaching for health reasons.
My back developed subluxations, sore spots, from bad posture. Mrs. Chipman suggested that my parents take me to a chiropractor by the name of Hutchings, where she worked as his assistant. Their clinic was in Lehi.
My mother found a new piano teacher, Beverly Ford, who lived close to us in Granger. She also happened to be my Primary teacher at the church. Bonnie was allowed to quit her piano lessons, but Joy and I were constrained to continue.
At my last recital under Mrs. Ford, she told the audience I was her best student. She told my mother she could not teach me anything new on the piano, and referred us to a professional teacher. Joy and I then began lessons with our third piano teacher, Walter Otto, who lived in Salt Lake City.
Our family would usually go to the Granger Public Library, or the Kearns Public Library, about once a week. I enjoyed juvenile fiction, mysteries, and true stories about animals. I read most of the series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents The Three Investigators.
Because of my meek mannerisms, I was an easy target for harassment on the bus and at school. Some boys took great delight in tormenting me. While walking to the lunchroom, some would step on my heels to pull my shoes off. While I was busy at my desk, some would untie my shoelaces. Some would use rubber bands to sling paper wads at me. While walking home, one boy shoved snow under my shirt collar. Some would kick the back of my knees to make me lose my balance. A girl from my neighborhood spewed water in my face as I waited for a drink at a water fountain.
There were too many students to comfortably sit together on the school bus each morning. The overcrowding was aggravated by students who reserved seats for their friends, and bus cops who yelled at the others to sit down. I often found myself in a dilemma; all available seats were either filled, or else the first occupants selfishly refused to let me sit by them. There were usually four children on a seat designed for a maximum of three.
Students who didn’t complete their math homework were sent to a special area, to sit at a kidney-shaped table, where they were expected to do late work on the assignment. All classmates saw when a student got up and went to the kidney-shaped table. This was an effective use of peer pressure to insult the slower students, such as myself. A few times, I pretended to have all problems completed when I actually did not, in order to avoid the insult of sitting at the kidney-shaped table. The last such time, the teacher came around the room to look at papers as students were marking their answers. She saw that I was missing several answers, and sent me to the kidney-shaped table, where I cried.
Some of our textbooks had exam answers in the back. Our teacher didn’t mention this to us, and it was a new concept to me when I discovered it. When I mentioned this to a classmate, he said, “I use the answers in the back all the time.” If it was okay for him, I decided it was okay for me. After a few days of my using the book answers, the teacher announced that she knew of some students who were using book answers dishonestly. Her eyes rested on me as she was speaking. After this, I always worked the problems honestly.
Tried to get attention from classmates by telling jokes and making puns. It didn’t work. Eric Kretz, who would become a Sterling Scholar in physics, looked at me and said, “Nobody’s laughing, Stuart.” After that comment I became more withdrawn, more introspective, and less talkative.
Some of my classmates smoked cigarettes, some drank coffee, and some used foul language. I was not opposed to being around any of them, as long as they treated me with respect.
In Sherwood, I encountered three boys who tried to induce me to smoke marijuana. They had one joint, which they passed around for each of us to share. When it was my turn, I declined. When the joint was too small to hold in their fingers, they put it on a tin plate, and passed it around. It struck me as odd how they put it close to their nostrils and inhaled deeply. I smelled it, as I would smell a plate of hot food, noting the difference between this marijuana and cigarette smoke.
Boy Scout activities would help me to stay busy and steer clear of wayward boys.
My sister Bonnie and I bought some candy cigarettes, from a convenience store near us. This caused my mother to pitch a fit. It didn’t matter if it was only pretend. “Why pretend to do something bad?” My mother’s attitude was very influential in keeping me from smoking cigarettes.
Behind our house was a field of alfalfa, which was cut to make bales of hay. In the fall, the dry stubble would often catch fire, and burn slowly. Some residents would freak out and call the Salt Lake County Fire Department. The fire department would be obliged to send a water truck to douse the fire. Nearly all the yards on my street had been cleared for lawns or gardens, and none were ever in danger from a field fire. Nevertheless, people kept calling the fire department at the sight of smoke. My father was watching a water truck (or fire-engine) driving out into the field after a fire, when he yelled out “Let it burn!”
Near the Bawden Avenue section of our church ward, a Mr. Kehl was burning some trash in the field behind his yard one night. It was a small fire. The light of the fire attracted several children, including myself, then at last, the county fire department. Some children laughed and pointed their fingers at Mr. Kehl when they heard the siren and saw the flashing lights. The firemen approached Mr. Kehl and questioned him about the fire.
Outside school the next day, Todd Kehl recognized me from the fire incident, and accused me: “You were making fun of my dad behind our house when the fire department came.”
I didn’t have time to reply before he was punching and kicking me. When I tried to grab his arms, I was utterly too slow. He beat me to the ground, in tears, and the story went about the school that Stuart got beat-up. Years later, Todd Kehl and his wife would move into a house next door to me on Mooregate Avenue.
While playing in a field with my friend Rodney, we had a disagreement with two older girls, one being his sister. I don’t remember all the details, but I remember getting slapped silly when we tried to retrieve our bicycles. The girls swung their long arms like whips, slapping us alternately on the left, then the right side of the head. This was not nice play, it was a violent assault, leaving Rodney and myself beaten and crying.
Rodney told his mother about this. Rodney and I were playing games at my house, when his mother actually came to apologize for what her daughter had done, and assured us that she would deal with her daughter.
Feeling highly incompetent at defending myself, I became interested in the sport of karate. Pestered my mother to let me take karate lessons. She took me to a karate school for one free lesson, where we learned that it would cost thirty dollars a month for lessons.
My father was quick to gripe about every extra dollar expended in raising his children. Thirty dollars a month for any kind of lessons was an outrageous proposition in those days. My piano lessons cost no more than three dollars per week. Even if my family had been wealthy, my mother did not want me involved in karate, or any other contact sport.
Magnetic video tapes were rare in those days. Most films were projector movies; such a movie was a series of negative photo images or frames, wound on a single reel. To see such a movie, it had to be loaded into a special movie projector machine. The film moved past a projection lamp, where the images were focused through a magnifying lense, and cast onto a white wall, or some such portable movie screen.
One of my teachers, a Mrs. Whitney, did some work at a child day-care facility, where she helped bathe the boy toddlers, in warm water. After the boys had been bathed, the women lined them up so Mrs. Whitney could film them, stark naked. Mrs. Whitney brought her projector film to my school, and showed it to all the fourth grade students.
Some of the girls had never seen a naked boy before. Of course I had. I noticed those toddlers’ circumcised penises looked about the same as mine. I was under the impression that all boys were born that way.
After a school boundary change, I started fifth grade classes at Philo T. Farnsworth Elementary School. Both fifth and sixth grade students met in the same large room, but in different corners. Every student had one home–room teacher, but at least three other teachers who rotated the students at various times.
In the center of the large room was a floor space where students sat to watch projector movies, play games, or work on crafts. Some boys complained that I was blocking their view of the spectacle, and demanded that I move aside. I couldn’t please everybody. Some boys wanted to sit closer to certain girls after the lights were dimmed. One teacher would sometimes make the boys perform calisthenics there on the floor.
During a recess, I was sitting at a small round table in the classroom, probably reading a book. Mark Turner took a chair on the other side, leaned in, and started talking trash about how tough he was. He extended his hand across the table, and challenged me, “Touch me, and see what happens.”
When I touched his hand, he punched me in the face. He stood there for a moment, grinning at me. Evidently no teacher was watching us at the moment.
Whenever other boys came close to me, I reacted by covering my belly with my hands.
Some boys bumped into me without cause; they shoved me out of lineups. They called me Fem.
In sports, team captains complained if I was assigned to their team. When I performed poorly on the softball field, my teammates belittled me. I came to hate softball.
One day I was reluctant to bat. Tears ran down my cheeks as my teammates boys taunted me. The teacher was a Mr. Hurst, and he simply insisted that I take the bat and participate. So I did.
When I complained to Mr. Hurst about the harassment, he responded in a stern, threatening tone, as if it were my fault, and I shouldn’t be bothering him with my tattling.
Doug Byrd wiped rubber adhesive on my hand and pretended it was snot. One boy brought in photos of naked women from pornographic magazines, and put them on my desk; I would vigorously rip them to shreds.
One classmate stole my gloves from the coat-room, but I had no evidence to accuse the thief. For the rest of the winter I had no gloves.
It was still easy for me to cry when getting hurt, and one of my older classmates asked a friend if I had emotional problems.
Gradually I learned not to cower around bullies, especially if they were shorter than me. When I stood up to a certain boy at recess, he began shoving me, and making verbal threats. I kept pushing his arms aside, defensively.
Two of my friends saw this and hurried into the school to tell Mr. Pulsipher, who I expected would come outside and break up the squabble. He didn’t. Later one of my friends reported that he did indeed tell Mr. Pulsipher there was a playground squabble, or fight. Mr. Pulsipher simply replied, they better not. He never even asked me about it.
I spent quite a lot of time with my friend Brad at church, cub scout meetings, swimming pools, movies, backyard sleepouts, and birthday parties. One time we were walking near the First Security Bank building in Salt Lake City, where his mother worked. A gang of Chicano boys began harrassing us, shoving us, demanding that we hand over our money. Brad warned, “My mother works here,” and we went into the bank building. The gang scattered.
Another time, we were at the Glendale Theatre, and our movie ended before my mother arrived to pick us up. As we walked along the storefronts, a gang of boys approached and demanded, “Give us your money!” One boy seemed to have some karate training, and was using us as targets for his flying kicks. A tall Chicano boy kept shoving me, and kicking me in the groin. Brad and I made our way into a Pharmacy, while the gang hovered around outside.
I stared at one of the boys, a negro, through the glass wall. He scowled, made a threatening gesture, and asked, “What are you lookin’ at?” That was my first personal encounter with a negro.
After that, I stayed away from the Glendale area. A friend from my neighborhood refused to be scared away. He returned to Glendale, carrying a concealed kitchen knife.
The Granite School District operated a resort in the high Uintah Mountains, during the summer and fall months. This resort is called Mill Hollow. Various elementary schools in Salt Lake County sent groups of children to Mill Hollow by the bus-load, for about three days worth of outdoor recreation and learning experiences.
Before my sixth grade, my parents were kind enough to pay for their children to visit Mill Hollow. We made bean and toothpick sculptures, weaved boondoggle lanyards, pressed leaves in clear contact paper, hiked, made macaroni pictures, hiked, burned designs on wood cookies, hiked, painted ceramic figures, hiked, listened to lectures in the lodge, hiked, ate hot meals from plastic lunch trays, and recited the Pledge Of Allegiance to the flag.
I don’t remember anybody ever getting sick at Mill Hollow. The food was always a grade above what the elementary school served. There were pancakes, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, hot dogs, hamburgers, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, canned vegetables, fresh salads, potato fries, peanut butter and jelly, apple strudel, twinkies, cake, cookies, and milk. The cow milk was the only thing that suffered from the three hour un-refrigerated truck ride. It always seemed to be just on the verge of spoiling.
One of the male teachers who had charge of the boys during outdoor activities was a Mr. Gustafson. I really enjoyed spending time hiking with him.
Mill Hollow had eight separate dormitory buildings, without any dormitory supervisors. Teachers didn’t like to bunk with their students; they slept in a separate dorm.
There was a certain teacher who wore eyeglasses, who had charge over our dorm. Mr. Glasses left us with a friendly request to have all lights out by ten o’clock. It didn’t happen. There were several inconsiderate boys in our dorm of about 20, who didn’t want to go to sleep. They ran about throwing pillows, shouting jokes and insults, flipping the light switches.
My friend Rodney was also in our group. Hearing so much laughter, and being sleep deprived as well, put me in a silly mood. Staying up late was contrary to my nature. Mr. Glasses was rousted out of the teachers’ dorm again to try and calm us down. This time he was successful. He gave us a hard lecture, insisting that everyone had plenty of time to brush their teeth, say prayers, put on pajamas, get in their bunks, stay there, and shut up. His demeanor was threatening to anyone who might object. Everyone was silent as Mr. Glasses patrolled the dorm, in the dark.
Then I made one last comment for the night: “Goodnight, Rodney.”
Mr. Glasses took it as a challenge to his authority. “Who said that? Who said night-night? Did you say it? Who said it?”
He walked into my bunk section and asked one of the other boys, “Did YOU say it?”
I was taught to respect parents, teachers, policemen — even if I disagreed with them — so I confessed.
I was in my sleeping bag, on a top bunk, when Mr. Glasses said, “I’ve got a new place for YOU to sleep.”
He jerked my sleeping bag off the bunk, and I fell to the floor inside it. Then he tossed me onto the lower bunk, which was vacant. It really took the wind out of my sails, figuratively speaking.
I resented Mr. Glasses for what he did. The drop to the floor hurt my ego more than my body. None of the other boys seemed quite as friendly to me after that. Our group started behaving more like the soldiers I’d seen in war movies. It wasn’t supposed to be fun anymore; it was serious stuff.
For about a week in the winter, students in my school were allowed to travel to Brighton every day for ski lessons. Nobody in my family was interested, and I didn’t learn to ski until I was 35 years old. During deer hunting season, children were also allowed to spend school days with their father, on hunts. My father had been a rifle and pistol marksman in the army, but he didn’t own any firearm as long as he was married to my mother. The only gun I ever saw him shoot was my toy air rifle. He never even allowed me to own a BB gun, but I enjoyed shooting BB guns owned by some of my friends.
During the winter, the physical education teacher took my class to the gymnasium to play volleyball. All students played, or else took up space where they were told to stand. Some of the boys liked to criticize others who didn’t play well.
During one volleyball game, a vertebra in my back slipped, so that I could not walk or stand without feeling extreme pain. The P.E. teacher took me to the sick room, where I rested on a mattress.
While I spoke to another student who was also in the sick room, my English teacher came in and complained that I didn’t notify her of my whereabouts. She refused to let me rest in the sick room. She told me, I could either come to her class, or call my mother to come and get me. Didn’t want to bother my mother, who was working her job in downtown Salt Lake City, so I agreed to return to the classroom.
During recess time, I watched other boys in the classroom playing chess. The game fascinated me, and I often practiced the game with others. At home, my father and I would play both chess and Stratego. There were not many other activities we could share together.
At church gatherings, my father knew how to make people laugh. At a scouting awards ceremony, when one scout was trying to pin an emblem onto his mother’s dress, my father yelled, “Ouch!” Just about everybody present broke out into laughter.
One of the young men told me, “I think your dad is the funniest guy in the ward.”
About the time I was starting to develop an appreciation for my father, he deeply offended me. There were many incidents, but one in particular marked a turning point in my attitude. I had forgotten to bring something from school with me, and my father railed against me.
“How could you be so stupid?!” His complaints continued for several minutes, until I was almost in tears. At that time and moving forward, I had diminished trust in him. I rarely confided in him, or asked him for advice, or welcomed his suggestions. He became anathema.
My mother also gave me cause for distrust. At a scout meeting with other scouts and parents, she was giving her opinion about Boy Scouts and camping trips up in the mountains.
“If they go up lazy, they’re gonna come back lazy. Now, my boy is lazy.”
Everyone at the meeting was entertained by this remark, and most laughed heartily. I wasn’t laughing, as I turned my red face downward in shame.
One of the older boys at school asked me to do his lunchroom cleanup work for him. I agreed, and found myself working with Stephen Card, a classmate who wore eyeglasses.
When the other children finished lunch, they went outside for recess. Stephen and I stayed in the gymnasium to fold, latch, and store the lunch tables, under the supervision of the school custodian. I enjoyed this job, because it made me feel important.
In sixth grade, my parents would help me get a job serving the food, as I had seen other students do. I wore a plastic hat, put food onto trays, and dumped the students’ refuse into a barrel. This was a great honor. There was never any salary associated with this work; we did it for fun, and a few extra bites of food.
I considered Stephen as one of my friends, but he started to put this friendship to the test, with disrespectful comments and behavior.
One random day, Stephen stood behind my chair in our classroom, put his hands over my eyes, and said, “Guess who!”
When I replied correctly, he violently snapped his knit hat into my open eyes, which caused a severe stinging sensation. I couldn’t open my eyes again for several minutes.
When the school provided vision testing for all students, the optician who tested me declared that I had astigmatism. As if I knew what that meant. Later, my home-room teacher noticed that I could not read his writing on the chalkboard. He told me I needed to get my eyes checked.
My mother took me to her optician in Salt Lake City, who produced an eyeglass prescription for me. He offered me a total of three plastic frames to choose from. It wasn’t much of a choice; all three looked fairly unattractive.
By wearing eyeglasses I perceived I was treated differently from before. There were only two other students in my fifth-grade class who wore eyeglasses, and we were nerds.
The boys in my church Primary class (who were also in my cub scout group) called me four-eyes. My eyeglass frames broke when I was hit in the face with a soccer ball, so my father applied tape to the breaks.
After exiting the school bus one afternoon, Jimmy St. Clair detained me until the bus left and all the other kids were gone home. He shoved me down on to the ground, but was kind enough to remove my glasses before punching me in the face. I didn’t bother to retaliate.
During the summer, I became friends with Todd, who lived in my neighborhood. Todd was a natural flirt, and knew how to have fun. His mother was a smoker, and the inside of her house resembled a trash dump; she didn’t allow Todd’s friends to enter. Even in then dead of winter, we had to wait on the porch for Todd to come outside.
He was teased and insulted by other scouts in our church group. My father disliked having Todd around because of the stench of cigarette smoke on his clothes. Anyway, our friendship endured, and we would have many experiences together as salesmen, schoolmates, and Boy Scouts.
While hanging out with Todd in my bedroom one hot day, my father came in huffing.
“Get out there, help your mother,” he commanded.
Our family had been working for months to landscape the yard, and I put in my share of labor, shoveling and raking. There was no labor schedule, or organized delegation of responsibility. My father just didn’t like the sight of my mother working alone under the hot sun, when he was too frail to join her. I was obliged to go outside and find yard work to do in order to placate him.
One of my favorite toys was an electric helicopter, with height and direction controls. My friends also enjoyed it, and we often ran this toy until the batteries were exhausted. My father was watching my friend play with this helicopter, when he decided it was time to stop.
“Save the batteries,” he demanded, several times.
We both resented my father’s interference, wondering what the batteries were to be saved for.
On my first scout hike, the Webelos leader took us to a place called Mineral Fork. It was a beautiful mountainous area, with a walking trail. There were about eight scouts that day, including my friends Jeff Hansen and Brad Taylor. Each boy was supposed to bring his own sack lunch, and each put his bag into the one backpack, which was carried by the Webelos leader. I handed my paper lunch bag to the Webelos leader and watched him put it into the backpack, with other similar paper bags that had no names, and no distinguishing features. After we passed a mine entrance, from which flowed a sulfurous stream of water, it was time for lunch. All the other boys retrieved their lunch bags, but I was left holding no bag, and no lunch. What happened to my lunch? It was a perplexing mystery, never solved. Jeff Hansen shared his lunch with me.
My parents decided they could not pay thirty-five cents a day for my school lunches, so they told me I was to accept a free lunch, courtesy of the federal government. When I approached the money lady at the entrance to the lunchroom, I could see that all other students either paid for their lunches directly or brought their own lunch. Rather than explain my welfare status to the money lady, I would leave the lunch line, go outside to the playground, and loiter with nothing to eat. Leaned against the building, alone, wishing the day would get finished.
A certain teacher noticed that I wasn’t eating lunches, and quizzed me about it. I didn’t give him much information, so he inquired of my parents. The next day, he took me from the playground back to the lunchroom, where he explained to the money lady that my lunch was already paid. He made sure I got a lunch tray, and got me seated at a table with it.
My mother was the acting head of our household. She cooked our food, washed our clothes, took us shopping, worked in Salt Lake City forty hours a week, and still found time to make quilts at home. If she didn’t like something I wore, it would somehow get lost in the laundry. Some of my favorite shirts disappeared without a trace or explanation. If my mother wanted to enter my bedroom, she did so without knocking or giving any other warning. The only safe place to be undressed and undisturbed in our house was the bathroom, because of the locking doors. If I didn’t lock the bathroom doors, my mother might barge in with a load of towels, wanting to wash her hands, or retrieve something from the cabinet.
At the annual Hendriksen Christmas parties, I was impressed with the elaborate cameras used by many of my relatives, and the photos they produced. I often expressed an interest in having a camera, but my parents never provided one. My mother owned a sophisticated Kodak camera, but she never seemed to use it, and it was certainly not a toy for me to play with.
My first camera was a present from my friend Brad. He received a new camera from his parents, and passed his old one to me. After shooting two rolls of film, I was anxious to see the prints. My father took me to a Photo-Mat drive-up film service for processing, where neither of us had any idea of the cost.
The day we returned to collect the photo prints, my father held out two dollars, certain that it was enough money. We were shocked to learn that the job cost over six dollars. I was expecting to pay for it, but I didn’t have six dollars at the time. There was a goof-proof policy, that allowed customers to avoid paying for prints they didn’t like. My father looked through the prints with me, and we found several that we didn’t like. That brought the price down.
With all the bickering my parents did, I was surprised to find them passionately engaged in their bed one day. Although neither one ever explained the facts of copulation to me, I knew it was exactly what they were doing.
A few days later, my mother went to see a physician about a bleeding problem she had. He convinced her that the way to take care of it would be a hysterectomy, and she agreed. Naomi Chipman told me it would take two years for my mother to completely recover from the surgery. In some ways, she never recovered.
Russel was a friend who became my study partner and chess partner. Although he used some filthy language, I looked up to him. He seemed to have a good time with every assignment, was admired by most of the girls, and had plenty of chewing gum, which he often shared with me. When I questioned him about how he could afford all the chewing gum, he confessed to shoplifting. This shocked me, and I suddenly lost respect for him.
At the age of 12, my father ordained me a deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood. This allowed me to pass the sacrament in church, which I considered a great honor. When the bishop learned I could play piano, he arranged for me to be the priesthood pianist.
For a few years, used a book of simplified hymn arrangements for the priesthood meeting music. Later, I graduated to the difficult brown hymnbook, used by organists in sacrament meetings; it was also used liberally by my piano teacher. This brown book provided music melodious enough to hold my interest, and complex enough to keep me from getting bored. When my church adopted a new set of hymn arrangements, under a green cover, I had nothing good to say about it.
On a visit to Jerome, my Uncle Elmer Beall showed me his little workshop or hut where he made jewelry. I was mesmerized with all the sea shells and rocks, carefully placed in bins. Suddenly the door closed, and Uncle Elmer chuckled outside saying, “We got him now! Let’s keep him locked up in here so he can’t get away!” He held the door so I couldn’t open it.
For a while, I believed he was telling the truth. He might not let me out, because of something I said or did. When I heard no sounds or voices, I tried the door again, which opened freely. It was a prank.
He had a reputation for being a prankster, yet he was basically a kind, gentle man.
He gave me a Crystal Radio Set, which I treasured, even after I broke it. This device was more accurately a diode detector radio, and had no crystal or cat’s whisker as some earlier radio sets had.
Audio signals such as music and talking are encoded into a carrier frequency, between 540 KHz and 1700 KHz. If the station signal was strong enough, and I had a good ground connection, my little radio could play it through the earphone, without any battery.
The little radio consisted of a plastic box with a rotating knob, an antenna coil with a sliding ferrite core stick, an earphone, a diode, a fixed capacitor, an antenna wire with alligator clip, plus a ground wire with alligator clip.
After leaving the Beall house in Jerome, our family stopped at a state park. There I forgot about the radio set for a while, until I realized it was missing. I was desperate to find it, at times shedding tears.
I found half of the plastic box on the ground, with the ferrite rod and the earphone cord. It had snapped apart at the seams. I did not find the rest of it; not even the ground wire or a clip. Still I kept the remaining parts for a few years, hoping to rebuild it when I had a better understanding of electronics. It didn’t happen the way I planned.
At my request, my parents purchased a Science Fair 75-in-ONE electronic project kit from Radio Shack, as a Christmas gift. I was about 13 at the time. It was a thrilling way to spend time, experimenting with different circuits, including a diode radio.
This prepared me for an actual Science Fair at Valley Junior High, which was part of my science course grade. The science teacher was a detestable fellow, who regarded me as a C student.
I decided I wanted to build a stand-alone diode radio from spare parts, and submit it as a science fair project. I mounted the parts on a sheet of medium cardboard, soldered them together with wires, and connected an antenna wire and ground wire. It wasn’t pretty like the store-bought kits.
The radio worked well initially, but moving it around disconnected something, so it wasn’t working at school. The science teacher graded it a C.
Another boy demonstrated how wind energy could be converted to electricity. He used a small tank of compressed air, a wind powered generator, and a light bulb. It seemed so simple, anybody could have done it. The science teacher graded it an A.
In my first year at Valley Junior High School, my hair began to get very oily; if I didn’t shampoo it every morning, I’d have a bad-hair-day. It was not easy, sharing the bathroom at home with my two sisters. Also, I began to have an underarm odor.
My father once complained that I smelled like onions; still, he didn’t suggest any deodorant, or offer instructions on how to use deodorant. I learned that from watching other boys in the school locker room.
Developed a severe case of acne, exacerbated by my consumption of dairy products. My mother liked to squeeze my pimples, to force the pus out, without realizing that it could cause permanent scars. Some students felt acne could be contagious, and avoided me. One boy called me grease ball.
My father pressured me to keep my hair short, like a military crewcut. He gave up trying to be my barber, but he always instructed the barbers on how to do the job. This style was considered radical to most of my classmates, who wore their hair long.
When my hair was at its shortest, a boy in my art class exclaimed, “Hey skinball, shine ya head for a quarta!” Then he rubbed his hands over my scalp.
One of my big regrets about Junior High School was my shabby mathematics training. Brad and Jeff progressed through algebra and trigonometry, while I wasted time in slower classes with poor instructors.
Mr. Atkins gave his math students assignments to study from the math textbook, with no personal help, and no practice examples on the chalkboard. He was sure the book examples were good enough.
My eighth grade teacher, Duane Call, wasted our time by having all his students solve outrageously huge multiplication problems, or searching his newspapers for mathematical terms, or sharpening his knife on a leather belt. Sometimes he indulged in telling spooky stories to the class. When students brought the results of their multiplication problems to him for inspection, Mr. Call would take a quick glance at it and say “Wrongo.” When I brought up my paper (sometimes for the fourth time), he would either write wrongo on my paper, or give me a thumbs-down gesture. I don’t think he really cared whether my work was correct; he just wanted me to stay at my desk and not bother him.
One fellow student brought novels to read in Mr. Call’s class, to pass the time. When he brought one called Cannonball Run. Mr. Call confiscated it, and insulted the boy by reading his book at the teacher’s desk, during class time.
Mr. Call had the warped notion that his students should be graded on an adjustable scale, to ensure that no more than about a third of the students in each class would receive an ‘A’ grade. He gave me ‘C’ grades all four terms I attended his class.
Was passing through a certain narrow hallway into the school, when I encountered Mr. Call coming the opposite way, carrying his television set. I pressed against the wall to my right, expecting him to pass on the left. Instead, Mr. Call shoved me in the face, twice, so that I backed up and left through the same door I entered. Neither of us spoke to each other about this incident; I guess Mr. Call needed all the space he could get, for being so rotund.
My pre-algebra teacher in ninth grade gave the students plenty of math problems on the chalkboard, plenty of lectures, and plenty of tests, but little personal help. I was missing the same simple problems over and over again, week after week.
Aside from my lousy teachers at Valley Junior High, part of my performance was tied to the poor relationship I had with my parents. They offered no help with my studies, and little guidance in my school registration. One excuse used by many parents including my own, was that they didn’t understand this new math.
My dislike for school in general made it easier to watch television than do homework. By the middle of seventh grade, I was suffering from depression. Most people do not understand depression. Some assume it’s a temporary mood, or just a feeling of sadness. Most psychiatrists had the notion that depression can be cured with drugs.
My mother sensed the lingering sadness in me, and arranged for me to visit with a school psychologist. Was surprised to be called out of a school class to meet with this psychologist. She quizzed me about various subjects, trying to determine the reasons for my sadness. She found that my acne was a real problem, at least in my mind.
My mother took me to the pediatrician she trusted, Dr. Stringham, for some professional advice. He walked into the examination room, where I sat alone, and asked what I was there for. I pointed to my pimpled face, and he acted surprised. He directed me to lie on the examination table, poked at my face, quizzed me about my diet, then left the room.
After some time waiting, still reclined on the examination table, I was dozing off. Dr. Stringham returned a second time, and without saying anything, he unzipped my jeans, pulled down my underpants, and examined my genitals. He didn’t say anything during this examination. In retrospect, it seems he was mostly interested in my circumcision scar.
He returned to the room a third time, to give me instructions. I was to take capsules of tetracycline, wash my face with soap four times daily, and reduce consumption of dairy and fatty foods in general. This proved to be bad advice.
Marijuana was available at Valley Junior High School. The students who smoked marijuana at recess were collectively referred to as stoneys. In one of my classes, a stoney was sitting at a desk next to me. The marijuana smoke on his clothes was so strong, it made me dizzy, so that I almost fell out of my chair.
In the same class was a girl I had known since 4th grade. She declared, “I have way more friends now, since I turned stoney.”
I never wanted to smoke. Although I had friends who did smoke, the smell disgusted me.
A friend in church, Jeff Hansen, asked me to cover his paper route while he was on vacation. For several days, I arose early to deliver the newspapers at an apartment complex. The job earned me about twelve dollars, which came as a personal check. I had my eye on a certain walkie-talkie at the local Radio Shack, and desired to spend my new earnings on it.
Neither I nor my father had much banking savvy. With the personal check in my hand, asked my father if he thought Radio Shack would take a check. He said, “Oh, you bet they’ll take a check!”
When I presented the check to the salesman at Radio Shack, he refused to accept it. Since it was written to me, in my name, there was no way he could cash it.
Then I had my father take me to a bank to get it cashed. With the cash, we returned to Radio Shack, where I purchased my walkie-talkie.
With a new zest for earning my own money, I obtained my own Deseret News paper route. Sometimes I rode my bicycle to make deliveries, sometimes my father drove me around. Part of the job responsibility was collecting money from my customers. The few who delayed paying me seemed to be the only ones who complained about the way I delivered their newspaper.
On Sundays, there were problems with newspaper theft; I sometimes made an extra trip to the newspaper barn for extras, or else gave up the Beall family’s newspaper to cover it. After all customer payments were collected and deposited for a month, the Newspaper Agency Corporation sent me a paycheck for about 55 dollars.
Always paid tithing from my earnings; also made generous donations to the ward budget, and donated my labor to the new church building. Our bishop would meet with my family annually, and suggest a financial commitment, or pledge. Surprised my mother one year when I pledged fifty dollars.
One of the coldest scout camps I attended was at Tracy Wigwam, in January of 1976. The importance of the scout motto Be Prepared was driven sharply into my mind. There were about twelve active scouts in my troop, but only three of us were interested in this winter camp. Most scout troops at Tracy Wigwam that weekend enjoyed the protection of sturdy cabins, fireplaces, and warm sleeping bags. My troop (including two adult leaders), were assigned a tent and an icy clearing on the ground. We had to pitch the tent, and dig our own fire pit in the snow.
My boots were great for summer hiking, but not water-proofed. They became soaked at Tracy Wigwam. My socks were also soaked underneath. The assistant scoutmaster kept me up late, hauling firewood through the woods. My feet were painfully cold by the time I crawled into my sleeping bag. The sleeping bag was made of cheap material, and not suitable for winter conditions. Just as I settled in and thought I could sleep, a gust of wind pushed in the tent flap next to my head, and covered my face with a pile of snow. Some snow drifted down into my sleeping bag, and stuck to the flannel inside. Tried to brush out the snow, and the assistant scoutmaster tossed me his heavy coat to position against the tent flap. All the others in the tent were fast asleep.
By morning, the water in my boots made them frozen stiff; it was difficult to put the boots on my feet. My feet were still cold, because they did not warm up during the night. I had hoped to warm up next to a large fire, but it was burning low by the time I got dressed and left the tent. All the firewood I helped collect had been burned up, apparently by an assistant scoutmaster with insomnia.
Went to the lodge where they had a nice fireplace, and put my boots on the hearth to thaw out. No other scout at Tracy Wigwam was trying to thaw out their boots in the lodge. When my boots began releasing steam, people yelled at me “¡Your boots are burning!”
I put on my damp boots, tried a short snowshoe hike, and decided it wasn’t that interesting.
Various church leaders encouraged me to keep a journal, or diary. As I had an interest in tape recordings, I began my first diary as a series of cassette tape recordings. This practice continued regularly, for a couple years.
Began purchasing blank cassette tapes for my own use, and music albums for entertainment. This music soothed my heartache, calmed my anxiety, and became my stress management. I spent hundreds of dollars on music albums of various genres, before fixating on a band called Jefferson Airplane.
In eighth grade, my first class of the day was science. I sat at the front of the classroom, with my lab partner Michael Bluck, bathing in the strong aroma emitted from Mrs. Garrison’s coffee pot. The smell nauseated me, but Michael enjoyed it.
He actually had acne worse than me. We got into a discussion about our acne, and I learned that his physician told him to wash his face with soap four times daily. This course of treatment was absolutely no help to either of us. Girls didn’t find me attractive because of my eyeglasses, but the acne made me doubly repulsive.
My sisters and I came home one afternoon to find our uncle, Oscar Hendriksen, waiting for us. He explained that my mother had a stroke, and would be in the hospital for some time.
Several people in our church ward provided help to my family, in order to relieve my mother. Virginia Swenson was one such lady. Sister Swenson often asked for my help in moving or cleanup projects. I had enjoyed a river rafting trip with her sons Curtis and Dan. She guided my sisters and I to take care of our own laundry, then took me to see her dermatologist, Leonard Swinyer. Dr. Swinyer knew a whole lot more about acne than Dr. Stringham. Mrs. Swenson paid for most, if not all of that visit.
On my first visit to Dr. Swinyer, he drained pus from about fifteen different pores on my face. Then he rubbed a dry ice slush over my face. He gave me a protocol to follow at home, which I did faithfully. When I returned to Dr. Swinyer the next week, there were no comedones, no pimples on my face. He found only one deep inflammation, which he drained.
The thing which most effectively improved my face was Eucerin cream, worn every night. I also used a retinol cream, sparingly. This kept my skin soft, and my pores open; all my blackheads and whiteheads virtually disappeared. Dr. Swinyer forbade me to apply any kind of soap (including shampoo) or water to my face; rather, I was to use Lubriderm lotion for cleansing.
After my teen years, I would keep using Eucerin cream, but not so liberally as before.
It saddened me when I failed to convince people that Eucerin cream could help their acne. My sister Joy would not be convinced to even try it. She retorted, “How can putting greasy stuff on my face do any good, when my face is already greasy? It doesn’t make sense.”
At church one evening, during a young men’s activity, I announced to my advisor and friends that I preferred to be called by my middle name, James. My advisor, Wade Beames, accepted the idea immediately, and honored my wishes. My friends and classmates didn’t catch on so fast; they continued calling me Stuart until I refused to answer to it.
Resolved to not converse with people if they were too lazy to use my preferred name. My own mother was the most difficult to convince. She became mad at me on many occasions, when it seemed that I was ignoring her.
My bishop, and people at church often quizzed me about why I decided to change my name. It was a never-ending battle, trying to convince them that I didn’t change my name at all. I had several friends who were known by their middle names, without any hassle. Learned that the best way to be known as James was to not provide any other name or initial for future acquaintances to use.
One fall, the boys in my church group decided to do a snowmobile trip through Yellowstone Park, and lodging in West Yellowstone, Montana. Our advisor, Wade Beames, said he didn’t want any boy to miss the trip due to lack of funds.
I was doubtful my parents would pay the required fee for the Yellowstone trip. Wade convinced me that he could cover the cost for me, and in return, I could do work at his place of business. So I went on the trip, and Wade paid for it.
I was usually asked to play the piano for my seminary class. I enjoyed the attention I got when I played the hymn well. Conversely, I felt humiliated when I made too many mistakes.
I resented how my mother forced me to continue piano lessons; I resented the attitude of some people who assumed I should play anything they wanted at a moment’s notice.
Some respite came at the age of fifteen, when I decided to quit practicing. My mother still forced me to sit at the piano for thirty minutes every day, but what I did was not practice. It was more an unruly spoof of every assignment, an apathetic “going-through-the-motions”. My heart, my concentration, my passion, was not there. On the evening of my last piano lesson, my mother gave me the option of telling Walter Otto when it was my last lesson, which I did.
My eighth grade summer, began daily training for the school wrestling team. There were far more boys interested than there were team positions available, so the coach made the workouts grueling, with the goal of forcing the weaker boys to drop out. He ran us until my tongue was dry, and my shirt sides soaked with sweat. I’d wake up every morning with muscles aching. After a couple weeks of this, I loathed wrestling training, and stayed home to give my sore muscles a rest. This got me dropped from the team.
There were no coin-operated vending machines in the school lunchroom; instead, students were hired to sell snacks at a snack bar.
I sometimes purchased Hostess Fruit Pies or corn chips to eat instead of the school lunch. The queue at the snack bar wasn’t always cordial, or neat and orderly. Sometimes the line or queue was blocking other students from walking through, and they nudged their way through the line.
Roger Gagon was a jock with an athletic build who came near the snack bar one day, and decided he didn’t like something about me. He suddenly shoved me out of the queue. I scowled at him in surprise, and he responded by aping a face at me. Then he punched me in the face. This kind of assault could get a student expelled from school, if any teacher was paying attention.
During spring of that same year, I spent many lunch periods sitting outside the lunchroom, enjoying the sunlight. A beautiful girl, Kriss, saw me sitting alone, and took an interest in me. I knew nothing about her. One of her jock friends called out to me, saying that Kriss wanted me to come over and sit with them. My initial reaction was that they were teasing me, and I replied, “Leave me alone.” One fellow came up to me, and earnestly tried to get me to sit with Kriss, but I refused. Kriss herself tried to talk to me in the hallway one day, but I rebuffed her. There were tears flowing from her eyes.
Some time later, another girl, Lisa, tried to be friendly to me. It was overwhelming, but not in a pleasant way. I didn’t know how to handle this. Lisa came to my hall locker, and asked me questions. I was not very cordial, and hardly wanted to give her the time of day. Some guys asked me if I wanted to “go with her”. I didn’t know what that meant.
In the months following, I mused about how I had responded to those girls, and felt rather ashamed of myself.
There was an opportunity for me to run with the school track team. Plenty of boys competed in the sprint races, but few in the long-distance races. I chose the mile race, or four laps around the track. Didn’t develop enough stamina to win in that race, but I was able to win as part of the mile relay. I enjoyed being part of a good team, and competing against other schools. I also became active on the chess team, which gave me more opportunities to visit other schools and see how others played chess.
My father initially complained about my track training; he said it would hurt my joints. He had already paid a great deal of money for my chiropractic adjustments. My mother gave her implicit approval when she purchased a pair of Puma track shoes for me. Some days I walked to school, some days I rode the U.T.A. bus (if I had the ten cents fare), and some days my father drove me.
Only team members were released from school classes for track meets; consequently, few students ever watched track and field events. There were no bleachers or seating outside around the track.
Most students would watch the basketball and volleyball teams, played inside our school, because this was done on school time. Class periods were reduced on the day of such a game, to allow for gathering to the gym and watching the game.
Much of my training for the track team was simply running the streets for several miles each evening. One evening I was running along 4100 South (which was a two-lane road) near Valley Junior High School. Didn’t wear my eyeglasses, because the perspiration and jostling would make them fall off anyway. It was dark, and exhaustion was setting in. With my vision thus impaired, I ran into a mailbox. It put two deep cuts in my face. One of my schoolmates was walking with a friend when they saw my bloody face. He took me to his house, and his father gave me a moist washcloth and drove me home.
My mother freaked when she saw me. Her first reaction was to quiz the driver about how he found me, and how the accident happened. She then called our home teacher, who happened to be a physician. She then called our former Bishop and scoutmaster, Henry Bawden. Mr. Bawden came to our house to have a look, and convinced my mother to take me to the hospital emergency room. After all this, my mother got calm enough to take me to the emergency room.
The people at the hospital emergency room told us to sit and wait. They did not seem to think my condition was much of an emergency, because we waited a long time for a physician to stitch the cut. The whimpering sounds of my mother bothered me much more than the facial injury, or the needles.
After Simarjit Gill joined the track team, he could run the mile much faster than I could. He blew me away. Some students would pause their classroom activity, stand by the windows facing the school track, and watch him run at our track meets.
When our track team won the district championship, we returned to Valley Junior High on our bus, to a surprise from the cheerleaders. They met us outside the locker room with a nice cake.
My parents gave me a volleyball for Christmas, and I practiced with it, in preparation for volleyball tryouts. The day of the tryouts, two things went wrong for me. During warmups, I developed a dysfunctional rectus femoris. There was a sharp pain in my upper right leg, inhibiting my ability to jump. During the spiking exercise, the coaching assistant repeatedly set the ball too far away from the net for me to spike it, even if I could jump easily. It was not my imagination. The head coach quietly watched this, and excluded me from the school volleyball team.
Didn’t bother to try out for basketball. While I enjoyed watching it occasionally, I had developed a deep dislike for playing it. In scouting, my Webelos leader sometimes took us to the school gymnasium to play basketball. The other scouts refused to let me handle the basketball, and I got impatient waiting for accidental opportunities to touch it. In school gym classes, it was the same routine. During the basketball season, our physical-education class was divided into three groups. While one group was actually playing basketball, the rest of the class was sitting on the floor. Some of the floor-sitters watched the game, some chatted with neighbors, some picked at their nose. The group involved playing basketball was switched with another group after only about twelve minutes, which was about a third of the class time.
During a practice game at the church, one of my friends got violent and vulgar with another boy in our deacon quorum.
The young men in my ward had a basketball game against another ward, for which I was un-practiced. My advisor was a calm, friendly man in our Sunday classes, but at this competition basketball game, he shouted impatiently, fidgeted, argued with referees, and spoke abruptly to me. All the players and spectators there took the game very seriously; all except me. It was only a game. I was put into the game for less than a minute. The other boys were very quick, while I was slow, and dropped the ball, giving the opposing team an opportunity to steal it. My advisor immediately took me out. There was nothing happening there that I wanted to be part of.
At the church, the young men’s groups met once every week for scouting work, or other activities. During the summer, the other attendees were mostly interested in basketball. I was not. When it seemed basketball was the only activity, I didn’t bother to attend. This sometimes went on for months.
One of the young men in my church ward pestered me to attend a basketball game against another ward, to show my support. Initially, I refused. When he persisted, I agreed to play, in spite of my dislike for the affair, and a definite inconvenience to my schedule. I had to set aside my other activities in order to play with the team for that game. I was especially irked that the boy who had pestered me to attend the game was absent from it. I questioned him later, and heard what seemed to be a lame excuse.
One morning, a girl in my early morning seminary class shared some pretzels with me. This simple thing triggered a friendship like I had never experienced before. During the summer, she surprised me with telephone calls on three consecutive days. It gave me an urge to call her back, at least twice a week. Any telephone call at my house was a family matter. When my seminary friend was on the phone, my mother knew about it.
On Christmas eve, I made a surprise appearance at her house, where a large number of people had gathered. I brought a couple 8-track tapes, wrapped as a present, which she was reluctant to accept.
I wanted to continue our friendship or relationship, but she didn’t want me to think or hope we could be anything more than friends.
The church sponsored dances for the youth, where talented musicians would often perform. My parents always sent me to these dances, but I was shy about holding girls’ hands, or making a spectacle of myself in front of my friends. During these dances, I often took naps in a classroom, by myself. At one of these dances in my ward, I was asked to provide the music. I brought an old phonograph, and my tape deck, with an assortment of albums. Nobody wanted to dance, and almost everybody complained about my choice of music. That dance activity ended early.
stuart james beall 