PART FOUR – November 1982 to February 1987
Perhaps the most common question people get after returning from missionary service is, “¿How was it?”
My response: “It was tough.”
Another popular question was, “¿How many people did you baptize?”
This aggravated me, because it was aimed at judging a missionary by how many baptisms he performed. My response was, “As many as the Lord wanted.”
A few people would press the issue and ask “¿How many was that?”
“Not very many.”
Irvin Luker consoled me with the suggestion that perhaps most of the Christian world, as they reject the Latter-day Saint or Mormon message, are already receiving the gospel in a portion that they are able to consume. Perhaps there are good ministers of other churches, who are led by the Holy Spirit to preach Christ’s messages, line upon line, precept on precept.
Many people supposed I spent two years in New York, because that had been the standard mission duration for a hundred years. If someone introduced me as:
“James Beall; he spent two years as a missionary in New York.”
I felt it was necessary to correct them. My mission was 18 months. Some would question why it was only 18 months, so I’d have to explain that.
Some former missionaries enjoyed comparing missionary calendars. That is, they wanted to hear the fine details of when someone got their mission call, and how long they were in the MTC, when they arrived in the mission field, how long before they became certified with the discussions, how long before their first transfer, how many baptisms they performed, how long before they became district leaders, or zone leaders, or assistants to the president, whether they asked for an extension, or how long their extension may have been. Conversations that focused on these things annoyed me.
My friend Brad was a missionary in the New York City Mission concurrently with me. He extended his mission an extra month, but I did not; some people in our church ward wanted to know why. My friend Jeff left for his mission in Texas long before I left on my mission, yet he returned after I had been home for a month. That seemed strange. After several chats over details such as these, I began to avoid speaking about my mission.
I was also weary of bearing testimony in meetings simply because someone expected it of me. After my mission, I rarely felt the desire to stand up and bear testimony in a fast & testimony meeting.
Each evening, I’d search through Help Wanted ads in the Deseret News, trying to find a job. There were few advertised jobs for unskilled laborers such as I. There were some ads seeking recently-returned LDS missionaries for sales work, which I looked into.
One marketed inspirational videos and cassettes. One marketed vacuum cleaners. One marketed makeup products for women. I did not have the right personality to be a successful salesman. Even if I did have the right personality, the right product, and a good presentation, that did not necessarily mean that it was a good fit for me.
In the newspaper, I noticed an ad for a concert at the Symphony Hall (Abravanel Hall) in Salt Lake City. A group called Mannheim Steamroller would perform there for a few days. I was familiar with Mannheim Steamroller music from my high school drama experience, and felt drawn to see the actual musicians. Using the little bit of cash I had left over from my mission, I took my sister Joy with me to see the concert.
Chip Davis, Jackson Berkey, Almeda Berkey, and Eric Hansen performed all the songs from their albums Fresh Aire I, II, III, and IV. My love for the tune Chocolate Fudge deepened, and I became fixated on learning to play it.
For many hours each day, I sat at the piano practicing the score for the first Fresh Aire album. I stopped only after my fingers began to get stiff. After a night of rest, I’d start practicing again with renewed enthusiasm.
I wrote to several lady friends while on my mission. The most notable was from the Granger Swim Team. Before I was to return to Utah, she wrote to me about her engagement to man who was a classmate from Granger High School. She and her fiancee each had a car, and a decent job. I had neither. When my mother and I attended a stage drama at Granger High School, in which my sister Joy was a participant, the Granger Swim Team girl came and sat with me. My mother made several comments on what a beautiful, large diamond she was wearing. It was tearing me apart inside. Still, I did not try to court her, or try to break her engagement.
The piano served as my emotional outlet. After many days of intense practicing the Fresh Aire music, I took a detour and started piecing together my first original composition. I even produced a written score.
My mother and I attended the Granger Swim Team girl’s wedding reception, at which I presented a very modest gift, paid for by my mother.
A few states, including California, offered a free college education to their residents. They also offered very liberal state welfare benefits — or handouts, as I would call it. It was no surprise to me that thousands of pregnant Mexicans were willing to risk their lives to have their children born in California.
Utah offered almost no tuition benefit to anyone who honestly worked for a living. I applied for various grants, and scholarships, and was rejected.
My disqualifications were:
One of the people to whom I taught missionary discussions on Long Island, wars Nancy. She decided to try college at Brigham Young University, and inquired about getting from the airport in Salt Lake City to the university in Provo. I was very anxious to help her, and got permission from my mother for Nancy to stay at our house for a few days. Nancy was about the same age as my sister Joy, and I hoped they would become friends. We had a wonderful visits, but our personalities were too different for romance. Perhaps Nancy was expecting our encounter to turn out differently than it did. In any case, she was disappointed with Brigham Young University, and decided to fly back to Long Island after just one semester.
1- I was not part of a racial minority,
2- I did not have an outstanding high school record,
3- I lived with a working parent,
4- My mother owned our house.
One tuition loan officer suggested that my mother sell her house and use the money to pay for my tuition. My mother and I both thought that was a stupid idea.
After I began attending college classes, I learned of some very disgusting ways people would qualify for government tuition benefits. One fellow moved into a ramshackle apartment, with no relatives, and no automobile. When he lost his job as an unskilled laborer, he qualified for government-paid tuition.
It seems that his qualifications were:
1- He was unemployed,
2- He was not living with any working relative,
3- He received no support benefits from anyone,
4- He himself had virtually no assets.
It would have been an extra bonus if he was part of a racial minority. It seemed ridiculous that anyone would assume he could or would maintain such a living status. He still had to find food and boarding, so he moved back in with his mom and dad, where they gave him a car to drive. He didn’t bother to report this to his money-lenders or the student loan office at the university.
There was a Navy recruiter living in my church ward at the time, and he had questioned my mother about me during the months prior to my mission release. My mother knew I had been interested in the Navy, but she tended to warn the recruiter against giving me any sales pitch while I was working as a missionary. I didn’t ever make an appointment to see him, because I feared it would invite more of my mother’s scorn. Instead, I visited a different Navy recruiting office in Salt Lake City. I was still very interested in their electronics training and tuition benefits, and felt it was worth a four-year commitment.
There were no indoor clean air laws in Utah or in the military at that time. Some restaurants or other businesses in Salt Lake City were devoted entirely to smokers; if anyone wanted to dine in such a place, they either smoked cigarettes or cigars directly, or else inhaled the second-hand smoke of those who did. The naval recruiting station was such a place. One recruiter I consulted sat at his desk smoking a smelly cigar. The man didn’t ask if his cigar bothered me; I was just supposed to put up with it. That one recruiter deterred me from enlisting. I didn’t want to contend with tobacco smoke for four years.
My sister Joy had two dogs, terriers, which slept in our garage. When they came into heat, or ready for mating, it seemed that one particular male dog was always hanging around our yard, looking for access to the terriers. This bothered me a great deal, but Joy was very flippant about the matter. She had delayed having the dogs spayed, because “they do better if they have one litter of pups before they’re spayed.” Her attitude was to let nature take its course.
I tried numerous ways to scare the male dog away. One time I even carried the dog to the owner’s yard – the owner was away on vacation – and tied the dog with a length of copper wire. Within an hour, it had broken the wire and returned to our house.
When the first terrier did become pregnant, Joy made no special preparations for the delivery, and had no particular plans for how to dispense with the pups.
There were nine pups, and just one of them was a male. I did lots of cleaning to keep the dogs from drawing flies. I also washed their blankets. There weren’t enough tits for all nine pups simultaneously, so a few did not thrive. I sometimes selectively removed pups from their nursing position to give their weaker siblings a better chance to nurse.
My ward employment specialist sent me to speak with Lee Hansen about a job. Lee had and office at May Foundry & Machine, on 600 North in Salt Lake City.
Mark May showed me a huge Quonset shed with rounded tin roof, which was leaking rainwater. He wanted somebody to re-seal it, and offered me the job. My employment there was supposed to be temporary, lasting just a few days.
I used tubes of clear silicone goop with a caulking tool for the job. Most of the leaks seemed to be around fiberglass sunlight panels, but some were also around bolts and seams. Had to scrape away dried caulk (with my pocket knife) from around the bolts prior to applying the silicone.
With the money I earned from the roof work, I purchased a Dayton fan motor for the swamp cooler in my mother’s house.
When I was finished with the tin roof, Mark May offered me a different part time job. I carried wooden patterns between the foundry and the storage sheds. It was a filthy environment, as the foundry floor was covered with black sand and soot. Soot hung in the air, and I knew this could not be good for my lungs. The patterns and sheds were not well-organized, so much of my time was spent indexing and searching.
The foundry used wooden patterns to make impressions in sand molds. They poured molten iron into the sand mold, from an induction-heated kiln, and then allowed it to cool. The sand mold was broken apart, and the iron casting was removed. Any unwanted fins or wings were cut off with a wheel grinder.
Some of the most commonly-used patterns were for rabble arms. These patterns were long, heavy, and awkward. They often got damaged from tipping and sliding during transit.
Lee Hansen devised an idea to use open wooden boxes to cover each end of the rabble arm pattern, so they could be stacked upon each other, without worries of tipping and sliding. Also, the fork lift could more easily pick up the desired pattern, without damaging the others. I built four sizes of boxes for this purpose, and marked each size A, B, C, and D, to keep each pair matched.
The fork lift driver at the time, Andy, liked the idea. He also remarked that I should have made the box sizes correspond to womens bra sizes, with A being the smallest. The thought had not even occured to me. I didn’t even know how bra sizes were determined.
As I carried smaller patterns from one of the small sheds, I had to use a flashlight to check the pattern numbers. I discovered several pornographic magazines on these shelves. I looked at some, out of curiosity, then burned them all. One worker boasted that he and his associates had converted another young man, a returned missionary, to using vulgarity and carousing with women. He predicted they would do the same for me.
My mother made the offer to help with tuition if I wanted to attend college. Of course I wanted to attend college, but I also was sensitive to our family’s finances. My mother was a widow, working at Mountain Fuel Supply Company, paying our house mortgage, and other expenses associated with her three children. My sister Bonnie was interested in serving a mission, but couldn’t possibly pay for it by herself.
I didn’t want my mother to pay higher out-of-state tuition, or pay for college dorms; it seemed reasonable to limit my college choices to Salt Lake County. The obvious college choice was the University Of Utah, because buses ran through the campus frequently.
My mother did not offer to purchase an automobile for me, and I did not expect one from her. She usually rode a bus to get to her job in Salt Lake City, so I was content to ride buses to get to college.
Applied to and was accepted at the University Of Utah. My intended major, or degree program, was Computer Science. At the time, most computers were IBM mainframes. Apple Computer had just popularized microcomputers with their Apple II personal computer. Hundreds of students recognized the growing demand for computer skills, and the Computer Science department at the University Of Utah was overwhelmed with applicants. At the new student orientation, a professor said there was not enough classroom space for most of us. He encouraged us to apply to a different department or major.
Attended general education courses in music, trigonometry, history, and English. I also frequented the LDS Institute Of Religion. For a while, I hoped I could be one of the fortunate few to get accepted into the Computer Science program.
To reduce the number of applicants, the university designed a prerequisite course to fail a large number of students. Moreover, only students with a higher grade point average were eligible to enroll in this prerequisite course. Classroom size and computer stations were limited. I heard complaints, from students who had been through this course, about camping out for hours around the computer lab in order to gain computer access necessary to complete assignments.
Before completing my first courses, I gave up hope of getting into the Computer Science department, and turned toward Electrical Engineering. This was the next closest thing to electronics that I could find. One troubling aspect of this was that I could not actually get into any electronics courses until about two years worth of prerequisites were completed.
One of the most daunting courses I ever had was Calculus; the professor was German, with poor English enunciation, and poor teaching skills. It was not hard to follow the details of his lectures, but the point, or relevance escaped me. While looking at answers about to be erased from the board, I wondered what the questions were. Could not see the big picture. ¿How did these things relate in a practical sense? I frantically copied everything he wrote on the board, so I could study it at home. I only began to figure out one item as the professor was lecturing about something else.
Several students had trouble with this professor; we were so lost, we didn’t know how to form the proper questions. When I got home from work, it took over an hour of study to get my mind back into learning mode. For a few days, I sought help from my friend Jeff Hansen. That was somewhat helpful, but the course was still moving too fast for me, and I dropped out.
I transferred to different buses on Main Street, near the Crossroads Mall. There was also a savings & loan institution there, where I opened an account, since I was stopping there anyway for bus transfers. One of the tellers was a beautiful rusty-haired girl, whose appearance alone could cheer me up. I eventually asked her to go out with me, but she declined, saying it wouldn’t be right to get involved with a customer.
At the entrance to the Crossroads Mall, I once encountered a Belgian woman, who seemed very anxious to talk with me. I was very interested in sharpening my French skills, so I listened to her. Her English was horrible, and my French was likewise horrible. I got impatient with her after about ten minutes, but she rambled on for at least thirty minutes. I should have left her abruptly, but I didn’t want to be rude.
She was a missionary for the Unification Church, whose members are also known as Moonies. She convinced me to pay a visit to their video center.
I went to this video center, and took the opportunity to give my new acquaintance a French copy of The Book Of Mormon. There was nothing fancy about this video center; it was simply a remodeled house, with some television sets, video machines, and folding chairs. While there, I watched about two hours of a video tape. It wasn’t very interesting to me, but my host was very enthusiastic about it. She thought the program was revealing some great revelations. I was invited to visit one of their church meetings, to see how they worship, and I agreed.
One of the misconceptions people outside of Utah have, is that Salt Lake City is all owned, or at least controlled by Mormons. Actually, in the years about which I am writing, only about half of the residents of Salt Lake City, and indeed, the whole county, were members of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints. Of all those who were baptized Mormons, less than half attended church more than once a year. Some other churches consider this an opportunity to build their own memberships from the masses of un-churched Mormons. Such was the attitude of the Unificationists, or Moonies, with whom I associated.
The Unificationists commonly sold flowers on street corners, and used the profits to pay their missionary expenses. On the day I attended, there were about 50 people of many races. They featured a woman who was a traveling preacher-singer; she sang many traditional Christian songs, and was backed by a curious band of musicians. I was rather charmed by their musical performances, and tried to engage one of the guitarists in a conversation. His eyes were remarkably dark; by that, I mean they had no sparkle, or attraction.
One of their missionaries, a married man, explained that his wife was doing missionary work in another city, far away. They were married in one of the massive multi-couple ceremonies, to show their commitment to marriage, though they were not ready to come together. That seemed strange to me. He teased me, saying that his church would eventually take over our church buildings, and ultimately our temple. He said they would let us use a room in the corner of the basement.
His presumptuous comments were insulting, but I did not argue. These people had some colorful ideas, and were happy to preach about their doctrines, and their infamous leader, but they wanted to learn nothing about my religion, or why I had spent 18 months of my life preaching about it. When I realized this, I quit meeting with them. Not one of them accepted my invitation to attend my church with me.
After only three terms or semesters, I became impatient with the University Of Utah, and took a serious look at Utah Technical College in Taylorsville. This was a trade school, offering no bachelor degrees. My meager earnings hardly made a dent in tuition, and tuition at Utah Technical College was less than a third of what it cost to attend the University Of Utah. The clincher was that I could begin electronics training in my first semester, so I transferred.
For two years, I worked a half day and attended classes a half day in Taylorsville. During this time, the federal government was investing heavily in electronic warfare equipment (satellites, radar, lasers, computers, sonar, x-ray, wireless telephony). There were many such government contractors located in Utah. My first electronics professor told us stories about recruiters coming to the college to hire all their available graduates in electronics technology. This seemed to be a very promising profession.
I re-started my Calculus study, this time with a wonderful professor named Chuck Cummins. He often perceived our questions before we knew how to ask them. Chuck was personable, and gave careful attention to every point that we had trouble with.
The college was about to become Salt Lake Community College, and Chuck Cummins would become a local television star, in three televised Math courses.
After just a few months at May Foundry & Machine, Mark May decided to shift my responsibilities. He took me to see John Beynon, his machine shop superintendent. John hired me as a janitor in the machine shop, to work Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This seemed to be a better situation for me, until I got to know the machinists and welders.
There were about twenty-five men working under John Beynon, including two managers. Although the foundry workers were unionized, the machinists were not. Many of the May employees were former employees of Eimco. Most of the machinists expected the janitor (me) to do their cleanup work for them. I suppose they could argue that it was not cost-effective for a twelve dollar-hour machinist to do the work of a four and a half dollar-hour janitor. There was simply too much work for me to complete in three days per week, and I accepted a Monday-to-Friday schedule, four hours per evening. I also spent most of my Saturdays working in that machine shop. Between school semesters, I worked forty-hour weeks with the day shift. The sloppy habits of most machinists seemed to be designed to make me look bad. Even when I spent an entire day cleaning, at the end of my shift I had merely tackled the worst of it.
The May machine shop contained an assortment of mill-lathes, end mills, drill presses, basic lathes, welding equipment, and an unattended tool crib. Products were moved using one of two overhead cranes. It was a spacious building, but walkways were usually cluttered with an abundance of materials, tools, machined products, or scrap. I was there strictly for cleanup, and did absolutely no production machine work.
Almost every machinist I talked to complained about the two Beynon brothers, who were managers. These men had a way of alienating their subordinates, and creating a climate of poor morale. The general feeling of negativity tended to depress me. According to an employee roster from two years prior, the employee turnover rate was at least fifty percent. That is to say, over half of the men who were working in the machine shop two years prior were no longer working there.
One machinist vented his frustrations while I was sweeping around him. He was rebuilding the air compressor. He claimed he had warned the manager about the air compressor weeks in advance, but the manager refused to invest any maintenance or new parts in it. Now the device had failed completely, putting most of the shop at an inconvenience.
The truck driver also vented his frustrations about the company. They wanted him to drive a truck loaded in excess of the legal, licensed weight limit.
I was asked to do many things that made me uncomfortable. One evening, when I was anxious to go home, the boss put me to work cleaning a machined part in the yard. It had been painted with a black utility coating, as a rust inhibitor. Now the boss decided it was a mistake, as the customer wanted his part bare. The boss’ method of cleaning was to pour a puddle of diesel fuel over the part, and burn it. I repeated this several times.
After the boss had gone home, I decided this was not a good idea, so I searched for an alternative. Located some toluene, a hazardous substance, which happened to be a base ingredient in the utility coating. Using the toluene as a solvent, I wiped the remaining black coating from the machined part with rags. Of course, the main offices and supply room were closed, so I could not get a proper respirator mask.
Some machinists resented me for failing to clean their machine area when they were ready to start a new cutting job. The shop manager gave me no schedule of priority, so I wasn’t sure which areas were the most critical.
My work involved shoveling metal chips into large metal drums. When the bulk of the chips were off the floor, I used a broom to sweep up the residue. Then I’d haul the drums to a central scrap bin by the main shipping door. This scrap bin was stored in the scrap yard, until a scrap metal dealer came to collect it. At times, I fulfilled other tasks, such as driving the fork lift and scoop loader, and pulling weeds in front of the office area. Sounds simple, but it was tedious and tiring.
While scooping cast iron chips (or sweeping zircon sand), I was supposed to wear a paper respirator mask to prevent dust inhalation. These masks did not usually fit my face well. Even when they did, they were very restrictive to my breathing while I was huffing and sweating. The supply vendor, who spent his summer days in an air-cooled office, balked at me when I requested too many masks from him. I was supposed to re use the old ones.
Everything in the machine shop was oily. Oil from the cuttings made the handles of my shovels slippery, even when I wore leather gloves. If the chips were not evenly distributed in the mouth of my shovel, the shovel would twist in my hands and dump when I tried to lift it. To help stabilize my shovels, I had a small rod welded to the end of the pole handle.
Cuttings from the castings were not usually in convenient piles, ready to scoop. Some were in strips as long as two meters, twisted and tangled with other strips. These could not be shoveled; I had to yank them apart with a hook or the stabilizer rod at the end of my shovel, then shove the smaller clusters into a scrap barrel. Some strips could be quite springy; one recoiled, a piece of it busted loose, and cut a main artery in my hand.
To compound the tediousness of my work, most machinists left an assortment of rags, welding cables, tools, bolts, or pneumatic hoses tangled in with the cuttings. They could have easily separated these things, but they didn’t care to. Among the litter, there were usually broken carbide cutting tools and mounts, which I shoveled into the scrap bin. I later learned from the boss that these were valuable; even if the cutters were broken, the brass mounts were worth separating for a scrap value of about 33 cents each.
Part of the mess problem, as I saw it, was the absence of any hooks or fixtures for hose storage. To make it easier for machinists to keep their pneumatic hoses off the floor and out of the cuttings, I designed two simple stands out of scrap pipes and rebar, and had a welder put them together. The stands were positioned at two problem areas, with home-made reminder signs: Hang Up The Hoses.
To make it easier for machinists to keep other rubbish off the floor, I salvaged several blue hardware cans, to be used for rubbish. I painted the word Trash on the sidel of each one to make it obvious.
These may have been good ideas, but they lacked managerial support. Sometimes I found the blue trash cans deliberately smashed. Sometimes I found my hose stands lying in the scrap bin.
I was interested in finding an alternative to riding buses over two hours every day, so I decided to look for a motorcycle. One of the guys I worked with counseled me to get a Honda, because it was easy to get replacement parts for Hondas.
I first purchased a kevlar helmet, then started looking through newspaper ads for a cheap Honda. The one I found was not in great shape, but it was cheap. The previous owner had killed himself on it by driving into a horse. His widow just wanted to get rid of it.
It was a four cylinder, CB400F. The instrument panel, headlight, signal lights, and switches were severely damaged. There was a large dent in the side of the yellow gas tank. It needed a new mirror, brake and clutch cables, fork lock, battery, air filter, tires, and spark plugs. After I received my next paycheck, a bill of sale, and a survivor affidavit, I got the thing licensed. There was no insurance requirement in Utah at the time, but my mother felt compelled to purchase it on my behalf. She paid a little over a hundred dollars for about six months of motorcycle insurance. I considered the insurance transaction to be a form of thievery, although it wasn’t me paying for it. I didn’t have that much money left to my name, if I wanted to pay it.
I rode this motorcycle to church, school, work, and everywhere else that went, as long as the roads were not iced. When winter arrived in late 1983, I went back to riding buses. That Christmas, my sister Pat gave me a travel bag, with a shoulder strap. My sister Joy gave me a suede leather jacket. I would use that bag extensively for carrying my books and other supplies on the motorcycle. I also wore the suede jacket when I rode the motorcycle.
One of the machinists I worked around, a Polish man, had worn-out his welcome among other machinists, so that they avoided him. He was a selfish man, who muttered that he didn’t have to be kind or helpful to anybody, except his own family. In his mind, everybody else was there to be used to his advantage.
He asked for my help one day. He was trying to press-fit a casting onto a large axle, by banging it with a sledge hammer. His own hearing was precious enough to protect with ear plugs, but mine didn’t seem to matter. I didn’t realize there was a noise hazard until he told me to start banging on the casting. The sound hurt my ears, and caused a ringing sensation which continued into the next day.
There were a couple of my work associates who became friends, and we spent time together off-the-job. One liked to golf, and helped me learn the rudiments of golfing on a real course. One liked to ride motorcycles, and took me on a trip through the Alpine Loop, then back through Provo Canyon.
The boss told me to work one holiday weekend, with a machinist who was trying to repair the inside surface of a motor housing. Neither I nor this machinist wanted to work that day, but we were told to. It was a critical job for the company. We worked for 15 hours, with only one break. All other employees of May Foundry & Machine were enjoying the time with their families and friends.
The man had to sit on a mill platter, inside the motor housing, and weld beads into gaps on the housing. He used a stick welder and a wire brush. At several intervals, he would climb out and mill the welded surface smooth. Then he would climb in and weld some more. I asked the man if he thought the company cared about its employees. He replied “Absolutely not.”
I was there mostly for safety purposes, but did my usual sweeping and shoveling. Even after 15 hours of work, the shop was far from clean. I got onto my motorcycle and drove over the 600 North overpass. It was dark at that time, well into the night, and I was very tired. There was no convenient southbound ramp for the freeway from 600 North, so I had a habit of taking the northbound ramp, then crossing the freeway median to reach the southbound lanes. While crossing the median that night, I hit a large obstacle, probably a rock, which knocked me and the motorcycle over. The accident damaged the foot brake pedal and the exhaust pipes.
When I returned to that area in broad daylight, I could find no rocks larger than peas. The only interesting thing I found was a set of automobile keys. I hung the keys on a stick, and mounted the stick in the dirt, so passing motorists could easily see it.
Some workers in the May machine shop openly displayed pictures of nude women on their toolboxes. Most of the men – some being active LDS church-goers – spouted vulgarity rather profusely, and it deeply troubled me.
After working in the machine shop for about a year, I got tired of seeing the pornographic artwork on a certain refrigerator. I erased most of the images from that refrigerator, which offended a welder. He was furious, for the first time I ever noticed. He told me that refrigerator was private property, and to keep my hands off of it.
I went on several motorcycle trips around Utah, sometimes with a friend, but usually alone. I went to Midway, over the Alpine Loop, to Bridal Veil Falls, through Provo, Butterfield Canyon, Copperton, Tooele, Emigration Canyon, Centerville, Morgan, Saratoga Springs in Lehi, Eureka, Manti, and also my old workplace in the High Uintahs, Mill Hollow.
Sometimes I visited the Swensons at their house in Sandy. I had many pleasant experiences with various members of that family.
I really liked Julia, but didn’t know how to court her. I was at her house once as she waited for a date with a nice young man she would later marry. Julia asked me when I planned to get married. I did not even have a plan for marriage at that time; I just assumed it was something that would happen when the time was right. One thing I knew for certain; my income would be a limiting factor while pursuing my dreams. With that in mind I replied, “It’s gonna be a long time,”
A classmate in one of my electronics courses worked for a company called Microsize, building microfilm camera machines. He told me that Microsize was seeking a delivery driver, with a clean driving record. I jumped at the opportunity.
Microfilm was a popular medium for records storage for many years. Microsize grew out of Microfilm Service Corporation (or MSC) and set up production in a building on Main Street, next to Mill Creek. Several companies offered microfilm camera machines (precursors to digital scanners), but the Microsize machines featured a unique optical labeling device.
After procuring my official driving record from the Department Of Motor Vehicles, I was dismayed to learn it was tainted with an accident that had happened in Colorado. While I’m sure that accident probably happened at the time and place described, I was also sure I was not the driver. In fact, I had never driven any motor vehicle in the state of Colorado. Had to make a trip to a special Utah State records office, where I haggled for justice on two separate occasions.
The first time, I explained my situation to the attendant, and demanded that the alleged accident be removed from my record. This woman assumed I was an irate driver who was trying to bully her, and she insisted there was nothing she could do. She told me to deal with the Department Of Motor Vehicles. She quizzed me about when I was in the alleged accident, and where I went to pay the alleged fine. Slowly, she began to consider that perhaps there was no such accident or fine relating to me. She consulted her supervisor, who did some checking on their computer. They were convinced that an error had been made. They prepared an official letter, stating that error, so I could present it to my potential employer. However, they did not remove the error, or clean up my official record.
Several months later, I was confronted with the possibility of paying extra auto insurance because of the erroneous driving record. I returned to the records office a second time, with the official letter, to demand that my record be cleaned-up.
My work for Microsize began in November of 1984. I enjoyed driving the delivery van, and dabbling in some production work. It was refreshing to wear my nicer clothes, and not worry about ruining them. My associates were pleasant to work with, and the building looked and smelled clean.
One of the more interesting jobs I did at Microsize was drilling tiny holes in brass plates. Optical fibers would be threaded into the holes, and the assemblies were used as part of the optical labeling device.
The purchasing manager at Microsize was trying to sell his car, a green 1969 Pontiac Tempest. He took me for a ride in it, with the stereo playing Owner Of A Lonely Heart by YES, and we reached an agreement. I would pay a total of five hundred dollars for it over the next five months.
The body and tires of the car were in decent shape, but most of the other parts were on the verge of failure. I knew next to nothing about cars. I only knew I wanted to be able to take girls for a ride, and enjoy stereo music while doing it. Over the next two years, I poured money into that car for various repairs. I even paid my neighbor, Todd Kehl, to sew a new naugahyde headliner for it. It would go only nine miles per gallon of gasoline. Insurance was no longer an optional item; it was the law, but it was not easy to pay.
Things at Microsize seemed to be going great, until one day when about eight of us were laid-off. We didn’t see it coming. One man had left a steady job only two weeks earlier to work for Microsize.
My next employment was at a place called Pentec-MTI, in a building once used by Diasonics. Several of my associates at Microsize had worked at Diasonics before that company decided to leave Utah. I was put to work on an assembly line, for the night shift. My salary was close to minimum wage. The idea was to assemble satellite television receivers as fast as possible, which were then marketed by *Ma-Com*. They offered a health-care benefit, at a cost of about twelve dollars per paycheck. This I declined, as I felt it was an unreasonable expense. I was in great health anyway.
There were only about eight people on my crew, but several crews worked the day shift. There were also four electronics technicians, repairing circuit boards. One night I installed transformers and switches. Another night I soldered wires and applied heat-shrink insulators. Another night I mounted rubber pads, and mounted circuit boards. Each night was a slightly different job, but always tedious and boring. We listened to radios as we worked, and our differing tastes in music brought out plenty of contention.
One Mexican girl on my shift was the fastest worker of us all. This seemed great to our supervisor, but I worried about it when she soldered wires.
I knew how to solder properly, but the Mexican girl, in her haste, often left cold solder joints at the power cord connections. This meant that the solder wasn’t bonded securely to the underlying material. However, it was not my job to criticize.
One night, I was given a soldering job, with an iron that had a rusty tip. It would heat the solder very slowly, and thus slowed down my productivity. I tried scraping it off, but it was bonded well with another impurity. All I needed was a file to remove the rust, but nobody seemed to have a file. There were no replacement tips available. My supervisor was nowhere to be found, so I inquired of others, who in turn pointed me to an older fellow. He listened to my problem, and my proposed solution. He retorted, “That’s about the worst thing you could do.” He suggested instead that I use some special soldering tip cleaner paste. I lost more time searching out the person who had the paste, then found that the paste did me no good. Fortunately, my crew was soon shifted to a different job.
One bad thing about this job was the free-for-all smoking policy. People could smoke anywhere in the production area, at any time. Some of my crew did. Another thing was the cold-air blowers. Whenever my crew was situated under one of these blower vents, it made me sick, literally. The supervisor sympathized with my complaints, but didn’t try to shut off the blowers, or make the environment any more comfortable for me.
One day, a man was vigorously spray-painting a bulletin board near my assembly line. The fumes wafted over us, and made me choke. I complained to the man with the spray paint, whose excuse was, “I’m just trying to do my job.”
My crew often worked Saturdays with the day shift. We worked next to a few young single girls. One of the older ladies encouraged me to take advantage of the social opportunities, but I wasn’t excited about these girls. While some were rather cute, most of them smoked cigarettes.
There was one certain girl named Janey, who struck my fancy. When I desired to ask her out, she was gone; I never saw her again.
There was a gypsy girl (associated with the Southern Travelers) on my crew, who often chatted with me on our breaks. I once gave her a ride on my motorcycle. This gave rise to gossip that she was my girlfriend. I did consider her to be a friend, but not in the romantic connotation.
I enjoyed a beverage called Apple Beer, and brought some to share with my supervisor and crew. I tried to give a can of Apple Beer to a certain girl on another crew, as a gesture of my interest. She declined, with the excuse, “I don’t drink.” She assumed it was an alcoholic beverage, despite my assurances to the contrary. She simply walked away and avoided me.
One of the day-shift guys decided to play a trick on me. He wrote a love note, filled with passion and flattery; then he signed the name of a cute girl; then he delivered it to me, saying that the cute girl asked him to deliver it. For about ten minutes, I actually thought the note was legitimate. I discussed it with two of the guys on my crew, then decided to confront the cute girl. When I approached her, and showed her the note, she was obviously not interested in me. She knew instinctively that it was a joke, and complained to the guy who wrote it.
Our crew supervisor asked us to work extra hours to help the company meet a certain quota. If we were successful, the company would give us a bonus. So we worked the extra hours, more intensely, without taking breaks, with the expectation of getting a bonus. When the quota was met, my crew rejoiced.
Our joy was interrupted when the supervisor told us we were not eligible for the bonus. There had been a memorandum, detailing the conditions for the bonus, but it was conveniently hidden from my crew until after the quota was met. Temporary employees, and those who were employed less than three months were not eligible for the bonus. I was so upset that I requested a meeting with the manager who sent the memo.
When I entered the manager’s office, he was looking at his computer. He continued looking at his computer when he said, “Speak.”
I explained that I didn’t see his memo when it was sent, and I didn’t think his policy was fair, because my crew had worked just as hard for the bonus as anybody else.
There were lots of people who didn’t think it was fair, he said, but he wouldn’t change the policy. He kept playing with his computer, and hardly even looked at me during our little meeting.
This incident was the clincher that made me decide to quit, effective Friday that same week. Some of my crew did not believe I would really quit. There was no fanfare or parting gift on my last night; I just waved goodbye and left.
Over three or four years following my mission in New York, I attended temple endowment sessions. It was usually early mornings, with members of my elders quorum, or with groups arranged by the ward. One of the last times I went to the Jordan River Temple, I was having trouble staying awake. So I tried counting how many times I had to stand up during the session. It was over thirty. Maybe others were having a good experience there, but I wasn’t. My participation in temple rituals quickly waned.
In July of 1986, Robert and Beverly Forson hosted a Beall family reunion at their ranch in Oregon. This seemed like a great opportunity to enjoy a vacation, and meet relatives who might not come into Utah.
In preparation for the Oregon trip, I had some routine maintenance done on my Pontiac Tempest. At this time, a mechanic located some problems with my brakes and the final drive train. The repairs would cost nearly two hundred dollars, which money I wanted to keep for the vacation trip to Oregon.
When it seemed that the shop had my car ready, and I had paid them for their work, I got into the Pontiac and started to drive away. A mechanic flagged me down, saying that they still needed to fill the axle gearbox with drive fluid. I remember thinking, I don’t like these people.
He haggled with a serviceman in a nearby shop, who agreed to put the necessary fluid in my car. Months later, I discovered that the fluid he put into my car was used, and very dirty.
My sister Bonnie and I made the drive to Oregon with little incident. We had plenty of music to listen to, plenty of snacks to eat, and little reason for concern. When we arrived at the Forson ranch, the Pontiac was overheating. One of the radiator hoses had failed, and cracked near the hose clamp. I simply trimmed the hose, re-clamped it, and added more coolant to the radiator. Bonnie and I slept in the Pontiac, while most of the other guests drove a great distance to a motel. We had no credit cards whatsoever, and I didn’t feel like I could afford a motel room.
The next day, we visited with many relatives, notably our Aunt Winona and Uncle J.D. After the reunion festivities, they invited us to follow them to their retirement home, near Reedsport. It seemed to be a good idea. On this leg of our trip, the radiator hose failed again, and the Pontiac overheated again. Winona called her grand son-in-law, who was a mechanic, and asked him for help. He inspected the Pontiac, and decided that it needed new radiator hoses. He also noticed that an important mounting bolt was missing from the alternator. He graciously made the repairs himself, with no surcharge. I was troubled that none of the mechanics in Utah bothered to mention that missing bolt.
Uncle J.D. gave us twenty dollars to help with our return trip, and we headed back toward Utah. We took a different route; through northern California, then across the northern Nevada desert. The most direct road in Nevada was unpaved, with few towns or services. Nevertheless, I felt prepared, with a spare can of gasoline, two spare tires (mounted), and a spare bottle of coolant. Fools rush in.
The next incident happened while Bonnie was driving through the Black Rock Desert area. She was going much too fast for the sandy road we followed, and skidded off into a sand trap. Force to the side of the tires caused one to become unseated. When I took out the car jack, I discovered that it was missing the pry-bar, which was necessary to operate the ratchet. I scrambled to find something else, but there were only two long eye bolts. One broke in the jack. Using the other one, I was able to slowly operate the jack. Unfortunately, the lug nuts holding on the wheel (flat tire) were horribly tight. As I labored to loosen them, the force tilted the car off the jack and back into the sand.
About this time, another motorist came by and stopped to assist. The man had no jack or pry bar, but he and his wife were able to hold the Pontiac steady, long enough for me to change the wheel. I was so disgusted with the torque required to loosen the lug nuts, I deliberately left them slightly loose. This was a recipe for catastrophe. The helper team, husband and wife, pushed the Pontiac as I drove it out of the sand trap, and back onto the road. We thanked the helpers, and went on our way.
It was Sunday afternoon, and another incident was about to pop. The Pontiac engine was wearing out, and the valve train was getting loose. One of the push-rods became damaged, and its valve was not opening properly. The faulty valve caused backfire, a popping sound, extra vibration, and a slight loss of power. There were still seven of the eight cylinders working properly, so it seemed like a minor thing. We made a stop at a mechanic shop in a remote town; I believe it was called Sulpher. Asked the man to check out the engine noise. It was too hot to touch, so he waited for it to cool down. Meanwhile, we had him repair the flat tire. I became stressed with the car problems and delays; we were losing daylight, and I had to be back to work in the morning. I decided not to wait.
We made it to Interstate 80, and began to feel a little less nervous. The shake and pop problem was slowly getting worse, but there was a new noise. We had just passed Battle Mountain, when this curious noise rapidly turned into a violent shaking. I was too stupid to realize it was the tire I had changed in the desert; the lug nuts were working loose, and the mounting bolts were starting to shear off. We had to slow down, and agreed to take the next exit to investigate the new problem, but we didn’t make it. Suddenly, the wheel broke loose and flew over the freeway railing, down into a gully of rocks and sage brush. The axle skidded over the pavement until the car came to a stop. Neither of us were injured. The shock absorber mount and wheel well were badly damaged, as was the brake and rotor assembly. The lug nuts and wheel mounting bolts were gone. Without the wheel bolts and lug nuts, we could not mount another tire.
I retrieved my wheel from below the freeway embankment. Bonnie and I stood by the car and looked for help. We waved at passing motorists for help. Some of them waved back, but nobody seemed to care enough to stop. Even a police car passed us by. Nearly an hour passed.
A long-haul trucker was the first to stop and quiz us about the situation. He didn’t have any tools or remedies, but agreed to call my mother at his next stop. It was starting to get dark when two young men in a pickup truck stopped. They couldn’t help us repair the Pontiac, but suggested they could take one of us to Battle Mountain, where we could arrange for a tow. They said there was only room for one passenger. This did not seem like a good idea. If I left Bonnie either way, she could be in jeopardy. The two men added to my consternation by discouraging me from leaving my car. It would be some kind of terrible sin to leave my car unattended on the freeway. I didn’t know what would become of the car, but I knew it would not get fixed by me sitting in it. At last they agreed to take both of us to Battle Mountain. Bonnie rode in the cab, and I rode in the back.
I called an auto repair shop, and arranged for a tow truck. The mechanics were not on duty, but the proprietor of the repair shop agreed to look at the car on Monday. Bonnie & I rode with the tow truck to collect the Pontiac. A Nevada trooper was parked at the site, doing nothing useful.
I called my mother, collect, from a phone booth. I don’t know the exact message the trucker left, but Mom was probably having conniption fits with the bishop or a former bishop. The line was busy for some time before I was able to get through. I assured her we were safe, and in good health, then asked her to come into Nevada and pick us up. I’d talk to the mechanic on Monday, and somehow get a ride back to the shop the next weekend.
Bonnie and I waited in the Pontiac for over six hours. We managed to even get a little sleep. My mother didn’t actually take her own car into Nevada. For some reason, she rode with Jim Melby, my elders quorum president, in his station wagon. Jim was losing lots of sleep to help us, and asked me to drive for part of the trip back into Utah.
We got into Salt Lake City long after sunrise, and I arrived in my office late. My boss did not give me a hard time, when he heard about my car troubles.
The mechanic in Battle Mountain had simply mounted one of my spare wheels so he could drive the car into his shop. When he heard the engine noise, he refused to do any more work on the Pontiac. He told me it wasn’t worth repairing. There were other cars available for less than the price of getting a new Pontiac engine. I didn’t want another car; I wanted my Pontiac. After a couple days consideration, I decided that I could locate the faulty cylinder valve, disconnect the spark plug to that cylinder, and drive the car back into Utah successfully on seven cylinders.
My neighbor, Todd Kehl, was interested in the details of my trip through Nevada, and even offered to drive me to Battle Mountain to collect the Pontiac, if I wanted. I had paid him to sew new naugahyde headliner for that car; it was his last job before he sold his sewing machine. Todd and his wife Teresa decided to make this next trip to Nevada into a little vacation of their own. They arranged to leave their two children with grandparents. We stopped in Wendover and Reno, where we spent considerable time gambling in casinos. We also enjoyed marvelous buffet meals.
The proprietor was not present at the shop in Battle Mountain when I arrived to pick up my Pontiac, but his son was. I gave him a check for the estimated cost of repairing the wheel. At last, I got my Pontiac back into Utah, on seven cylinders.
To his credit, the shop proprietor in Battle Mountain later refunded my money. Although he supplied new wheel mounting bolts, he had not done any real repairs.
I rode my motorcycle to work for the next several months. While looking at possible engine repair shops, I happened upon one Bruce Haslam. One of his friends was present when I inquired about repair work for my Pontiac, and he recommended Bruce highly. I could not afford a complete engine overhaul, which is what I really needed, but perhaps I could get by with just a valve train overhaul, plus the wheel repairs. Bruce agreed to do the work piecemeal, as I was able to pay him for it. This sold me. If I could live that day over again, I’d avoid Bruce, and visit a complete engine exchange dealer.
Bruce had my Pontiac for over a month, and I paid him for most of the work, not yet completed. I even went to the valve porting shop where my valve train waited in limbo, and paid them directly for their work, because Bruce did not have the funds or the credit to retrieve it himself. Still, Bruce kept putting me off. His one employee had left without notice, and Bruce did not hire a replacement. He also had more profitable jobs than my Pontiac, so he put them ahead of me, and left my Pontiac idle. He’d promise to have it done on a certain day, but when I arrived, he had only excuses to offer why it wasn’t done. I even let my motorcycle registration lapse, thinking that I would be driving my Pontiac instead.
While driving to Bruce Haslam’s place on my motorcycle, a police officer stopped me and cited me for lapsed registration. I sat waiting for a couple hours at Bruce’s place after letting him know I would be driving away with my Pontiac. This pushed him to throw together the engine top, and collect my last payment. It was well past his normal closing time. I severely wrenched my back, trying to load my motorcycle into the Pontiac trunk. Fortunately, Bruce came outside and helped me.
The Pontiac ran well for only a couple days, when the same valve problem started again. I hated to have to deal with Bruce again, but felt compelled to do so. I located the faulty valve with the same method I used before; I disconnected spark plug wires, one at a time. Bruce took the valve cover off, in my presence, and located a damaged push-rod. It looked suspiciously like the old one. Bruce offered to meet me halfway on the cost of this repair. With no written warranty, and no better prospects for salvaging this debacle, I agreed.
Bruce continued with his delays, using similar excuses as before. To motivate him to actually do the job I hired him for, I offered a 50 dollar bonus for completion and delivery on a certain day. When I drove away that day, the throttle cable was not adjusted properly. With the pedal to the floor, the car accelerated extremely slowly. I didn’t bother to go back; drove the car home and made the adjustment myself.
I had been teaching LDS primary classes each Sunday over a period of three years, and developed a great love for children. The two hours I spent with children each sunday seemed to be training me for having children of my own, but that was in the uncertain future. For the present, my priority was to finish college and get a career going.
Most of my social life centered around the LDS Institute Of Religion at Utah Technical College. I participated in many activities there, and met some cute girls. I became acquainted with a fun girl named Cindy, and desired to ask her out on a date. Before I did, she posted her engagement notice on the bulletin board.
A friend arranged for me to meet a lovely young lady named Pam. We went on a bicycle trip to Copperton, and had a simple picnic. We set another date for one afternoon, during a time that my Pontiac was out of order. This date required a motor vehicle. My mother’s car was being used by one of my sisters at the time, so the only motor vehicle I had was my motorcycle. When I arrived on my motorcycle to pick up Pam, she refused to ride it. She explained that she was severely injured as a young girl while riding a motorcycle. It was frustrating. With her explanation, that date ended.
My sisters and I decided to host a back-yard lunch party. I went to a great deal of trouble cleaning up the back yard, including digging out chunks of dog scat from the lawn. Joy had two terriers, which ran loose in the yard. She wanted to have them present for the party, because “they would add so much.”
I disagreed, and prevailed. I invited several friends from the LDS Institute, and Joy and Bonnie invited some of their friends. None of their friends showed up, and just four of my friends showed up. So there was a total of seven people.
We had a tub of sodas, grilled chicken, salad, fruits, and chips. The food was good, but there was not much else to get excited about. It was a bland affair, to say the least.
In another religion class, I tried to get acquainted with a certain girl from Castle Dale. Her attention was monopolized by another guy in the class. When I did get this girl to talk to me, she mentioned a Mormon pageant in her town, similar to the Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti. This was not an invitation to socialize with her; it was not a suggestion for a date; nevertheless, I was curious about the pageant.
I had once driven my motorcycle to Manti, and watched the Mormon Miracle Pageant, so a drive to Castle Dale seemed easy. I decided to go one weekend, arbitrarily, not knowing exactly when their pageant would show. I enjoyed the program, and the drive.
While driving back through a town called Huntington, a policeman stopped me for speeding. I was traveling at a rate of 65 mph where the federally-mandated maximum limit was 55. He also complained about the worn tires on my motorcycle. I don’t think he cared about my safety so much as he cared about the collection of fines in his town. According to the policeman and the traffic ticket, I was required to appear in court on a certain date or else risk arrest. There was another legal option, which was not explained to me by the policeman or the ticket; I could have sent bail money and avoided the inconvenience of a trip back to Huntington. My mother wanted me to investigate this possibility, but I decided to make the extra trip to appear in court anyway.
At the traffic court, the judge excused my motorcycle tires, but said there was no excuse for speeding. He imposed a fine of about 65 dollars, and asked if I needed time to pay it. I did not. All I wanted to do was get out of Huntington and never go there again.
The classrooms in the technology building, where my electronics training was conducted, were often overcrowded. If I was the last student to arrive, I usually had to go hunting for a spare desk in other classroooms. Attached to each lecture was a laboratory course, where we had to spend hands-on time with electronic circuits and instruments. We each had to work with a lab partner, in order to share the equipment, and learn some aspects of teamwork. My shyness became a caviat in these circumstances.
In my digital circuits lab course, most students teamed up with someone they know. I was left to work with a Cambodian fellow, who had only a rudimentary understanding of the English language. We had less than two hours to conduct an average of at least two experiments, document our work in a log book, and get the instructor’s final approval.
On the first day of this course, I was anxious to get the work done. While I set up the logic trainer, and studied the requirements for doing the experiment, my lab partner met up with some Cambodian friends, in the same lab classroom, and spent about thirty minutes copying and discussing notes from an entirely different course. I noticed that none of them were speaking English. I didn’t want to wait for him, so I proceeded to complete the work on the first experiment, alone. I was about to start on the next experiment, when my lab partner appeared and asked about the first experiemnt. I replied that I already completed the first experiment, and had written about it. It was time for the second experiment. He protested, “But, I missed it.”
I was rather upset about this, but restrained myself from criticizing. I reviewed the first experiment with him, repeating every observation about every simple logic circuit, in excruciating detail. Then I had to review my notes with him, as he seemed to have no clue about how to report our experiment in a log book. We barely got started on the second experiment, when it was time to clean-up and leave. So I was one assignment late on my first day of class.
The instructor was an was an older man, who could be quite disagreeable. He didn’t cut any slack to me for being shackled to a slow lab partner. I sometimes had to stand and wait for him to give me approval on an experiment I’d completed, while he leisurely assisted other students. A few times, he made me re-connect a logic circuit, after I had put away the wires, just to prove I had actually done it. This helped to make me late with other assignments. He didn’t often make himself available for doing make-up work. Even if he had, I could not correlate the time with my Cambodian lab partner. I still had to go to work, so I could get a paycheck, which I used to pay for tuition. The instructor was also fairly aloof during lab time, and let me waste an awful lot of time doing things the wrong way.
One experiment involved the creation of a binary coded decimal (BCD) converter. This was a fairly complex circuit to create, using just our rudimentary logic trainer boards. It took most of one class period to complete, and diagram in my log book. I had it working perfectly, showing a sequencial count from zero to nine, on a 7-segment display. The instructor refused to approve it, because my representation of a nine did not match his. He expected six LED sements to illuminate, while I had only five. It still looked like a nine; however, I had to start over again, and write up a new diagram in my log book.
When the last day of the class came, I was lacking two experiments.
That same instructor was responsible for creating a competency exam, supposedly required for graduation in Electronics Technology. He was tardy about it, and had failed to produce any such exam as my final course neared completion. This forced the college to offer an alternative; it was an extra course in electronics. Many students complained that it was merely a scam to soak them for more tuition, and they graduated without the extra course, and without any competency exam.
For my last semester at the college, work was not a priority, and I did not look for a new job. Instead, I focused on completing graduation requirements. I was not at all familiar with college graduation policies, and didn’t realize I was expected to submit an application for graduation. I missed the deadline for a spring graduation, and so there was a gap of about six months between the time I completed my last required course and the time I was allowed to graduate in the summer.
I also confronted my old instructor one day, and inquired about the competency exam. His response was to make himself seem too busy.
I protested, “That bugs me.”
He replied, “Too bad.“
In the spring of 1986, I enrolled in one last course, which was supposed to be a substitute for the competency exam that had not materialized. I didn’t want to waste tuition, but I also didn’t want to waste my time in arguing. So I paid for and completed the extra course. I could not graduate until summer anyway, because I had missed their stupid application deadline.
This was a make-shift course, without a regular class schedule. The textbook was titled, Pulse and Control Circuits. I often had to visit the course advisor about wrong answers in his exams. It was not enough to claim that his answers were wrong, I had to draw an illustration of the circuit in question, with colors to show current flow.
My graduation status was a delicate issue when I approached prospective employers for work. ¿If I finished all my courses, why didn’t I graduate?
The British pop group, The Moody Blues, were scheduled to make a concert appearance in Salt Lake City, and I was anxious to see them. Purchased two tickets for the concert, not sure of who would be my guest. I fully expected to find a date, or a girl who would accompany me, but I was disappointed. The obvious ladies were unavailable.
The day of the concert came, and in desperation, I began looking at strangers in places I happened to be. While eating at a Taco Bell restaurant, I noticed a cute hostess who was wearing no rings on her fingers. I slipped her a note, inviting her to the Moody Blues concert. In a few minutes, she slipped me back a note in reply: “Sorry. I’m married.”
Not wanting to let my extra ticket go to waste, I invited my mother to come with me. She did come with me. She was quiet during the whole affair, and didn’t make any comments about the music or the show.
stuart james beall 