Elementary School Memories, Now that I Have Kids in Elementary School

This fall, a weird thing is going to happen – all three of our children will be in school. Sure, Isaac will only be in pre-school three days a week, but he’ll still be in school. Michelle will have actual free time at home without any children bothering her, unless I stay home from work.

The family is growing up, and the time has sure gone by fast. Won’t be much longer and we’ll have teenagers in the house. I thought I was gobsmacked when Liam became a Cub Scout, so I know there’s no way I’m ready for the teenager thing.

Speaking of Cubs, Liam is close to achieving something I didn’t do at his age: Earning his Wolf Badge. Admittedly, we’ve pushed him along, something I wish my folks had done at that age, to urge me to achieve more. It’s not like earning the badge is a difficult thing, it just takes a little cajoling, conversation and some good record-keeping. Sine my most vivid Cub Scout memory revolved around getting nailed in the head with a 3-wood at the Joos’ house during a Scout activity, perhaps I can be forgiven in that my enthusiasm for Scouting was at a low ebb then. That was also the era of the Forced Piano Lessons (which Liam and Lexie are also doing, but with much more cheer and aplomb than I ever exhibited). They may indeed turn into the teens I see at church who sheepishly agree to play hymns. Or they may go totally Goth on us and want to paint their bedrooms black. Not likely for Lexie. Black doesn’t have enough pink or purple in it, nor is the color really conducive to ballet dancing.

But back to the school thing. Liam will be a mighty third-grader; Lexie will be in first grade. I’m not old enough to have kids in these grades. I still remember when I was this old:

First Grade, the northwest corner of the auxiliary building at Lincoln Elementary. Teacher was Mrs. King whom, as I recall, wore lots of polyester. Most vivid memories: The day Joyce dropped her crayon box, scattering crayons and pencils all over the classroom, as we were filing out to leave for the day; the day one of my friends pushed open the bathroom stall so everyone could watch me pee (and the day he was no longer my friend).

Third Grade, the same classroom. Teacher was Mrs. Barrett. Most vivid memories: Getting caught cheating on a multiplication test – to this day, can’t multiply by seven and not recall the feeling of burning shame; Sitting next to the classroom bookshelf where I could pull out a book whenever I wanted to, as long as I didn’t get caught.

Other random memories which apply pretty much to the five years I spent at Lincoln include watching the field behind the school flood with snowmelt every year, feeling really rebellious and cool on those few occasions when I wandered over to the “other” side of the school, between the school and the church where we were not supposed to go, and the one glorious year (Second Grade) I spent in the main building, a 1911-era behemoth with creaky stairs and rattly windows. I really miss that building. Being asked to avoid the church was weird, because on Sundays, that was where I went to church, so it was like being told not to go home after school. (On Tuesdays, I was supposed to follow my sister over to the church after school for Primary classes, but I almost always avoided going, except on those days when the bus driver (who also attended our church) forced me out the door of the bus and sent me over to the church, bless her.

This is what the main building looks like now. You'll notice the top portion uses a different color of brick. As I recall, the building had an old, mansard-style roof on it, including a little cupola/bell tower over the pop-out on the front, but that was all removed during a remodel of the building during the years I was there. Now it looks like a big tissue box. Sigh.

My kids will be bringing home memories like this, but theirs will come from a rather squat, 1950s-style box that just doesn’t have that old-timey charm. Oh well. Can’t exactly pick schools for their décor, now can we?

One of these days, I’d like to visit ol’ Stinkin’ Lincoln, to get back into that particular classroom (I also spent the Fifth Grade there). I’m sure it’s changed quite a bit – the school is now an alternative high school.

War is Indeed Hell

Wow. Anyone who professes to be a student of World War II had better read Armageddon, the Battle for Germany, 1944-1945, by Max Hastings. This is an author who has vividly captured the cliche: "War is Hell." He holds no punches in praising -- or blaming -- those involved in heroic acts or acts of cowardice or malice.

What I found interesting about Hastings' view of the American philosophy going into the war -- that for the leaders (Roosevelt and Eisenhower) the goals were strictly military, not political, and that there was a lot of naivete, turning a blind eye and complicity in allowing Russian dominance of Eastern Europe. Hastings believes that Roosevelt acted naively in thinking that Stalin and the Russians would live up to their Yalta agreements, which they did not. I thought most fitting the closing words of Hastings' book:

The battle for Germany began as the largest single military event of the twentieth century, and ended as its greatest human tragedy. More than half a century later, we may be profoundly grateful that its worst consequences have been undone without another war. The men who fought and died for the freedom of Europe received their final reward with the collapse of the Soviet tyranny, two generations after the destruction of its Nazi counterpart.

Added into the mix is Hastings' conclusion -- drawn after much research, and from what I know, I believe he's right -- that the Allies (the British and Americans -- went into the war with military objectives and did not do much planning on what would take place in Europe, notably Germany, after the fighting was over. There were efforts like the Marshall Plan, which helped rebuild Western Europe, but those were plans that were drawn up after the fighting was over. I think it's telling that there were no carefully-laid plans for what to do after the war was over. Sounds like Iraq, does it not, where the aim was to oust Saddam, but damned if anyone knows what do do afterward.

The biggest eye-opener for me in this book however -- as was Hastings' intention -- was to outline the atrocities committed by the Russians, particularly when they arrived on German soil. Absolutely nasty things that I won't repeat here. Suffice it to say that though the British and Americans may have made their political mistakes during the war, they pale to the absolute mess the Russians made of things. Absolutely awful.

Anyway, I recommend the book. Well-told, with plenty of new material that will rattle even the most astute World War II investigator.

More Uncharted Shilling

Heise Hot Springs Magic

As I climbed the sodden cedar stairs, I felt, oddly, tall. The worn banisters and handrails felt stubby and short. Miniature. Near the top, they're worn. Grooved. Carved with scratches; deep, rounded, long, crosswise and with the grain, as if tiny glaciers once flowed higgledy-piggledy down the rails.

Two little boys, arms strung like Ys from rail to rail, finger the grooves. “Maybe somebody made these with their fingers,” one said to the other. “I wonder who made them,” the other said.

Then I remembered.

I did.

Without the aid of limeflower tea and a petite madeline, memories flooded back as I stood there on the stairs, behind the little boys waiting for their turn to go down the water slide at Heise Hot Springs. Like Marcel Proust in his famous novel A la Recherce du Temps Perdu, I rediscovered those long-lost memories. As Proust wrote, “the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory . . .”

Okay, so the vicissitudes weren't exactly rendered inocuous. But at least rendered more vivid.

There were Heise disasters:

As a little boy, emerging from the dressing room after a swim with my rear end rubbing against the inside of my coveralls, because someone stole my underwear from the dressing room.

There were Heise jingles, played incessantly on the radio Mom listened to while we waited for the bus:

“The Heise Hot Springs Magic will cast a spell on you (ching!)” The ching was some kind of chime, fitting with the records of Captain and Tenille and the Carpenters that old Bob Zeil played on KID – AM radio.

And Heise parents:

Dad sitting in the pool's snack bar, watching us through the windows, swimming. He got our attention. He thought he was telling us it was time to go. We thought he was telling us he'd buy us more tickets for the water slide. Merry moments of miscommunication ensued.

And Heise flowers:

Hollyhocks. Hundreds of hollyhocks, gathered like spears jutting out of the ground, abuzz with bees. Just like the hollyhocks at Grandma Spiers' house on Second Street, lining the rickety wooden fence on the alley.

As we swam at this hot pool, squeezed between the Snake River and cliffs of the river canyon in the panhandle of Jefferson County, Idaho, I wondered what memories my wife and I were creating for our children. As we drove home, they poured out:

Sunburn, first and foremost. The itchy, hurty kind that hurts if you scratch it but drives you nuts if you don’t. Also, the camp host paraded through the RV campground with a dead skunk on the end of a pitchfork. Not sure if he was just taking the shortest route to the trash pile or parading the skunk and odor through the entire camp as a share the wealth gesture. Liam eating the water slide up, going down again and again, then demanding to be taken out to the diving board so he could jump off. Sometimes we call him our chicken heart. But in many ways, he’s quite brave. Our route to the pool was entirely a Bat Route, all back roads, only a few miles on a state highway.

And those carved rails. Standing there in line behind the little boys, with Liam beside me, I remembered how we carved them. From my ankle I took the elastic bearing the metal disc, stamped with the number matching that of the canvas bag we put our clothes and towels in at the dressing room. I wrapped the elastic around my fingers, grabbed the disc, and rubbed it in one of the grooves.

It fit perfectly. I scraped the disc through the groove, and a little sawdust collected on its edge. The little boys watched. They took their elastics off their ankles, carved with their discs. “Cool!” the older yelled.

I smiled. I'd passed on a memory.

Getting there:

The boring way: From Idaho Falls, travel east towards Wyoming on U.S. Highway 26 for about 20 miles. Just past the community of Ririe, watch for signs pointing off to the left for Heise. From the highway, follow additional signs to the hot pool complex, nestled in one of the largest cottonwood tree forests in the world.

The Bat Route way: From Rexburg, travel south on the Old Yellowstone Highway out of towm to the Archer Highway – watch for signs pointing to Heise and Archer. Once on the Archer Highway, simply follow this winding farm-to-market road through the community of Archer – past Big Jud's restaurant – and Madison County's Twin Bridges campground on an island in the Snake River. Shortly after passing the campground, another sign will direct you to the left (east). (Note: Continuing south on this road will take you into Ririe, a community of less than a thousand, which is worth visiting just to get a feel for isolated, small-town America). Again, follow the winding road through farmland, across the river again and then down to Heise.

What it's about:

Heise Hot Springs features two small hot pools, one large pool, a 350-foot water slide, campgrounds that border on the Snake River and a pizza parlor. More information and rates are available at http://www.heiseexpeditions.com/heise.html.

In the area:

Cress Creek hiking trail, a popular nature trail that takes hikers on a two-mile jaunt up the hillside to the north of the Snake River, for views of the eponymous creek and, from the top, the Snake River Canyon below.

NOTE: I do apologize this is kind of a repeat of a previous post. But it's now been Unchartedized and, I think is a bit more coherent. Or stupid.Just visit us at www.uncharted.net. In a few weeks, that is. We're still tinkering.

Batching It

For the past few days, I've had full charge of the household, as Michelle is off to Krupp Scout Hollow for some training in relation to her calling as Cub master. The household entails three children under eight, one wiener dog and three goldfish. So far, the goldfish win on the easy maintenance part, and that even takes into consideration that I had to clean their bowl yesterday.

So what have we done with our Freedom from Mommy?

• Collected two loads of firewood.
• Visited the Rexburg Water Park.
• Bought some used books at the DI.
• Picked a bowl of raspberries.
• Watched Nim's Island.
• Went to McDonald's.
• Survived a thunderstorm with torrential rains. That was one whopper of a storm.
• Talked on the phone with Alan on the subject of Uncharted. For a very long time.
• Wrote an Uncharted story that'll be posted here shortly.
• Washed dishes.
• Did two loads of laundry.
• Helped the boys clean their room.
  

That's about it. Obviously, I've forgotten what it means to be a bachelor.

A La Recherche du Piscine Perdu

We took the kids to Heise Hot Springs for the weekend. It’s been donkeys years since I’ve been there, but roaming around the pools and such really brought back some vague childhood memories of being there as a very young kid.

Memory No. 1: Emerging from the dressing room after a swim with my penis rubbing against the inside of my coveralls, because someone stole my underwear from the dressing room.

Memory No. 2: Climbing the long cedar staircase to the water slide and wondering who carved the deep gouges in the wooden railing. (Gouges are still there; I determined this time that they’re from the little metal discs we’re issued to reclaim the canvas bags we deposit our clothing in while we swim. I remembered rubbing the gouges with my fingers, wondering where they came from. This time, rubbed them again, wondering why my brain had stored that memory – and so vividly – for all these years. Marcel Proust probably knows what I’m talking about.

Memory No. 3: Trying to communicate with Dad through the glass window of the observation deck. Randy and I swam. He watched. He wanted to go home. We thought he was signaling that he was going to buy us tickets for the waterslide. Much merry miscommunication ensued.

Memory No. 4: This is more vague, but I remember, I think, losing a shoe in the parking lot on the way out to the car to go home. Even more merry miscommunication ensuing. On the way out this time, noted a single yellow clog in the parking lot. Wondered what poor little girl was missing her shoe.

Memory No. 5: The rails leading up the slide staircase were much taller when I was a kid. Adult butts were much closer, in that young point of view, especially when the staircase was crowded.

Memory No. 6: The Heise Hot Springs 70s hippie jingle, which they played on their local radio and TV commercials when I was a kid: “The Heise Hot Springs Magic will cast a spell on you (ching!)”

Memories from this time: Sunburn, first and foremost. The itchy, hurty kind that hurts if you scratch it but drives you nuts if you don’t. Also, the camp host paraded through the RV campground with a dead skunk on the end of a pitchfork. Not sure if he was just taking the shortest route to the trash pile or parading the skunk and odor through the entire camp as a share the wealth gesture. And the ubiquitous, fun ones: Liam eating the water slide up, going down again and again, then demanding to be taken out to the diving board so he could jump off. Sometimes we call him our chicken heart. But in many ways, he’s quite brave. Lexie and Isaac went down the slide once, and opted not to go again. I went down many times, a few times emerging out of the end of the tube much more rapidly than I’d hoped. On the last trip, my butt scraped the bottom of the pool and, as I struggled to slow myself, down, I snagged something out of the water. At first I thought it was a twig, but as I surfaced and felt the shape in my fingers, I realized twigs don’t sink, nor do they come in the shape of an X. I had two hair clasps in my hand. They were rusty. Probably had been in the bottom of that pool for a long time. Also, our route to the pool was entirely a Bat Route, no state highways involved. How long has it been since I took a trip like that? We’re able, thanks to Madison and Jefferson counties, to make the trip from Sugar City to Heise entirely – well, almost entirely; part of the route through Rexburg is on State Highway 33 – on county roads, which weave through little communities like Archer and Ririe on roads that follow the old farm-to-market plan, sweeping curves at random corners to the trucks don’t have to struggle through ninety degree turns.

And, finally, hollyhocks. Someone at Heise has a thing for hollyhocks, because the flowers are all over the place. They reminded me of my Grandma Speirs, who had them planted at her home on Second Street. That’s why I can’t get rid of those at home in Sugar, even if they’re a nuisance because they attract bees and fall over into the carrots.

More Windy News

In as many days, the Bingham County Commission has approved another wind turbine project, this time for Western Energy, a local company that has plans to build 66 turbines on a 5,000-acre ranch in the Shelley area. Kudos to the county and the ranchers for working to make this happen. I have a lot more faith in this kind of action than I do any federal action, where there are a lot more power brokers in play.

Earlier this week, the commission approved Idaho’s largest wind farm project, a 150-turbine project that will be spread over 20,212 acres in the Wolverine Canyon area of Bingham County, southeast of Shelley.

When both of these projects are complete, the area will be home to 259 wind turbines. Ridgeline built a 43-turbine project southeast of Idaho Falls in 2005, then sold it to Invenergy LLC. This is the project you can see – faintly – on the foothills east of town as you’re driving into town from the desert.

These companies are in the business, of course, to make a buck. But if they can make a buck off a renewable resource that increases our electrical production without increasing greenhouse gases or dependence on foreign oil, more power to them. Pun intended. Both of these projects could be ready in 2009.

Together, these projects will generate about 713 megawatts – enough to power 463, 450 homes (one megawatt has enough juice to power about 650 homes). That’s enough electricity to power eastern Idaho.

PacifiCorp buys Invenergy’s power, and will be the likely customer for the electricity produced by these two new projects.

These plants – plus a 3.3 megawatt hydroelectric plant on the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River, proposed by Rigby, Idaho-based Symbiotics, Inc – continue to add to the area’s alternative energy cap. The hydro plant recently won local approval, and must now go to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval, possibly also in 2009.

Layoff Day . . .

Well, once again I survived. Layoff Day again arrives at the RWMC, and again, I emerge (thusfar; but it’s 2:30 pm, and the Norm Petersons of the company have likely already struck) unscathed and with a job. Not that I would have been surprised to get laid off this time. Not that I don’t think my every move here is being watched and, like the invisible antagonists of C. Monty Burns, there are gremlins waiting to spot a weakness and then descend with a bash to the head. But I prattle on. I still have a job. Many do not. But we’re not hearing as much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth this time around, for some reason. We just may be simply out of the loop in our little corner of the RWMC.

Sounds like we got off pretty light. Of 67 laid off, only six at RWMC. That means some other project, likely at INTEC, got it in the gut. Sorry, guys and gals.

I survived something even more fundamental: A mistake. It’s turned into the eye-rolling type of mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. Two documents I worked on way earlier this year lacked some reviews, so I’m having to do them over again, and in only four days. Not that it won’t be manageable, but it’s just a headache. I spent a good portion of the weekend silently fretting about it all, only to come in today and feel competent and on top of things as the new reviews are going smoothly. Anticipation of events is the real bugaboo in my life, I suppose, combined with a tendency to overreact and get all moody.

The eye-rolling comes because the documents aren’t really related to the work the auditors were looking at, but because the auditors always have to find something, this is what was found this round, and it just happened to be something I had my fingers in way back in January. I’m not complaining about the situation; I’m simply being asked to fix my mistake, and I’m doing so cheerfully. I hope that goes a ways in showing that I can fess up to the things I do wrong and get them corrected. But you never know how people will react to this kind of situation. DOE is populated with strong-willed yeller types. But cooler heads are prevailing, recognizing that it’s just best to get the work done. Besides, I have the personality type (noted in my post on puppy-dog eyes) that means once I’m swatted with a newspaper, I tend to remember it. At least for a while.

A Wolverine County Win -- and an Eye-Roller from Obama

Hats off to the county commissioners in Bingham County. Our neighbors to the south have paved the way for a pretty significant wind power project in the Wolverine Canyon area, or so says one of our local news stations.

The county has weighed this decision pretty much all summer, and had to play against some pretty heavy hitters, including Frank VanderSloot, local political agitator and deep-pocket mogul. He has every right to use his money how he sees fit, to express his opinion and try to sway public opinion. In this case, however, I'm grateful the county commissioners didn't let power get in the way of their decision. No pun intended.

I've written here about how I support efforts for renewable energy, particularly T. Boone Pickens' effort to invest billions in wind power to help wean us off imported oil (more power from wind, he reasons, means less power from domestically-produced natural gas, which could, in turn, be used to power vehicles, rather than gasoline made from imported oil). I'm also pleased to see smaller efforts, like that of Ridgeline Energy, to put into place smaller-scale wind power plants. IF we're to wean ourselves from foreign oil, we're going to have to accept more things liek this -- and the occasional aesthetic affront they may bring. Personally, I've visited Wolverine Canyon, and am here to tell that I was much more disturbed by all the cowpies I encountered than I might be by the presence of the occasional wind turbine perched on a ridge. Besides, I think the plants are aesthetically-pleasing myself. I like driving in to Idaho Falls from the west to see the wind turbine project on the hills east of town. Their presence doesn't bother me at all. I think the opponents to the Wolverine Canyon project will find they're in the same boat, after they get used to the turbines being there. And they can say they're doing their part to wean us from foreign oil.

On other energy fonts: An eye-roller. Barack Obama wants to tax oil company profits in order to give people who are struggling with high energy bills a $1,000 rebate. That's going to solve our energy crisi how, I wonder? I suppose I could put it in the bank and hope, in a few years, to get into a wind power project on a very local scale: I've looked into getting a smaller wind turbine to plant in our back yard, but the least expensive ones I can find run about $12,000. I'd love to do it. Maybe in a few years, after we've saved up enough cash. And we can convince the city to let us do so. But I can't say the idea of taxing the oil giants is a way to do that, especially since most of that rebate money, in the hands of the average recipient, won't go towards energy efficiency. The tax-and-rebate is just a dumb, election-year parlor trick.

To Obama's credit, he's thinking bigger than just a rebate -- He wants to undertake an effort to wean the U.S. from foreign oil (or at least oil from Venezuela and the Middle East) in ten years. That's laudable. He wants the U.S. to invest $150 billion in alternative energy projects, including getting a million hybrid cars on the road. He wants to see private investment in alternative energy be a part of that program. But I just wish he'd drop the windfall-for-rebate idea. It's a dumb one. Now, if he wanted to do the windfall for alternative energy investment, I'm all for that. That's long-term thinking, not political pandering. But since political pandering is the monnaie courant to get into office these days, well then, guess which idea will hold wind.

Little 'Maricin Fark

Rexburg, Idaho, has long been called Little Provo. Due to the presence of BYU-Idaho here (and I just love to refer to BYU-Utah just to watch folks from Happy Valley get their pants in a knot) Rexburg's nickname is, perhaps, well deserved.

But I stumbled across evidence today that a more appropriate nickname might be Little American Fork.

Listen to the in-house ad (hopefully it's still there when you get to the site) for the Rexburg Standard-Journal, a little rag I used to work for. I swear the first woman who speaks says something like, "Oh, Sarah, that mill was wonderful . . ." That mill. THAT MILL. I thought only people in American Fork talked about Rill Mill Dills when they're going to the Dairy Queen, but apparently the accent is migrating north along with all the Utahns who think it's nifty (or are forced) to attend BYU-Utah's sister university in the sticks up north. You be the judge. (And on a journalistic note: If the thing that sets you apart from the competition is your recipe selection, it might be time to look at that corporate mission statement again. Just more evidence, ladies and gentlemen, that I'm happy to be out of the newspaper business.)

But I am hearing things like mill a lot more here. More evidence that Rexburg culture -- such as it is -- is being eroded. Things just started going downhill when McDonalds stopped providing fry sauce.

I Am A Lobster

Went swimming with the kids yesterday. Forgot sunscreen. My back is now the color of boiled lobster. Hurts to sit. Hurts to lie down. Hurts to breathe. Humanity may not survive this.