cc: file, Mom, Sara and Des, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Charles and Diane Cluff, Tony Hafen, Claude and Katherine Warner, Forest and Amy Warner, Ivan and Chell Warner, and Eric and Renee Miner
"Clyde Tombaugh died this week. He was the astronomer who discovered the planet Pluto before he even had a college degree. He was 90 years old.
In the summer of 1967, between my junior and senior year of high school, your Grandma Nelson arranged for me to participate in a 2 week J.E.S.S.I. (Junior Engineers and Scientists Summer Institute) at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I was a little bit wild in those days. We stayed up past hours, listened to St. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band (which just came out), misused school property (took hypodermic needles filled them with water and would soak unsuspecting folks by shooting out a stream of water through a sweater or jacket), and other similar pranks (some of which I won't repeat). Besides all of the fun and trouble, I saw my first hologram (and tried to grab it and almost gave the soldiers a heart attack), visited White Sands Missile Range, and met the famous astronomer who discovered Pluto. He took me aside and said how disappointed he was in some of my activities, mostly because he was a member of the church and he assumed since I was from Utah I was too. Professor Tombaugh would have been about sixty at the time he taught me by his simple statement how our insides need to match our outsides, or how we need to think about the facade we show the world.
I discovered yesterday that since about December 10th I have been sending your Mom's daily lovelet to someone who has the e-mail address Marti@aol.com instead of to her e-mail address, which is Melyn@aol.com. It was an honest mistake, and the lady did send me one notice in mid-December telling me I was sending mail to the wrong address. But I misinterpreted that message as being from my Marti, and that she had a new address of Marti@aol.com. It is very sobering to realize you have been pouring your heart out to someone you don't even know what state they live in. Made me realize how important it is that the facade we show those we care about is truly representative of what we are inside.
Today was a typically busy Sunday. I haven't been sleeping very well because of my slowly healing dislocated shoulder. Therefore the day started at about 3:30 AM. Caught up my ironing, read the paper (discovered the news about Professor Tombaugh and started thinking about facades), went back to sleep for a little while, got up and had a hot bath to soak my arm and shoulder, went to missionary correlation, prepared a lesson, practiced with a men's group for singing `Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy' in sacrament meeting, went with Chris Schmidt to visit and teach Edy Smith (Mike Smith's wife who has a malignant brain cancer and is in a convalescent center in Sugar Land), came back for sacrament, Sunday School, substituted for the Teacher's Quorum Advisor, went to choir practice, came home and took a nap, went to a baptism, and came home to write this Thoughtlet.
I really enjoy church work, and do not see it as a facade. But as I contemplate changes in my life, I have really started to look hard at what I do to not embarrass the Professor Tombaugh's of the world, what I do to meet my perceptions of my mother's or my father's expectations, and what is real about me on the inside that matches my outward facade. I expect my challenges are fairly directly related to mismatches between these two, as I expect you will each find yours will be. I hope and pray 1997 will be a year of reconciliation of the inside and outside for all of us. Hopefully I will also catch things like how I have used a wrong address for Chuck and Diane for the last few Thoughtlet's sooner, hopefully Marti@aol.com was not offended by anything she received from me, and hopefully Professor Tombaugh has truly entered a state of rest among the stars he so loved.
P.S. Uncle Tony, it needs to snow in St. George every 10 years because they come out with new types of film about that often and someone needs to take some red and white photographs. Once in a lifetime only relates to visiting Mecca and Jerusalem. Welcome to your first version of Thoughtlets. Hope your back and other health problems aren't too much."