cc: file, Mom, Sara and Des, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Diane Cluff, Tony Hafen, Claude and Katherine Warner, Forest and Amy Warner, Ivan and Chell Warner, and Eric and Renee Miner
What a weekend! Melanie, Sara, and Rob, I wish it would have ended better tonight. However, focusing on the positive, there have been plentiful blessings this week. I could spend the whole Thoughtlet writing about the Father's & Son's Campout to commemorate the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood. Suffice it to say, Rob, thanks for wanting to go and providing me the motivation to drive back from Austin early enough to take you. It is hard for me to put into words how refreshing it is for me to have an evening and a day in the woods, playing the guitar and singing the songs I have written for my family, even when no one is listening but me and God. One of the special aspects about the Father's & Son's Campout is that I have been going every year since the spring after we moved here in 1984, and there are a group of friends who really do enjoy sitting around and talking and playing the guitar and singing. I realize this part was not so much fun for you Rob, but I really appreciate you helping me get in a circumstance to recharge my batteries. I hope having Joe Amason with you, running around all over the place, cooking somores, riding your new skate board, eating a breakfast feast, and being outdoors recharged you too. It was particularly worthwhile for me to have an hour continuing a conversation with Jim Conners from two years prior about a new class of virtual musical instruments and music automatically derived from natural geologic and biologic systems. Seth Dukes tried to wrestle me down and found out 35 years and 100 pounds of weight difference makes a big difference. Aaron Danniels, Ryan Reed, Tyler Kemp, and Phillip Miller all played guitar with me. Half a dozen folks asked what time we stopped playing, stating we sang them to sleep. It was just a lot of fun.
This weekend with Roice was the first experience I have ever personally had at a college commencement and graduation. In fact, when we graduated from High School, we voted not to have cap and gown, and to just go across the stage in Sunday clothes, and so I have never participated in a cap and gown ceremony. When we graduated from College, your Mom and I felt we would not have another chance to travel (ha, ha, ha), so we borrowed some money, and left for Europe prior to the University of Utah's 1974 graduation exercises. Later, I took the last two classes for my M.B.A. at The University of Houston after we had left Dallas and I had started work at The Seismic Acoustics Laboratory. It did not seem worth the effort to drive back to Dallas to go to the commencement exercises at Southern Methodist University.
As I look back on my life, I see this as a trend. Maybe it is part of my entrepreneurial tendencies. I remember in one of the classes I really enjoyed on entrepreneurship at SMU where the professor said `If you were really entrepreneurial you would not be taking this class, you would be out there starting a business.' At the time I was using my class account, and a project required for the class, to input all of the Nelson genealogy I could get hold of to prototype a new company: `Computer Genealogical Services.' Maybe because I was starting this business under his nose, and using university computer time (with permission), is why I remember this particular lecture so vividly. Maybe I feel like I have missed part of my life, and this weekend was special because I could vicariously live some of that which I missed. Maybe I am just sentimental. Maybe all of these things have threads of truth and together they form the fabric of this week's Thoughtlet.
I was really impressed with Roice's graduation from High School. In the AstroArena, next to the AstroDome, in these beautiful blue caps and gowns. Then Ben's graduation came along, and it kind of seemed like old hat. It was still special to see him walk across the platform. Then last year there was Paul's graduation. He was still on probation, had just got out of `A' school, two of the assistant principals told him they were going to lock him up if he embarrassed the school by doing `the worm' across the stage after getting his diploma. I was so upset I responded strongly and directly to Mr. McDonald, the Principal after the ceremony. And Melanie's graduation is this Thursday evening. You would think I would be getting used to all of this fan fare, but I really am not. I am very proud of you kids, and I guess I am a little jealous. Certainly I was nothing like valedictorian of The University of Texas' College of Mechanical Engineering, nor one of five students from the entire College of Engineering nominated to be the outstanding student leader. Roice, we are all very proud of your accomplishments.
I want so much for everything to go smooth in your lives. I want you to never have pain, to never be hurt, and to feel good about yourselves. However, I know in my mind some of these desires are contradictory. We only feel good about ourselves when we overcome our physical desires, overcome obstacles, stretch our bodies and our minds, make tough choices, recognize mistakes and make different choices, and graduate from various schools of life. As much as I want to grab you and say don't worry about the maid coming in your room, don't fight with your sibling, take time to say a serious prayer and to listen to the spirit, and love your family, I recognize I can not cram these lessons into your cranium. You have to learn this stuff all on your own, and when we do, we truly will graduate to another phase full of new opportunities to learn. I hope you will not dwell on the trials, and will focus on the lessons to be learned. I realize I am not the perfect example, and yet I hope you recognize me getting on with my life despite problems and trials. I hope you will see how I am striving to improve myself and our relationships. I hope you will learn from and not repeat mistakes I have made. I hope you will never refuse to watch a video tape, read a book, participate in a seminar, or say a prayer, if someone is sharing what they have learned and sincerely striving to help you achieve more self-fulfillment."