cc: file, Marti, Sara and Des, Diane Cluff, Tony Hafen, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Eric and Annette Krueger, Eric and Renee Miner, Claude and Katherine Warner, Forest and Amy Warner, and Ivan and Chell Warner.
I'm a few days late on my Thoughtlet this week, and because I am going to the Hafen Family Reunion in Heber this next weekend will be a few days late getting next week's Thoughtlet off too. It seems to me that no matter how much things change in my life, there is even more to do with less time. Guess the distractions are a blessing sometimes.
Sunday night Melanie received her `Young Woman of Promise Award.' I am disappointed in how the room she is wallpapering for the award looks, and yet I am sure it will get finished before she leaves for school. This award is compared to an Eagle Scout Award, and based on all of the things she did as a cheerleader I know she earned the award. I am very proud of her for making the effort to finish off this milestone. She went to San Antonio this weekend to meet her new roommate, and it got me thinking.
I remember tent mates at 4-H camp, scout camp, and roommates at Utah's Boy's State, JESSI in New Mexico, and the NSF program at Oregon State in Corvalis, Oregon. I remember Pete Peterson and Steve Lovell, hired hands on the farm, who took the bottom roll out bunk in my bedroom during the summers when I was growing up. But my first long term roommate was John O'Neil from San Jose, California. John came to the University of Utah on a football scholarship. In fact, I was the only person on the first floor of our wing of Ballif Hall who was not a freshman football player. I was skinnier than I am now. I had spent summers lifting quarters of beef (~150 pounds), 100 pound sacks of wheat to feed the cattle, 100 pound sacks of ground up biproducts from the Lower Plant, and hay bales (when I didn't die from allergy attacks), so I could hold my own in a wrestling match. However I was nothing like the guys on the first floor of our wing of the dorm. John was shorter than I was, but he lifted weights and just looked tougher than I felt. Probably because of being so self conscious about the big boils and zits on my face and back.
It was a fun year. We became friends and spent a lot of time talking about stuff. In fact, one night Leo, a 6'4" black football player from Toolee, Utah came in to visit us about 2:00 in the morning, and the next day he was laughing so hard. Said he sat there and listened to us talk to each other for over a half-an-hour - - - in our sleep. Leo was a real hoot. After he saw me sunbathing, we took turns being black guy of the day. Then I remember one night I didn't make it back to the dorm because I went to listen to a `famous' nuclear physicist talk at a Rotary Club Meeting, then when we got back to his room at the Hotel Utah he challenged me to a game of chess and by the time we finished it was `too late' to get a cab back up to campus. He invited me to stay, which I did, and when he attempted to be inappropriate I stopped him and ended up staying up all night to make sure it didn't happen again. When I got back to the room, John said I looked terrible. I said I was OK, started to read the paper and slept through my first two classes. Needless to say my view of `scientists' dropped a lot that night. Another time, I had started going to Institute and was asked to participate in a University of Utah Institute Choir which sang for April Conference. I ended up sitting on the first row behind the prophet, President David O. McKay, with all of my zits. John watched conference and said he saw me there and he was really impressed with the choir and the conference. So was I. It was a very special experience. I never saw John again after my freshman year.
My second year of college Ray Gardner was my roommate in the Phi Sigma Kappa Fraternity House. That year deserves a couple of Thoughtles all by itself. Riley Skeen and I were roommates the summer of 1970 in Denver, as I have already mentioned. Then I had 18 roommates as missionary companions. When I came back to school, Riley was looking for a roommate and we rented just west of 13th street. That was a fun two quarters, even if I spent too much time and money commuting to Ft. Collins to court your mother. The next summer I stayed with a missionary companion's parents in Denver and then moved into an apartment downtown Denver with Quentin Reed as my roommate. That fall I got what I thought was a permanent roommate when your Mom and I were married (not counting Larry Law in Saudi, Gary Jones in China, etc.). Little did I know that Sunday I would take on two new roommates. One young man had become an alcholic and drug addict after his mission. He was back with his family, and it was not going real well, so I offered to let him stay with me to keep me company. Then another young man was starting as a senior at Taylor High School on Monday, yet his parents house would not be finished until the first of September and he needed a place to stay. I volunteered.
The first moved into Rob's room last Saturday. The second came after church on Sunday. The first didn't come home Sunday night. I went to Austin early Monday morning. About 10:00 I got a call from Rhonda telling me his boss had called, reporting he stole two water pumps, sold them and used the money for cocaine, and then had confessed what he did when asked if he would take a drug test at work the next morning. He was fired on the spot. He checked himself into a half-way house for 30 days and his sponsors from Alcholics Anonymous drove him over there. The other young man moved in with the Bishop so he could get a ride to and from school. So I came back from Austin Tuesday night to an empty house again. Although some of my roommates have become good friends, none of them are family.
I sense some of you are starting to recognize this simple and yet subtle difference. Roice wrote me about being lonely in California and how his new truck isn't very good company. He seemed pretty pleased when Cousin Diane invited him to ride to Heber with her to go to the Hafen Family Reunion this weekend. Rob has been pretty bored in the new house. We had dinner together tonight, and as I dropped him off he gave me a kiss and said told me he loves me. Paul's letter talked about my one truly permanent roommate: `We take the gospel for granted. To watch people understand truth, when they think nobody loves them and then they find out God loves them, it's a beautiful thing to watch. It is an honor to be able to serve the Lord and help people. They are so wonderful. I know the church is true and it is fun to share that with my Russian friends here.' Amen (I agree)."