cc: file, Diane Cluff, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Grandma Hafen via Tony Hafen, Claude and Katherine Warner, and Lloyd and Luana Warner.
"Melanie, Sara, and I went to the film 'Legacy' in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on Thursday. It was the second time I have seen it. Neither Sara nor Melanie remembered seeing it before. I thought we had all gone together when we had made one of our trips through Salt Lake. Whatever. Once again, I was very touched. Maybe it is because I have read extensively about church history over the years since Corvallis. Maybe it is because I worry so much about each of you kids, and want you to choose to find the truths I have found. Maybe it is because I am just a sentimental old guy. Maybe, as my friend Randy Shirts said to me, there isn't a reason for everything. But this I do know, we as a family have a wonderful legacy.
I could describe our legacy from numerous viewpoints. As I sit on my sister's couch, and let history sweep across my mind, my thoughts turn to your Great-Grandfather Sharp. Going outside my ancestry, to your Mom's, might sound wierd to you guys. I do not know where his history is. Yet I recall how touched I was the first time I read it. Thomas Barnabas Sharp received a copy of The Book of Mormon, read it, was converted, and asked to be baptized by the Elder who provided him the book. It was an Elder from The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the largest breakoff group of our church. He wrote about how they broke the ice in a pond so he could be baptized, how he went into this freezing water to confess himself before Jesus, and how as he came out of the water he felt warm all over. It was a significant manifestation of the spirit in his life. He became a preacher, and the presiding Elder for The Reorganized Church in Western Arkansas and eastern Texas, over an area about the size of the state of Utah. He wasn't perfect, and his son Emmit, spent his life attempting to show he rejected everything his father taught. However, from my perspective, your Grandpa Sharp was the significant positive influence on your Mom, teaching the things he spent so much effort rejecting from his father. From the Sharp Family Reunions I have been to, the stories I have heard, the lifelong commitment of Thomas Barnabas, and the fruits of his labors, I know how committed he was to The Book of Mormon and to the Savior. What a wonderful legacy you kids have.
I have described some, and will, over the coming years, describe many more of the experiences and testimony and legacy of my (and thus your) ancestors. I do believe it is critical to our own happiness to learn from and to build on the experiences and learnings of our ancestors. As Sara drives to Bloomington, so we can go to church with the Warners, my mind wanders to President Hinkley's favorite scripture (a comment reported from a youth fireside in St. George about a year ago) in D&C 50:24 which says:
The point I am attempting to make is that we are not just ourselves, we are a sum of our heritage. Our children learn from the legacy we leave them. Both the positive and the negative. Roice sent me a nice e-mail, where he tactfully pointed out I tend to focus on the negative. I'm sorry if this is true. Ben forward a nice story by e-mail, which when I read made me feel guilty, and so there must be some truth in Roice's comment. Ben's story is called 'The Fence:'
I hope those times I have lost my temper have not left perminant holes in the fences of your lives. I think I finally recognize the negative consequences of a temper. And thanks to PAIRS I understand the basis for my emotional reactions and more importantly now have some tools to keep my temper under control. I feel like I am writing of the negative legacy. Like Roice mentioned in his e-mail to me: 'One of the unfortunate effects of a drive away from mediocrity is that people like you and me really tend to focus on the negative. After all the positive stuff doesn't need to be improved, so why dwell on it?' I sincerely wish I had had insights this worthwhile when I was 24. Maybe, just maybe you kids will learn from my mistakes as well as the postive legacy I strive so hard to leave you all.
I'm afraid none of you really have spent enough time with me to learn how to work. That was a real advantage I had growing up on the farm and with my Grandpa Hafen. I remember I would be sent out to Calf Springs Ranch every summer to spend time with Grandpa and Grandma. I was probably about 8 years old when Grandpa Hafen told me on one of these trips it was time to go throw rocks out of the road. The ranch was 7 miles south of Enterprise. All but the first mile were dirt roads. The last couple of miles Grandpa wanted to spend time each year throwing all of the big rocks out of the road. I turned to him and said: 'I thought I came over here for a vacation.' This must of sounded really funny to Grandpa, because he told the story many times. When I visited with my Mom on Friday night, she told me about my first Boy Scout camping trip when I was about 12. Grandpa happened to stop by, and to see the major production as I was being packed and repacked for the campout. He took Mom aside and reminded her that when he was 12 years old he was sent to the mining camps around Pioche, Nevada with a team of horses and a wagon to sell fruit and vegetables an a little brother to keep him company. I certainly don't claim to be near as hard of a worker as my Dad or my Grandpa Hafen (or Nelson), and think each of you realize you don't work as hard or as log as I do. And yet you are all good workers when you want to, and all of you work harder than most of those around you. I hope you appreciate your legacy of hard work.
Monday I had meetings down at Energy Innovations in the morning. John Amason picked me and my bags up so Larry could use the Saturn. We went to Hobby via McDonalds and caught a flight to Orlando in the afternoon. We had a great planning session at the hotel, and a good dinner that evening with Doug Harless of MuSE. Tuesday was spent in the MuSE booth at SiGGRAPH. There were some of the visualization team from Exxon who visited us and we were able to set up for a presentation at their Houston office. That night John, Albert Boulanger, Amy from MuSE, and myself went to the Disney World Boardwalk for dinner. Albert did some swing dancing for us after dinner, which looked like a lot of fun. Wednesday morning MuSE and NASA Langley had an absolutely wonderful collaborative demo. It will be the basis for Continuum's demostrations at the SEG in New Orleans next month. John and I also met with Silicon Graphics, caught a plane back to Houston, and took a couple of the PGS marketing staff out to dinner. We had proposed the boundaries for placing a 10 foot x 8 foot Wall (sm) in their booth at the convention. I got to the house to do laundary, answer e-mail, and pack about 11:00 PM. I do hope my legacy does not turn out to be a stroke or a heart attack.
Thursday morning at 6:00 Ken Turner and I met to talk about the next set of paintings. At about 6:40 Melanie and Sara got to the house and we left for Bush Intercontinental Airport. We flew to Salt Lake, checked into the motel, and I went to a session at the Salt Lake and had a meeting up at the University while Sara and Melanie went shopping. I met them at 4:00, a half hour after I told them I would. We validated my parking ticket, and made it over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to see Legacy. I cried. Sara and Melanie, you both seemed to like the movie. We walked out into the foyer and met a friend of the Burnham's, Merry Mabbett, who gave us a tour of the building, showed us where she goes to church (she is in the Prophet's ward), and told us a little bit of the history of the building. We went back to the motel to change, picked up Merry at her house, and went to dinner. We went by way of the 'This is the place!' monument, stopped in Heber and saw Uncle Glenn and Aunt Linda, and then went to The Homestead for dinner. It was a very nice meal. Friday morning Melanie and I got up at 6:00, picked up Merry, and went to 235 South 2nd East to stake out a place to watch The Days of '47 parade. Sara got up later and walked over to join us. One of the first cars in the parade was the Governor, Mike Leavitt. He looked at me, I said 'Hi Mike, Roice Nelson.' He said, 'Yes I know, but it is out of context to see you here.' Sara said, 'Dad, you know too many people. How do you know the Governor of Utah?' I explained Mike grew up in Cedar and was a year younger than me. He was in the Key Club, and my Mom worked for his Dad, Dixie Leavitt, helping make him financially successful enough he could participate in politics. The parade was long, and I thought really neat. The theme was 'Remembering our Legacy.'
We said goodbye to Merry's friends, dropped her off at her house, packed and checked out of the Motel, and headed out for Cedar City. We stopped in south Salt Lake to see one of Sara's friends from Houston. The girls ate at Wendy's, and as I drove down the west side of Utah Lake I participated in a telephone conference call staff meeting with Rhonda and John. Between Eureka and Delta, since we had a 4-wheel drive Jeep Cherokee as a rental car, I took a half hour detour to see the Paul Buyon Woodpile. We drove to where the road was washed out, where Dad and I had turned around a couple of years ago. I told Sara I was going to hike up to the rocks, and would be back in 10 minutes. She said 'Dad, you have no concept of time.' A half hour later, covered with sweat, I told her she was right. She laughed at me. I didn't even make it to the outcrop I remember from geology field camp classes. Maybe my legacy will simply turn out to be optimism.
We drove on to Delta, where we stopped for a malt and filled up with gas. Melanie had a 'major de ja vu' sitting in the log cabin fast food place. The drive to Milford and Cedar went quick. The farm looks really nice. Brent Hunter has most of it under cultivation, and the sprinklers were all working. I stopped and talked to my sister for a while, dropped off the girls, and drove down to St. George. Mom was happy to see me, and we talked for a while. Then I went over to Grandma Hafen's and stayed there for the night. The 24th Spectrum Newspaper was a historical review from 80-100 years ago. Grandma Hafen knew most of the people referred to. Her Father was the Parade Grand Marshall, and her step father was also involved. It was really interesting listening to the stories. I wished I would have had a tape recorder to capture additional views of our legacy.
Saturday morning Grandma fixed me a wonderful breakfast. I went to a session at the St. George Temple. Then I took Mom out to lunch at 'The Gable House.' Then it was back to Cedar, to pay for Melanie's new scriptures, and pick up the girls and head up to the College Cabin for my 30 year High School Class Reunion. It was fun. There were lots of hugs, lots of memories, and lots of stories. I'm glad I went. I was going to write more about it, and I need to leave to drive to Salt Lake, so maybe another time. Randy and Kathryn Shirts talked me into coming back down to his Mom's house, they seritiptiously introduced me again to his younger sister Andrea, whose husband left her and her four kids a few years ago. Legacy is bidirectional in time. For me, it is much more scary to stand on the front end and look forward at different possible paths, than it is to go back in time to meet with friends from 30 years ago. When it comes right down to it, we create our legacy one day at a time. I hope you never have any regrets about the legacy you leave in your wake."