cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, Maxine Shirts via mail.
"When we first got married Andrea reminded me of something from my youth, something which I have no recollection of. It seems Sadie Hawkins was a big deal at Cedar High School. The girls would draw names, and they had three days to catch the boys. Any boys not caught in three days, then could be caught by (asked to Sadie Hawkins) by any girl. It was not cool to get caught on the first day, the second day, and, for some of the boys, on any day. Evidently her brother Randy, myself, and some others (probably the Keynotes: Dale Hatch, Ray Gardner, and Charlie Garfield) made sure we wouldn't get caught by hiding in my basement. She told me we did such a good job we weren't found, and that she remembered us being really sad we didn't get asked to Sadie Hawkins.
When I asked about it again, after church today, she told me about how her older brother Russell was caught when a girl hid in a friend's laundry room, they asked Russell to come over and help move a refrigerator, and when he did, she came out of the room and caught him and asked him to Sadie Hawkins. Andrea also said she remembered the time Randy and I hid, specifically because there were girls on their roof, climbing through the little window in the bathroom, and otherwise positioning themselves to catch Randy. However, they couldn't find him. Hey, Hey, Hey.
As I recall, Sadie Hawkins was a sock hop. And the girls would buy and decorate socks for the dance. I remember having one pair of socks, which looked like a deer, with antler's, etc. I also remember once when Ray Gardner and I were teasing a girl about whether we had been asked, and she asked us what color the socks were. Ray answered `white' at the exact same moment I answered `black.' However, we did a very nice recovery, without so much as a pause we both explained to her there was one white sock and one black sock and it was in commemoration of Shakespeare's Othello. We were soooooooooo good. Where did it all go? Maybe I just remember funny. Andrea corrected me that the sock hop is different than Sadie Hawkins.
The next time Sadie Hawkins comes to my memory was when Ben was asked to to go Sadie Hawkins by a girl down the street. I was convinced, in my mind, that her intentions were not honorable, and I was scared to death for Ben's eternal soul. As I look back on it, I'm sure it was mostly in my imagination, and Ben, I'm sorry I didn't trust you more. I do recall how this was about the time when there started to be secrets in the Family, and it seemed to me like everyone seemed to know what was going on, except Dad. Again, this was probably largely my paranoia. Teenage years are tough times, especially for an inexperienced Dad who was trying to protect those they love from the permissiveness of modern society. Oh well! We all have our `free agency,' although the consequences of even one member of a family bringing pornography and sneaking and lying into the family are certainly not free. I feel I have spent years paying the price for my poor choices, as well as the poor choices of others whom I love. Hopefully I have learned something from the experience, and it will be to my good and to the good of those I interact with in the future.
Needless to say, this week was Taylor High School's Sadie Hawkins dance, and it seemed like we were living and breathing Sadie Hawkins all week. It really turned out to be a good experience, and Rachel, thanks for helping me experience the positive, non-paranoia side of Sadie Hawkins. Monday was spent building web pages for potential investors. There was a nice call from John Risinger in Australia, including a verbal commitment for Dynamic to have a nice contract to support their work in the Illinois Basin. Also spent time on the phone with Christian Singfield in Brisbane and wrote an e-mail supporting his efforts. Riley Skeen called, and we talked through how he might become involved with Dynamic. Tuesday afternon Diane Gianonne, a friend of Heloise Lynn's, came over and taught me about what landmen do. Swede Nelson and I continued our discussions about what Dynamic is doing. Joost Herweijer from Reservoir Team called from Adlaide, Australia, and gave me remote demonstration of his work in the evening. Wednesday at lunch we had an RC-SIG teleconference. Exxon-Mobil donated $5,000 to help with the RC-SIG meeting. I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday writing an OTC-2001 paper I had committed to do. Andrea took my submital to Fed-X to go to Richardson, Texas, about 3:30 Wednesday. The paper is titled `An Introduction to Immersive Reality' and a pdf file can be downloaded from http://www.walden3d.com/dynamic/papers/OTC-13005.pdf. Thursday, Marc had the system down in the late afternoon. Andrea and I helped with a youth Temple Trip Friday morning (I did confirmations with Gary Jones and Brother Talley), and Marc finished rebuilding the system from the hacker's work (0106.html) by about 2:00 Friday afternoon. I still can not print from NetScape on the Sun. Oh well! Andrea went to PALS, a regional camp helping Young Women become Leaders at Camp Liahonia Friday afternoon. When she and some of the girls got back Saturday they were cold and had had a good time.
After Andrea left, Rachel drove the stick over to David's so they could go shopping for Sadie Hawkins. It was the second time she has driven the stick. Rachel, you are really good. It just takes practice. I stopped to see if I could talk to Rob. He was home. He came to the door. It was the first time since before Thanksgiving we have had any kind of a conversation. It wasn't much of a conversation, and it felt really good to talk to him again. I left him with the words: `I am your Dad, and I would like to be your Dad.' Later in the evening I took Matt to Laser Quest. I don't like the loud music in there, and so I sat in the car and finished the other Tom Clancy NetForce book I had bought (0106.html): `Breaking Point.' To show you kids why I like this type of book, despite the sexual innuendo in this one, I am going to quote a few pages:
Needless to say, the good guys won. So I was able to get to sleep, even though Andrea was not here to cuddle with. Saturday morning started at the Church at 8:00 practicing with the Ward Choir. We are singing a song which Orin Hatch wrote the words to: `Jesus Love is Like a River.' Not sure why I am so suprised, but it is a really neat song. Matt went down to the church with me so he could practice his basketball. Swede Nelson called just as I got home, and I ended up spending about 5 hours getting 21 pages corrected and sent to him by facsimlie. I finished this about 3:00 and went outside for the annual Valentine's weekend triming of the rose bushes. It was cold outside (humidity makes cold seem colder), and so I have a bunch of punctures on my hands where the thorns went through the cloth gloves, and none on my arms. There are 11 rose bushes now, and as I told Rachel when she came outside, there is a lot of symbolism in those 11 rose bushes (../9707.html). Like teenagers, they can stick you if you pick them up wrong, and yet they are beautiful to look at. I ran Rachel to the store to buy film for her camera. Andrea got home just as they were ready to leave for Sadie Hawkins. We went over to the park and took photos of Rachel and David and their group. Good kids, and they looked like they were going to have a lot of fun. It reminded me, I still don't have all of the photos of Ethan, nor of Christmas, nor of some scout camps, put on the web yet. Oh well! I'll get to it, and to responding to outstanding e-mails, as soon as I can.
Andrea and I had our own Sadie Hawkins last night. We went to the Tri-Ward Valentine's Dance. I'm not much of a dancer. Andrea explained to me I never learned to dance because I was always playing in the band when growing up. Nice excuse. I think I was just born with two left feet. At about 1:00 Rachel got home and came in the bedroom and told us all about the dance. It was really neat. I wished I would have been there for each of you who have left home, when you came home from Sadie Hawkins, and I now realize you couldn't come and talk to me because I was so afraid something had gone terribly wrong, it just came across as if I was mad at you. I'm sorry. I have done the best I knew how to at each stage of my life. This morning there was nice talk on gossip by Jennifer Turner. I used her words to derive another stanza for Prime Words:
Shortly after we came home, the phone rang and it was Swede Nelson calling from Houston Intercontinental in transition on a flight from San Francisco to Columbia. We set up a half day meeting for this coming Friday morning, on his way back home to San Francisco from Columbia (0108.html), to talk about funding Dynamic. I can't say I was expecting a 6'4" retired X-President of Chevron International for 15 years to ask me to Sadie Hawkins. However, it would sure be nice for Dynamic to get asked to dance, and I do believe we have the people and technologies to burn up the exploration dancefloor. It is nice to not be hiding in the basement, so I can't be found. I hope each of you ask or get asked to Sadie Hawkins, and don't miss important parts of stages of your personal development."