14 Apr 2002 #0215.html

Mulch

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Dear Paul and Kate, Melanie and Jared, Bridget and Justin, Sara, Ben and Sarah, Heather, Audrey, Rachel, and Matt via hardcopy,

cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, and Maxine Shirts.

Welcome to "Thoughtlets." This is a weekly review of an idea, belief, thought, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you, my children, with an electronic copy to on-line extended family members. Any of you can ask me not to clutter your mail box at any time.

"My little dictionary defines mulch as `a protective covering (as of straw or leaves) spread on the ground especially to reduce evaporation or control weeds.' As I look at my week, it seems to have been dominated by mulch.

Last Sunday evening on the way back from the afternoon General Conference sessionI noticed Carolyn Kroll and her son were still outside working in their yard. Other than take the newspaper up by the front door, I had not done anything for Carolyn since Tommy's death (0207.html and 0208.html). So one of the reason's it was 22:20:14 (10:20 PM) when last week's Thoughtlet went out (0214.html), was because when we got home I spent some time helping next door. Carolyn had gone to a special mass for Tommy. Her son and their neighbors on the other side were outside and we dug weeds and put out mulch.

As far as the rest of my week, it was similar to the week before. I summarized it by writing the second half to the song I wrote about last week (Light at the End of the Tunnel: 0214.html, where verse 6 was Monday, verse 7 Tuesday, etc., and the capo is on the second fret of the guitar):

` Am G F E C5. Finding my future is not a moocher Am G F E Am There's light at the end of the tunnel C G F C V6. Mike Dunn of GDC called me today C G F C A 600 person oil company lost their way C G G C Storing seismic, well logs, and maps C G F C Capturing knowledge to optimize apps Am G F E C6. Finding a new future, not as a moocher Am G F E Mike is creating a new funnel Am G F E Am There's light at the end of the tunnel V7. Spent 5 hours at Krescent with MKS today Seeing what Bob Burton had to say Four excellent prospects, the best we've seen Five million dollar wells, and MKS is keen C7. Finding a future, not as a moocher Bob Burton has done a good job Of creating a new company and packaging Proving there's light at the end of the tunnel V8. Spent 3 hours at Dick Coon's with MKS today Reviewing North Padre 890's probable pay Talked about Denmark and Cabinda And the new oil exploration window C8. Finding a future, not as a moocher Dick has closed another deal Proving there's light at the end of the tunnel V9. Worked on Harris County census track maps today I continue to use unallocated time this way Arnie Vedlitz was very excited He needs a prototype for A&M to be guided C9. Finding my future, not as a moocher There's light at the end of the tunnel C10. Spent one hour and fourty-two minutes today With Horace Snyder and Johnny Kopecky Outlined the terms for a `Heads-of-Agreement' Funding Dynamic, it seems heaven sent C10. There's light at the end of the tunnel'


That's kind of an easy way to summarize the week, i.e. to write a little each day, and then just type it out Sunday. Sort of like weeding, after you have put out some mulch.

I was thinking about why I started writing songs on the guitar after The Keynotes and The Mydknight Hour broke up after High School. I dimly remember going to Uncle Tony's service station and listening to him sing a song he wrote about his service station. If my memory is right, this was probably the first time I realized I could write out my thoughts and put them to guitar cords, and was probably the initiation of my writing the songs I've written.

I received a newsletter this week, which I'm going to take the time to quote the front page. The editor is J.W. Crude, i.e. a big old Texan from up by Ft. Worth, the guy who invented the mechanical bull:

`Is Anybody Out There Hearing Me Yet? W.T. Crude, Gazette Staff Writer Ladies and Gentlemen, As oil people our country's future is in our hands and we are letting it down. What is it going to take for us to wake up and face reality? 9-11-01 didn't do it, Afganistan isn't doing it, 3-D seismic isn't doing it; what's it going to take? With our current attitude we are not increasing our domestic oil supply enough to keep up with a third of our consumption. Every day we are forced to buy more and more oil from OPEC. Do you think they don't know the choke-hold they have on us? If we don't get radical and do something quick, I mean today, then we deserve to be ruled by radical Islamics who keep dangling carrots of oil supplies in our faces, and socking it to us with terrorists. Think about this; the U.S. spends about three billion dollars a year protecting the cheap Middle East oil supply, and when you factor that in, their oil costs us over $100.00 per barrel. That's an Arab subsidy that you and I pay for in taxes. Is that stupid, or what? Now Saudi is kicking us out of their country and showing support for Iraq; but get this, on the front page of the Ft. Worth Star Telegram, Friday, March 29, 2002; there is a picture from the Associated Press of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah embracing top Iraqi delegate Izzat Ibraham al-Douri with kisses on each cheek showing stong support for Saddam Hussein. Iraq is making up with Kuwait and now the suicide bombers in Israel are pretty 16 year old girls. Ladies and Gentlemen, all that we are and all that we believe in is at risk. Its time for us to GET RADICAL! Wake up America, or we are going to be kissing these radical Arabs on the cheeks and I don't mean on the face. One day soon we could hear ourselves saying `Please, please Mr. Arab let me have some more of your oil so we can continue to act like we are the super power of the world.' In fact, without energy independence we are one big joke. Wake up America, or it is going to be too late. To beat the enemy, we are going to have to put together some radicals ourselves. We did it after Pearl Harbor and we can do it now; come join OPERATION GET RADICAL, or start one yourselves. Let's get energy independent again. It will make a difference.'


I remember working at Pan American in Denver the summer of 1970. I remember falling in love with oil and gas exploration. I remember my professors trying to talk me out of serving a mission and especially giving up the Pan American scholarship, because it was the best scholarship at the University of Utah and because they were afraid it would not be renewed. I remember returning and these same professors telling me I should pursue some career other than geophysics, because gas prices were down and there was no jobs in the oil industry. I didn't and they found me a scholarship from Sun Oil and then later from the SEG, plus I worked mowing lawns, tutoring kids with reading, for Parker Gay at Applied Geophysics, and in the Department. I especially remember with the oil embargo of 1973 happened, the lines for gas, and the innundation of oil company recruiters. With B.S. degreed students getting more money than the professors made, and with Roice in the oven, it only made sense to go into industry rather than pursue a graduate degree. I remember working in Field Operations at Mobil Oil when there were lines at gas stations 3-5 blocks long in 1979. I was responsible for 4 land seismic crews, looking for oil and gas. The government had implemented a voucher system, and it was based on the amount of gas you had used the previous year. Needless to say, the seismic crews had not worked in the areas they were at the previous year, and I spent weeks and weeks fighing with government bureaucrats to get gasoline and diesel vouchers to keep our seismic crews looking for oil and gas. I'm certain that these experiences were the mulch that helped sustain my unrelenting drive at the Seismic Acoustics Laboratory, Landmark Graphics, and up to today. We did GET RADICAL. We changed the way every oil and gas company in the world looks for oil and gas. We laid the technical groundwork for the discovery of billions of barrels of oil and gas. There were a lot of folks that lost their jobs, because people were replaced by technologies. And there were a lot more that had fertilizers, paints, pharmaceuticals, clothes, cooking fuel, and gasoline for their automobiles. And it looks to me like our last effort to GET RADICAL has bought society at most 20 years. I recall breaking out in a sweat a few weeks ago when I was doing my morning scripture reading and came to these words by our Savior:

`Yea, wo be unto the Gentiles except they repent; for it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Father, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots; And I wil cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strongholds; ...' III Nephi 21:14-15


Along a similar line of thought, and keeping in mind I'm sharing what I believe are some practical words, mulch if you will, to keep down the weed words from the great and spacious building from growing up among my kids, I have been nibbling at another Sarah Andrews novel: `An Eye for Gold.' The author teaches geology at Sonoma State University, and in the novels her heroine is an oil exploration geologist. This is a conversation I read earlier today from this book:

`I'll bet the environmentalists especially distrust the deep open-pit mining, because if they mine below the water table, they have to pump like hell to keep the groundwater from flooding the workings. They pump the deeper underground mines, too. And dropping the water table, even locally might change the plant community, which of course is the food supply for the poor little endangered species, whatever it is. `It's a mouse,' Ian said. `A mouse?' I asked, incredulous. `This is all about mice? The people who call themselves environmentalists don't really care about mice! If they ever found so much as a wet mouse turd in the silverware drawer of one of their swanky kitchens they'd be setting traps and laying out strychnine coctails in five tenths of a nanosecond, and you be they wouldn't file an environmental impact report first.' Ian said, `Or how about the yahoo who burns fossil fuels to make a special trip to the convenience store in his fourty thousand-dollar car that was made in Japan of iron ores refined in the U.S. to buy a latte' made from beans grown on South American slopes that are now eroding like hell because the forest's been stripped off to plant coffee?' He took a breath. `And then drives home and gets on the Internet and sends fifty e-mails to lobby to shut down the `unecological' mining operations that produced the iron for his car and the gold that makes those mystical little electonic connections in his computer work!'


So going back to my week, the main event not included is that as Chris Schmidt's Home Teacher, I am helping the missionaries to teach his father the missionary lessons. I remember taking Darrell Krueger with me to visit Norb Schmidt, back when Darrell spent a weekend with me after the divorce. He wasn't interested then. However, this time he has committed to baptism in two weeks, and we have had three good lessons with him this week. We taught him Thursday evening, Friday afternoon, and Saturday afternoon this week. I will write more about this in a couple of weeks (0217.html).

Also, Dr. Solis got back to me about my foot X-Ray. They couldn't find it because Roice is spelled with an `i'. Oh well! Anyway, it is not broken. There is a bone spur, and he could see where the foot had been damaged and healed. It could create some arthritis problems in a few years. It hasn't swollen up since I started taking the pills for the respritory infection a couple of weeks ago. So I will start running again this week, and see if it is back to being OK.

Friday evening Andrea and I went to see `The Time Machine.' Nice graphics. Interesting twist on the storyline. It is not the best movie I've seen, and it is worth renting when it comes out on video.

Saturday was choir, Matt's 2nd soccer game this season, and spreading 4 cubic yards of mulch on the yard. We had fun doing it together. Matt did the whole front yard himself. At one point our conversation was:

`Do you know how much I'm getting paid to do the front yard.' I replied, `$60.' `How much are you getting paid?' `At least minus $60.' `That's not fair. Do you want half of my money? I'll give you $30.' `No, that's OK Matt.' `Well, what is Mom going to pay you tonight?'


There were several interesting conversations while we were moving the mulch. For instance, I loaded the wheelbarrow and took it out back and started to dump it. Only to hear,

`ROICE! YOU'RE DUMPING IT ON THE PLANTS!'


Of course, I thought the idea was to put it on the ground, and I wasn't doing it the right way. When this happened a second time, in a second area, for another, what seemed to me to be arbitrary reason, I decided my job was to fill up the wheelbarrow, and others could empty it where and when and how they wanted to. That seemed to work OK. Got me thinking about raising you kids, and you not doing things the way I thought they should be done. Oh well! I did the best I could with the tools I have, and hopefully someday each of you will reconcile yourselves to this. And allow me to be human, just as you wish to be accepted unconditionally. Andrea is good for me.

At one point Rik Zafar drove by and stopped to talk. He agreed to read the `Heads-of-Agreement' I drafted on Friday and Saturday and to give me some feedback on it. He was in the suburbs to help his parents put out mulch.

There was another conversation when Matt and I took a break from shoveling mulch, which is worth repeating. Matt asked something about Utah and his sisters, to which I responded:

`Yea, divorce is hard and it never ends. For instance, your oldest sisters have reconnected with your Dad, and I believe it is psychologically breaking a trust with him for them to have a relationship with me. So I become simply a source of money. I can't do anything right, and I get blamed for things having nothing to do with me. Like sitting on the wrong chair, independent of the fact my foot hurt. Oh well!'


He responded, `Oh Roice, my sisters don't see you as nothing more than a source of money.'

I mentioned the conversation to Andrea, and after her comments said:

`I understand. And I still intend to cover their college expenses for their senior year.'


She replied:

`Well I don't want to go any more into debt to pay for the girl's college. They make it very clear they are grown women, on their own.'


All in all, I find it interesting how often court has been held in the Nelson family residence and how often I am the one who is convicted. Maybe it is because I am afraid (../9913.html), (poor, especially on the telephone because of visual dominance) communication (../9642.html) (seeking) connections (../9639.html), disappointed (../0145.html), embarrased (9731.html), (insecure), judged (../0140.html, (make) mistakes (../9902.html), (under) pressure (../0103.html), resentful (../0141.html, selfish (../9647.html), sorrowful (../9644.html), vulnerable (../0133.html), etc. Hopefully the words I have been able to pull out of my mind and soul and document in these Thoughtlets will prove to be the mulch that eventually shows each of you where my heart is, that I do deeply care about each of you, and which helps you as you face court in your own houses. And hopefully we will each realize the only evidence which convicts any of us is the evidence we bring up against ourselves. For those with a testimony of the restoration, or any kind of belief in Jesus Christ, this starts with our personal relationship with Him. If, in our own mind, we are unworthy to take the sacrament, we have convicted ourselves. We can blame others for holding court, and convicting us, and we are not being true to ourselves. We can claim others have convicted us, and it really comes down to how we feel about ourselves.

Tuesday night and Wednesday night I had interviews with Bishop Camp and with President Burgener, First Counselor in the Stake Presidency, respectively, to renew my temple recommend. This is always a good time for me to put my insecurities in perspective, and to realize from a very personal perspective and to have it confirmed from a spiritual perspective, a burning in my heart, that I am doing some things right. This is the spiritual mulch of life. I hope each of you find a way to find this same kind of peace for yourselves. You won't find peace when you are busy blaming others for judging you, and not looking inside at where you are. We need to recognize when we are being like the environmentalist and the SUV.

Saturday evening Andrea and I went to see `The Rookie.' This is a good movie. First class, and even though I'm not much of a sports fan, it teaches the kind of lessons I strive to share in these Thoughtlets. I cried. Andrea asked why? I don't know. I thought I had a pretty good relationship with my Dad, considering time and distance, church and professions, etc. Unlike the father in the movie, I went to all of the games and dance recitals and gym meets I could when you kids were growing up. And yet my relationship with some of you is very similar to the relationship of the son and father in the movie. Oh well! Hopefully time will heal some of these wounds. Hopefully the issues of the past and present can be resolved, and the weeds of anger and resentment kept down by words of love, softening with time, and in general with life's mulch."

I'm interested in sharing weekly a "thoughtlet" (little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me) with you because I know how important the written word can be. I am concerned about how easy it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of daily life. To download any of these thoughtlets go to http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets or e-mail me at rnelson@walden3d.com.

With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)

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Copyright © 2002 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.