cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts
"Dr. Winkleman is phasing into retirement. Dr. Forrest is taking his place. Matt had braces put on Monday afternoon by Dr. Forrest. I guess it would be easy for me to be upset with the opportunity to pay 100% of the cost of Matt's braces. Yet as I say to Andrea when the subject comes up, we need to put the disappointing experiences of the past (and the present) behind us and simply trust folks did the best they could with the emotional, psychological, and spiritual tools they had in their head. Some folks are simply wounded beyond our ability to help them to heal, and we must let them experience the consequences of their choices. The good news is that there are very few wounded beyond the ability of our Savior to heal them, given they have faith, repent, are humble enough to be baptized (or spiritually rebaptized when partaking of the sacrament of our Lord and Savior), and are open to listening to The Holy Ghost. For these four basic principles are the braces which will lead us to eternal life.
I remember talking to Sam Winkleman when he was out on a walk with his wife one day. He said that he had a hard time believing my six kids, each of whom he had got to know over the years, came from the same family. He pointed out how you are each so different. Now, with four more kids, it is even more so. I remember telling him how pleased his comment made me, because it meant I had not hardwired my philosophies and interests into you kids, but rather had provided you a fertile garden in which to grow and to find your own personality and interests. I think he was somewhat taken back by this comment. Sure parents like to see their kids follow their choices. However, if you are each going to truly find any happiness in this life, you must find yourself, and not spend your life living my battles or fulfilling my ambitions and dreams for you. There certainly are times when this philosophy is hard for me to follow, and when I want to take one of the 10 of you and shake you up and get you to look at the end of the road you are choosing to travel on. There is still opportunity to guide Matt as he moves from the quiver to the bow and prepares to shoot himself into the future. However, each of the rest of you have already past that milestone, are on your own, and you get to live with the consequences of your choices, both good and bad.
Certainly in my most stressed years I clamped the braces on you to tightly, and tried to force you in certain directions. This most impacted Roice and Ben. I did better with Paul and Melanie, and it seems to be seen in the choices they are making. Because of choices beyond my control, there was little clamping down on either Sara nor Rob, and I see unnecessary struggles as a result. From my perspective Andrea tightened the clamps way too tight on Heather, to tight on Audrey, and about right on Rachel and Matt. Of course, I like to think I have helped loosen the pressure on Rachel and Matt, and even on Audrey. Braces are not intended to hurt, they are intended to be beneficial over the long run.
However, there has hardly been a day this week when I have not heard Matt complaining about how much the braces hurt, how he wishes he could just use a retainer, and how it is unfair for him to have to wear braces.
I never had to wear braces. However, my Mom was obsessed with teeth. I remember spending hours in the dentist chair to have my teeth floridized, so I would not have so many cavities when I grew older. It must have worked, because I have only had a couple of cavities since moving into 1307 Emerald Green in 1984 and going to Dr. Crabtree.
I remember once sitting in the dentist office downstairs from Dixie Leavitt's office on the east side of South Main. The dentist had given me a shot of Novocain to deaden my mouth so he could fill a cavity. Then he had run an errand, had seen someone and got talking, and forgot that I was sitting in the dentist chair. When he finally got back, Mom came downstairs to collect me, and he remembered he had left me in the chair. He came in, apologized profusely, redeadened my mouth, and did the required dental work. Sometimes the folks that put braces on us are not perfect, and it is important to realize that we are like them, and not perfect either. I lived through the experience, and I expect each of you will have to or have already had to live through even worse experiences.
I wasn't home on Monday, when Matt got his braces on. He was
out of school for Martin Luther King Day. I went to II&T and
was loading some data for a meeting later in the day. Then I
went to a POPS (Pioneer Oil Producer's Society) luncheon and
listened to a status on the petroleum industry in Iraq. John
Benard and Frank Lott were waiting for me at II&T when I got
back. Don Vossler joined us a few minutes after I got there.
This meeting was our first time to explain the depletion halos we were seeing in the Casey Ranch 3-D seismic survey (0403.html). The meeting went well. When John wrote me an e-mail about the meeting he said, `I think you Vosslerized Frank.' Cute response. Sort of sounds like putting braces on someone to me. John and Frank had meetings with different investors later in the week in Dallas. Don and I helped put the location for a geochemistry sampling line across the Cherokee Prospect on Friday. However, other than that there hasn't been any progress.
I applied for a job on-line with Marathon Oil. It was as a geophysical consultant to work on subsalt plays in the Gulf of Mexico and Angola. One of the questions was `How much subsalt experience do you have?' I answered 2 years, which was the year I was a consultant for BHP Petroleum, the work I did for Ridgeway on Mobil data in East Cameron, the salt dome southwest of Houston where the waste repository was planned, and various other subsalt projects I've worked on. As soon as I finished filling out the form, a message came back which said, `Thank you, but you do not meet our minimum requirements.' I called a friend at Marathon, Don Cauldwell, left a message, and later talked to him about this. He said he had told several folks who know me about my message, and that he was going to go and talk to the folks in charge. Have not heard anything back yet.
Mike Dunn evidently went out of town. I have not heard anything back from GDC yet. All of this lack of paying work stuff is pretty disheartening. Oh well! However, the good news is Andrea is handling my work drought extremely well. I attribute the difference from October to her being a seminary teacher, to her studying the scriptures a couple of hours each day, to prayer, and to the distraction accompanying all of this activity.
I have been doing my Canadian Air Force Exercises and running around to Greenhouse road most days the since the first of the year. Getting back in shape a little bit. However, I'm still over what I weighed a year ago by a couple of pounds. Oh well! Wednesday morning I ran half a kilometer farther than I have for the last 13 months, when I hurt my ankle so bad. I did get back in time to listen to The Engines of Our Ingenuity, and ended up writing the following possible stanza for Prime Words from Dr. John Lienhart's words:
Thursday morning the paper announced NASA lost contact with
Spirit. Oh well! Three days later, which happened to be
the Sabbath, they announced they had bypassed the flash memory
and had regained contact with the Spirit (Rover). I couldn't
help but think flash memory is like the stuff we fill our
minds with when we go to R-Rated Movies, and how it can
divert our hardware and keep us from contact with the spirit.
Friday was Andrea's 49th birthday. Rachel called her at 5:00 AM Friday morning to wish her a Happy Birthday. It made her day. Audrey and Grandma Shirts called later during the day. I got her a card that said:
I was working at II&T in the afternoon and evening. Andrea spent
a couple of hours helping a Sister in the ward move who has had
her house repossessed pack up her things. Matt and I worked on
his scout stuff for a while, and then Andrea and I watched JAG.
We have become somewhat addicted to this TV show. Oh well!
Saturday, morning it was raining, and so I ended up not going on a run. Andrea had Seminary Teacher Training, and so she was gone from 7:30 AM until 2:30 PM. Matt worked at Shaggy Bag from 9:30 until 2:30. He has sold a bag each day he has worked for the last three weeks, and he now gets a commission on what he sells.. This job has been really good for him. I ended up spending most of the day helping the sister move. I couldn't help but wonder what Henry Thoreau would have thought of this move. Lot's of stuff. Seemed like there was even more than we have, including the garage. TV's in kids rooms. Lot's of stuff even I would have thrown out. Oh well! In the evening Andrea and I went to see the movie `Big Fish.' The stories reminded me of Grandp Hafen. Grandpa always talked about the biggest buck deer, or how a deer hunter was relieving himself and got so excited when a big buck came by he forgot to pull up his pants and thus tripped when going to slit the throat, or how so and so could leave a trail of empty pinenut shells that could be followed when driving at 30 miles per hour. I'd rate the movie a B-, and say it is worth watching when it comes on TV. There is a lot of symbolism in the movie which could be the basis of an interesting conversation. After the movie Andrea and I went over to the church to watch the 24 hour Roadshows. Lot of people there participating, and the roadshows were a lot of fun. Matt didn't participate because he worked during the day.
Today has been pretty quiet. Chris Schmidt picked on me during High Priest Quorum, had me take off my coat, tie, glasses, and then got me dressed up in scuba gear. He did a pretty good job on his lesson. Brent Weber passed off Matt on his Family Life Merit Badge, which is a required merit badge. I called Rob to invite him to lunch, and the answering machine has changed. He hasn't called back yet. Oh well! My new Home Teaching family has decided they do not want to participate in the church any more. Oh well! I told her I will still call each month until the Bishop tells me her membership has been removed. She softened a little and said it was OK if I call. The conversation kind of brought closure to the week, helping me realize how Home Teaching is like spiritual braces."