cc: file, Mom, Sara and Des, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Diane Cluff, Tony Hafen, Claude and Katherine Warner, Forest and Amy Warner, Ivan and Chell Warner, and Eric and Renee Miner
"This is the first time, but surely will not be the last time, I have sent one of these Thoughtlet's from some place other than 1307 Emerald Green. It is actually the second time I have written one remotely, because this was originally written on Sara and Des' computer in Cedar City on Saturday evening, but the computer shut itself down and the file was lost when we took a break to eat some speggetti. It is now Monday evening and I am back in Austin, and it is hard to reconstruct all of those thoughts.
There were two e-mail's I got last week I wanted to reference. I got my first e-mail from Rob. It was wonderful. Thanks Rob. I hope it is the first of many, like has happened with Roice, Ben, and Paul. The second was from Sarah Johnson, who expressed concern I was considering stopping the Thoughtlet's. These two are related in my mind, because Rob's said, 'Hey Dad, I like getting e-mail,' and Sarah's more specifically said, like Darrell Krueger did when he visited, 'I like the stories.' It doesn't take much feedback to get me to keep up the effort. It is hard for me to write, but I have long forced myself to do it, because it is good for me and exercises the more dormant left side of my brain. As I gave each of you kids and a few other family members a copy of my 12 year, 260 page poem 'Prime Words' this week, I thought about Lovelets, Thoughtlets, and my other writing efforts, and kind of likened them to the daily newspaper articles written earlier this centuary of one of my heroes, Will Rogers.
Speaking of heroes, I wish you all could have been at the airport with me to see Paul off to Novosibirsk. Talk about wired, excited, and ready for action. He couldn't stop talking about how they had built Russian flip charts, all of the pictures they had orgainzed, how he had been marking his scriptures, and other stuff I have recommened he do. It was neat for me to share in his excitement. He even had a couple of English Book of Mormon's for whoever was lucky enough to sit by him on the trip there. There were about seven in his group traveling to Russia. One of the guys from Salt Lake probably had 50 people there to see him off. At the other end of the spectrum, one of the Elder's father had just had a stroke, and there was no one able to see him off. I was really glad I was able to make it to the airport to see Paul leave. I think he appreciated it, although I did wonder if it was the $120 for overweight luggage, being able to use the cellular phone to leave a message for Kristina and to talk to his Mom, Grandma Nelson, Grandma Hafen, and Aunt Sara. He was so funny about a letter one of the missionaries got from an aunt. She had written about stuff the Elder's will miss and be glad to see when they get back; like women who shave under their arms; and the part of their anatomy which will reappear when they thaw out. The Elder's referred to it as 'The Letter.' We did talk about some serious stuff, including his coming home. Paul wants to visit Moscow, St. Petersberg, and to go to Sweden to go through a Russian endowment session on his way home, about Christmas time of 1998. I intend to go, and am willing to fund Marti and any of our kids and their spouses who would like to join us. I would like to start making plans and saving enough cash for the trip, and will appreciate knowing of your interest and calendar restrictions as soon as possible so I can begin to bound and prepare for the opportunity.
As far as a story for this week, it is hard to choose one. Whenever I visit Utah, there are so many different things happen, there could be dozen's of stories I expect some of you will have an interest in. The one which came to the front of my mind Saturday night, was one Grandma Hafen told me earlier on Saturday. We watched Sara's video of her gymnastics dance competion, where she was accidentily kicked in the head and knocked down. Other than this violent part, Grandma Hafen and Grandma Nelson really enjoyed it. (Sara, I left the video out there for Aunt Sara and Bridget to look at, and I will bring it back when I go back out to Utah in a couple of months.) I had taken Uncle Tony's tape of Hafen Family 8 mm movies, to record Grandma Hafen's description of the various people in the video. Grandma was really excited and had Uncle Tony and Beaulah come into town to watch it with her. I intend to transcribe the tape and use it as a basis for putting digital video segments on the web, cross-referenced against family histories and our genealogy. I also brought to Grandma Hafen a thick binder full of genealogy information about her family and Marti's early draft of her personal history. She did not remember seeing several of the things about her Grandfather, David Forshea, before. This is when a story about her Grandfather came up.
I do not believe she knew her Grandfather, but she described him as a 'very good looking man' who liked to drink. She talked about how in a recent family history his death had been written of as an accident in Milford on the way back from a business trip to Salt Lake. She said when Silver Reef 'dried up,' David moved to Milford to mine. One night he and a group of his friends were in a Tavern and wouldn't leave. The owner finally turned the four of them out at about 3:00 in the morning, and three of them were so intoxicated they did not make it back to their lodgings. Grandpa Forshea froze to death on one of the streets in Milford and was buried there in an unmarked grave. Two things really struck me about this brief story. First, we all have our free agency, and we and our descendents get to live with the consequences of our choices. Second, Grandma Hafen's comments about how important it is to recognize and accept our ancestors human characteristics; the good, the bad, and the relatively unattractive characteristics they and we all have struck home with me. Heros come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and habits. I thought back to geology field camp in the mountains west of Milford in 1973-1974. I realized how it nice to be alive and to have the Forshea geology/mining genes flowing in my blood vessels. I wondered if sometimes the real heros arn't those we learn what not to do from, because they lived life full enough to make mistakes. This story gives a whole new meaning to our extended family to me."