cc: file, Diane Cluff, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Sara and Des Penny, Grandma Hafen via Tony Hafen, Claude and Katherine Warner, and Lloyd and Luana Warner.
"Eight days ago I bought some cowboy boots. It is the first time I have had a pair of these since High School. It is interesting the memories dredged up since last Saturday. I remember the fort Dad built for us in the front yard, over by where the tree swing is now. I remember playing cowboys and indians. I remember my leather jackets with strips of leather fringe blowing in the wind. I remember going to the movies every Saturday uptown Cedar City (this was before television). I remember a Gene Autry movie with him riding his horse through the desert and discovering an alien 3-D city underground. I remember how there was always a clincher at the end of each of the movies so you would come back the next Saturday to see the continuation of the short. I remember the Flash Gordon movies and his `cowboy boots.' I remember Tobar (robot spelled backwards). I remember good times. I hope you each have similar good times to remember. I hope something as simple as a pair of cowboy boots will bring to mind the good memories I have had this week.
For instance, my Grandpa Hafen was one of the last of the real cowboys. He was the oldest of 13 and was raised in Santa Clara. His father raised fruit. At a very young age Grandpa would drive a horse drawn wagon to the mining camps in Nevada with a load of fresh fruit. He got started in the cattle business by riding his horse through and south of the Virgin Narrows (where I-10 goes now), roping, and wrestling down wild cattle on the Arizona Strip. The Arizona Strip is the land which is still isolated between the Virgin and Colorado Rivers, just north of the Grand Canyon. In the early days of Grandpa and Grandma Hafen's marriage he would be out on cattle drives for weeks at a time. When the the military announced they only did nuclear tests at the Nevada proving grounds when the wind was blowing east towards Utah, there was quite a bit of news coverage. Grandma Hafen was interviewed on national television. She described how Grandpa would come in from a trail ride and talk about how one of those bombs had been set off again. He said he felt the ground shake and then heard the explosions echo as they bounced from mountain range to mountain range. Then he said a hot wind would pass by him and he would be covered with dust. Grandma asked him to have a bath and he responded `No dust is going to hurt me.' He died from lukemia, a form of cancer, on the 21st of May 1963 at the age of 60. I recently learned he got the capital to get into the purebred cattle business and to purchase Calf Springs Ranch because of the inheritance `Grandpa' Morris left his stepdaughter, your Great-Grandma Hafen.
I got a wonderful call from Melanie this week. It was neat to have you tell me about your studies and specifically to talk about some of the truths psychologists study, like the impact our parents have on us. It was so-o-o-o-o-o good to hear from you. Melanie I am very proud of you, of how your school is going, of your attendance at institute and church, of your striving to keep a balance in your life, and of your straight forward discussion with me. Melanie, I love you. I hope I will be able to fund my Christmas present and your desired EarthWatch trip to study the dolphins in New Zealand this summer. I need to know when it is, how much it costs, and what registration deadlines are. Please e-mail this information to me. Sara came by and picked up some ski clothes to go to Lake Tahoe with her friend Amy and Amy's mother for Spring Break. It was wonderful to see her and to give her a hug and to tell her I love her. She is growing up so fast and is so beautiful and smart. It was fun to hear her talk about physics and work and to see all of the good things she is doing. Rob, you went to Galveston with a friend for Spring Break, and I havn't seen much of you for a couple of weeks. I am equally proud of you. Your handling of the divorce, and specifically my sarcastic response to the pain I feel, has been wonderful. Considering the circumstances, I think you have done a outstanding job of staying in touch with me. Rob, thank you. I love you very much. I know how you feel about country. I hope you will forgive me for buying a pair of cowboy boots.
I wore my new cowboy boots to a meeting with Roger Anderson, John Howell, Mike Forest, and myself had with Paul Sullivan, the new General Manager of Shell Offshore (the cash cow of U.S. Shell) and his staff in New Orleans this week. My flight was delayed a half an hour while they replaced a part in the cockpit. As I rode into downtown New Orleans, with an agitated Nigerian cab driver who was yelling into his microphone in Nigerian and speeding around cars and down the emergency lane by the side of the freeway, I kind of felt like John Wayne acting as James Bond. Roger commented on the boots, and no one else noticed. Last Saturday, after I had bought the cowboy boots at Boot Town I drove down to TinsleTown and went to the movie U. S. Marshals with Tommy Lee Jones and Wesley Snipes. The New Orleans atmosphere reminded me of the movie. I enjoyed the action and thought it was a fun movie.
Last night Larry and I watched Rio Bravo starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, and Ricky Nelson on The Family Channel. It was all about cowboy boots. I was suprised to see John Wayne and Ricky Nelson smoking. I wondered what Ozzie and Harriet thought. You see, when television came along I grew up with Ricky Nelson as part of the show Ozzie and Harriet. Then he became a rock star and sang a lot of popular songs. We played several of his songs when we had The KeyNotes and The Mydknight Hour. Those were simplier times. Times when you could tell the bad guys because they wore black hats. Times when the good guys always won. Times when there were not as many generally known choices. Times when those in the great and spacious building (I Nephi 8:33) did not point their finger with such scorn at those who strive to hold to the iron rod (I Nephi 8:30). Times when the world was much larger and the news was much slower reaching us. As I think of those times and look at my probable schedule the next few months it is dizzying:
Roice has been sick, which is why I missed his e-mail to me a week and a half ago. Roice, thank you so much for keeping in touch. It is obvious you could just go off and live your own life. I appreciate your writing words like `I know you worry when I don't write, so know that I know that.' I worry because I love you. I am very proud of how well you are adapting to the world of work and how you are taking care of yourself. I'm glad you are feeling better. As mentioned last week, a week ago Friday I went to College Station and had lunch with Sarah and Ben. It was a really neat place, and the enchilada was different from any I've ever had and really good. Ben had a suit on for a class presentation. Ben, when I said I didn't think I'd ever seen you in a suit, you pointed out it was the first one you have had and said Sarah's Dad gave it to you for Christmas. You looked really good and very professional. It is wonderful to see how you have got into your schooling, have found something you like, and are obviously working very hard to get a good job. I am very proud of you and Sarah and I love you both very much. Paul, I feel I brag on you too much. You have made proper choices and you will see tremendous benefits in your personal life over the coming years, because of your choices. I expect you will enjoy your role of keeping in contact with your brothers and sisters and keeping the positive sides of the Roice and Marti Nelson legacy alive for you, your family, your siblings, and your nieces and nephews. I am very proud of you, even if you are too tall to wear cowboy boots. And, believe it or not, I even love you too.
The cowboy boots brought to mind a couple of different conventions I represented HyperMedia at in New Orleans. We did not have enough money to rent booth space on the convention floor and so we set up presentations in my hotel room. I would go over to the convention and invite interested oil company representatives to go over to the hotel to see the HyperMedia demonstrations. There was one lady from Chevron who walked over to the Crowne Plaza on Poydrus with me the first year. I remember the conversation because she had got me talking about my youth. I remember describing some of my antics on horses to her, and her surprised response `So you are a cowboy too?' At the second convention I invited her to the hotel room to see the improvements in our demo and she didn't show up. It has been several years since this happened, and the cowboy boots got me wondering why she didn't come over for the second demo. Funny how my mind works.
My cowboy boots in High School were also black and simple in design. The spring and summer I wore them I don't think I took them off except to sleep and bathe. They didn't leak when working in the grime of the meat packing plant or the byproducts plant. They didn't leak when feeding the cattle or moving them around in the corrals. As the frost went out of the ground and the manure got a half a foot deep, one could still move around and not have to change sockings. They were problems when irrigating and stepping in a ditch stream deep enough to reach over the top of the boots. As I got out of the car last night at the Chevron station, where there is a remodeling going on, I stepped in a six inch puddle of water, didn't get my feet wet, and I remembered the cowboy boots of my youth. These days, as it seems I am working eight days a week in restarting my professional life and distracting myself from the pain of rejection, it seems appropriate to go back in time, about 32 years, to High School days, and pick up where I left off with a pair of black cowboy boots, which were thoroughly worn out by the end of that particular summer."