Comics

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Dear Paul, Melanie, Roice, Bridget, Rob, Ben and Sarah, Sara, Heather and Nate Pace, Audrey, Rachel, and Matt,

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

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.

"While growing up I remember watching my Dad read the comics every Sunday. When I got old enough I could read `Flash Gordon' and `Prince Valiant' I read the comics too. After all that is what you did on Sunday and at Giles Bolander's Barbershop. Giles comic books were always really old and I didn't get most of them. I remember him looking at me funny when I looked at some of them.

It is hard for me to admit, and yet it is true that some weeks, especially the last few years, including since The Houston Chronicle acquired The Houston Post and went from 2 pages of comics to 4 pages of comics, I have spent more time reading the comics than with you kids. I'm sorry! When I took PAIRS I learned that comics were a kind of distraction. About the second night I went to PAIRS, Dr. White taught us about communication styles. The classification PAIRS uses for communication styles is that one is a placater, a blamer, a computer (super-rational style), a distractor (the irrelevant style), or a leveler (the congruent style). I remember how strongly I stated, `Well I am not a distractor!' Yet what I learned over the next few months was that I distracted myself from that which hurt me with work, reading, scouts and youth activities, the computer and the web, yard work, the guitar, the comics, etc.

So when I decided to remarry, one of my first goals was to get my addictions under control. When I would travel, I would have all of the newspapers saved and put in a pile. It might take me a month to catch up for being gone a couple of weeks, but I would read every comic of every newspaper ever delivered to the house. About once every other week, in an unexpected comic strip, I would find something which was new, which got me laughing, which was sarcastic and helped me feel better about myself, or which was just interesting. It was enough of a reward for me to keep up my addictive activity for many years. So I knew it was going to be hard, and so I just quit, cold turkey, when Andrea and I got engaged. There was still the pull to start reading the comics again, and I did just fine until Saturday, when I broke down and read all four pages of comics in the Houston Chronicle.

Maybe the desire to read the comics again started last weekend with the news about John F. Kennedy, Jr. As celebrities, the Kennedy's have fascinated all of America the entire lifetime of you kids. I remember when John Kennedy beat Richard Nixon in his run for the Presidency (one of the closest political races in American history). I remember how wonderful his speach challenging America to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade was (9908.html). I remember how scared we all were by the Cubean Missle Crisis (and as I read more about it I don't think we were scared enough). However, I also remember the revelations about Kennedy's philandering (as well as his father and his brothers), how the family money was made running booze on the East Coast during prohabition (i.e. they made their money by breaking the law), and particularly how his death gave Lyndon Johnson the political power to pass The Great Society Programs, including the wholesome meat act of 1964, and it's impact on shutting down Nelson Meat Packing Plant (../9821.html, ../9728.html, ../9805.html, ../9807.html, ../9822.html, and ../9847.html). I feel sorry for the Kennedys and the trials they have had. I also feel sorry for the parents and families of the dozen's of soldiers buried in places like Paragonah, Utah, who also died in the service of their country, and without the notariety of being a celebrity. In some sense, reading about, or listening to words about the Kennedys is as unreal as reading the comics.

My week was certainly nothing compared to three days of tense television coverage of the calm seas off of Martha's Vineyard. Monday morning was the sales staff meeting, then a meeting with the developers. Monday evening I gave the Family Home Evening Lesson. Tuesday and Wednesday Sara came and helped me sort out stuff in my office. Sara, thanks for hanging stuff on the walls, it looks really nice. Wednesday there was a great demonstration with representatives of Vastar, Enron, and PGS. And Wednesday evening I watched my television comics: Star Trek Voyager and Star Trek - Deep Space Nine.

Thursday and Friday were intense days. Blaine Taylor arranged for training in a new Knowledge Backbone software tool built by Popkin Software of New York. Steve Joseph flew down from Provo to attend. Roger Anderson from New York, Argie Ruhman came up from Clear Lake City, Terry Smith drove down from Spring, Dennis McMullin, Andrea, Gary Crouse, and Monique Nalk also attended. What a great group. Sometimes everyone was laughing so hard I thought they had all seen one of those rare comics I look forward to finding. You know, the ones that tell the meaning of life, with a twist. Thursday night Gary, Steve, Roger, and I ate at Beef 'N Bird and talked until about 11:00 PM. Friday evening we watched a movie at the house.

Saturday morning we got up, and I had finished reading the paper by the time Andrea was ready to go for a run. So, since I give her a 15 minute head start when we run around the block (9903.html), I decided to break my personal vow and read the comics. It was nice to see all of my old friends again. Not much had changed. Spider man was catching a man harrassing his wife, LuAnn was having dreams about her boyfriend Miguel, etc., etc., etc. It was enough to keep me thinking until I caught up with Andrea half-way up Baker Road. We stopped and talked to David Kessler again. Karen is still in Europe with their daughter Jordan. He is doing really good. We came back and I did yard work (9929.html) until about 12:30. Andrea worked outside until about 2:00. The yard sure looks nice these days. I spent most of the rest of the day cataloging and naming pictures taken at our marriage and on our honeymoon with the digital camera (9848.html). We did go to see `The Space Muppets' and also `Inspector Gadget.' `Inspector Gadget' is by far the better of the two movies. There was an open house for Bishop Daniels and his family, who are moving to Gillette, Wyoming. He has been out of work for several months, and he finally got a job he is excited about. I stayed up late naming photos and watching the video `The First Knight.' Andrea fell asleep in the blue chair.

Sunday morning we slept in. There wasn't even time to read the paper before church. After church Sara came over for lunch. I read the paper, and recognizing the pull of my addiction, put the comics aside and didn't read them. So I'm back off the wagon, even though there was only one day this week (or the last 5 months) I have read the comics. I expect this all sounds kind of amusing to most of you. However, I worry about addiction. It does seem to run in our blood. I hope you will each think about the things you do and choose to not become dependent on anything, even something as seemingly harmless as the comics.

This week Matt turns 12. He had his interview by the Bishop last night. Heather and Nate are coming down for his ordination next weekend. We are going to Space City NASA on Saturday, and any of you who can join us are welcome to come along also. The ordination will be right after Sacrament Meeting in the Bishop's office, just before Nate and Heather have to go catch their plane. We will be having a big family breakfast at 9:00 Sunday morning, and I would love to see any of you who are able to be in town join with us. I promise to not read you the Sunday comics."

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 © 1999 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.