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