cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts
"I was wiped out after the talk on Easter Sunday, and still had Home Teaching to do. My companion was not available, and so Andrea went with me. We had nice visits at the Riches and the Jaspers. I finished up my assigned families with a visit to the Schmidts on Tuesday night. I went alone, as Matt doesn't want to do anything extra. There were nice visits with each of these three families. However, we didn't see Bret Thompson nor Hayden Hudson. In some sense Home Teaching makes up for not having Grandma Hafen nor Mom to call on Sunday nights. However, I must admit, I am tired of being the glue for both ancestors and descendants, and would like to point out phone lines, e-mail, and postal deliveries are bi-directional. It was nice to get a short e-mail from Melanie today:
In terms of activities the week of April 21st-27th, it was
largely centered around Paul's BYU Graduation. Andrea and
I flew up on Wednesday and I flew back the following Monday.
We left Matt home alone. He sluffed seminary, got sick,
missed Sea Cadets, and otherwise seemed to do pretty good.
Much of Monday was spent working with Swede Nelson to prepare an investment proposal for Bob Sneider's review. I will include the first page for your review:
Skipping ahead, this is a portion of the response I
received on Friday:
Hopefully we will be able to turn this or one of the other opportunities I'm chasing into a `real job' (../0037.html) real soon. It is not fun not having sufficient cash flow to cover needs and wants. I tell myself (and Andrea) this will pass. And it seems like it has been the wrong way for a long time. On Tuesday I had a nice lunch with two folks at Marathon Oil, and we discussed how the NetWork could benefit them. It was interesting how excited they both got, and how the senior guy asked if he could have a job with Dynamic Resources. I am convinced the concept is right, and if this is true, it is only a matter of time before it will all come together.
Wednesday morning Andrea and I left for the Airport after dropping off Matt at seminary. We flew to Salt Lake via the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota. Andrea did not let her missionary companion know we were going to be flying through town. Seems like a long way around to get to Salt Lake City, and it was the cheapest flight. We got to Paul's in time to join Kate and Paul and Grant in Pizza for dinner. We stayed with Randy and Kathryn Shirts. The rest of the week was focused around Paul's BYU Graduation.
I've been to three college graduations at three different institutions since the 24th of April. It is now the 20th of May, as I catch up on past Thoughtlets. It seems appropriate to start off this series of Thoughtlets with a personal comparison of the different ways graduation was handled, at least at a high level, from a parent's view point. Each University has their own strengths. SUU put on the best show, with marching bagpipes players and the most visually appealing campus. UT was the most formal, with security checks of each person entering, and security people all over the stadium. And BYU provided the most family oriented and spiritually uplifting graduation. Frankly, it is really nice to have one of my 10 children, my tithing, graduate from BYU. I remember the chant when I was going to college at the University of Utah:
And now I look back and wish I would have been humble
enough to have taken advantage of the church learning
environment at BYU. Oh well! We only need focus or
looking forward. It is only useful to look backwards
in order to learn from the experience of others. It
doesn't make any sense to repeat other people's
mistakes. Although, thanks to pride, it seems we all
choose to repeat the mistakes of friends and loved ones.
BYU's commencement services were on Thursday, 24 April 2003, at the Brigham Young University Marriott Center. We got there about 3:00, and placed our books on a bench in the upper parts of the stadium. We went outside and stood on the bridge to get a photo of Paul coming into the center. We never did see him. However, we saw Professor Randy Shirts, since he stands out in his Harvard Reds. When we got back in some folks had scrunched some of of the space we saved for us and Kate and Grant. However, it turned out fine, as they opened some seats below us, and many of the people on the benches moved down into the seats, so we ended up on the bottom bench with plenty of room when Kate and Grant came in.
There was an opening prayer, President's Greeting, singers, conferring of degrees, induction into the BYU Alumni Association, comments from a graduate, Presidential Citation to Pamela J. Atkinson, and Honorary Doctoral Degrees to M. Russell Ballard and Dale Thomas Tingey. Following more singing, M. Russell Ballard gave the commencement address, followed by remarks by President Thomas S. Monson of the First Presidency, and a benediction. Paul called us on a cell phone, and I think I know where he was sitting. However, it was a long ways away, and there were a lot of folks in the stadium. Going to graduation at one of these big universities is not a family/personal experience. We found him after the talks and took several photos. (I'm so far behind on filing photos, I'm not going to attempt to catch up and to attach graduation photos to these Thoughtlets.) It was kind of like Kate's graduation, except her family wasn't there, and Randy was there to support his sister and Paul.
Thursday evening we ended up at Paul's place, where Kate fixed a very nice meal Pasta Salad, lemonade, this wonderful raspberry Ice Cream, and Jelly Beans. After Grant went to sleep, we went back over to the Shirts'. Peter was home from his mission in Spain, and he was finishing up the coolest dragon I've ever seen. It is made with cloth, sort of like making something with paper mache. What a talented and creative family.
Friday was Paul's graduation ceremony. This was in the Smith Fieldhouse, and was really crowded and full. The other session went long, and we ended up waiting a long time. Grant was off exploring, and we got separated from Kate. However, she found us and we sat together until Grant needed to have his diaper changed. The most impressive thing about the BYU graduation was the family atmosphere. Both in the audience, and on the stand. Brothers and sisters, cousins, husbands and wives, would walk across to receive their diplomas from different colleges one right after another. This made it so a family only needed to go to one college to see all of their children graduate. Graduates carried their children across with them, several of the children were dressed up in their own little sized cap and gown. From this standpoint, BYU's College of Engineering and Technology had the most impressive of the the three graduations we attended.
President Monson had a Grandson graduating, and so he came and spake. I wrote the following possible stanza for Prime Words from his talk:
He also stated `God left the earth unfinished for
man to learn the joys and glories of creating as we
build bridges and invent toys.' The student speaker,
Nathan Jared, caught my attention quoting Mahatma
Ghandi's words to his Granddaughter Indira Ghandi:
The whole ceremony reminded me of the song I wrote
for Paul on 06 September 1980, when he was not
quite three years old, and tears came to my eyes
as I realized, once again, how much and how often
I have been taught by the spirit in my attempts
to give you kids a good start on your own life:
Lindsey Reed also graduated from Paul's college, and
we got to talk to Mike and Susan and Lindsey at the
sandwich lunch afterwards. Lindsey is going to do
graduate studies in heat flow at the University of
Pittsburgh. It was good to see the Reeds. They asked
about each of you.
In the evening we went to a High Priest party at Paul's Ward. They served Chicken Cordon Blue, potatoes and gravy, wings, tossed salad, and homemade rolls. Grant liked the rolls, and he liked to run around the gym. They had a question game, and our table did quite well. We all had a good time. After dinner and after Grant went to sleep Andrea and I went to see `The Returned Missionary' (The RM). It was a lot like `Single's Ward' and I didn't like it as much. Maybe because it was so hard for me when I came home from my mission, and some of the things they were making fun of were things I associated with. It was funny to see them take his mother to the hospital to give birth to a sibling on his first date after coming home from his mission. And they showed his mother using a chain saw to carve a ice sculpture of the Salt Lake Temple as a center piece for Relief Society. There were definitely a few good laughs.
Each morning Andrea and I walked up Rock Canyon Park, in back of the Provo Temple and just up from Randy's house. Beautiful geology. I took some really neat photos one morning. Andrea got cold sores from me, and we went to a `Doc in the Box' for her to find out there is nothing she can do about it except blame me for giving her this variant of herpes virus. When we got back on Saturday, I knew Randy and his family were busy with soccer games and graduation activities, so I mowed the lawn for them. They have a big lawn. I did enjoy doing it. We spent the afternoon pulling boxes out of Paul and Kate's attic. We literally filled up Grant's room to the ceiling with boxes. Paul and I went and got plywood cut to put on the floor of their attic and to create more storage space. Paul did drop one piece of plywood on my arm, and there was no real nor lasting damage. In the evening we went to `The Olive Garden' for dinner. Paul and Kate bought dinner, which was very nice, since we had not been paid by the Chinese yet. After they got a baby-sitter, and Randy joined us and we all went to the BYU Visualization Lab, where Paul gave a demonstration and then showed us and some other families visiting the department the Tom Clancy movie `The Sum of All Fears.'
Sunday morning we went to Sacrament Meeting at the Freedom Second Ward. Paul was conducting, and he was released from the Bishopric. One of the speakers talked about giving the coordinates for Kolob, which got my interest up, but she didn't follow through. She didn't even tell us the coordinate system she was working in. Oh well! Her husband said the best book he has ever read is `Works of Love' by Siru Karkesha (sp?). If any of you are ever looking for a Christmas present for me, this sounds interesting. It was kind of a slow Sunday. We had moved Paul's painting and the painting of Nephi's Vision (../0105.html and ../0106.html) to the room we stay in at Randy and Kathryn's house. There was a guitar in the room, and I wrote the following song about Ken's Painting of Nephi's Vision:
Sunday evening we had a birthday party for Randy, and
I sang the first two verses and chorus for him and his
kids and Paul and Kate. It was a wonderful weekend.
I do hope each of you will have as nice of a time when
your children graduate from college as Andrea and I had
at Paul's BYU Graduation."