07 Aug 2005 #0532.html

Morris A. Shirts Special Collection

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Dear Family and Friends,

Welcome to this week's "Thoughtlet."

These words are my personal diary and a weekly review of ideas, beliefs, thoughts, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you: my children, my family, and my friends.

"Sunday, the 31st of July was Matt's 18th birthday. Andrea had a nice birthday party for him Sunday evening. There are a lot of dynamics that came out of the birthday party, which I am still contemplating. For instance, I asked Matt to stay in the car until he had counted to 5,280 by 10's (I wanted time to get in the house and to have everyone say SURPRISE!). So Matt just sat in the car and wouldn't get out, which annoyed Rachel, who kept turning on the rental car alarm, which Matt ignored, which made Rachel mad, and so she ended up walking home and not participating in the birthday party. Oh well! Aunt Sara and Brian came over and brought some great salads. Jeff and Paula Jurinak joined us. Grandma was there. There were sandwiches, salads, root beer and other soda pops, as well as an ice cream cake (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/10_Matt/050731_Matt_18th_Birthday). I think the best part for Matt was talking to Brian about computer games. Oh to be a teenager. Hopefully Matt will come to realize the significance of things like the Morris A. Shirts Special Collection at BYU.

After Sara and Brian and Matt left, I suggested to the Jurinaks that we drive up to the Kolob overlook. There were a lot of clouds and so we did not get a nice sunset. However, the evening was beautiful, and the five fingers as beautiful as ever (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/SouthernUtah/Scenery/050731_FiveFingers). While we were there conversation led to trust, and I repeated a story I remember my Mom telling me many times:

`Once there was a Jewish father who went for a walk with his son. They came to a large ledge, and the father jumped down, and said, `Jump into my arms, and I will catch you.' The son hesitated, and finally jumped. The father stepped out of the way and the boy landed in a pile on the ground. He looked up at his Father and said `Dad, if you can't trust your father, who can you trust.' The father walked away, hoping the lesson had been learned by his son.'

Paula looked at me in surprise and said, `What mother in her right mind would tell a story like that to her child?' I found this a very interesting response. And the scenery was absolutely beautiful as the sunlight played across the Navajo Sandstone.

Monday morning I finished Angels & Demons. While I was reading Uncle Des called with directions for Jeff's interview with the technology department at SUU on Wednesday. I spent time working on entering the last of the water wells in Cedar Valley. I think there can be some very interesting things come from this work. I also picked up the apples in Grandma Shirts' back yard and moves some stone slabs around so they were not on end. Andrea went to the store and got food for our campout at the Nelson cabin.

Jeff and Paula arrived about 5:30, and we were almost ready. We left for the Nelson Cabin just before 6:00. I had not been there for years, and I stopped at two wrong gates. In fact, we climbed the gate, since the key would not open it, and walked quite a ways in, before deciding the first one was not the right place. When we got there, we parked the rental car where the side road starts. As we drove in to the cabin, sliding down the hill on mud that had been rained on earlier in the day, I was concerned as to whether we would ever drive the pickup back out.

The grass is really, really high. Every strand of grass was soaked with rain water and dew. We went for a hike down by the pond before dinner. I took several digital photos of our stay (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/SouthernUtah/Cedar/050730-050804_Cedar_City_Visit). We cooked somemores, played guitar, had a risk championship, talked, Paul read one of Dad's Louis L'More books, and slept in comfortable beds. Tuesday morning Andrea and I went for a fairly long hike up the side of the hill to the east. We did not make it too the top. However, we saw several fairly large landslides. The ground is so wet from all of the snow this year and all of the rain in August, that it is slumping off of the side of the mountain. There are some photos that show how this creates landslides. None of these will affect the Nelson cabin. When we got back to the cabin Matt had another fire going. We ended up playing a game of Sorry before we left. It had dried out enough, and by putting everyone in the back of the pickup, we were able to get enough traction to make it up the hill and out of where the Nelson cabin is. Andrea wants to go back and spend a week there relaxing. I don't remember every doing anything like this, at least since I was a child and went to stay with Grandpa and Grandma at Calf Springs Ranch. Maybe we will be able to do something like this sometime.

When we got back to Grandma's house on Tuesday, we were worn out. We got cleaned up and I worked on entering water well data. Grandma found a neat picture of her, her friend Norma Smith, and her father, Samuel Baird, at Salt Aire in the late 1930's. I will include it in the on-line genealogy stuff I intend to work on as a Christmas present for you kids this year. Tuesday evening the Jurinaks took us to dinner to what used to be the Black Pearl on First West. Andrea and I shared blackened salmon and blueberry cheesecake. We had a very nice conversation. It was a very nice evening. Life doesn't get much better than this. When we got back to the house we drove out to Steve and Jill's house and spent a couple of hours catching up.

Wednesday morning we picked up the Jurinaks at 8:30 and headed out for Fiddler's Canyon. Jeff wanted some fossils, and there are oyster beds just up Fiddler's Canyon, with hundreds of thousands of fossils. Things have changed a lot. We could not drive near as far as I remember driving in when I was growing up there. And so we ended up taking a fairly long hike. Also the canyon has cut down a lot in the 35 years since I have hiked up Fiddler's Canyon. Jeff definitely liked the fossils. We stopped and gave a fossil to Bradley and Stephanie Shirts, and introduced Jeff and Paula to Jill.

After we dropped off Jeff and Paula, we drove up to Red Cove, and Andrea and I walked up all of the right-hand stream branches in left-hand canyon. Andrea really does not like Red Cove. I really do like it. Oh well! Time will tell what happens. When we got back, Andrea helped Grandma, while I ran some errands. I stopped and visited with Ray Gardner. I had finished entering the Cedar Valley Water Wells, and built a Spotfire display showing the results. Ray was surprised at how many wells there are in Cedar Valley. I also gave Ray a copy of my notes on Transfer Development Rights (0524.html, 0528.html, and 0530.html).

Then I went by Eldon Smoot's and talked to him. They were just leaving for the temple, so I did not stay long. Eldon is the Chairman of the Board of the Water Conservancy District. They have big plans, which I do not think are realistic. They are talking about billions of dollars to build a pipeline from Lake Powell to St. George and Cedar City. I think they will just end up in legal fights with the Californians. I told him about the precipitation pyramids and suggested this is a much cheaper and more permanent solution. I also told him about the idea of building a thermal chimney against some of the mountains in Southern Utah. He liked both ideas and invited me to come to the Water Conservancy Meetings on the 1st or 3rd Thursday of each month. I also gave Eldon a copy of my notes about TDR's.

Next I took the key to the Nelson cabin back to Uncle Ted. Aunt Luana and one of her Grandson's were visiting with Aunt Vanna. I went in and we had a nice visit. I explained to her Grandson that now that he had visited Cedar Valley and drank some of the water, he had the red clay in his blood, and he would never be able to forget Cedar City. Aunt Vanna confirmed that this is why the clay is red, so it can mix with our blood.

As I left, I debated about driving over to Parowan to visit with Steve Platt, the Iron County Engineer. I decided to save this visit until we actually move up here. As I was driving back to Grandma Shirts' house, I decided to drive into the Cedar City Cemetery. Here I visited Mom and Dad, Grandpa (Roice Bengt) and Grandma (Emma), as well as Uncle Bud and Aunt Mary Mae, who all rest next to each other. Then I found where Bengt Nelson, Jr. and Sarah Catherine Hunter are buried, as well as Bengt Nelson, Sr. and his wife Ellen Nelson. Bengt Nelson, Sr.'s tombstone is neat. I took digital photos of all of the tombstones, including Morris Alpine Shirts' tombstone, and plan to also include these photos in the Christmas on-line genealogy stuff I plan to do this fall.

Wednesday evening, Jeff and Paula picked us up at 7:30 to go and see Love's Labor Lost. What a fun play. And how true it remains today, as I watch young people court and try to impress each other. Andrea and I walked back to Grandma's house, down Dewey Avenue, after the play (0531.html). It was a nice evening, even though Andrea and I see the world through different lens, and she seems convinced I am always trying to run her into bushes, which I'm not.

Thursday morning we picked up Matt and Rachel and drove to Provo. We were not sure either of them were going to go with us when I went to bed Wednesday night. I think we had a pretty good, and fairly frank discussion on the way to Provo. We stopped for gas and I bought a corn dog and small blizzard in Scipio. When we got to Spanish Fork, I called the Staheli's and was able to talk to Brother Staheli. Logan turns 12 on the 15th of September, and I would like to go back to Utah for his priesthood ordination. We will see what happens. When we got to Provo, we drove right to University Mall, where everyone went shopping and I took a nap.

They got back to the car in time for us to arrive at the BYU Library just in time for the opening of the Morris A. Shirts Collection at the Brigham Young University Harold B. Lee Library in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, as shown on the announcement below. This was a big deal. It was really neat. They did better than a first class job. The three speakers were excellent. Glen Leonard gave as good of a historical talk as I have ever heard. Definitely a lot of work went into the talk, and it was very evident the impact Grandpa Shirts had on his work. I talked to him after the ceremony about the paper's Grandma Hafen gave the First Presidency (../9901.html). He has them, and key components will be included in the book he and two others are publishing about Mountain Meadows within the next year.

John Murphey gave an excellent summary of what are included in the 35 boxes of papers in the Morris A. Shirts Special Collection. It is not only the historical work on Peter Shirts, on the books `Silver, Sinners, and Saints' and `A Trial Furnace', but the collection includes his two books on little league baseball, some of his material about Studebakers, and various other things. We have a very think index of all of the material if any of you are interested in what was placed in the BYU archives. I took digital photos of some of the presentations (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/MorrisShirtsFamily/050804_Shirts_Collection). I do not think Dr. Murphey was exaggerating when he referred to Grandpa Shirts as a true renaissance man. Of course, this made me feel good, because daughters are often attracted to men who have characteristics their father's have, or so I've been told.

The third speaker was a lady I met a few years ago at a Mormon Historical Convention. Dr. Francis Smeath has been one of the driving forces behind the indexing of these papers, with financial thanks to Uncle Randy and Aunt Kathryn. The image below is the header from her presentation.

I was surprised that Dr. Smeath's first example was something I wrote about in a Thoughtlet a couple of years before being reintroduced to Andrea, in context to the Katy Stake's annual joint Christmas Concert with Epiphany Catholic Church. The initial topic was regarding helping the Catholics to have High Mass in the St. George Tabernacle (../9750.html), and the rest of her presentation gives an excellent context for the Morris A. Shirts Special Collection:

`Today, I would like to offer one example from each area and point out, while doing so, the publications that resulted. In the case of Silver Reef, Dr. Shirts had the good fortune to collaborate with Paul Dean Proctor, analytical geologist and BYU professor, to produce, in 1991, Silver, Sinners and Saints: A History of Old Silver Reef, Utah. As expected, given the juxtaposition of boom town life and LDS culture, there are multiple examples of friction between mining towns and Mormon towns. But one incident shows that friction was not the only option: Catholic Father Lawrence Scanlan had come to Silver Reef at the request of Pioche, Nevada miners who had relocated there. Arriving in December 1878, Father Scanlon made it his goal to erect a church for his parishioners. In 1879, he was joined by three nursing sisters who came to staff the miner's hospital. Months went by with the church still underway, which concerned Father Scanlan as the nuns had had no opportunity to hear high mass since coming. His problem was solved on the 25th of May 1879 when he, the sisters and members of the parish traveled to St. George where they had been given permission for St. Peter's Mass in D to be presented at the St. George Tabernacle. In fact, the choir of Latter-day Saint singers, under the direction of John M. MacFarlane Sr., whom you might remember as the composer of Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains, learned the songs in Latin and Father Scanlon preached the sermon. As the book notes on p. 90, `this is probably the only time that a High Catholic Mass has ever been celebrated in a Mormon tabernacle with a mixed crowd of Catholics and Mormons and with music and lyrics provided by a Mormon choir.' It is ironic that Dr. Shirts began researching as a way to track the unusual life of his great-great-grandfather Peter, planning to publish his biography for family members and western history lovers in general. Yet this is the one book still unpublished, and the wealth of Peter Shirts material in the papers provides a good clue as to why: Peter has taken on such a legendary aura that the great difficulty is not finding data but determining which is folklore and which is provable -- or probable ? truth. He was, we can say for sure, a bit of a wanderer, having spent time in Kirtland, Ohio; Nauvoo, Illinois; several points on the trek west; Shirts' Creek in Southern Utah; Las Vegas, Nevada; `Mound City' in northern Utah; the Paria River region, Hole-in-the-Wall and Escalante in southern Utah, plus family connections in Animas City and Mancos, Colorado. Oh, yes I forgot to include Lehi, Utah. And his burial site in New Mexico is still being discussed. Such travels as these did not make Peter a traditional settler, of which we have proof in a pair of letters, from Peter to Brigham Young, and the Prophet's reply, dated 9 and 13 February 1860. I do know that members of the Shirts family are more than familiar with these letters, which comprise one of, I think, six exchanges between the men. But this set gives the deepest insight into the personalities of each and are thus worth the repetition. Peter writes on the 9th as follows: `President Brigham Young[:] Dear Sir it is with respect to you and Honor to the Priesthood that you hold that I rite to you on this all important subject[.] A few days since I was reading the Revelation on Celestial marriage and I found that it was very binding on all hoo was to receve the promises and obtain the blessings therein containd and I have determind throgh the grace of God and his Spirit to assist me to obey that law and all the laws pertaining to the Holy prieshood God beeing my helper and I wish to [k]now whether it is according to the mind of the holy Priest hood that I may receive at your hand one or two more women. Brother Brigham pleas excuse my little note for I doo not wish to trespas on your time. Plase ansere as soon as convienent. Your Brother and fellow laberer and well wisher in the kingdom of God. Peter Shirts' President Young's reply is equally to the point. Writing from Spanish Fork, he addresses: `Elder Peter Shirts, Dear Brother: -- I would gladly bless you, agreeable to request in your note of the 10th [sic] inst., if you would take a course to retain such blessings after they are conferred upon you. But you are naturally inclined to be a little wild, and to draw away from settlements to places unpleasant and unsafe. I understand that you have lately been expressing a wish to settle in Uinta valley, and until you can tame your thoughts and actions so far as to be willing to live where a family can be safe and have a reasonable opportunity for social enjoyment and improvement, I am of the opinion that it will be altogether best for you to continue to lead the life of a hermit, for I know of no women worth a groat who would be willing to agree with your wild unsocial ways for any length of time. Your Brother in the Gospel, Brigham Young' Morris Shirts recognized Peter's efforts to be a good Latter-day Saint settler, farmer and road-builder, but came to believe his ancestor was more likely yearning to explore winding canyons and prospect for hidden wealth, two interests which would have made life with Peter, as Brother Brigham clearly recognized, somewhat less than serene. It was, however, through Peter that Dr. Shirts became intrigued by the Iron Mission, Brigham Young`s 100-strong cadre of mostly-male settlers sent south to scout out the rich iron deposits known to be there and begin iron production as soon as possible. The struggle to comply began in the winter of 1850 and, despite near-universal hardships, practical necessity combined with spiritual vision to keep optimism high. The metaphor of being tried in a furnace was never lost on these people. As Apostle Erastus Snow wrote to the Deseret News in 1852 of his visit to Iron County the month before, `...considerable excitement prevailed...at the time of our arrival, much heightened by the arrival of those whom we had recently sent there who had been operators in the Iron business in Wales and in Pennsylvania, and we found a Scotch party, a Welch party, an English party, and an American party, and we turned Iron Masters and undertook to put all these parties through the furnace, and run out a party of Saints for building up the Kingdom of God.' [as quoted in Trial Furnace, p. 280] Yet the venture ended only eight years later, doomed by circumstances beyond the skills or equipment the settlers possessed. Although some private efforts chased the dream of iron self-sufficiency even after the Prophet's announcement on 8 October 1858, his words were a death-knell: `We think,' he wrote, `it would be well to abandon the idea of making Iron for the present....' I have marked the excerpt from this letter in Dr. Shirts' A Trial Furnace: Southern Utah's Iron Mission, which came to print posthumously, in 2001, by the efforts of his daughter-in-law and co-author Kathryn Shirts. The story of the Iron Mission is a great tale of western settlement and sacrifice, rich with human courage, astonishing endurance, and steady vision, juxtaposed with distressing human failures of almost unbearable proportion. Of course, the greatest failure connected with the Iron Mission was not the mission itself, central as that was, but the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, in which local militia men, all Mormons, many of whom were Iron Missionaries, cooperated with Indians to kill all but the very youngest members of an Arkansas wagon train headed for California. Dr. Leonard, with his colleagues Ron Walker and Richard Turley, are bringing their detailed study of this subject to press very shortly. May I just note here two of the issues that became highly meaningful to Dr. Shirts: one scholarly, the other moral. Regarding the former, he felt that studies of the site itself were often flawed, misinterpreting known sources if not actually ignoring them. He had a running amiable war with fellow writer/historian V. Lee Oertle, Dr. Shirts believing the massacre sites ran along an eastern alignment north of the campsite spring, while Oertle suspected a more westerly route. These and other discussions, outside the scope of A Trial Furnace, became the monograph Historical Topography: A New Look at Old Sites on Mountain Meadows, published in 2002. I hope you will take time to look through it after our remarks. In terms of his moral perspective, he had long believed descendants of both perpetrators and victims needed to reconcile, so that true history and true preservation might be honored, setting aside the fierce, destructive emotions so easily aroused by the event. To that end he joined with Lee Oertle, Dr. Leonard and others in forming the Mountain Meadows Memorial Committee to generate support for building a jointly approved monument at the site. Two years of concerted effort led to a dedication of that memorial in September 1990, followed by the newest monument dedicated in 1998. Dr. Morris A. Shirts' committed efforts have contributed to the study of major issues in western settlement, such as colonization and land use; agriculture, industry and cultural life; population density and interaction; and the impact of personal conviction on social policy. It has been my very real pleasure to associate with the Shirts family and with Dr. Shirts' historical research over most of the past several years. I'm happy to acknowledge how greatly this association has expanded my own knowledge of a history I thought I knew. Thank you.'

There were several people at the BYU ceremony opening the Morris A. Shirts Special Collection who had driven up from Cedar City. Specifically Janet Segmiller from Special Collections at SUU was quick to find me and point out the similarities between Grandpa's interest in Studebakers, and the 1928 Willys Wippet we gave to SUU's Special Collections (../0331.html and ../0335.html). Of particular interest to me was conversations with Kent Myers, who was a close friend of Grandpa Shirts. Kent gave me the real reason I've been looking for to move back to Cedar. Cedar City has a 60 voice men's choir! I remember going to a Messiah practice in Cedar City (../9848.html) and really enjoying it. I knew Cedar City had a long history of music and theater arts, dating back to the settlement of the town, and I did not realize there was a 60 voice men's choir that meets and performs regularly.

Also, I finally met Aunt Nadine (../0116.html, 0150.html, ../0227.html, ../0315.html, ../0418.html, and 0524.html). We talked for a while, and I expect the conversation could have gone on for much longer. I attempted to fix her broken shoe, and the masking tape had already lost it's stickyness and wouldn't work any more. Oh well! We have already received a nice note from Aunt Nadine saying how nice it was to meet.

Back at Randy and Kathryn's we had family time. I do enjoy the Shirts family. Russell is very quiet. Randy cooks a great bar-b-que. Peter, Randy and Kathryn's youngest boy, is just finishing up training to be a High School Band Teacher. Janet, Robert's wife says she does not like me taking digital photos, and yet I think she really does the photos. Stephanie, Steve and Jill's youngest, gives me the nicest hugs. In addition, Frances Smeath brought over several boxes of photos from the Morris A. Shirts Collection, and we spent time striving to locate where they were from. A lot of them were taken to document the first trip to Southern Utah by Parley P. Pratt and company. Where is the Infinite GridSM index when you need it? I thoroughly enjoyed my conversations with Dr. Smeath about word counts, pattern finding, and data mining. She has focused her research on Marlowe, a Shakespeare contemporary, and the approach I have been working on for the last year or so relative to word counts in The Book of Mormon might be very useful for her. We have already had one e-mail correspondence, which is how I got a copy of her talk in digital form to include in this Thoughtlet. We watched old super-8 movies in the evening. There were obviously happy times for Rick and Andrea in the past. I wish there was an easy way to fill the hole Rick has left in his daughters. Oh well!

Friday morning we were up at 3:30 to get ready and drive to the Salt Lake City airport. Andy Schultz was on our flight. Brett and Laurie had got up early to drive him from Provo to the airport. We would have been glad to give him a ride. Needless to say, we all slept to Las Vegas. And we slept most of the way to Houston too. George was at the airport to pick up Andy. Andrea and I drove straight to the temple for Ward Temple Day. We missed the 2:00 session, and so we went to the bookstore for a while, where I bought `The Eternal Earth' and `Adam-ondi-Ahman: A Legacy of Adam and Eve' for my ongoing background work on `An Open Mind' (http://www.walden3d.com/OpenMind. Mike and Marion Pickerd, their sons David and Jeff, Andrea and I, and the witness couple were the only folks in our temple session. I did the endowment for and in behalf of Mathius Rewalt from Germany. We got home about 6:00 and spent the evening unpacking, and Andrea went to the store for groceries.

Saturday was Andrea's annual CES (Church Education System) Seminary Training in Bay City. There was a message on the answering machine stating that Shannon Conner's endowment was going to be Saturday morning at 11:00. So after mowing the lawn, I got cleaned up and drove back up to the temple. This time I did the endowment for and in behalf of Edward John Stephens, Gary Jone's great grandfather and his son Stephen's namesake. When we were changing back into our street clothes after the session someone asked Seth what he was going to study at college. I piped up and said `Girls!' Gary said `Seth?' Don Keller said, `I heard a suggestion, rather than an observation.' It is interesting to me how much meaning can be packed into a very short conversation.

Saturday evening Andrea and I went over the Memorial Area and had dinner with Frank Hamptak and Cindy Overton. What a dinner! Bacon wrapped scallops for appetizers. Fancy bread and fancy salad with fancy garlic dressing. A rack of lamb and veggies. I ate too much. Just as the main part of the meal came out, there was a long awaited call from Rick Zimmerman. Oh well! Cindy is going to China early in September, and she wanted some contacts and advice. It was an enjoyable evening.

Sunday was Fast and Testimony Meeting. I wrote the following possible stanzas for Prime Words from the comments of Anne Sky (a), and Steve Feil (b) as they bore their testimonies:

`Husbands and wives What is really important More than our differences Is that we love each other' (a) `The most important changes We can make in our lives Are the changes we make today For they only really happen' (b)

I took my crystal ball which I purchased in Korla City with me to my CTR Primary class (0529.html). I found the attention activity in the lesson manual very interesting, particularly relative to the conversation with Paula Jurinak earlier in the week at Five Fingers:

`In your own words, tell the following story: A little girl took her father's lunch to him as he worked deep in a well. Although she could not see her father down in the darkness of the well, when she called to him he answered, so she knew he was there. The father told her to droop the lunch bucket into the hole, and he would catch it. He did so, and in a moment he called up to her that he had too much lunch for just one person, and invited her to join him. "Jump," he said, "and I will catch you. You cannot see me, but I can see you, and I will not let you fall." She jumped into the dark well and landed safely in her father's strong arms. Together they had a fun time sharing the lunch.'

And maybe someday I will do research at BYU and find answers helping me learn to trust others like this little girl trusted her Dad in the Morris A. Shirts Special Collection."

Since the 38th week of 1996 I have written a weekly "Thoughtlet" (little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me). Until the 43rd week of 2004 I sent these out as an e-mail. They were intended to be big thoughts which mean a lot to me. Over time the process evolved into a personal diary. These notes were shared with my family because I know how important the written word can be. Concerned about how easy it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of daily life, I thought this was a good way to reach those I love. It no longer feels right to send out an e-mail and "force" my kids and my family to be aware of my life and struggles. Everyone has their own life to lead, and their own struggles to work through. I will continue this effort, and will continue to make my notes publicly accessible (unless I learn of misuse by someone who finds out about them, and then will aggressively pursue a legal remedy to copyright infringement and I will put the Thoughtlets behind a password). The index to download any of these Thoughtlets is at http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets, or you can e-mail me with questions or requests at rnelson@walden3d.com (note if you are not on my e-mail "whitelist" you must send 2 e-mails within 24 hours of each other in order for your e-mail to not be trashed).

With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)

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Copyright © 2005 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.