Floods

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Dear Paul, Ben and Sarah, Melanie, Roice, Bridget, and Rob,

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

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.

"One of the defining moments of my youth was `the flood.' Uncle Glenn had taken me up to northern Utah for a meeting with the leadership of the Utah Junior Hereford Association, of which I was an officer. I would guess this was the summer of 1964 or 1965.

Marnie Sorenson from Axtel was also an officer. We went by the Sorenson farm, and I remember Uncle Glenn later telling my Mom how Marnie was always with me, not even giving me time to go to the bathroom. I remember laughing to myself when he said this, because I had been to embarrassed to ask where the bathroom was, and at one point I had slipped off into a corn field to relieve myself and create a mini-flood. I remember Ada Carpenter's daughter named her first daughter Marnie, because she liked the name of my friend from Axtel.

Uncle Glenn and I got back to the house in Cedar Valley on a Saturday evening. There were dozens of cars and trucks at the house, and as I went in the back door I recall my cousin Paul Nelson giving me a bad time about leaving and missing all of the work. I was given the guns from downstairs, and told to take them apart and dry them and clean them out. As I explored the basement, there were a dozen men sweeping the last of the water across the floor. There were men from Enoch that I didn't know, some with hoses washing down walls, and washing off the floor. Over by the fireplace were water marks at about 8 feet and muddy splash marks on the ceiling showing where the flood waters entered the basement.

There had been a thunderstorm up Fiddler's Canyon. This was just before the freeway was built, and the waters came straight off of the mountain, across all of the fields, straight to our house, broke the window in the west window well of the basement, under the living room, and put about 8 feet of water in the basement. No other house in Cedar Valley received an inch of water in their basement. I had completed my first year of Seminary on the Book of Mormon (1964), and I recall Mom telling me how I said some mean things about how the flood was devine intervention, punishing our family for not being very active in the church, like what had happened in Book of Mormon times. I do not recall Grandma Nelson being there, and she died in March of 1965, so it might have been the summer of 1965 when the flood happened.

There were three other times when the basement flooded: once when a pipe broke in the basement; once when a garden hose was left on and the water went into the basement; and once a couple of years before Dad died, when I visited home, used the back bathroom, the float had rusted, it broke it off when it was used, and we woke up with 4 inches of water in the basement. Like too many things in my youth, I took complete responsibility for everything `bad' that happened. Certainly the floods were no exception to this misappropriation of emotional energy. I see some of you kids making the same mistake. I hope you will each come to realize it is a fact stuff that appears to us to be bad happens. What is key is that we pull up our pant legs, mop up the flood waters, and get on with the rest of our lives.

As I mentioned last week, I was at the IEEE-VR `99 Conference Saturday and Sunday. This conference continued Monday through Wednesday. There were neat gloves with force feedback controls on them, tablets which would float in a virtual world, and numerous other hardware and software solutions to give one a sense of presence in virtual worlds. One of the interesting displays was a Navy training program for bringing two ships next to each other, hopefully without hitting the other ship or creating an onboard flood. From the meeting it certainly became apparant Continuum is right at the bleeding edge of this new type of technology. Hopefully we have timed our approach correctly, and will not find ourselves inundated in a flood which drowns us.

Wednesday evening three visitors from Boeing, Roger, Dave Ridyard, and myself met with two senior executives/scientists of a major oil company. Our goal was to see if they would be the initial prime client and help implement the business plan Roger, Blaine, and I have been working on so hard the last few weeks. The meeting was excellent. There will be a three-way non-disclosure put in place by the 1st of April, a revision of the business plan will be distributed by April 8th, the oil company will assign an operations manager to work with us on the business plan by the 15th, and we will make a go/no-go decision on Thursday the 22nd in Denver. This is a big deal for a new company like Continuum. It will be too easy to find ourselves resource flooded by the requirements of a company the size of Boeing, and a similarly sized oil company.

Rob had a bicycle accident on Wednesday and after the Doctor did the X-Rays it showed a hairline fracture. Paul and he still bought hiking boots for him, but Rob was not feeling good enough to go on the Philmont pre-hike Thursday evening and Friday. It turned out to be a good thing from two other standpoints. First, it saved me a day of vacation, which between a honeymoon, and Philmont, each day of which is a very precious commodity this year. Second, because it rained, sort of like that summer day of the flood back in 1964 or 1965.

Thursday was a pretty regular, somewhat overcast day. I spent all day writing abstracts, working on the GCSEG Symposium, and answering e-mails. Thursday night Paul had a big party, with several dozen friends, keeping activities going until about 4:00 AM. Everyone there was very well behaved, and did not even keep me up. I left for work Friday morning, and it was obvious it had rained pretty hard the night before. As I went across Westheimer Parkway it started to really come down hard, and you could watch the flood waters rise in the George Bush Park/ flood control area. By the time I got to Dairy Ashford and Westheimer all traffic had completely stopped. I turned north on Dairy Ashford and tried to go east on several different roads. I kept finding myself in water 2 foot deep. I finally ended up going up to I-10, taking the Tollroad south to BriarForest, driving through 2+ foot deep water to Wilcrest, working my way south to Beef 'N Bird, where I drove though 3 foot deep water to park in the resturant parking lot and walk to work with an umbrella. I couldn't help but think about the flood of my youth.

One of the guys at work had turned to go into a parking lot, and his car had gone under water up to the hood. He learned from the tow truck driver that if a car is covered in water up to the driver's window and it is running, the insurance companies total it because of the cost of rewiring the electrical. There were several people who didn't make it into work because of the flood. However, it had pretty well cleared out by the time Sara came down, picked me up, and we went to lunch at Beef `N Bird. It was still raining a little when I left work at 7:00 Friday evening, and went to Oshman's to buy my hiking boots and socks for Philmont. The last of Paul's friends from his party were just leaving as I arrived home at 9:00 PM.

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day, without a hint of the flood. Isn't that the way it often is as we look back on the significant trials of our life. Earth processes keep on-going, despite our insignificant, and very real to us, challenges. Yesterday and this morning I wrote my first song for Andrea, about my thoughts derived from the West Houston Flood of 1999.

`Patterns' written the 20th-21st of March 1999 E C G D E C: Patterns floating straight through my mind Repeating symbols helping life to rhyme Especially since I know you'll soon be mine G D C D 1. Life looks so beautiful, on a sunny day like today We purge from our mind, the floods that raged yesterday Hoping tomorrow, turns today into everyday 2. Love feels so good, when we rediscover it We forget the pain, rejection's fires lit Renewed faith in life, pulls us out of our pit 3. Family expanding, merging experiences Learning together, of life's sciences Sharing testimonies, building mutual reliances 4. Life, love, and family, the threads of eternity Moving thoughts to words, a type of maternity Creating loving ties, a family fraternity

This morning at 7:00 I went with Paul to listen to his missionary report to the Stake High Councel. I was suprised to learn he `was raised like Indiana Jones' and so Siberia was `the perfect place' for him to serve a mission. It was wonderful to hear his experiences, and especially his testimony of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember, the sun always comes out after a rainstorm or even a flood."

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.