What do I remember most about my teenage years?

Well, this is a tough question.  I've spent a long time trying to forget a lot about my teenage years, but here's what I remember the most.

1.  It was in the 8th Grade that I became politically aware.  I had the most wonderful English teacher, Kaye Woodward.  She had the class for a writers committee to write the school play which we then produced as a class.  Delpha Card, Orson Scott Card's little sister, was on the committee with me.  Together we wrote Politician in the Forest, about Richard Nixon's run for a second term as president. Ms Woodward was working on a masters degree and asked us to present the play to her BYU class that summer.  By Summer the situation had politically changed and I rewrote the play to focus on Watergate rather than the previous campaign.  The play was a spoof on Robinhood, Fiddler on the Roof, and Watergate.  Each of the politician had the name Nixonhood, etc.  It began borrowing heavily from the opening scene of Fiddler: "Politician in the forest, sounds crazy, eh.  But here in our little village of Not-to-Surewood, you might say everyone of us is a politician in the forest...."  It was amazing fun.

2.  I ran track in jr high--the 440 yard dash, now the 400 meter dash.  On the day of team try outs there were several of us in the race.  I was in good shape because I was a newspaper boy and rode my bike a lot.  The popular boy in the race was Raymond Showa (a Native American).  As we came around the final turn and headed past the grandstands all of the girls were cheering for Raymond.  The more they cheered the harder I ran, and took first place.  Coach never took the time to teach me or help instruct my training.  I did well be testing how far I would full out sprint--about 300 meters.  I would begin each race sprinting for the first turn.  Then I would slow down to a light jog around the first bend making everyone pass me on the turn.  Then with 300 meters to go I would kick into my sprint and pass everyone.  Most of the runners would run out of gas trying to keep up with me as we came down the home stretch.  My best time was 57 seconds.  The state record for jr high was probably about 54 seconds.  I wanted to go for that record but never did.  Young athletes need direction and coaching which I was not getting.  By the end of my ninth grade year I was being beaten in races that I would have won if I had trained.  I didn't run in high school.  Looking back I wish that I had.

3.  I started working as a dishwasher at the Riverside Country Club in Provo Utah, near the Provo River west of the Cougar Stadium.  A ward member helped me get the job before I was 16, so initially my parents would drive me to and from work.  As soon as I could drive I was driving myself to work and back.  Leading community members would to dine and drink often well into the night.  The dishwashers would stay until the last table had been bussed so that the dishes would all be done.  At the same time I was taking early, early morning seminary--the 6:00 am class--so that I could take an early morning biology class and get enough credits to graduate early.  I would get up at 5 a.m. to be to seminary on time.  I would pick up a few students on the way.  After school, a few nights each week, I would go to work at the country club and get home after midnight.  This is not a good schedule to keep, but I have done it much of my life.  Glad that I don't have to do it now.

   During my Junior year my Seminary teacher, Don Black, held a party at his home to which he invited both his Orem High students and his former students from Provo High.  It was a great party.  We played a game called "Pass the Body" in which everyone removed their shoes.  One person would stand in the middle of a circle and all of the surrounding students would put their feet against the middle students feet/ankles.  The person in the middle would then fall to the side while keeping their body stiff and straight.  The students lying down in the circle would then pass this middle person around and around.  When someone was not able to pass the person--the middle person landed on them, that person became the new middle person and the game continued.  So, a beautiful blond girl from Provo High was the "middle man."  Of course, I intentionally failed to pass her so that we had an opportunity to meet.  Hahaha.  Jill Hickenlooper would be a romantic interest of mine for the next several years.  We didn't steady date, but we did date from time to time.  A funny sequel to this story: when Mom and I went to Nauvoo on our honeymoon there was a play being put on at the Masonic Lodge.  Mom was not feeling well so stayed in our motel room and I went to the play alone.  You can imagine my surprise when one of the actresses in the play was Jill Hickenlooper.  Mom was not very pleased with that and spent the next couple of days trying to figure out how to make me jealous in return.
   Anyway, where I was going with this...  I wanted to call Jill up for a date after meeting her at the party, but felt like I needed to get to know her better first.  I found out that she was a waitress at Marie Calendars restaurant, on State Street very near the current University Mall.  So I applied for a dishwasher job at Marie Calendars, and kept pestering them until I got the job where I worked until my mission.  Every night the pies that could not be saved over night were set out on the counter for the crew to take home.  After everyone had their chance to pick the pies they wanted, I would take any and all remaining pies home to the family.  I was riding a bike to work in those days, and I remember riding home with five or six pies stacked on the handle bars in front of me.  The pies were great.  Sometimes I would take an uncut pie, write a note on it, and deliver it to the door of a girl I wanted to impress.  When other kids were playing ring-and-run, I was playing ring-and-pie-and-run.  Those were fun days.
 
3.  I started writing poetry when I was in jr high.   I still have some of the originals that I wrote.  Most of this is trash, which I have kept anyway--partially because I never throw anything away, and partially because I want to remember that when my students first write poetry, it's not going to be that great.  It takes years of practice, instruction, and desire to produce good poetry.  And even then, it often requires experience--tragedy or other emotionally tumultuous event--to produce great poetry.
    I would sometimes wait at the counter after my shift for the other workers to finish their work.  Sitting at the counter I would write poetry on the back of the restaurant's paper placemats.  I still have a few of those.

4.  I had a steady girl friend my Sophomore year and into my Junior year of high school.  This was a terrible mistake, and the hurt of it is why I have been so insistent that my kids avoid steady dating.  Her name was Kaylynn Pitts.  She and I made the kind of plans that kids in love too young make.  All of that crashed hard and I spent three or four months in a very dark place called depression.  I was busy enough with school and work that I got through the depression all right,  but it was a very long time before I got over that relationship.  A few years after Mom and I were married (we were living in the home in Pleasant Grove) Kaylynn made contact with me via e-mail.  Facebook was not yet invented.  After the first e-mail exchange it was obvious to me that she wanted an on-line relationship that I could not give.  So on the next exchange I sent a copy of our annual Christmas letter in which each of our children etc. were discussed.  Kaylynn's response was just one word, "thanks."  I never e-mailed her again.  And she has not tried to contact me since either.  Old flames have no place in our lives--not even on-line.

5.  My Senior year of high school I joined the Friends Club, like Big Brothers, but not part of that organization.  I had a friend named Ted Chin.  We had a great time together.  Ted was selected for the program because he was from a single parent home, and was having trouble at school.  He was a great kid.
   Through the Friends Club I was introduced to Julie McKee and the Utah County Community Action Coalition.  Because I was ready to graduate early, the first half of my Senior year I would leave school at noon and go to the Community Action Agency and volunteer.  We started the Youth Action Coalition, or YAC.  We found students from several of the high schools in Utah County to be involved and I got to know kids from Spanish Fork, Payson, etc.  Our goal was to find kids who were struggling with various issues and help them get involved in something productive.  One of the things we pushed for was a youth component to alcohol recovery services.
   By the time elections for the Community Action Agency board came up I was eighteen and old enough to be on the board.  The youth in our program were consider minors and hence were allowed to vote (this seems odd, but you had to be a minority to vote and youth under the age of 18 are minority).  I was elected to a county board of nine members: three from the private sector (business people), three from the community, and three government bureaucrats.  We had decision making power over the agency's budget of some $50,000+.  I have later come to understand that the push to get me elected to this board was a political move to keep La Rasa (actual representatives of an actual minority group) from getting a seat on the board.  I didn't understand this at the time, but now feel a bit used.  At the time, I felt pretty important.

6.  The other major deal in my teenage years was my involvement in the Boy Scouts.  I earned my Eagle at age 14 and received it on Fathers Day, 1972.  I was glad to honor my dad that way.  My Eagle certificate is signed by President Richard M Nixon.  John and Adam's are signed by Bill Clinton, and Jacob's will be signed by Donald Trump.  We have quite the collection among us.

I guess that's enough for now.