7. What do you remember most about your dad (grandpa)?

When I was little Dad would lie down on the living room floor when he came home from work and we children would climb on him.  He would kneel down and bow his head to the floor making a kind of slide of his back.  We would step on his heels slide down his back and run around, get in line, and do it again.  There were four or five of us involved in the game.  This would give mother a few moments of free time to get dinner on the table.
   Dad would sometimes lie flat on his back with his arms stretched out like a cross.  We would lay our heads on his arms and listen to him tell stories.  Our favorites were Whity and Mimi stories.  These stories first appear in family lore when my grandfather tried to publish one during the depression.
   Dad often took us fishing.  Once or twice I got to go fishing with him, just the two of us--a very rare thing.  We often went to Deer Creek, a reservoir up Provo Canyon.  We would park at the top of the dam and follow the railroad track around the West side of the lake.  And then we learned patience.
   Dad would set a pole for each one of us: bait the hook, cast it out, and set the pole in the crotch of a forked stick.  A loop of the fishing line was pulled around a pop can so that if a fish took the bait and the line pulled tight, the can would noisily topple creating a kind of fish alarm.
   While waiting for the fish we would play in the mud.  Dad would form little animals and characters of the clay which we would play with.  If we had a fire we would fire the little clay figures--not like firing in a kiln.
 I started backpacking with my dad at about nine.  The packs back then were not designed for comfort and the straps would cut into my shoulders.  I don't think that I complained much.  We backpacked every summer up into the Uintah Mountains, and most often into the Four Lakes Basin area, but not exclusively there.
   Dad taught at the BY High in their Science department.  I attended the adjacent elementary school often I would wait in Dad's office after school for a ride home.  His office was next to the Life Science or Biology classroom which was lined with shelves full of jars with various creatures preserved in formaldehyde.
   Dad taught, among other things, Geology, and was always collecting rock samples, fossils, and taking pictures/movies of geologic formations.  Family camping trips often involved rock hounding.  Dad would deliver Geology lessons as we hiked, so I knew all about glacier activity and a lot of terminology.
   When I was in about the fifth grade the BY High closed and Dad took a job teaching on a Winnebago Reservation for two years.  He was gone for the school year.  We would see him at Christmas.  We still went backpacking in the summertime.  We didn't have internet or cell phone technology to keep in touch.  No Skype or FaceTime.  So when got his teaching job in the BYU Lamanite program and came home, I was used to having my independence.  He and I had become strangers.  We would still go on summer backpacking trips together, but those were our only good times.  My memories of Dad after that point are mostly of his lectures and my frustrations.
   There were a few high points.  Dad was an avid BYU sports fan.  When I was in elementary (before the LaVell Edwards era) BYU had a quarterback names Virgil Carter who could through what seemed to me to be the length of the field.  I don't remember much else of those games because I spent most of my time throwing pee wee footballs in the parking lot with friends whose dads were attending the games.
   Dad and I and sometimes other siblings went to the LaVell Edwards football games from time to time.  Mostly we listened to Paul James announce the games live on KSL radio.  Those were exciting days.  BYU was not used to winning in those early days, so when we did, it was fantastic.  I remember Gary Shiedy, Gifford Nielsen, Mark Wilson, and Jim McMahon.
   Dad was also a fan of BYU Basketball.  Kresimer Cosic was my favorite player: almost 7' from Yugoslavia.
 
  In 1975 LeGrande Richards spoke at a stake conference held in the old Provo Tabernacle.  In his talk he prophesied that the doors to the Russia would soon open to missionary work.  I was excited by this and since Orem High School offered Russian, I took it for two years.  I signed up for Russian at BYU as well.  When my mission call came in the mail my mother hid it in a book we had about Russia.  Dad called that afternoon wanting to know if the letter had come.  When Mom said that it had, Dad told her to open it and tell him where I was going.  Mom wouldn't do it.  Dad ordered her to open it as her priesthood authority.  No go.  Mom wasn't intimidated.  That was all in jest, of course.
   Dad did use his priesthood for righteous purposes.  One time my brother Joe woke in the early morning hours in terrible pain.  We had no idea what the matter was.  Finally Dad gave Joe a blessing and we prayed to know what to do.  Then Joe remembered being bitten by something when he had climbed into bed the night before.  He had squished whatever it was and thrown it across the room.  We looked and found a dead Black Widow spider.  Joe was taken the emergency room (not an arm and a leg in those days) and given the antidote.
   When Mother was pregnant with Uncle Sam she felt that something was wrong with the baby.  We fasted and prayed for her, and after Fast and Testimony meeting Dad gave mother a blessing.  He told us afterwards that he felt the Lord's power flow through him into Mother and after the blessing he sat down physically exhausted.  When Sam was born the umbilical cord was wrapped four times around his neck and he was black from lack of oxygen.  The doctors told Mom and Dad not to expect Sam to live and if he did live he would be severely retarded due to brain damage caused by the lack of oxygen.  Dad gave Sam a blessing, and you know the rest of the story.
   Dad always wanted to farm.  He kept the most amazing garden in our back yard.  I was often tasked with weeding or digging which I did, though it took a few years before I enjoyed it.
   Dad always kept a milk cow or goats.  When I was very young he kept a cow at what we called "The Slack Farm," named for its owner.  Joe and I would go to milk the cow.  For a time Dad kept his cow on our property, then moved it to a place owned by the Davis family.  I grew up milking a cow.
   On one occasion I brought a baby burrow home from the Grand Canyon.  Dad kept it in a nearby gully and trained it to pull a pony cart.  In the summer it carried Dad's pack on our Uintah trips.  
   Through my teenaged years I often felt that I was unlucky in my father.  It seemed that the only time he spoke to me during those years was to reprimand me.  But over the years I have come to understand what a good man he was and how blessed I was.  The truth was that I learned (the hard way) that if I answered Dad when he was lecturing me that the lectures would last twice as long.  If I ever tried to explain how I felt, he would go on the defense or on the attack and I would feel like my feelings weren't important.  Those were hard times.  I dealt with this by refusing to talk to my dad.  For over two years I never said one word to him.  I wan't trying to give Dad the "silent treatment" as he called it.  I just knew that things would be worse if I tried to answer his questions.  I started to avoid him to escape the uncomfortable moments.
   I sometimes felt like I was a disappointment to my father.  Once at a family reunion held at Green Jacket.  We decided to have a Dutch Oven cooking contest.  I made my famous Cashew Chicken over rice, and Uncle Joe made some savory meat.  Dad was in love with Joe's offering and wouldn't even taste mine.  I had wished so badly to impress him, but no go.  I felt very much like Cain whose offering was rejected.  Mother tried to console me, but... Oh well.
   When I was 40 I called Dad for Fathers Day.  This was at a time when some of my older siblings had expressed displeasure with Dad.  It was also about the time that I was struggling with John.  Once Dad had said that he hoped I would have a kid just like me someday.  So I joked with Dad that his prophecy had come true, that John was just as difficult a teen as I had been.  Dad's response was unexpected.  He told me that I had always been a respectful, obedient child.  This is the closest Dad ever came to telling me that he loved me and it nearly choked me up with emotion.  Dad had once asked me why I wouldn't talk to him and I had told him that the things I was thinking were not respectful.  Now that my older sibs were unloading on Dad, he had gained a better appreciation for the boy who held his tongue.  In any event, my peace was made with Dad, so that was able to deal with his passing without too much regret.  We were living in Scott City at the time and started the long drive to MO when we got the word that Dad had come home to die.  We were about half way when Adam called to tell us that Dad had passed away.  I had very much wanted to see him one last time.