Sam

Then my mother was pregnant with Sam she felt that something was wrong.  The family held a special fast for her.  It was the first time I remember really putting my heart into fasting.  If I remember rightly, I fasted for two days.  Not just one.  After Sacrament meeting I was very weak and nauseous and hurried home to get something to eat.
   Dad gathered the family in the living room and he gave my mother a priesthood blessing.  As he expressed it, during the blessing he felt energy flow through him into Mother.  At the end of the blessing he sat down exhausted.
   When Sam was born, the cord was wound around his neck four times.  In the delivery process the cord was pulled tight, cutting off blood flow to the baby's head.  Sam's head was almost black when he was born and the doctors warned my parents that he might not live--and if he did live he might have serious mental issues due to asphyxiation related brain damage.
   Sam was always a very cheerful baby and a cheerful boy growing up.  Like a puppy he followed Howard everywhere and into every situation.  He grew much faster than Howard and by the time Howard was four, Sam equaled him in size--and then surpassed him.  The two boys were dubbed the "village idiots" because they got into so much stupid trouble.
   Babies experience the world first through taste.  They want to taste everything.  Putting something in your mouth will tell you its flavor, its texture, its sugar content...so many critical things.  Our mother never used disposable diapers.  We always had a diaper bucket in the bathroom that smelled to high heaven.  And little-uns often waddled the house in a droopy diaper needing a change.   On one occasion, Sam was waddling the living room, and a little round turd ball rolled out of his drawers and onto the carpet.  He stopped, looked at it, picked it put, and then gave it a taste.  Here we are fifty years later and I can't get the image out of my head.  And I can't stop laughing.  Life with Sam was that good.
   In the room that we shared--before Dad built the triple bunk--the lights from the parking lot of the 22nd Ward Chapel would shine through the window and make eerie shadows on the wall.  These images were especially spooky when the humidity cause condensation on the window and I could draw in the window dew odd looking faces.
   One evening (this effect was only good at night) I decided to show Sam the shadow art I had created.  So I took him into the room and turned out the lights.  Sam was about five years old.  When he saw the creepy faces in shadows on the the wall he was terrified and gripped him shoulder and buried his face in my shirt.  Of course, I tried to explain that there was nothing to be afraid of.  I would go up to the ghostly images on the wall and touch them to show him that they were nothing to be afraid of, but this only increased his panic.
   When I took his hand to touch it to the images on the wall, he defended himself in the only way a five year old could--or perhaps, he was just so terrified that he could do nothing else.  He bit me on the neck--just about as hard has he could.  I guess, I got what I deserved.
   Sam was always super sensitive to scary things.  We were at our grandparents' home in Orem and some "B" horror film was on the TV.  A man had discovered a formula that would cause things to devolve--reverse evolution.  So, when the man took the formula himself he turned into a Neanderthal.  Sam was horrified, and we had to leave.  I was not happy that I didn't get to see the ending.
    Sam was dear to me.  When I was about twelve I had a terrible dream in which Sam was drowning in the bath tub.  I ran in to the bathroom to save him, but when I reached to pick him up he wilted in my arms.  Of course, I was shocked out of the dream.  It shook me up considerably.
    When Sam turned eight, my father asked if I would baptize him.  I tried to involve my boys as much as I could, in the ordinances for younger siblings.  It was a blessing to me, a sixteen year old boy, to prepare spiritually to baptize his little brother.  
   When I left on my mission, I left at home a cheap stereo system that I had bought with money earned growing tomatoes at a hydroponics plant my grandfather had invested in.  It was a symbol of my independence that I could play my own music in my bedroom.  My younger siblings were jealous, I think.  I remember getting updates from Sam while I was on my mission, telling me that he would be the guardian of my stereo in my absence, that he would protect it from the evil siblings (Lillian) who were trying to take it over.   I can't remember what shape the stereo was in when I got home from Finland, but it didn't matter.  Eight Track was dead and the record player was soon to be a thing of the past as well.
   I remember taking Howard and Sam to the Pioneer Drive-in Theater shortly after my return from my mission.  I wanted to see The Little Big Man staring Dustin Hoffman, and Soldier Blue.  On the other screen was showing Gus, a movie about a talking donkey who could kick field goals, staring Don Knots.  I didn't have to worry about my little brothers watching the PG-13 scenes in either movie because they were watching Gus through the pick-up's rear window.
   After his mission, Sam attended Snow College in Ephraim, Ut. while living with Uncle Joe in Spring City.  It was there that he met a Japanese foreign exchange student, Miyuki.  When Sam taught her the gospel, or at least was part of the process.  When Sam told my father that he was planning to marry Miyuki, Dad about had seven kittens (to use an Owen Bennionism).  Dad had been enlisted toward the end of WWII and was preparing to ship out to Japan when the war ended.  He never saw conflict.  But his head had been filled with the war propaganda that makes killing an enemy easier to do.  Dad had lost a beloved uncle, Melvyn S. Bennion, to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  He told Sam all kinds of foul things to try to persuade him not to do this.  But, to no avail.  I'm certain that Dad was trying to prevent Sam from making a mistake, but in reality, Dad was facing his racist demons--demons that he didn't know he had.
   Finally, Dad attended a Stake Conference where Marvin J. Ashton was a visiting apostle.  Following the meeting, Dad approached Elder Ashton and asked him if there were some scriptures that he could show Sam to convince him not to enter into this mixed race marriage.  Elder Ashton put his arm around Dad's shoulder and very gently said, "Brother Bennion, aren't you being just a little prejudiced?"  My dad came face-to-face with his paradigm and was skillfully led to see it for what it was.  He wen't home and repented.
   Among other things, Dad had told Sam that children of mixed Asian/American parents were often ugly in appearance.  Dad was not alone in this feeling.  It was often a topic when discussing the mixed race children left behind by American service men who fought in Vietnam.  Dad would soon be spending time with his beautiful Amerasian grandchildren, who are wonderful in intelligence, in behavior, and in appearance.  (The boys tend to be a little squirrelly when they are young--that's a Bennion thing.)
   Sam and Miyuki spent about ten years in Japan where Sam taught English.  (Sam is now trilingual: English, Spanish, and Japanese.)  While there Sam served as Bishop--a difficult assignment for someone learning Japanese as a second language.  Sam's four oldest were born in Japan: Angus, George, Owen, and Anne.
   Sam visited us once or twice when we lived in Scott City.  George was a three year old who knew almost no English.  I had a singular experience on that occasion, and learned something that I had pondered over for years.
   Sam and I stayed up late--probably past 2:00 a.m. taking in the yard.  I noticed that the sky was beginning to grow light, and I wondered that Sam and I had talked the whole night through.  Then I noticed that the sky was growing light in the West, no the East.  I looked to the eastern horizon to see what might be happening there.  The sky was a deep red, almost magenta.  And then it dawned on my (pun intended).  We were witnessing the aurora borealis--the northern lights.  This display was huge given the latitude at which we were seeing it, and the magnitude of the display.  The NPR news mentioned it the next day and I got an e-mail from Uncle Joe telling that he had seen it.
   What I learned was that the Book of Mormon record of a day, a night, and a day with no darkness was not caused by the bright star, but by super sunspot activity that lit up the atmosphere like a neon light.  I'm not saying that there wasn't a star, but I am saying that a star that could light up the entire sky was highly questionable, but that an auroral effect from a tremendous burst from the sun could cause a one night phenomenon as recorded in 3rd Nephi.
   Sam is generous to a fault, and thinks of others even in difficult situations.  He was in a traffic situation that could have caused damage to Miyuki when she was pregnant with Sheen.  At the moment, Sam was very upset with the driver of the other car.  But when his initial emotions cooled, he could only think that he should have asked if the other driver (who was at fault) was OK.
   Sam has been very kind to me.  I took on considerable debt to get my masters degree.  I went for the degree because we were drowning in debt on teacher salary.  We could not make things work, and we would have very soon bankrupt.  On administrative pay we were poised to balance our finances and get out of dept.  And then the cancer hit.  We fought that for two years and then it became obvious to me that I could not continue as a principal.  We would have to go back to teaching, but now with the added debt of student loans.
   The first time I realized that we would have to leave Western Kansas came when I drove Mom to the airport and she flew off to North Carolina when Finn (I think) was born.  On the drive home from the airport, Jacob and I stopped at the Walmart in Great Bend.  When we came out from he store, the PT Cruiser would not start.  Someone gave us a jump, and we made it home.  The next day the car would also not start.  There we were in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, an hour and a half drive from the church, and no where near family.  We were alone and I felt a sense of panic.  A neighbor helped us get a new battery and I got the car running again, but I realized that we were in a bad spot with no support system.
   Then I had a dream that we were living in my mother's home in Missouri, and I realized that we needed to move in that direction.  Mom and I hadn't thought that we would ever do this.  On our honeymoon we had visited the area and had declared it "too hot, too humid, and too bug infested" for human life.  Grandma and Grandpa Brown reminded us that we had at one time said that we never intended to move to Missouri.  But, now our need was great.
    When I told Sam what I was feeling and our predicament, without hesitation he offered us his former home, lovingly nick named "The Shed."  He told me that since he was living in our parents' home without cost, he could not feel good charging us to live in his old place.  With no rent to pay, and with the low utility cost of the shed, we have been able to avoid bankruptcy.  And we are beginning to make small gains on towards getting out of dept.  This would not have happened without Sam's generosity.
   I told Sam that we would never make claim on the property, though we might live her long enough to claim squatters' rights.  We will never do that.  Any improvements we make on the property we will consider to be rental payment for our time spent here.  Sam does not expect that he children will ever need to want to occupy the shed, but if they were ever to do so, Mom and I would vacate.
   The shed had been unoccupied for a couple of years, though Sam's family used it for steam baths and for YMYW parties.  Mom spent her first summer here cleaning and banishing the mold from the place.  John helped us repair the shower.  We have restored the place to livable conditions and Mother has given it a touch of home.  We are beyond blessed to be here.
   Sam serves faithfully in the church and is an example of doing it right.
   Sam shares much of my sentiment where politics are concerned, which is a blessing.  As you know, I feel like I have to defend my position, which is unusual in LDS circles.  But I don't have to defend myself with Sam.  He and I see things much the same.
   Sam and I had a rough turn on one occasion.  He had a shipping container (the very large size that ride on railway flat cars) delivered.  We were using one of his vans to move it into his desired position.  At one sticky point he wanted me to do one thing, and I could not see the the wisdom in what he wanted.  He has the habit of barking orders that he expects to be carried out without explanation.  He learned this habit from my father.  So, in the middle of the move, he began barking orders to me, in very much the voice of my father.  We talked about this afterward.  Luckily, this was a one time thing.  It is not in Sam's nature to be anything but kind and mellow.  But, there is a touch of our father's austerity in him, as in me too.
   I don't mean to portray my father as overly austere.  He was a kind and gentle man...when he wasn't trying to correct his children.  For some reason, I was always the one he felt to correct.  And you can all witness that I can't stand correction.  Let me be right, and let the Wookie win.