Jump off the roof

Around the early fall of 2004 Ellen and I were staying in the house because there was a terrific wind blowing and rain was increasing. A good afternoon to stay inside. Then Ellen rushed upstairs to tell me that water was spilling through the light fixture in the kitchen.

My first guess was that the roof was leaking from the driving rainstorm. So I rushed outside to struggle to put up Dave's 20-foot ladder up to the roof on the back of the house. With the wind blowing so hard I was less than delighted to scale up it to the roof top. Carefully I moved around the roof over the kitchen and then all over the roof, finding no place that appeared to be taking rain. By this time I was completely soaked and chilled, since the temperature was probably around 40 degrees. Then suddenly a big gust of wind carried the heavy ladder down crashing to the ground.

Although I shouted as loud as I could, the noise of the wind drowned it. Perhaps Ellen heard its fall, because she came out on the back patio. She was going to lift the ladder back up, but I shouted to her that she could not do it because it was so heavy. I asked her to find a rope to throw up to me so that I could tie it on top and scale down the rope. While I stood up there shaking with wet and cold clothing, she finally come out with a rope. Needless to say, there was no way she could throw it up with the wind blowing so hard. Then she disappeared for what seemed a long time, so that I surveyed the roof top to see if there wasn't some way to get down. But it was almost 20 feet to the ground and I had no wish to jump.

While Mom was in the garage trying to fashion several poles together so the rope could be lifted up, I was really feeling desperate. I took another look at the pine tree in front of our bedroom window. It was at least 12 feet from the edge of the roof, but there were branches that reached to the roof. The branch was so small that I was certain that it would break easily. As I looked down, it seemed the ground was a long distance below. When Mom did not respond to my shouts in the back, I decided that I would have to somehow to get down via the tree.

My leather gloves were wet, which gave me added concern about being able to grab hold of the limbs. Then I decided to jump as far toward the tree trunk with my left glove on the limb. As my left hand started to slip, my foot hit another branch below and to the right, allowing me to lurch forward with both hands moving lickety split along the branch toward the trunk. When I got to the trunk, I grabbed both the trunk and the limb, holding on until I surveyed the branches available that would allow my descent to the ground. Terra firma never felt so good.

I ran around to the back to find what had happend to Mom, finding her with some poles tied together. We then rushed upstairs with a step ladder to get into the attic to see where the water was coming down. There wasn't any rain coming through the roof into the attic. Then I moved down to our bedroom which was above the kitchen. Ahah! Water was spurting out of a copper pipe in the shower, splashing over the carpet and on down through the light fixture to the kitchen floor. All we had to do then was shut off the water into the house, until a plumber could be engaged to put in some new pipe. Later we had a new shower installed.

But I thought then and many times since how my guardian angels carried me safely to the trunk of that tree. Just one of many miracles in my life.

Raking & Burning Tumbleweeds

David suggested that this escapade qualified for telling:

One of my most vivid memories of the farm was the time that I was raking up tumbleweeds in the field east of our home. Old Maud was pulling the big dump rake, on which I was seated on a metal seat. We would go back and forth to rake up the weeds that I would dump in a row so that we could burn them. The ground was hard and bumpy so that the big iron wheels would bounce around as we moved back and forth across the field. In order to fiinish this task as soon as possible, I conceived a plan to start a small fire in the tumbleweeds caught by the rake tines so that the burning could take place while I was raking, thus saving time.

The flaw in this plan became apparent when I tried to trip the big tines that held the weeds, but the weeds were so tangled that the tines wouldn't lift high enough to realease the weeds. There were two ways to raise the tines: by stepping on a round metal trigger with my foot; or by reaching back to a long steel handle and pulling it forward. Neither of these methods seemed to free the weeds that were burning right below my iron seat. The fire was very hot on my legs and the smoke was suffocating.

Since I was concentrating on trying to raise the tines, and to avoid the heat, I pretty much ignored Maud. With reins rather loose, Maud started to trot (maybe she felt the heat on her hind legs too) which meant that the rake was bouncing around. It was getting so hot on the metal seat that I couldn't sit on it and found it necessary to stand up, all the while stepping hard on the metal trigger and/or reaching back to pull the lever....with no success. Meanwhile Maud was trotting faster, in fact she even started to lope, so that I was fearful of being thrown off the rake in front of the metal tines. But finally the weeds were dislodged through our racing around the field in an area where we had already gathered the weeds.

Following my getting control of Maud and stopping the rake, I sat there contemplating my good fortune in surviving this crazy escapade and vowing never to try it again.

That Dad Blast It Cupboard!

The family home evening cupboard may have been my undoing, but Dad's downfall was another one of the cupboards in the kitchen at the Corydon Road house. To understand the situation, you have to understand the layout of the kitchen. The refrigerator was placed right next to the doorway that led to the side entry of the house and to the basement stairs. That junction was well used by the whole family. Over the refrigerator was a short cupboard that had two doors, which opened in opposite directions, and stuck out beyond the edges of the fridge when open. I don't remember what was kept in the cupboard because it was far too high for my reach, but Mom must have housed something significant in it because the doors were left open on a number of occasions, which coincided with Dad's entrance into the kitchen. It was a grand entrance, announced to anyone in earshot with a loud thud followed by what sounded like "Dad blast it, Ellen!". Dad was the only one in the family tall enough to have a problem with the errant cupboard door which he would run into pell mell as he bounded up the stairs into the kitchen. Usually it resulted in a temporary headache for him, but I remember once seeing poor Dad wiping blood from his forehead. I think that one of the selling points of the Fairfax Road house had to be the kitchen with no Dad Blast It Cupboard over the refrigerator!

The FHE Cupboard

Margaret's posting about the game closet prompted my memories about another storage space with a unique purpose. At our first house in Cleveland--the green house on Corydon Road--there was a window seat built over the radiator in the eating area off the kitchen. On either end of it there was a small cupboard. One of those cupboards was the "family night" cupboard, where Mom kept materials for lessons. I have two memories connected to that cupboard. For at least a year during the time we lived at that house we had spiral bound family night journals, in which we wrote or drew something each week--depending on our age and ability--in response to the family night lesson. I remember that my notebook was yellow and that I must have been in 1st or 2nd grade ( we moved from that house when I was in 3rd grade). In one of our lessons we apparently talked about the Holy Ghost, and took time at the end of the lesson to record something in our journals. I don't know whether we were invited to share what we had written, or if an older sibling was curiously looking over the shoulder of a younger one, but I remember the older kids laughing, and then Dad joining in, while Mom tried to keep her composure when they all looked at one of the younger kids' entry. Jon, David or I had shown our very literal comprehension of the lesson with a carefully drawn blob covered with spots--the "holey" ghost. Maybe Dad or Mom can remember who the artist was.

The other memory I have of that cupboard involves one of my naughty moments. Usually our breakfasts were structured and supervised, but one winter Saturday morning Mom and Dad were absent from the kitchen when a couple of us kids were eating breakfast. I had poured myself a bowl of my favorite Cheerios and was about to dig in when Brad or Doug brought out a pitcher of fruit juice from the fridge. They said something like " I wonder how this would taste on cereal". I loved juice and loved Cheerios, but had never thought about eating them together. Without Mom or Dad to intervene I became bold and poured the juice into my bowl, delighted at how the juice swirled into the milk. My delight turned into dismay when I tasted my cereal and discovered why juice and milk are not sold in a mixed product. It was awful. I was on my way to pour my disaster into the sink when I heard Dad coming up the stairs from the basement. I wouldn't be able to reach the sink before he got to the top of the stairs, which ended just past the sink. I quickly retreated to the breakfast table, anxiously looking for a way to hide my mistake. The family night cupboard! I hastily put the bowl in the cupboard and looked innocently around to see if anyone had noticed. I was able to get a new bowl of cereal and eat my breakfast without being discovered. I intended to retrieve my mistake out of the cupboard when everyone had cleared the room, but got distracted by something else and forgot. The radiator kept on working on heating the kitchen--and the bowl of Cheerios-- for the rest of the day and the next. On Monday night when Mom went to the cupboard for the journals at the end of her lesson, the sour smelling bowl was found, my naughtiness was revealed, and a second impromptu family night lesson was taught for my behalf.

Climbing the west face of Timp

Our family had climbed Timpanogas many times from Aspen Grove, so Brad and I decided to climb the west face of Timp. There is small canyon above Lindon that leads directly toward the saddle above the glacier on the east side of the mountain. We reasoned that it would be best to climb the ridges as they would have less foliage. As we made our way to the ridges, we were surprised that the growth turned out to be dense and difficult to climb even to get to the ridge.

So we struggled with frequent rest breaks, but we were finally about 200 yards from the saddle. Then we noticed that some dark clouds were moving in fast from the west. We would be lucky to reach the saddle by the time the rain arrived. So we decided to head down as fast as possible.

After about an hour of hurried descent, the rain came down in torrents and it began to be dark as well. We had hoped to reach the road that winds up the canyon from Lindon. But we were unable to find it. We were soaked and tired. To avoid the heavy underbrush, we stumbled down the bottom of a ravine. It was so dark that we could not see where to step causing us to stumble on large rocks and brush in the ravine.

I said to Brad that we ought to pray for the Lord's help so that we would not get injured and that we could climb out of the ravine to find the road. Soon the rain moderated and we were impressed to climb out the right slope to find the road. What a relief and to know that our prayer was answered.

JAPANESE EMPEROR'S PALACE STAMPEDE

After seven months in Korea, I was given an R&R week to visit Tokyo. On January 2nd 1944 two buddies and I learned that the public would be permitted to enter the palace grounds, since it was Emperor Hirohito's birthday. When we arrived at the huge parade grounds across the moat from the Palace, there were thousands of Japanese dressed in their finest clothing. I was particularly fascinated in the kimonos worn by the women and young girls. The huge crowd were pushing toward the stone bridge that crossed the moat.

My buddies became bored with the long wait and left, but I stayed to take pictures of the people and scenery. I was swept along by the crowd that was pressing toward the bridge. The pressure became intense and many women seemed greatly ill at ease. But there was no going back as the crowd pushed harder. Evidently they thought the bridge would be closed soon.

As I was a foot taller than the Japanese, it was easy for me to take pictures and see what was going on. When I was about 50 yards from the bridge, there seemed to be much excitement at the entrance. People were screamingand some were climbing up on the stone works. Eventually I could see people being pushed into a huge pile at the entrance. Then I was pushed onto the pile of people, but neither they nor I could escape due to the prssure from behind us. I was calm and confident that I was strong enough not to be injured.

The police had arrived from the other side of the bridge and were pulling the persons in the human barricade. Then those near me were able to break through and move on to the bridge. There were dozens of people laying all over the bridge entrance who had been trampled upon, some dead and/or injured. This was particularly true for the women in their tight kimonos and sandals.

I took a number of photos of this carnage. Then we were herded on across the bridge to walk past the Palace, although the Emperor was not there in the gloom to hear the people salute him with "Banzai." The next day the newpapers said that 16 had been killed and dozens injured.

RUNAWAY CAR HEADING FOR THE CLIFF

I had just flown from Tokyo to California and arrived at Camp Stoneman where I was being discharged. On the weekend I went to visit the Basingers in nearby Berkeley. Walt Basinger and family had lived at Grandpa Lundquist's house when he was Principal of Weston High School several years prior. They were great friends of our family.

Sister Basinger was a real estate sales person. On the Sunday afternoon after church, she had to go for a quick visit to a house that she was selling in a hilly neighborhood. Her daughter, age about ten, was seated beside her in the front seat and I was in the back seat.

As we pulled up in front of the house, Sister Basinger jumped out to run into the house. She apparently thought she had put the car in park, after turning off the ignition. After a few seconds, the car started to slowly roll forward down the street. When her daughter and I realized the gathering speed, she got in the driver's seat to do I don't what. By the time I got her to move over so I could climb over the seat, the car was heading rapidly down the street toward a drop off.

When I finally got behind the wheel, I found that the brakes wouldn't work with the ignition off. So I steered the car from one side of the street to the other running over curbs and then into small trees until we finally hit a large tree that stopped the mad dash for the drop off. My memory is that Sister Basinger was chasing us at a dead run down the street. We stopped not far from the dead end drop off. That was more dangerous than my tour in Korea.

BIG SCARE IN MADRAS, INDIA

When the plane touched down in Madras, I had been traveling in South Asia for almost a month. I was feeling rather blue due to the long time from home. So I decided that I would quickly check the local newspaper to see if there was an English-language movie playing. I saw that there was a Jerry Lewis movie, so I hopped into a cab and headed for the theater. As we neared the theater, the driver offered to wait for me, but I refused rather impatiently.

We were on the waterfront area, so I thought that maybe I should sit close to the door so as to be the first one out to catch a cab. I enjoyed the movie, but as soon as it ended I bolted out of the theater to find that there were no cabs. Everyone emptied the theater in a couple of minutes and headed around the side of the theater to their vehicles. In a few minutes everyone was gone and I was standing alone in an empty parking area.

Finally I looked down a street away from the waterfront and saw some cars crossing about 6 or 7 blocks ahead. So I walked rapidly toward the street in almost total darkness---there were no street or residence lights. Occasionally I would hear noises coming from the buildings along the way, which I ignored, and walked faster. When I got to the street , there were no cars to be seen.

Then I saw a theater marquee another couple of blocks away. When I walked in front of the theater, it seemed that it was an Indian movie. There was a bicycle rickshaw standing there, with the driver talking to a person. I leapt up into the seat, and he asked me where I wanted to go. Since I had only a few rupees and was sure that it wasn't enough to go across town to the hotel, I wracked my brain and came up with the train station.

So he wheeled away up a narrow alley. A thought came to me that maybe he was taking me into a trap, where I would be robbed and beaten up. I prayed for deliverance, while deciding if I would fight, run or give anything I had. After about ten minutes the alley opened up into a plaza that held the huge train station. I jumped out of the rickshaw and gave him half of the few rupees in my pocket.

Then I looked around the plaza that was filled with people sleeping on the ground. Finally I found a taxi whose driver was asleep, woke him up, and told to take me to the Connemara Hotel. I was surprised that he accepted the few rupees I had for the fare. Whew! What a hair raising adventure.

A CLOSE CALL ON MT. TIMPANOGAS

Since I/we had not climbed Mt. Timpanogas in 1998, Ellen and I and the Willises decided to climb it on the Labor Day weekend. Always in the past, we had climbed Timp from Aspen Grove. This time we wanted to try it from American Fork Canyon on the Tipanooke Trail.

Inasmuch as Steve and Margaret had baby Tyler in tow, we determined that Ellen and Margaret would cllimb up to the lake at the bottom of the glacier and wait for us. So Steve and I left them to scale the north ridge with Margaret's advice that we slide down the glacier in tandem.

When Steve and I reached the top, we observed that a thunder cloud was moving north from Y mountain with both rain and lightning coming down. Consequently we hurried south along the ridge toward the saddle above the glacier. About half way to the saddle, the rain started with increasing fury and strong winds. We tried some shelter on the lee side of the ridge, but were getting increasingly wet from the rain. Finally I suggested that we push on down and try the glacier. By the time we reached the saddle, we were soaked; and then the rain subsided.

When we got ready to slide down, Steve sat in front of the plastic garbage bag, and I prepared to sit immediately behind him on the sack. As we started to push off, I must have got my right foot caught in the snow, because the next thing I knew I was sliding pell-mell down the icy glacier headfirst on my back. I tried to dig my hands and arms into the hard, slick surface to slow me down, but I was sliding so fast that it was impossible. The surface of the glacier was pockmarked with ridges and small holes so that the back of my head and shoulders were banging hard at an incredible clip. My feet were thrown up by the banging of my hips on the rough surface.

Finally my slide slowed and stopped about 100 yards down the flacier, much to my relief. I can only guess that I may have been sliding faster than 15 MPH, certainly faster that I can rurn. While the wild ride occupied my concern to get control of my body, I had fleeting thoughts of dropping into some of the large potholes that dotted the glacier, which would have broken my neck or caused some other serious injury, or death. As I gained my feet and was able to review my wild slide, the awesome realization of the consequence of heading into one of the potholes on my back headfirst brought a rush of great relief and gratefulness to the Lord and guardian angels for my survival.

As I stood to view the scene above me where I had traversed seconds before, I was somewhat dizzy, due in part that my glasses were missing, as well as my hat. This situation was relayed to Steve who had stopped shortly after our aborted takeoff and had observed my dangerous journey. We scanned the trail of my slide without finding the glasses but did retrieve my hat.

Our descent of the glacier was made without much difficulty, despite my feeling some unsteadiness from the slide and the impaired sight due to the loss of my glasses. We caught up with Margaret and Ellen and reached our car after a seemingly endless trail with Steve and I taking turns carrying Tyler. Without my glasses, I drove home somewhat cautiously.

The following week I acquired some new glasses. About three weeks later Douglas came to a meeting at BYU and wanted to climb Timp during his stay with us. In part to overcome any residual fear of climbing Timp, I agreed to accompany him, again on the Timpanooke Trail. When we reached the top and then hiked down tot he saddle, we met a couple climbing up the glacier to the saddle. As we chatted with the young man, we recounted to him my near disaster previously. When I mentioned that I had lost my glasses, he said that he had seen a pair of glasses at the hut near Emerald Lake at the bottom of the galcier. When we reached the hut, I found my lost glasses, no worse for the icy stay up above.

Pick a Game, Any Game

The game closet in Cleveland was my favorite room in the house. It's door was about three feet high and it was situated under the staircase off the front hall. It was a cosy little room filled with our family games. It housed Funny Bones, Uncle Wiggly, Flinch and Rook, Chinese checkers, Shoot the Moon and Labyrinth. There was Old Maid, Concentration, Checkers and Go Fish. There were countless puzzles, many with 1,000 or more pieces.
I have always loved playing games with my family. With ten people in the Thompson house there was always someone to play with. On New Year's Eve I recall games of Risk and Monopoly that seemed to go on all night long. I could never last. Around the holidays there was always a puzzle out on the game table. I would sit and work at it for a while, usually aside Dad, and then come back to it in bits all week long.
I received my very own game of Sorry when I was about ten years old which my boys now play with. Although I never learned to play chess as a child, my boys taught me the rules as they learned the game during our travels in Europe.
In most recent years we have enjoyed going over to Mom and Dads to play Uno, Chickenfoot and Quiddler, although anytime we get together as family, any game will do. No visit from the cousins is complete without a night capped with the playing of games.

Plymouth car wreck

The summer following my junior year at West Side High School my pal, Lynn Neuenswander, and I dated two girls from Dayton---Alice Moser and Mary Lou Balls. After taking the gals home about midnight, I drove our Plymouth half a mile to an intersection at a T-corner. As I approached the corner, I tried the brakes but they did not slow us much. I was rather sleepy and did not hit the brakes again. So the car headed directly into the big ditch bank with a crash.

I was draped around the steering wheel, and Lynn who was asleep in the back seat was thrown forward over my head into the front door that had spring open, and then he bounced back near the left rear wheel outside the car. After I squeezed out from behind the steering wheel, I called to Lynn who lay moaning on the ground. He had a concussion and babbled words I couldn't understand, so I was really scared. I stowed him in the car and then sprinted non-stop back to the Ball's home. There I called home to let them know our disaster. After a couple of hours, Lynn's parents picked us up and took us home. After a couple of days Lynn recovered his senses.

The Plymouth was towed to White's garage in south Dayton, where it took a couple of months and $500 to repair. I earned all of the money to pay for the repair over the ensuing year. Our family was relegated to riding in our old 1935 Ford truck until the Plymouth was repaired.

Throw the baby off the wagon

Mom said I was a baby when this adventure occurred. We were living on the Taylor place west of Bear River. We had gone down to the banks of Bear River to get a load of sand, presumably for a sand pile for me. The wagon had a heavy load pulled by four head of horses. As we were going up the steep dugway from the river to the road at the top of the hill, the pin came out of the doubletree, so that the horses with Dad holding the reins went on up the dugway. The heavily loaded wagon first stopped and then started backward downhill to a steep drop off into the river.
Mom was sitting on the high seat with me in her arms. Evidently Dad yelled to her to jump because the wagon was headed straight for the embankment into the deep river. She probably did not feel she could jump with me in her arms, so she threw me over into the side of the dugway next to the hill.

I have never learned if she then jumped because the wagon veered into the side of the dugway. In any event, Dad came down with the four horses to hook up with the loaded wagon for the trip up and back to our home. Later I grew to love to swim in Bear River, but that was not the time.

John Deere Tractor Wreck

My closest call with death came in what I believe was the summer of 1945 (15 years old). Dad had bought a new John Deere tractor, of which he was very proud. It was green and tall and fast.

One day I drove it up the hill on the road to Weston to pick up our mail at the intersection beyond the canal flume. Then I drove it up the road to our neighbor's, Wash Thompson. I can't recall why I went there, but after a few minutes I decided to lead for home.

From their barn there was a long straight driveway to the Weston road, where you had to turn right or left onto the road. I put the tractor in high gear, probably to show off to the Thompsons. As I approached the road, the tractor was probably going 20 miles per hour. I didn't think to slow down, partly due to the fact that the mail, which was on the seat under my right thigh, was jostling loose. I reached down to secure the mail just as the tractor was entering the roadway. Since I needed to go left toward home, I quickly pulled the steering wheel left and more quickly let it go to reach back across to grab it on the right side and pull it across left again to make the turn. But as those will know who have driven tractors, they are engineered to very quickly return to front wheels to straight ahead. So I was rapidly heading for the barrow pit on the opposite of the road.

Then a flash came to my mind that I could touch the wheel brake on the left to slow the left rear wheel, thus swinging the tractor to the left. By the time my foot hit the brake the tractor was almost to the barrow pit. The only problem was that in my quick reaction, I hit the right wheel brake, not the left one.

The next thing I knew I was on my back in the barrow pit with the tractor upside down on top of me. Actually the tractor seat was across my groin, pinning me to the ground. The tractor was still running and the huge rear wheels were turning. The left wheel was on top of my right leg pulling it under the wheel.

The engine finally killed, about the time that the Thompsons came running up to see if they could help. After extracting me from the tractor, they pulled the tractor upright. The tall exhaust pipe was bent upright, and the engine started. So I drove off home with much dread over ruining the appearance of Dad's new cherished John Deere Tractor.

I don't recall what Dad said when I got home, but it seems that he was very kind to me and didn't punish me for my foolishness in ruining his prized tractor.

I have pondered many times this impossible survival of what should have been severe injury or death. The incredible speed of the tractor flipping over so fast that I was not aware of it, and slamming into the barrow pit, so that I was not bruised except for where the seat arm had pinned me to the ground is astounding to me. I can onlly assume that angels protected me.

The sweet sounds of music

It was important to Dad and Mom that their children be exposed to the cultural arts. Being a closet artist, Mom sought to grace the walls of our home with beautiful artwork, and keep a supply of art materials in stock for our creative outlet. Mom and Dad’s mutual appreciation for good music resulted in a state of the art stereo system, and a significant collection of musical recordings that ranged from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and classical music to Big Band from the 1950’s and Broadway musical scores to the best of the Three D’s. Dad listened to Mozart, Wagner and Copeland while he read the paper. Mom listened to Vivaldi and Tchaichovsky while she did her housework, and to Christmas music when she was homesick. The girls danced many a private ballet recital to The Nutcracker Suite and The Waltz of the Flowers, and knew every word to every song from The Sound of Music. Although the boys professed to be less inspired by classical music I remember playacting with them to Peter and the Wolf (David especially liked to be Peter, while Brad was the wolf) and witnessing a spectacular three man sword fight to Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. All of our listening to good music, whether intentional or incidental, prepared us for the chance to attend professional musical events with our parents. Dad and Mom would invite, and sometimes cajole, us to be their guest several times a year at some of the many amazing cultural offering in the Cleveland area, including ballet, opera, Cleveland Orchestra concerts and plays. I remember attending the opera Aida and, although I didn’t understand a word that was sung, being strongly affected by the emotion of the performance. I’m sure that Doug’s interest in the guitar inspired our attendance at the classical guitar recital at the outdoor Blossom Music Center. Blossom was also the venue for a fantastic Man of La Mancha performance and several Cleveland Orchestra concerts. When the Broadway cast of The Wiz came to town I think the whole family attended that performance, and came home singing “Ease on down, ease on down the road. Don’t you carry nothin’ that will be a load. Come on and ease on down, ease on down the road”.

Geographically speaking

For many years we had subscriptions to the National Geographic magazine, whose pictures alone took us to far away places that we had to find on the globe. Often when we found an unfamiliar country name on the globe we would turn to the encyclopedia to learn more about it. Brad was particularly fascinated with far-off places and the trivia associated with them. Because he was the champion of all things geographic, he initiated the on-going globe competition designed to stump his siblings. The idea was to challenge someone to find a country on the globe, which was rather detailed with tiny print. Brad prided himself in finding the tiniest and most remote places to challenge his opponent. The rest of us tried to turn the tables on him by giving him exotic places to locate, but he always seemed to rise to the occasion. I remember once that Brad challenged someone—I think it was David—to find a country that none of us had ever heard of before. We looked for hours it seemed then cheated by consulting the encyclopedia, just to discover that it wasn’t listed even there. When confronted with this fact Brad was pleased to tell us that the African country had just recently experienced a coup, and that its named had been changed, but since the borders had not been altered the country was technically there on the globe, so he had won the competition.

Bedtime stories

I don’t know if Mom knew it instinctively, or if Granny Keeler had modeled it for her, but she seemed to follow Emilie Buchwald’s observance, that "children are made readers on the laps of their parents." I don’t recall when I began to learn to read, but I know that it was before my first grade teacher began reading groups. It seemed to be as natural as breathing to me, which I attribute largely to the considerable time I was exposed to reading and oral language from birth on. Mom was in her element when she put on her reading glasses, propped a pillow behind her back in the middle of her big bed, and let the pages fall open on the bookmarked page of the book du jour—be it The Tin Woodman of Oz, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, or Little Women. She’d flip back a page or two and recount the prior night’s adventure, then launch into the next chapter. Her penchant for drama would kick in, and soon she would transport her listeners to the Emerald City or the five little Pepper’s home or Aladdin’s cave. The natural vocal nuances in her oral reading drew in her audience so that, even when we were old enough to be well able to read ourselves to sleep, we would often sit just outside her bedroom door and listen with one ear while we worked on our homework. The fact that we all still enjoy reading and a good storyteller is likely a direct result of Mom’s efforts.

"You may have tangible wealth untold.

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.

Richer than I you can never be –

I had a mother who read to me."

— Strickland Gillilan

Dad also contributed to our love of words. Although we weren’t blessed to have him as our nightly storyteller on a regular basis, we occasionally enjoyed his reading as well. I remember him reading excerpts from Peck’s Bad Boy, Maori Tales and poems from the two fat Poems from Home volumes. My favorites were “The Raggedy Man, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, and the eerie Highwayman:

“ The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,

And the highwayman came riding--

Riding--riding--

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.”

Establish a house of learning

Although they grew up in different circumstances Dad and Mom both came from homes where learning and thinking were important. They took both their formal and informal education seriously, which spilled over into their marriage and child-rearing. Early in their marriage they joined a book club through which they began collecting the extensive family library that we remember growing up. Making the accumulation of books a priority, rather than any one of a number of other possible collections that married folks embark upon, says much about what was important to them and what they had in common from the start. Somehow in their ever-busy lives Mom and Dad found time to read, often very early in the morning or very late at night. On a number of occasions I found one or both of them asleep with a book in their hands, presumably after they had tried to sneak in some personal study or relaxation time between their parental responsibilities. Their mutual love of learning has been evident throughout their life together, and has had a profound impact on their progeny. They have sought to follow the counsel to “Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith…Establish a house of learning” (D&C 88:118-119).

There was never a problem finding something good to read at the Thompson house. In each of the homes our family lived in, from Hamer Drive until the present, I have clear memories of bookshelves lined with books, and a variety of reading opportunities. One of my most distinct memories has to be of the study in the tudor home in Cleveland, which I always called the library. I loved to curl up on the window seat and read a book or listen to the stereo. The built-in bookshelves lining three walls of the room were brimming with hundreds of volumes Dad and Mom had collected, including the classics by authors such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Mark Twain. There were numerous church reference books, books on history, politics and philosophy, and a set of The World Book Encyclopedias. I remember perusing the titles on the book bindings wondering about books titled Jesus Was Married, The Last of the Mohicans, and The Naked Capitalist. Some of my childhood favorites from the “grown up” shelves included the beautiful origami coffee table book, the etchings in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the Especially for Mormons series, and many of the nature and travel books produced by National Geographic. I spent hours reading the Childcraft set (the children’s companion to the encyclopedia), especially the volume titled “Things to Make and Do”. The wide variety of books exposed us to numerous wonders of the world, so we each had the opportunity to choose topics of interest to explore that appealed to us personally.

Of course we had a library of children’s books as well, some housed in the big bookshelf in the upstairs hallway, and some personal favorites that we kept in our bedrooms. There were several large volumes of storybook collections (like A Treasury of Children’s Literature), board books for the toddlers, Little Golden books (I remember The Poky Little Puppy), Disney classics, all kinds of chapter books, science and history-focused books, scripture story books, and paperbacks that Mom let us purchase through Scholastic book orders (The Borrowers series was one of my favorites). If I had an hour of undirected time Mom knew she would often find me curled up with a book in the library or in my bedroom. This was heaven for me because, like Jorge Luis Borges, "I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library."

A Brother I Could Always Look Up To

Barry is 16 years older than I am, so I really didn't know him until I was grown. And since he skipped TWO grades, he was away at college before I could even talk. But I do recall a few things about him from childhood: He was a "muscle man" who had a bar in the doorway for chin-ups and a really strange device made of metal coiled springs with handles on each end to expand his chest and biceps. And he was a "cool cat" who brought home 78 rpm records of Glenn Miller, Spike Jones, et al. PLUS...when he was at Columbia University, one of his neighbors was Harry Belafonte! He brought me silk pajamas with my picture painted on them from Korea, which I still have in my cedar chest, and I loved to hear of his travels when he became an international banker. His physical strength is legendary, and Ted and I were in awe as he scaled the giant trees on a waving ladder in their backyard, chopping them down foot by foot, while in his 70s. And when he and Ellen visited us this past summer and she was tentative about crossing our little creek, he just picked her up and threw her across with ease! Most of all, I've admired his spiritual strength and ethics. My brothers and I have all benefited from the examples of our parents, and Barry has stood tall in his faith and values. He is a great man who is having a great life, and I look forward to more stories of his prowess in the years ahead. Happy Birthday, dear brother, with much love, Margaret Ann