Bernie

I have a friend named Bernie McGuire. Bernie is an amazing man; an attorney by profession, he specializes in Social Security disability cases. There are literally hundreds of people who know Bernie and admire him for a variety of reasons; Bernie has a great sense of humor, and he’s a babe magnet, among other things. Bernie is also an inspirational guy; he has a great attitude about life, and his resiliency knows no bounds.

Did I mention Bernie is quadriplegic? He is, and what happened to Bernie could happen to anyone.

Let me take you back to the last Sunday in October 1981, the twenty-fifth to be exact. It was the first Sunday after the time change back to standard time, which is a factor in this story. Other than the time change, it was just a typical Sunday. Bernie and I were in the same LDS ward. I’d known Bernie for the previous ten years, and he was a fun guy to hang out with. That particular Sunday he and I decided to skip Sunday School. We were loitering in the foyer outside the chapel and noticed that my mom, who was the Relief Society President, had posted sign-up sheets for enrichment night mini-classes. 

Let me stop right here to say that this story doesn’t have anything to do with what happened to Bernie, but it is a good example of Bernie’s sense of humor. I’ll get to Bernie’s accident later

Anyway, there was a man in our ward whom I’ll call “Roy Jones”  (not his real name, of course), who was the ward character. It seems that every LDS ward had to have one back then; it was required. Roy was in his late fifties, divorced, very obese, seldom bathed, and wore the same ill fitting ten-year-old dark blue polyester leisure suit to church every week.

What Roy was best known for was his OPD - obnoxious personality disorder - which isn’t a real mental illness, but ought to be. Roy was on disability, so he had lots of free time to bother people. The conductor of the Heber Creeper once kicked Roy off the train at Bridal Veil Falls because he was making such a nuisance of himself, and Roy had to find a way back to Heber on his own. Roy used to accost people in the supermarket where I worked after school, and follow them around the store talking to them as they vainly tried to escape from him. Roy was also infamous in our LDS ward for holding forth during testimony meetings for anywhere from twenty minutes at a time to most of the meeting.

Bernie and I saw those sign-up sheets on a table outside the Relief Society room door and had the same devilish thought at the same time: wouldn't it be hilarious if we signed Roy Jones up for every single one of those classes? We gleefully did, and then I forgot about it because of the events that happened later that evening. A few days later I heard my mom frantically talking to one of her counselors on the phone about how the bishop was going to just have to tell Roy that he couldn’t attend the classes because they were only for Relief Society sisters. Listening to my mom gave me the one good laugh I had during a rotten week, and I confessed that Bernie and I had signed Roy’s name to her lists. She was so relieved she forgot to be mad at me.

So, that was Bernie (and me too, I guess).

Later that evening, Bernie and some other guys from our ward were driving down a dark country road to toilet paper the house of a girl who Bernie liked. The time had changed the night before from Daylight Savings to Standard Time, so it had gotten dark early. October 25 was the girl’s birthday, and toilet papering her house was Bernie’s way of letting her know he cared. Bernie was driving, and they didn’t notice that there were horses standing in the road at the bottom of a hill until it was too late. The car hit the horses at the knees, bringing them down on top of the car and breaking Bernie’s neck. I remember hearing ambulance sirens - we lived right next to the hospital - but not knowing what was going on.

The next morning Mom woke me with the news about Bernie. I felt sick inside, and felt even sicker when I got to school and saw he really wasn’t there. I remember trying to talk about the accident with our choir teacher - a really good lady, and one of my all-time favorite teachers - but she was too upset to speak about it. Later that day, my brother Phil and I, along with one of the other kids who was actually in the accident with Bernie, went to the salvage yard where the remains of Bernie’s car were stored. While looking at the shattered windshield and caved-in roof of the car, which was splattered with gore where the horses landed, I came to the realization that it could just as easily have been me in that car.

Confronting my own mortality as a seventeen-year-old wasn’t an easy experience. I’ve had a few of my own brushes with death since, but that was when it really hit me I wouldn’t be on this earth forever. However, if I wrote here that on that spot in that auto salvage yard on that autumn afternoon I swore to live each day of my life as if it were the last, I would be lying. I was seventeen, for crying out loud. Seventeen-year-old brains don’t think that way.

What Bernie’s accident did for me was give me enough perspective on life to realize that the cliquish, kind of mean-spirited way that most high school kids live their lives was not the way to go. Since then, I’ve tried to be kinder to and more accepting of everyone who crosses my path, because you never know what life holds in store for you or anyone else.

Bernie never physically recovered from that crash, but he has done some incredible things with his life, such as graduating from law school and having a successful law practice while sitting in an electric wheelchair. I heard he even once bungee jumped. However, the greatest thing Bernie has accomplished - in my eyes at least - is teach by his example that no problem is insurmountable as long as you’re breathing and have a functioning brain. When life gets overwhelming, I stop and think about Bernie and what he has accomplished with his life. It puts my troubles into perspective. Bernie will be the first to tell you he didn’t do it all on his own. He had the help of an awesome family and good friends who didn’t let him down. Like I said, Bernie is an amazing guy, and I’m glad he’s my friend.

Here’s a ten minute mini-documentary of the man himself that someone posted on YouTube. It’s definitely worth checking out.

Thinking About Mom

Kind of a bittersweet anniversary today, one that I usually don’t think about much anymore. Today, however, it’s on my mind. Thirteen years ago today - February 16, 1998, Presidents' Day that year - we lost Mom. She’d been an invalid - wheelchair bound because of a stroke - for nearly two years previously, so it was a relief for her to go. I guess I'm thinking about her today because I would love to have a chat with her. I could use a dose of her common sense and wisdom. I’m mildly irritated that I can’t pick up the phone and call her. I thought T-Mobile had coverage everywhere.

My mom was well known for many things. She was the happy, friendly lady behind the counter at the Dairy Keen. She was the enthusiastic referee or line judge at LDS Young Women’s volleyball and basketball games. To the people who knew her, she was always Vera, never Mrs. Rasband or Sister Rasband. Her most famous creation - other than her children - were her chocolate chip cookies, otherwise known as “Veracookies” to friends, neighbors, and my college roommates. She always made sure there was a bag of cookies in the freezer for me to take back to Logan when I came home for the weekend. When I started teaching school in Heber, Mom’s sour cream sugar cookies were my students’ preferred treat for Halloween and Valentine’s Day school parties. I had students from miles around show up at our house on Halloween night just for a second (or third) cookie.

My mom was the yang to my dad’s yin; they brought out the best in each other. Mom was outgoing, friendly, and optimistic. My dad was quieter (until you got to know him), reserved, and more of a pessimist. I could take a road trip with Mom and have an interesting, entertaining conversation all the way to our final destination, even if the destination was seven hundred miles away. I could take a road trip with my dad and ride in comfortable silence with neither of us saying a word for hundreds of miles. It’s interesting to look at my brothers and sister and see who inherited which trait from my parents. I think I’m a weird mutation of some of their best and worst qualities; sometimes I can talk your ear off, other times you’re better off not bothering me.

My mom’s greatest attribute was her faith that things would always turn out all right. I remember after her stroke, when she was completely paralyzed on her left side, she tried to persuade me to take her out to the car and let her go for a drive, never mind that she couldn’t use her left arm or leg, and her peripheral vision was gone. Mom just knew that if she just had the chance, she could relearn to drive a car.

In many ways, Mom isn’t really gone. I see reminders of her everyday in my daughters; Susan’s athleticism, Caroline’s smile, and Grace’s small stature, funny personality, and penchant for waking us all up in the morning with her singing, all came from their grandma.

So that was my mom. I’m sorry my daughters never got to meet her in this life, but there are enough reminders of her in themselves - and me - that they know her anyway. I’m grateful for the legacy of kindness, happiness, and optimism that she left. If I can leave a legacy half as good when I depart this veil of tears - sorry for the cheesy language, but that phrase always makes me smile; it would have made Mom gag - I will have accomplished something.

The Big 2-0

Adams Elementary, Logan, UT, February 14, 1991

This month marks the twentieth anniversary of the official beginning of my career in education. In January 1991, I started Level II classes in the Elementary Education program at Utah State University.  Although I didn’t get my first real teaching job until August 1992, Level II was my first taste of what would eventually become my livelihood. I was actually working in the public schools, and had a few instructional responsibilities.

Starting the first week of January, I drove twice a week to Sunrise Elementary in Smithfield, a small town north of Logan, to observe and to work as a quasi-teacher’s aide for a practicum class. I worked in the classroom of a fourth grade teacher, Terry Olsen, who was very enthusiastic and had a lot of fun with his students. He was a big influence on me. After four weeks I moved to Adams Elementary in Logan, right next to Adams Park, where I worked in a second grade class for another four weeks. Good times.

Looking back at Winter Quarter 1991 makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It was something of a milestone in my life. I was finally progressing in my academic career, which had felt stalled up to that point. I’ve been rereading a journal I kept during that time, and it has been quite entertaining. My outlook on what I was committing myself to for the next thirty years was awfully naive.

That winter was also an interesting – if tumultuous – time in the U.S. The build-up to the first Gulf War was occurring, and the war would start on January 16, 1991. The night the war started I was sitting in the Salt Palace arena in Salt Lake City, waiting for a Paul Simon concert to begin. Paul came out fifteen minutes late because he and his band had been listening to the first President Bush address the country. I also remember listening to war news on the radio as I drove to Smithfield. That was the era when we all learned about Scud missiles and other slightly surreal words, like Kurds and Basra.

A disconcerting thing happened to me that morning of January 16th. I had an early morning class on campus, and as I scraped the ice off the windshield of my car – it’s too cold to walk very far in Logan during January – I managed to scrape the skin off of one knuckle as well. I didn’t think much about it until two days later when my hand began to swell and a red streak started making its way up my arm. I went to the campus infirmary in the student center and found out I had a raging case of blood poisoning. The doctor lectured me about the severity of the red streak. I’m just grateful I was smart enough to go to the doctor.

So here it is, exactly twenty years later. I’m now doing pretty much what I expected to be doing back in 1991. I’m occasionally nostalgic for those seemingly care-free days, but then I read something I wrote back then and think to myself, “Gosh, I was an idiot.” 

I hope I won’t feel the same way when I read this blog in another twenty years.