Moving from Idaho to Utah, 1988

While Becky and I were recently in Utah, we stayed at her Aunt Doris and Uncle Charlie's house in the Salt Lake suburbs. One morning, Aunt Doris brought out a scrapbook of photos of her daughter Sariah (in the middle, above), who Becky has always been close with. I was thrilled to see this photo of my beloved, from three decades ago!

It's Becky at top, followed by Sariah and then Becky's youngest sibling Matt. Sariah was already living in Utah at the time, though she had been born in New York. Becky's family was moving from Pocatello, Idaho, to Davis County in Utah. Her dad Fred had landed a new job - one he would have for the next 25 years. 

Becky was 12 when she moved to Utah, and she spent the next decade in Utah, interspersed with serving an 18-month mission to the Philippines and two years at Ricks College (now known as BYU-Idaho). She taught Math in Davis County for two years after graduating from BYU-Provo, and then, in the late summer of 2002, she packed her bags and headed east to Boston, where she and I would briefly meet a few months later in the Longfellow Park Chapel in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

So, roughly 25 years after this photo was taken, Becks and I met up and started dating! We then spent a super fulfilling and jam-packed decade-plus in the greater Boston area. And 25 years after first moving to Utah, Becky is moving back (this time, with me and four yahoos tagging along!). 

50 Years Ago: Walter Cronkite and the Vietnam War

Fifty years ago tonight, veteran CBS journalist Walter Cronkite went on live TV during a special CBS broadcast about the Vietnam War. Weeks earlier, the Communist Vietcong forces had launched the surprise Tet Offensive inside South Vietnam, seeking to topple the corrupt, U.S.-backed South Vietnamese regime as part of the Vietcong and Communist North Vietnam's effort to turn the tide in the decade-long Vietnam conflict. 

By early winter 1968, the U.S. had officially been involved in the Vietnam War for almost five years. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians had already died, along with thousands of U.S. soldiers. And yet, despite the length of the military engagement and the resources directed to it from opposing sides, when 1968 dawned, neither side had effectively gained the upper hand. 

Walter Cronkite reported in an era before cable TV and the internet. His decades of reporting, and the style in which he reported, earned him the trust of millions of ordinary Americans. This was in an age where the average person had far limited access to the world beyond their town, so they looked to TV journalists to contextualize the drama going on across the country and around the world. So, when Cronkite went on live TV fifty years ago this evening, his words mattered to a nation growing increasingly anxious about - and slowly more angered by - its involvement halfway around the globe.  

"It seems now more certain than ever," Cronkite declared, "that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate." How prescient, in a way, and how horribly sad that another almost seven years would pass - and millions of lives ruined - before the stalemate basically came to pass. He continued, "To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past...It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could." 

Walter Cronkite's words had an immediate and then longer-term effect on the commander-in-chief, President Lyndon B. Johnson. The next morning, an irate Johnson called the head of CBS and snapped, "This is your president. Are you trying to f*** me?!" 

A Democrat with less exposure to foreign policy than domestic agendas, Johnson became president upon John F. Kennedy's assassination four-and-a-half years earlier. LBJ was nearing the end of his first full term on his own right in office, and had been seriously contemplating seeking re-election in the next presidential election in November 1968. 

But, after LBJ saw and heard Walter Cronkite's broadcast, the fiery president reportedly said to aides in the Oval Office, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." Weeks later, Johnson went on TV himself to famously declare, "I shall not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president." This blew the doors off the Democratic primary that year, with several candidates - including JFK's brother Robert F. Kennedy - running to succeed LBJ. Horrifyingly, Robert Kennedy would be assassinated in early June 1968, two months after civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had met a similar fate, in Memphis, Tennessee.

One of my all-time favorite books is titled 1968: The Year the Dream Died. 



Tet, and Cronkite's assessment after-the-fact, were ominous bodes for the year ahead, fifty years ago. I don't think the U.S. has ever had a more pivotal, foundation-rocking, tumultuous year in its history.

Our Kids, and Our Friend Debbie

For the last ten years, we have been infinitely fortunate to know our next-door neighbors so well and to have become such great friends with them. Debbie is a dear friend and fellow book-lover. She has doted on our kids for their birthdays and at Christmastime, always having a cool book to show or give them. 

Debbie also loves Ireland, and each year she travels there for a nice stretch of time. It has become a second home to her. Like any good friend and family member - and Debbie is both to us - she doesn't have favorites among kids. But Debbie does have a soft spot for Our Little Mouse, here in the dark blue winter jacket. As I told Debbie before she left for her next trip to Ireland, "I'd love for Mouse to join you there someday! Can't you just picture you and her having a great time in Ireland?" This won't be possible for the next few years, but perhaps when Mouse is 12 (in less than three years), this could happen! And if it's doable, I would love to make it happen.  

Here, our kids bid farewell to Debbie about an hour before she had to leave to catch her Ireland-bound flight from Logan Airport. We take comfort in knowing that we'll see Debbie again, and hope that she visits us in Utah, too!

Grouse's Debut as Our Church's Reverence Child

Most every Sunday church service for the past year or more, our congregation has asked two kids each week to stand on the podium before our sacrament meeting (the equivalent of a Catholic Mass) as "the reverence child." The children typically stand silently, arms folded, for a few minutes, facing the whole congregation. Sometimes, they wear a cloth sash with the words "Reverence Child" on. Our three oldest kids have been the reverence children over time, and this Sunday morning, it was Our Charming Grouse's debut!

This was the less-than-fantastic photo I took of him, in a vest over a white, short-sleeved shirt. Grouse really did not want any part of being the reverence child! At first, he snickered at his brother Moose, on the other side of the podium. He kept looking at us and giggling. But within a minute or two (at most), as more people arrived in the chapel, Grouse quickly turned his smiles into sadness. He started crying, so I joined him on the podium and sat behind him while he kept standing. Even that wasn't good enough, though. Proximity to me made Grouse want even more to high-tail it off that stage!

We stayed onstage through the end of the opening prayer, and then returned to our seats for the rest of sacrament meeting. It was a time to remember!

NEDRA Board of Directors

For the past almost two years, I have served on the board of directors of the New England Development Research Association (NEDRA). My profession is in prospect or development research, a facet of non-profit fundraising or advancement. It has been one of the best highlights of my 18-year tenure in this profession to serve on the NEDRA board, and I am sorry that my upcoming move to Utah to work for Intermountain Healthcare Foundation's fundraising team requires me to leave NEDRA's board.

These fellow directors and colleagues are terrific, and I'll miss them! Top row, left to right: James, Amy (NEDRA president), Suzy, Jenn, me, Bill, Renana, and Lisa. Bottom row, left to right: Pamela, Erin, Laura, Ginny, and Susan. Collectively, we represent non-profit higher education, healthcare, arts, and other causes, across New England. The board manages a slew of year-round activities, working with other volunteers on programming content, workshops, our three-day annual conference each April, e-mail marketing, membership drives, and a host of other time-consuming work that we do in addition to our day jobs! 

I plan to keep in touch with these great people and to cheer NEDRA on from afar! 

Grouse's Sleeping Positions

This little dude loves his sleep! Grouse just turned four years old, and he still takes a 60- to 90-minute nap most days. On weekends, I try to be the one putting him down for a nap, because I don't get that opportunity during the workweek - and the era of our kids taking naps is quickly coming to a close (at least, naps where they need our help taking one; I'm sure they'll nap like zombies when they're teenagers, but I don't envision helping at that point!). So, trying to soak up these moments before they come to a close.

In the first photo, Grouse is pretending to be asleep.

Here he is, trying out a new napping layout. That big plastic castle to the right of the bunk bed was his 4th birthday present from us (a hand-me-down from friends at church). He loved being King Grouse on his actual birthday, complete with a crown!

And here is Grouse, sleeping with his trusty binkies near his face. He naps and goes to bed each night with two - and sometimes, if fortune is really shining on him - three binkies! Also, it probably was a helpful, calming presence to have the stuffed animal Lion Guard right by Grouse's side as he fell asleep. But I'm wondering if it would cause nightmares should our littlest one wake up during the night? Sweet dreams?!

2018 Winter Olympics

Our family is excited to watch the 2018 Winter Olympics from PyeongChang, South Korea! I remember loving the Olympics as a pre-teen and in college. Since then, my Olympic viewing has been occasional watching of some selected sports. But I'm excited to see our small traveling zoo take such delight in watching Olympic athletes. Sometimes, our kids will ask questions about the athletes' countries, like "What color is their flag?" or "Have you been there?" or "What languages do they speak there?" 

Mouse, in particular, has loved the sports that we've watched. No surprise, our family - like most Olympics watchers - tunes in mostly for the figure skating, the short-track speed skating, and the ski jump. We've also loved the bobsled and the luge, since all of those programs are the ones most heavily shown on prime-time TV, and we don't have cable (cable-free for almost 15 years!).

Mouse is exactly my age when I first got hooked on the Olympics, with the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Seeing her enthusiasm brings back to my mind memories of watching Carl Lewis, Edwin Moses, and Mary Lou Retton.  

2018 promises to be a banner year in the world of sports: the World Cup takes place from mid-June to mid-July. I'm really hoping that we can catch a lot of games, even though the U.S. didn't make the cut. But in the World Cup, I've rooted for Germany (the defending champions), and excited to see Iceland and Panama make their World Cup debuts. It's nice to root for the underdogs! 

Pale Blue Dot

Astronomy is a field that I barely understand but am becoming more fascinated with as time goes on. It's not a pursuit that I'm able to devote much attention to, however - as you'll note from some of the references in this post; I collected one quote four years ago, when the idea for this post first came to my mind.

In that farthest-right vertical band below, about mid-way from top to bottom, you'll see a tiny speck of white. That is planet Earth. That is our only home. 

And it's full of people who desire to know how it came to be, what we can do to save it, and how we are destroying it by our actions - to say nothing of the calamities that individuals, leaders, and nations have long been so obsessed with visiting on their perceived enemies, their fellow travelers on what the glorious, late astronomer Carl Sagan called "a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam." 

 

Time magazine, March 31, 2014: "Physicists calculated in the 1980s that in the first billionth of a trillionth of a quadrillionth of a second after the Big Bang, the universe expanded so rapidly, it actually exceeded the speed of light." 

"Now a single observation has all but nailed down the Big Bang, eliminating the few other remaining scientific theories about how the universe began. In the bargain, it has also at last confirmed the existence of what are known as gravitational waves and the inflationary universe... When it is known - and when the findings are likely confirmed - the world will not change in the same way it did when smallpox was eradicated or the airplane was invented. But the universe - the entire 13.8 billion-year-old universe - will all at once become a more rational and fathomable place. Not a bad haul for a single observation." 

I don't pretend to understand the above quote full of figures, but the fact that there are women and men who do is staggering, and enlightening, and gives me hope. And while my personal belief is that it all was organized by a higher power in God, there is ample room in that conviction for scientific explanation to discover and document what happened in the lead-up to and aftermath of the Big Bang. 

And then I read this in the October 2017 issue of The Atlantic, in a profile of dying psycho-therapist Irvin Yalom. It relates to the Big Bang and the Pale Blue Dot: 

"Imagine that the present moment is a spotlight moving its way across a ruler that shows the billions of years the universe has been around. Everything to the left of the area lit by the spotlight is over; to the right is the uncertain future. The chances of us being in the spotlight at this particular moment - of being alive - are minuscule.

"And yet, here we are." 

Moose and Lupe the Parrot

See that big red bird, taller than all the others? That is Lupe, a parrot that belongs to Our Mighty Moose's first-grade teacher, Miss McAuliffe. Once a week lately, Lupe has made the rounds of kids' homes in the classroom, and each kid has to keep a journal of his or her activities with Lupe, written in Spanish. This week, it was Moose's turn with Lupe, and he was so excited to bring the parrot home! 

He asked us to take photos of him with Lupe in various activities. Judging from the journal that comes along with Lupe, having your photo taken with Lupe in your bed is a big hit with each kid! Here is Moose, pretending to be asleep. I actually don't see Lupe with him, but believe me, she was there, amidst all of his own stuffed animals.

Other photos above show Moose reading scriptures to Lupe, teaching her how to kiss another parrot, and displaying his Spanish-language journal entry. Buenos Tardes, Lupe!

Winter Olympics, 20 Years Ago (or, Timo's Teenage Crush on a Russian Figure Skater)

On the eve of another Winter Olympics (this time from PyeongChang, South Korea), my mind goes back three full decades, to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I had just turned 13 years old a few weeks earlier. It is so hard to believe that thirty years have come and gone. So much time, in fact, then when I first typed the sentence "my mind goes back" above, I wrote "two full decades." Fact-checked myself, and shuddered.

I was so excited for this Winter Olympics. Like the rest of the world, I had waited almost four years since the 1984 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles amidst an outpouring of jingoistic Americana and brazen American commercialism that hindsight, took away from the spectacle of amateur competition. Also, the '84 Summer Games were absent the mighty Soviet Union (the U.S.'s Olympic - and political/military/economic - nemesis) and most of the Eastern Bloc countries, such as East Germany; 14 nations didn't participate. 

This was in response to the U.S.-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, held in Moscow; 65 countries didn't participate in '80. I was five in 1980, so those Olympics were lost on me. But I was nine in 1984, and we had just purchased our first VCR, so for days on end that summer, I parked my pre-teen butt in front of our TV, gripped our VCR remote to record, and watched the Opening Ceremonies, riveted. 

And then, the Olympics went silent until Calgary, February 1988. This was the penultimate Olympic cycle in which both Winter and Summer Olympics were held in the same year, with the customary four-year gap until the next games. The 1992 Games were the last such arrangement. I like to think that the four-year gap between all Olympic Games -  plus the ban on pro athletes, which lasted only through the '88 Games - made the Olympics more special, more anticipated, more praise-worthy.

Plus, my goodness, with the state of the world in the late 1980s, there was always the chance that the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. would provoke a nuclear war, thus eliminating not only any future Olympiad but most of the world's population, if not the entire globe itself. I was so fixated on the news - more so than most kids my age - and was convinced that every time NBC broke in with a "Special Report," the announcer would solemnly declare that Soviet nukes were en route to the U.S., or vice-versa.

Nuclear war terrorized me so much, I was afraid it would break out during the Olympics. The Games mostly took place during the February public school vacation week in Massachusetts. I remember one lazy afternoon, up in my bedroom, watching the Games and deciding, there and then - for some strange reason - to shave my legs. I had had leg hair for all of about six months, so maybe I wanted to go back to the way things had been? What I remember with even more clarity than the why I did this, was that my legs itched like mad as the hairs started growing out again. 

... back to our regularly scheduled post ...  

Media hyped it up that Americans viewed Russians (the chief populace of the Soviet Union) with alarm and suspicion, and Russians returned the favor. The Olympics was one of the few settings on earth where both populations could see their supposed arch enemies. Gasp! We both are humans, with the same dreams and bodies and fears and abilities. 

And I, as a just-turned teenager, developed a crush on one of the Soviet athletes: I fell comically, through the TV, for Russian figure skater Ekaterina Gordeeva.

Faster than one could say "Let the Games begin!" I was crushing on her. She was 16 and would soon be dating her teammate Sergei Grinkov. Didn't matter; I had zero chance of ever meeting Ekaterina, but man was I glued to her limited appearances on TV. She was beautiful, and being a different nationality and speaking a different language made her all the more captivating. 

Ekaterina had this cute voice and spoke quite passable English with her adorable Russian accent. The Russians couldn't be so bad if some of them were as pretty as she was, right?

I saw one of the pair's appearances live, and another one tape-delayed. And zap, that was it. They didn't appear again at the Games, from what I saw. 

But it didn't stop my mind from daydreaming about somehow obtaining a student visa to travel to the U.S.S.R. and somehow meeting her. I like to think that there was zero stalker vibe to that daydream. It was a brief infatuation that ended soon after the Olympic flame went out. 

Gordeeva and Grinkov competed in the '94 Winter Olympics, turned pro, and moved to the U.S., where unfortunately Grinkov died at age 28 of a heart attack. I had to look up some of these post-1988 Olympics facts because, naturally, I developed other interests in the years between 1988 and 1994 and beyond. 

But now, on the 30th anniversary of their first Winter Olympics, I am reminded of this phenomenal skating pair, my crush on her, the innocence of a younger age, and the shattering realization of how quickly time passes.

Grouse and His Sunbeams Teacher

Here is Our Charming Grouse with his Sunbeams teacher, Rita, at church recently. She is a wonderful teacher! She is a native of Colombia (or is it Venezuela?) and is, like me, a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Rita is the perfect person to be a teacher for young children. She is energetic, kind, and so friendly. She previously served with Becky in our congregation's Relief Society presidency (heading the women's group in our ward). Rita has been a blessing in our whole family's life, and lately mostly in Grouse's!   

Little Best Friends

Here is Our Charming Grouse with his little best friend R. She lives down the street from us, and is one of five kids. R's parents are some of our closest friends in town and at church. They've been in the neighborhood since late August 2016, but are moving to Utah at the end of this school year. We will certainly miss them! 

It's tough to keep seeing dear friends, especially ones with kids who our kids have become good buddies with, move in and later move out. Sure, it makes kids resilience, but it would be dynamite if some of these friends actually stayed! 

In the meantime, we're all going to enjoy our friendship for whatever time we have remaining. Sometimes I joke with Grouse that he is R's boyfriend. He jokingly laughs this off with a big fat "no!" We love that these two are such chummy-chums. 

Goose's Latest Hobby: Knitted Hats

Our Dear Goose is on the cusp of turning 11. It's her last full year in the Primary (ages 3-11) in the Mormon Church; next year, at 12, she'll go into Young Women's, where she'll be until she turns 18. The years are zipping by! Anyhow, enough Captain Forecasting. Let's talk about the present: Goose's latest hobby - and she's really good at it - is knitting hats! She took to this in the late fall, and we had a ward Christmas activity where kids and adults knitted hats using those plastic rings (in bottom left of the photo). 

Goose takes after her Nana (my Mom) in her love of knitting. She has also visited a nearby knitting store with our dear friend and neighbor Loxi, who is like another grandmother to Goose and our other three kids. Recently, Goose knitted a hat for the granddaughter of friends in our ward; this infant was sick, and it was serious, so Goose thought to make this gift as a pick-me-up. We're loving that Goose is thoughtful with her time and talent in such a way, and will definitely keep encouraging her latest craze and hobby!

Our Favorite Sister Missionaries

Recently, our favorite sister missionaries went their three separate ways. Sister Dalton (left), Sister Pacanos (middle), and Sister Culp (right) have been awesome missionaries for our church, and we've grown to love having them over for dinner and conversations these last few months. Sisters Pacanos and Culp had been paired since the fall, and Sister Dalton joined the duo earlier this winter. 

In our church, missionaries serve in an area for a few months before they get transferred to another part of the state or region. We were lucky to have this trio in our area for as long as they were here, and we plan to keep in contact with them. Sister Dalton is still in our ward, and she's awesome. Excitingly, we were able to share some family news with these three sisters when they visited in the photo above. 

Our kids, especially our girls, love getting to know the sister missionaries and see them as role models for their own futures. You can't ask for better ones!