Feb. 2022 my grandparents:

Grandpa Fryer at top, then Grandma Fryer followed by Grandpa and Grandma Bowen with their family in the bottom picture.

Talking about grandparents and what they were like is so subjective. Ask any of my siblings or cousins, and I am sure you would get different answers than mine. I didn’t spend much time with any of them except for my Grandma Fryer. Born on Mar. 22, 1898, she and her family immigrated to the United States from Cumberland, England in 1913 aboard the Mauritania ship. They landed in New York and took the train to Utah, where she lived the rest of her life. She was a very kind and loving lady who I never bad-mouthed anyone. My ex-husband adored her because she openly loved and respected him. She never once said anything bad about his drinking or smoking.

Now and again, my ex and I would cook a lamb roast and then take dinner up to her home. She was widowed in October of 1966 and lived the rest of her life alone in her house in Deweyville. She was 98 years old when she passed away in April of 1996.

I would stay at her house for about a week almost every summer as a child. I loved it because you could eat whenever you wanted to. Not only was Grandma Fryer a great cook, but they lived on a farm, so one could freely pick from strawberry, raspberry, and black cap bushes. Also, fresh carrots, peas, and tomatoes from the fields. The next-door lady had a cherry tree that grew white cherries, and we could grab a few of those. Then I would climb into a tree in her backyard and leisurely munch on my goodies from the smallest, cutest paper bag ever.

Her husband was a hardworking man who was always busy at something on the farm but never really made much money. They led a more uncomplicated life. He was also quite shy and quiet. Occasionally we got to ride with him on his tractor. That was wonderful. I loved looking at the back of his neck. It was so sunbaked that the skin looked like the surface of a snicker-doodle cookie. His hands were enormous, browned, and well-used. But I never had conversations with Grandpa Fryer. He died of a stroke when I was in junior high school.

My Grandma and Grandpa Bowen lived in the small town just north of Brigham City. That is where my dad was born. We visited them for a few hours nearly every summer, but I never slept over there and didn’t do much with them. I remember my Grandma Bowen was loud and loved to cuss, “Lordy Clark” or “you cock-eyed kids.” She knitted a lot. And she was the only adult who acknowledged that I suffered from acne. She offered some helpful hints like products I should use. Her comments embarrassed me, but she was resolute in stating what was so obvious. Bowens had a bit more money as Grandpa Bowen worked for Utah Power and Light plus had a farm, so Grandma Bowen had the most gorgeous, spacious pink bathroom I had ever seen up to that time.  

Grandpa Bowen, and he was the best storyteller. He was funny and full of life. I spent the most time with him when he and my dad drove up to Grand Teton Lodge in the Tetons when I worked there the summer of 1973. They both picked me up to take me home, so I could get ready to go back to school at Utah State University. A couple of times, I did visit Grandpa Bowen while I was at school in Logan. Once, he asked me to please do the genealogy for the family and continue what Grandma Bowen had started. I took a long time fulfilling that promise but I did. (It took the invention of the internet and a company called Ancestry.com, but I think I did a pretty good job).

Grandma Bowen died at 68 years old of a heart attack, so Grandpa Bowen also lived quite a while on his own. He spent the summers in northern Utah and the winters in Arizona, near his oldest daughter. He passed away at the age of 87.

So, all in all, my memories in a nutshell:

Grandma Fryer – she was my best friend, a confidant, a person who loved me no matter what. She seriously never said a mean thing about anyone. Grandpa Fryer was a hardworking quiet man but always kind and smiley.

Grandma Bowen was loud and full of life, living her life to the absolute fullest. She seemed confident and gregarious. Grandpa Bowen was the teaser, the storyteller, the man who may not have known how to show his love the best, but I knew he appreciated and was proud of me. 

None of my grandparents were ever mean or cross or hard on me. They were the best examples ever. I have always tried to say nice things, be thankful like the Fryers, live life to the fullest, and say what I mean in an amusing, funny way like the Bowens.

Feb.14, 2022 Lessons from my first job

  

 

February 14, 2022 

My First Job 

by Brenda B Wright

 

           When a dime was a lot of money, I would agree to polish my dad’s shiny black Sunday shoes for the glory of owning that coin. The feel of the black paste as I poked my cloth-covered finger into it was always pleasant but also under my scientific scrutiny. I would watch the paste buckle up under my finger pressure. It would feel soft yet slightly rigid as it rippled up haltingly unto my cloth-covered finger. I loved the smell of shoe paste, especially the kind that came in the flat round cans with the fantastic opener, which was like a magic lever you would turn until it pried and then popped the top of the can off.

I hated how the paste always got under my fingernail, no matter how many layers I overlapped the cloth. I would scrub on the smooth paste onto my dad’s shoes with my left hand shoved deep down inside his shoe while holding the rag in my right hand. This method always left polish marks along my skin below the elbow of my left arm. That paste was hard to get off skin. I recall several days I had those marks on my forearm as I left to go to Sunday church services because I didn't like to scrub as hard as it would take to get it off completely.

But I would smear the pasty wax all over Dad's shoes and then attempt to polish the wax with his soft shoe brush. I never could whip the polishing brush back and forth hard enough to get the shine required, so Dad usually did a few quick expert strokes with the brush before handing me the beautiful shining dime.

The hardest part of polishing dad's shoes was putting a penny in the tithing envelope to pay to the church. No exceptions, a full ten percent of all earnings went to the LDS church coffers.

Then for many years, I babysat neighbor's children to earn some spendable dollar bills. I had increased by ten percent on my understanding of money.

My first so-called real job with income taxes and other withholdings was working for Utah State University Vending. I got to work at the Vending company office at the top of the university campus by six in the morning for four years. I wrapped donuts and cinnamon rolls placed in vending machines all over the campus. I sealed those sticky confections into waxed paper for all four years of college.             Occasionally my job expanded to cleaning tables in the Student Union, working concession stands at various ballgames, and adding figures for the account in the days before calculators. Watching the elderly ladies working full time made me want a degree more than ever to get a better job one day. I had no idea how those ladies did their jobs day after day, year after year, for the $1.65 hour, which was the minimum wage then. But I had advanced to working for tens of dollars. Ten dollars could repurchase a lot in the early 1970s. I could get a great pair of shoes for less than ten dollars, Levi's 501 jeans were $10.00, and gasoline was about twenty-five cents a gallon.  

While going to university, I was a firefighter for the BLM in the summer months. When I graduated, I got a job at Bentley's clothes store at Crossroads Mall in downtown Salt Lake City for a few months. Then worked as a typist for the Utah State Government Department of Criminal Identification. I was earning four hundred dollars a month. I felt I had arrived and increased by ten percent again. Now my brain began thinking in terms of hundreds of dollars. The rent was $110.00 a month for my little place on Belmont Avenue. Car payment was about $100.00 a month. 

During most of my marriage with jobs as a narcotics agent for the Utah State Department of Public Safety, Eastern Airlines, and school teaching, my life had existed around thinking in terms of thousands of dollars. We bought and sold cars, earned monthly wages, remodeled, and bought furniture for thousands of dollars.  

By 2012, my husband and I sold our house and rentals and moved downtown to City Creek. Here is when I knew I had arrived in the hundreds of thousands of dollars land. I had to write a check that was like two hundred and ninety thousand dollars for the one-bedroom condo. Our Murray home sold for two hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars. Terry had purchased that same home in 1976 for forty-two thousand three hundred and fifty dollars.

Starting with that first job of shoe polishing, it has taken me nearly a lifetime to understand the value of work, the power of money, and inflation. 

But before I die, I wonder if I can reach the million-dollar threshold? I'm not dead yet, so I believe I better get up and do some work!

 Books I read in 2021

First to explain why so many - I hurt my back and have been waiting for an operation but the Covid-19 surge of cases closed the Utah hospitals to only life-saving surgeries as of Sept 30, 2021. I was scheduled for early November of 2021.  Hah!  Due to the Omicron variant, I am still waiting as of today, Jan 24, 2022.  Best the hospitals can tell me is hopefully in March 2022.  So I spent A LOT of time flat on my back trying to relieve the pain and since I am still waiting, I still am spending a lot of time reading books.  Thank goodness for books, especially Audible.com.  

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noad Narari

Second Skin by Paul J. McAuley

The Cold Millions by Jess Walter

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngoni Adichie

Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates

Missing You by Harlan Coben

Run Away by Harlan Coben

Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe by Seven H. Strogatz

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

Sympatizant by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Win by Harlan Coben

Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different by Chuck Palahniuk

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Perestroika in Paris by Jane Smiley

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan

The Silence of the Wiltng Skin by Tlotle Tsamaase

Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures With Wolf-Birds by Bernd Heinrich

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard

Don't Let Go by Harlan Coben

Yearbook by Seth Rogan

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

The Invention of Sound by Chuck Palahniuk

Blood Memory by Greg Iles

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The Queen's Prophet by Dawn Patitucci

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

The Pale-Faced Lie by David Crow

Sherlock Holmes: The Rediscovered Railway Mysteries and Other Stories by John Taylor

Good Morning Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories by Catherine Gildiner

Call Me by Your Name by Andre Caiman

The Human Stain by Philip Roth

The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create The World's Greatest Drinks by Amy Stewart

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig 

The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam M. Grant

Natchez Burning by Greg Iles

The Bone Tree by Greg Iles

Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles

Influenza: The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History by Jeremy Brown

Blindness by Jose Saramago

The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West

Utopia by Thomas More

Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

The Chain by Tobias Wolff

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Dune by Frank Herbert

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon by Malcolm Gladwell

Flight by Sherman Alexie

Sacajawea by Joseph Bruchac

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Suspect by Robert Crais

The Birchwood House by Louise Erdrich

The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind's Gravest Dangers by Ali S Khan

A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Caravans by James A. Michener

THE CRICKET OF MOROCCO

One cricket in my bathroom,

It sang to me last night.

But as it goes, with me, I needed to see it, 

look at its structure, its colors, textures,

examine how it makes such a beautiful song with its wings,

or legs or whatever it uses.

So I crawled out of my bed, silently as possible with my tired, camel-worn butt.

I tiptoed toward the bathroom where I was sure I’d see a shiny, ebony body 

Similar to the renowned crickets back home in the Utah desert.

I knew he would be hunkered down 

with his black armored coat highlighted against the dirty red floor.

He would be magnificently beautiful for he was singing to me and only me.

Prominently sitting right there in the middle of the cement tiles,

my cricket would be patiently waiting, eager,

And I will see him, and he will see me 

and we will share a moment of being one with each other

before he saunters off to his lonely, cold desert home,

outside, beyond my personal space.

I flowed with love for this as yet unseen cricket.

I had not yet discovered him, 

but I knew precisely how the beautiful story of this cricket and myself would flow.

I crept closer to the sequined rug hanging over the opening into the bathroom.

Gently I lifted one corner of the carpet as quietly as possible,

And I peered in.

The cricket sang on, seeming louder as if he were as excited to meet me 

as I was to meet him.

But no cricket sat in the middle of the red floor, 

at least that I could see in the partial moonlight spilling from the window.

Maybe if I hurried to get a light and quickly turned it on, 

the cricket would be startled, freezing in place, 

and we’d have our eye to eye contact, our moment together.

After a meaningful exchange through our melded eyes, 

I would gently lead him outside to find his cricket friends.

Back to my bed, I tiptoed to find the flashlight on my small bedside table.

I groped around, trying not to make any noise, 

Feeling with my anxious fingers for the device I had left there.

The light was bright and startled me when I remembered how to turn it on.

Blinking, I crept back to the sequined carpet door once again.

Holding the light up out of the way, I quietly pushed the heavy rug to the side,

spraying the warm glow into the small bathroom.

The little cricket instantly terminated his song.

Thinking it to be frozen in fear behind the toilet, sink or shower pan,

I gently and thoroughly examined every inch of the dusty red floor with my light.

There was nothing that appeared dark, crickety, or even alive.

Always being one to jump on an opportunity, I turned off the flashlight,  

sat on the toilet as I would probably need to before this night ended.

 “I might as well make this expedition as useful as possible.” 

Within a few seconds of turning off the light, his chirping began again. 

I knew he was right there in the room with me.

He was so loud and so close I could feel the vibrations of his moving aria. 

Quickly I finished my business, 

remembering to put the toilet paper in the bucket as

 “Only what comes out of you goes down the toilet and into the sewer,”

But, as soon as I turned the light back on, the chirping ceased` again.

“Well, that’s it, no cricket sighting. There will be no conversation tonight.

I tried,” I roared to the little guy, who had no idea of what he was missing, 

He was refusing a chance to meet me, 

to see this noblewoman to whom he was serenading.

When I was snuggled back in bed, 

Mr. Cricket, feeling remorseful for being so reticent, 

played me a romantic lullaby as an apology until I fell to sleep.

THE END

Picture of the cabins made of Moroccan carpets

FALLING DOWN

It’s easy to fall down

I could just let go

Rolling, tumbling, going to someplace I don’t know or care about.

Is it as easy to let go as just falling?

I find strings of my heart

Stretched like bungee cords pulled to their limit. 

Some have suddenly released with a violent snap.

Yet more strings appear, 

pulling me back when I try to let go.

It’s easier to fall, that’s what I think I’ll do

Just fall

And then roll, with gravity doing all the work.

When I hit bottom, perhaps I’ll stay or

Maybe I’ll dust myself off and walk to a new place.

For now, falling and rolling within the sand seems so comforting.

The Earth holding my body dear and close

Telling me all will work out.

Just let go –

Let nature pull strings and find me a new beginning.

But, I can’t help wondering,

What if I were as tenacious as that tuff of desert grass?

See that clump of grass over there?

Ah, but it is slowly being covered by the sand

Covered and consumed because it won’t just let go and fall.

                                 MY RELIGION      By BBWrighter2020

I’m not the praying kind of person. I don’t admire any deity if there is one, a God, I mean. Why would she want humans to waste time in prayers? 

“Get busy, get something done!” she would say. 

Wouldn’t it be better to insist on multi-tasking instead of wasting time in meaningless prayer? 

Instead of prayer, one should self-talk or meditate while performing any one of human’s necesssary tasks.

 I have recently decided that if I have to show honor to a higher power, then I wish to honor REAL power. This power, for me, is the power that forms the universe, builds all of us, and controls all our needs.

I shall honor and worship the atom.

The atom is the building block of all matter. Matter makes up everything, from humans to our Earth and everything on it. The matter is of what all the stars and planets in the entire universe are made.

But I agree, it would be a pretty big task to worship every atom in the universe, so I think I’ll praise the holy trinity of atoms: two hydrogens and one oxygen. These three atoms together form the magnificent, the immortal, the ubiquitous WATER molecule.

Water is the giant among all the molecular compounds which elemental atoms form.

Water is an anomaly. Why is it called an anomaly?  That means it is different, not like other molecules.  For starters, this little water molecular is a universal solvent. It can dissolve or breakdown just about any substance given enough time. Then water can transport those suspended pieces to other places. The Earth would be a nearly static, unchanging planet without the eroding and depositing ability of water. Over time water creates and destroys mountains and fills up valleys.

Another anomaly of water is that being one of the very smallest of all molecules in existence, even smaller than most of the other elemental atoms. Water can easily flow in and out of the cells of living things. It flows all on its own, going from places of high concentration to areas of low concentration, thereby regularly supplying cells with all the water they need without these cells having to spend any energy. Then that same water can move back out of a cell all on its own also, thereby all the processes of life can proceed being suspended in the miracle molecule.

Water also absorbs a lot of heat; it has one of the highest specific heats among common substances. Therefore, water can absorb loads of heat before it rises in temperature. Then water holds onto that heat for a long time before releasing it very slowly over time. This one little fact keeps snow from melting too suddenly in the springtime as the air temperatures rise in the mountain. The slowing melting snow can better ensure a steady supply of river water throughout the dry summer days.

And weirdly, water is the only compound that expands when it freezes, so frozen water takes up more space making it less dense. Therefore, ice floats instead of sinking to the bottoms of lakes, streams, and oceans. The floating frozen water insulates the water below and keeps deep waters from completely freezing and therefore killing all the life in those oceans, lakes, and reservoirs.

Well, that is a small glimpse of my respect for the water molecule and its marvelous, almost magical abilities.

So welcome to my church, go ahead and jump into the pool. Lay back and float. Feel the power with me of my personal spiritual and omnipresent God as it supports, cools, and restores your body. 

Pray with me, but work while you do pray, get some work done. Water cannot do everything for you. 

My favorite sound?

I just identified it, just this moment. 

I’ve never voiced it, but deep within my heart, I knew that sound immediately upon re-hearing it a few nights ago, and I felt again the serenity it gives me. 

I have named it, so it now exists.

This sound and darkness are braided together in my memory, rich blackness, warm and cozy as a handmade flannel quilt kind of darkness. 

I can sense familiar smells wafting from a deep, down pillow in which my head still lies when I am comfortable. To be nestled deeply while in those precious moments before entirely awake, surrounded by air warmed and dense with a lover’s breath, I love to search for it before coaxing my still clumsy mind to process a new day. 

I admit I have always sought this noise, between the darkness of sunset and sunrise, but rarely of lately have I found it.

It’s not the chirp of hungry morning finches, although so pleasant a greeting for the day. 

It’s not the sound of multiple syncopated ticking alarm clocks marking my wasting of time.

Nor is it the sound of early risers stomping beneath my window, hustling to begin their day.

My favorite music is the delicate breathing of a slumbering partner, the rhythmical pulling in of air, then the lower pitch of warmed air released from within their soul followed by a brief silence before beginning again. The relentless proof of life. 

At first, this sound belonged to my husband, whose sleeping breath I searched for in the loneliness of my insomnia.

I felt comfort in hearing his nearby breathing.

My husband left, and the sound was gone, but not truly missed because of the funny sounds of my cat’s half-purr and half-snore. This cat gratefully insisted on sleeping near me and I adored the nightly performance.

My cat died over a year ago, and until now, I hadn’t realized how much I missed finding the sounds of slumber in the darkness of nighttime. I must have given up because, until now, I had forgotten all about my love for that sweet noise.

Until just these past few nights as I share a room with my best friend on our travel adventure. I lay last night trying to go to sleep, wondering why I found her breathing on the other side of the room so fascinating. Then it hit me; I had found the gift of a sound my heart so loves. 

On this trip I am able, once again, to feel the pleasure and comfort of knowing someone whom I love is alive and near me, and I am not alone.