The Old Mission Home

We entered the Mission Home Training Center for our two week stay prior to departing for our assignments. The mission home, made up of an old hotel near the corner of North Temple and State Street, was located across from Temple Square. My five room mates and I all shared a corner room overlooking State Street with a clear view of Apple Annie as she walked up and down the street in front of us taunting the missionaries as they came to and fro. I must admit some of us took to taunting her back and throwing apples at her from the windows on the second floor.

All six of us where departing for the same mission including Don. Don like myself was the youngest sibling in his family. We had fallen out of contact for a few years but upon both of our mission calls, discovered we were both being called to the same mission on the same day. Darn that Sister Kinnelly who predicted we would serve together.

Don was not quite as organized as the rest of us and never bothered to make his bed up. We took to helping him (sort of) by making his bed one day. We really short sheeted him, when he walked in on us and quested, “what are you guys doing?” I had the duty to inform him his bed was closest to the door and always looked bad so we, as his brethren, were helping him. After closing the day that eve and with the lights out, it took him a while to figure it out why he couldn’t quite fit in his bed and just stood there looking befuddled…. Until we all bust out laughing.

After the two weeks of training in the basement of the Old Hotel Utah, (now Joseph Smith Building) we returned to our Host family (Davidson’s of Millcreek) the evening prior to our departure for the mission field. The evening, with weather changing and while jogging along the street with Don, I stepped into an undulation, tripped and landed on my chin, splitting it open. Wow, with blood all over my clean white shirt they rushed me back to the Mission Home, in a vehicle with a snow plow attached to the front, where the Mission President (an MD as well as my girlfriend’s Uncle) stitched me up. I was destined to arrive the next evening in Vancouver with a huge bandage on my chin.

Much has changed in the 40+ years since those days. Salt Lake has continued to grow outwards. The distant suburbs are now close in and once country fields are filled with new homes. Salt Lake would host the world with the Olympics in 2002 and Downtown would grow upward with many new high rise buildings. The store on the corner and the Old Mission Home, as well as the Desert Gym up the hill are all gone, making way for the Church Conference Center. The Mission Home, now called the MTC is located in Provo. My chin healed up. Don and I returned home married and raised our families. My mission home companion, Elder McFarland passed way the next year a victim of an auto accident and I would later meet his nephew as he served in my home ward providing information and pictures to his family. Life doesn’t stand still and things change as life rolls on. Make sure you write these memories down so they can live on for generations to come.

Puyehue, Andes, Chile, Travel

When I was 9 years old, I recall having a foreign exchange student join our class who was from the far off country of Chile. I recall the teacher coming into our class and telling us that he and his family had fled the country when their entire city (Valdivia) had been destroyed by an earthquake (9.5 – largest earthquake ever recorded) that caused tidal waves that reached far across the pacific to Hilo and Waipio, Hawaii. I remembered learning not only about the destruction not only from the quake but also of the seven volcano’s surrounding the area that were rumbling and erupting. When Jake Mom and I traveled to Chile at the completion of Jakes mission we had the opportunity to see Valdevia (rebuilt) the surrounding farmland turned to marshlands after sinking 10’. We also traveled inland to observe the beautiful Andes mountains consisting of many sleeping volcanoes. Yesterday, Volcan Puyehue erupted again for the first time since 1960 spreading ash and rock as far as 100 miles to the east in Argentina. Soon the winter snow of the area will cover the ash and rock and all will be washed away in the Spring melt. Note the attached picture of the peaceful looking mountain that came to life. As you walk about in your lives, take the time to look around, smell the roses, take pictures and witness history as it takes place.




As always,

Dad

Lofthill Drive

Lofthill Drive 1958 1959

When I was eight years old and as the city of Los Angeles expanded outward, my family left the city for the suburbs, settling in La Mirada, California. My dad would drive the old Santa Ana Freeway through traffic to downtown drop off my mother and then off to UCLA where he worked, and then back again at the end of the day.

Prior to moving, they looked at many of the new homes in the area ranging in price from $10 to $18,000, settling on the Cape Cod model half way up a hill at the price of $15,000. Having just moved from and apartment into this brand new home, I thought it was so large yet by today’s standards it was not.

My elementary school (Eastwood) was under construction just up the hill and as young men we would walk up the hill to the school site and slide down the un-landscaped hill on sheets of cardboard or plywood. The year was 1958 and we said that we were inventing a new sport we called skurfing. Many years later as my children grew, I learned of a new winter sport called snow boarding, which encompassed the same ideas and techniques as skurfing.

My first visit to the principal’s office occurred at Eastwood when I instilled fear in the hearts of my fellow students by spreading rumors of the dreaded Mr. Takamoto being a left over Japanese spy from war time days. In actuality, Mr. Takamoto was a handicapped gentleman who suffered greatly as an internee during the war. I can recall the signs advertising the new developments, “Vets, $1 moves you in.” Our mailman was another victim of the recent war in that he only had one arm. I was amazed that he was able to sort the mail in his bag with just a stump for an arm. Being so close the end of WW II we were in the midst of a huge baby boom with children in every home on the block. All of us children had a fathers who had served. They shared their stories away from our ears late in the evenings as they passed time drinking beer and playing cards.

Just down the hill was the Orange County line and the city ended with open fields and hills from there to Buena Park 5 miles away. The view was spectacular and every evening we would sit on our porch and watch the fireworks from Disneyland a few more miles down the Santa Ana freeway to the south.

The long block was often filled with the kids on the block having fun. The most fun being, wagon training. We would pull our wagons (everyone had one) to the top of the hill, tie them all together and start a run down the hill much to the horror of our parents. As a car would back out a drive way, we would turn into the hill and tumble from our wagons making horrible yells accompanied by laughter.

Times turned hard and my dad lost his job in 1959 and forced our move from the two story house back to a small apartment in Culver City. It seemed that it was so hard on my family that we snuck away in the middle of the night and just let the bank take our house back. Recently as I attended the memorial service for my nephew Chris. After 50 years, I had the opportunity to go back to the old neighborhood. The house is still there. The hill is just a small rise, our skurfing run is now heavily landscaped and the open fields are all gone. The neighborhood has grown up and a new generation of children now inhabits the hood. I wager however that they don’t have the fun that we had, way back then.