Heritage

I am giving a talk Sunday. Not because I planned it. I am conducting and I have limited phone numbers to branch members, a few would not return my calls, some are going out of town this week, and so I decided to just make it easy on myself.

Since it's Pioneer Day we decided the topic would be Heritage. I feel guilty but I get so tired of hearing about pioneers coming west and all their struggles. I truly believe they struggled, had great faith in Jesus Christ, and gave their all to obtain religious freedom and build up Zion.

But you know what, if you look back in our own families, we have pioneers, too. Maybe they just moved to a new town or changed careers which brought them together with the right mates, or maybe they sacrificed comfort or other things to bring us into the world. I am MORE grateful to them for that than for all the pioneers who are NOT my ancestors. None of my ancestors came west in wagon trains to "Zion" or Utah. Not one that I know if. If some did, God bless 'em and I am thankful for them. But they are no different to me than my Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Boyd, who were born in the 1870s and who I remember as a child, or my Grandpa and Grandma McDaniel, whose house I used to visit when I was a boy, or my Grandpa Sparky and Grandma Zelda whose house me and the nunyuns used to ransack regularly. Come to think of it, their house reminds of Hogwarts with all the hiding places, nooks, crannies, and secret passageways.

Or my parents who, each in their own way, pioneered their way into my heart.

Let me share just a few things about each of them.

Grandpa Boyd was old. I mean a bag of wrinkles. I remember him always in a suit, sitting on our porch in San Diego, the house where I turned two and where I fell from the porch and got a concussion. Where Danny stepped on the nail and it came out the top of his foot. I used to sit on Grandpa's lap. He was my dad's grandpa. Grandma Boyd was old. I remember when I was six seeing a picture of her on her wedding day with Grandpa, from 1899. I was stunned. I could tell that was Grandpa, because of his high cheekbones and rather gaunt features, though I didn't think, "Gosh, Grandpa looked gaunt even then." But Grandma, wow. Wow a looker.

She died when I was about 7. We used to invade her house in Pueblo and eat the breakfasts she cooked on her old wood stove. Eggs, bacon, sausage, gravy, biscuits, all the Southern cooking. Her people had come from Murphy, NC and over the ridge in Monroe County, TN, both of which places I've been to a lot. So she brought her Southern ways to Colorado. In fact, her father's name was John MURPHY Alexander and he was from Murphy.

I remember asking her about her life. I was interested in becoming an astronaut and so technology was interesting to me. This must have been about a year or two before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I said, "Grandma, what was it like to ride in a stage coach when you got married?"

"Well, that's how we did things, then. We rode the stage to Pueblo and then rode the train to Denver."

"What was like like when cars were invented?"

"Oh, it was just a fad, we said. It'll never last."

"What did you think when airplanes were invented?"

"Oh, it's just another fad. It'll never last."

"Now what do you think about going to the moon?"

"Now isn't that something?!"

She always gave me a penny and a kiss. A penny didn't go far even then, and she smelled old. But I loved her and permitted it. I would have been disappointed if she didn't kiss me.

I remember less of Grandpa and Grandma McDaniel. I do remember that Grandpa had so much hair. I have never seen that much hair on a man, let alone an old man. And it was pure white. It was rather straight, perhaps a bit wavy, and he could have been a nice Mark Twain, with no mustache. Also, they looked like they could have been taken from a Dust Bowl photograph. They raised their ten children during the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression and then WWII. My mother's oldest sister could have been her mother for age.

Grandpa and Grandma lived in Ramona, CA in the desert when we lived in San Diego. Mom would take us out there to see them and eat dinner with them. I remember driving in our old station wagon with no AC in summer in the SoCal desert. I had terrible hay fever and once my nose was running like a sieve. I just wiped it away on my arm being 4 years old. When we got there, I looked at my arms and I was covered in blood. Both arms, my clothes, the car. Dried blood. It was so hot, my nose started bleeding and I just let it run, not realizing it was not normal old snot.

Lunch at their house was always home cooking. No fast food places in Ramona. I always like Grandma's green beans. I was always confused because sometimes people called them green and sometimes string.

Grandpa would serve me up food and always gave me too much, which I liked. Grandma would let me play with her hair curlers. The little rubber ones you could turn inside out and put on the table and they would pop up in the air. Mom would let me do that for a bit, but then I had to pay attention to eating. Grandpa just laughed at me. I remember his nice smile. Grandma was a bit more stern, but not mean. She had been a teacher and had to have rules. I always felt loved.

Grandpa Sparky always had a laugh and smile for us. I liked him. Later as a teen and young man I saw his weaknesses, but I think only because he lived long enough for me to notice. Still, he was always kind to me and joked around a lot. He and my parents taught me to play pinochle and they gave no quarter. I hate charity, anyway, and they ripped me a new one each time I played. Kind of like Cindy does now, ahem. I suck at games.

Grandma Zelda had severe diabetes and was bed ridden for much of my growing up years. She would let us play in her wheelchair and I learned to spins and wheelies and she would just laugh at us. It seemed like, even in their little house, we were welcome to just make a mess and be loud and have fun. Their upstairs rooms were dinky, I'm certain, but us nunyuns would play up there for hours and hours. They had an extra room and we just piled in there and had sleepovers.

We would tell scary stories up there and then I couldn't sleep that night. Oh, well. Live and learn.

I remember when we found out that Grandma died. I was about 8 or so, and Uncle Bob took the call and started bawling. It made me sad and scared to see him that way because he seldom was upset, that I remember. I cried, too, and then asked what happened. When they told me it broke my heart, I loved her so much.

They had joined the church in Rye, Colorado, when the traveling elders came through. About once a year they came through and baptized people, who then promptly went inactive with no church to attend. Seemed like a poor plan to do that, to me. Uncle Bob and Uncle George joined at one point, too.

This brought my ancestors into contact with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They had been good Christians before, God bless 'em, and this was the next step for them.

Later, when I was about 3, Uncle Bob sent the missionaries to my parents in San Diego. Thank you Uncle Bob. At first, they were not interested, then later the elders returned (it pays to be persistent with your friends and family, especially family) and Mom joined. Dad did not, then.

The rest of the story is too long to tell here. But here are a few things I learned from my parents, my heritage:

Mom:

Play the tape

Laugh. Hard. A lot. Until you cry.

Stay faithful, even when things look very dark, indeed. It will work out for good.

Love others.

If you can't something nice about someone, it's probably because they are useless. [I'm paraphrasing.]

Dad:

"If it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well." [I should do this more.]

Laugh. Hard. A lot. Especially when things look very dark, indeed. It will work out for good.

When you are in pain from cancer and you know you are going to die, you are a coward if you commit suicide. You must laugh and help others to feel better about their problems.

Be proud of your children and go to their stuff as often as your two full time jobs will permit.

Wrestle with your boys until they get strong enough to beat you, but make sure they understand that no matter how old or how sick you get, they will NEVER be able to kick your butt.

If you go on this mission thing, you'd better stay the whole time and not come home early. I mean it. And make your family and the church proud. I mean it.

***

My heritage includes my brothers, who I love like....bro..ther..s. My favorite saying as a teenager was, "NOBODY picks on my brothers but ME!" And I still feel that way. Two things I love about them is Danny's self deprecating humor, which endears him to everyone, and Duane's love of life and ability to see the humor like Dad.

Now I have sisters I never had growing up, daughters I would die or kill for, grandchildren I laugh at constantly, and Cindy, without whom I would be lost. I can never write enough about her, so won't here.

Oh, yeah, and our in-laws, and friends. Don't think I don't care about you guys. I just ran out of steam. No, really, I did. Must be the extra pill.