Musings from a hammock

I am lying in a hammock at a place where memories are made. While lying here I can hear shrieks and squeals from the kids although they might just as well be from the woman I have been married to for close to 49 years. In the meadow behind me there is a small pond with frogs, salamanders and tadpoles. Janene has taken the kids up there while the fishing is slow and they are all slogging around in the muck. They will come back with leeches and rock rollers and mosquito bites, but they are all insanely happy.

The first time I came here I was following my father through the trees. We had just parked the car on a dirt road away from the logging trucks. The area had just been clear cut and we had passed sign after sign saying things like "These trees were cut in 1951" and "They will grow back" or something pretty close to that. My dad said we were going fishing but all I can see is tree stumps as far as the eye can see. Dad says he knows where he is going, but we just keep climbing the hill. Then suddenly we are going downhill through a beautiful meadow with frogs, salamanders and tadpoles -  and trees. Then I see it. There is a beautiful lake with pine covered islands and a view of the mountains beyond.

This must be heaven I think to myself. I have heard my grandpa call it God's country so this must be heaven. My dad opens up the tackle box and I hear some muttering and exclamations as Dad realizes that we don't have any flies with us. Even I know that you can't catch fish without flies, but Dad comes up with the idea to take our peanut butter sandwiches and put the peanut butter on treble hooks and try to fish that way. It doesn't work and I don't think we caught any fish, but that doesn't matter. My Dad just brought me to heaven.

Today I just followed the same route, not a trail, to this location with grandkids in tow. It has been 60 years since that first day and I know every rock and tree stump along the way including the arched rock crossing the brook we call the troll bridge. And I am remembering all the times we have been here over the years with our kids, their kids and with my parents.

My dad taught me how to cast a line out to the channel in this lake where the fish are. I taught my kids how to do the same and now they do it better than me. Our family has come here for years, my brother, my sisters, even my Mom loved to come here in her later years when her health improved.

We almost always fish from the exact same spot. It has the crazy dead tree that eats up fishing tackle.

I never tried to climb it, but the grandkids try, and a few have fallen from the branches. We get to watch soaring eagles as they fly in search of their afternoon meals. We eat our on meals by a rock on the shore and talk about all the fish that got away and the problems we left in the valley.

In a way, this is where we grow up. The kids learn new skills, and create memories that will last a lifetime.

I can hear the kids coming back. They have tales of adventure from the meadow. They have found a rockroller with leaves and bark stuck to it instead of rocks. They have stories to tell about how they fell in the pond, how Rachel found a totally new (to her) wildflower that looks like an elephant's head and they want to fish some more. Next week, Tyler will catch a fish that he wants to clean himself and cook himself and eat himself. Including the eyeballs. The kids can prove they are not afraid of anything.

Each one has learned to catch fish, how to untangle a fishing line, how to cast farther than grandpa, and learned to find their own way along the trail without having to be carried.

My Mom can no longer come here, but her headstone is engraved with this place. This place where our family learns to live together. I can hardly wait to go back.

From '68 to 68

It was 1968. The Summer of Love. President Johnson had just announced he would not seek another term in office and there was excitement about a new direction for the country. Then Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, dashing the hopes for black equality. My favorite candidate for president, Robert Kennedy was gunned down the day before my 15th birthday. There were riots in the streets. The National Guard had fired into a crowd of demonstrators in Ohio, killing some and injuring others. It was a scary time for America.

But I had just turned 15 and had my whole life planned out. I was going to be a geologist. Though still in junior high, I had enrolled in a summer science class at Bountiful High that promised to take me on geology field trips where I would learn all about fossils, minerals, and- just maybe - I could find my own dinosaur. I was such a geek.

Part of my plan was to earn enough money to pay for my own schooling so I got a real job. I was bussing tables and washing dishes at Francesco's. I was making a whopping $1.10 an hour. If I worked enough hours, I was able to buy my own clothes at Keith O'Brien's and was able to pay for the summer science class.

The science class was already everything I hoped it would be. I had learned all about Lake Bonneville, had found my own brachiopods, and now found myself on a ridgetop east of Coalville hunting for fossil oysters. Two of my friends were with me and we ran into two girls who were also part of the class. I recognized one of them. She was the same girl who I had seen the year before singing a solo at South Davis Junior High. She was 16 and in high school now (she could drive!) with long brown hair and soft brown eyes. She was my dream girl and there she was (sigh) BUT she was hanging out now with my friend Cliff who was showing off the fossils he had found. 

By the time we were heading back home in the bus, Cliff was sitting with her while I was sitting with her friend. As she got off the bus at Grand Central to walk home, Cliff started telling me how cool she was and that she was now his girlfriend. I was crushed. Had I blown it already? I hardly got to say two words to her. I vowed that I would figure out where she lived and would sit by her on the next field trip. 

That was the beginning. We sat next to each other on every next trip. We sat next to each other in class and pretty soon she was my girlfriend - Cliff was not my friend anymore, but it was a good trade. We would go on to date each other until I graduated from high school when we got married. It has now been 52 years since that summer and I still get to sit by her all the time. 

Today is her birthday. I am so glad that I met her when I did. We have grown up together and learned a whole lot during that time. We have had six kids together of our own and added two more to our family. Each of these has brought us great joy and now we are blessed with more grandkids than we can count, many of whom are now older than we were when we first met.

I am not a geologist. but I got my dream anyway. Happy Birthday Janene . My Dream Girl. 

Thoughts on Seeing My Headstone in the Paper

There it was. I opened the paper to find news of our community and there it was. That was my headstone featured in the article on Memorial Day. Of course, I never think of it as "my" headstone. This is always referred to as David's headstone or David's grave. But there it was. Big. Bold. "PHIILIPS". The only name you could really read on the headstone was mine. The flowers obscured Janene's name, thankfully, and David's name is in the shadow. It was unsettling to say the least.

We had just spent the weekend visiting the graves of people we know and love. There was David's for sure, but we also walked a hundred feet over to my Mom's grave to place a flag similar to David's. My name is on that headstone also. I shiver every time I see that. Next to my headstone is Janene's Mom and Dad's. We spent a lot of time this last year making sure everything is right with that one. Janene's name is on that one too. We, with some of our grandkids visited other graves nearby. My grandfather and grandmother's are close. So is grandma's parent's headstone and their parent's. And their parent's. The boy who lived next door. The neighbor down the street who just took up occupancy in this little subset of Bountiful residents who now reside in a new subdivision where nobody plays their music too loud, the kids don't ride the streets, and no one talks to anyone on their front porches.

I think to myself that I do not look forward to moving there anytime soon. I like talking to my neighbors. I like the sound of kid's laughter wafting through the neighborhood. I am even OK with the noisy neighbors and their teenage pool party kids and the barking dogs. Certainly I know that this is not where I will really live after this life, but I still don't look forward to spending too much time in this particular Bountiful neighborhood with my name carved onto the stone rooftop - with newspaper photographers snapping pictures of my newfound home.