Elgin State Hospital Part VI

So this is the last post, last thing I have to say about Elgin State Hospital and my interlude there as a summer nursing intern. You know, there isn't even an Elgin State Hospital anymore. And I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

Some good things from there and then I have taken with me. Some great examples. Like Pat's family. An example I have long remembered. I loved Pat, though highly anxious about things in general, she was lucid, intelligent and a practical doer. She was middle aged, and had been married briefly when young, though not happily.  Think she said they'd eloped on a train?  Or maybe she met some guy on a train to Denver and got impulsive.  I'm wanting to blame the train somehow.  Anyway, no kids. Following her divorce, things were rocky and she didn't think she could handle the outside world on her own. I'm not sure how long she had been institutionalized.  Probably longer than I'd been alive.  But every second Sunday afternoon her ex and his second wife would bring their family to visit Pat.

In all my experience at this institution, I never saw more than a handful of visitors---total. Forgotten, forsaken, I would think that covered many of the abandoned souls I saw there. I'm sure some people got visited, just sayin' I never saw it much at all. But this ordinary and, to me, remarkable man and woman unfailingly came with picnic lunches and gave this woman a life! I can't imagine how easy it would be to forget your divorced spouse of long ago, with no shared children to tie you to one another. And to be a second wife and willingly set aside a couple weekends a month year after year to visit my husband's ex? I'm not sure I have that bone. But I'm hoping for a transplant, because I know who I want to be when I grow up.

This was a hard place in many ways.  Tough lessons along the way.  Things to learn.  Like- I am indelibly, eternally in contempt of psychotropic drugs, I scorn them vehemently, even if they help a few, the damage humanity has suffered is so egregious that they should be wiped from the face of the earth.  And I'm saying that as nicely as I can. 

Then.  Kindness is #1, sense of humor #2.  I do know the most enduring thing I took from my time there is the even deeper realization than before that we are indeed all human, all deserving of love and attention, even respect.  We are all responsible for each other.  And the most valuable lesson learned there for me was that those who got involved in looking out for the other guy and got out of their own little worlds were the happiest.  Who's to say that was possible for everyone to do?  I'm not sure some could even make that choice.  Actually I'm sure that was a bridge too far for many.  But it became apparent that those who could break out of their own private concerns, obsessions, worlds if only momentarily, and reach out to help others in even the most trivial of ways from lighting a cigarette for another to sharing your sweater or sandwich, were no longer living in hell at that point, though their bodies may well have been imprisoned in this bizarre scenario.

I think I need to borrow a page from their books. I trust all these years later they, and those they loved and served, are held very close in God's arms. Perhaps they always were.

Elgin State Hospital Part V

Part of being trusted to take care of others who on some level cannot take care of themselves means really protecting the vulnerable. And who is more vulnerable than the dead? And the "mentally incapacitated" dead at that?

Don't think so?

One beautiful and perfect Sunday morning I woke up and quickly got ready for work. When I got to the cottage I was assigned to, it was just to be me and this portly little Grandma type aide for the day. She busied her bespectacled self with paperwork and I got in motion getting the gals ready to go for breakfast. But when I tried to rouse one woman to get up and get going, my chipper admonitions seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Whoops, drop the "f".  Change that to dead ears, because I immediately realized she was no longer with us as I neared the bed. It was shocking, seeing as this was a really nice normal seeming woman in her late 30s who had just checked herself in for a week or two of self imposed rest. Who does that? Nobody I had ever heard of. Maybe it was cheaper than Howard Johnson's, and at that place it was pretty much guaranteed that no hovering relatives would show up to visit and use the pool. I remember reading she had a 10 year old son, and I was devastated for him.

I went and told my colleague and she must have called someone. But I don't recall anyone coming. Not a doctor, not an ambulance, not a soul. For awhile. That's how Sunday mornings are at such places--skeleton crew! Somehow it was up to me to pack the body then and prepare it for removal from the premises. I was not unaccustomed to dead bodies, having worked in hospitals since I was 13, and I had dealt with some aspects of being there when death came, or in the morgue thereafter. Whatever, it had never been my task heretofore to stuff cotton into body cavities to keep "things" from coming out. Well, that was then and this was now. So I stuffed my first body. But that's not the weird part.

It didn't get a little surreal until "they" came to pick up the body and take it to the Elgin State Hospital Morgue. I was told I got the honor of accompanying the body there to protect it. The driver, a cordial old man, and two more trusted male patients showed up to get us. Ok, I got in the dated ambulance/hearse with the body bag and the 3 men. The morning was still fresh and achingly gorgeous, birds were gaily singing, and the total disconnect from reality came as we disembarked from the vehicle and the driver unlocked the door to the vacant building.

The sunshine behind my back evaporated as the door was locked from the inside so we would have no interference as we completed our mission. As we started down that stairs to the dark basement morgue, it grabbed me that here I was, a little teeny bopper, with 3 strange men- possibly VERY STRANGE- and I was protecting a female corpse from necrophilia, or molestation, or just improper stares.  "But who's going to protect me?" something inside me wailed.   I was going down, down, down into the bowels of an empty building surrounded by other empty buildings, no human beings around who could even begin to hear a scream, and I knew I was at the mercy of 3 large and possibly disturbed adult males.

They deposited the body without incident and moved away. One of the guys grinned at me sideways and then---suddenly!  Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch.... Ok, not exactly. But it was a little hard for me to breathe easily till we got to the top of the stairs and he unlocked the door so we could emerge into that welcoming sunshine again. No harm done. To anyone, dead or alive. By the time we got back to my Ward and they dropped me off, I may even have had a regular pulse. Heck, it didn't matter, I was just grateful to have a pulse!

So I'm older and wiser now, and if I'm ever in that situation again, I'm going to insist we draw straws to see who the body escort is. And if I get the short one, I'm not gonna play.

Elgin State Hospital Part IV

Yesterday I finished reading a volume of compiled psychiatric interviews of Nazi war criminals and witnesses (Nuremberg Interviews by Leon Goldensohn) and have come face to face with the obvious conclusion that we ALL are basically thinking we're pretty good guys in this life, NO MATTER WHAT WE HAVE DONE--we are just following orders, or just one lone person in a flood of events, or Christ Incarnate ourselves, or... rationalization, rationalization, rationalization. Since everything I read and learn tends to make me examine myself, I am a little unnerved.

Despite never having a scared bone in my body when working at Elgin State Hospital, there were some experiences that were disturbing to be part of. I felt bad then about them, I feel bad now.

Even though one of my duties was to escort patients different places, and mostly it was not an issue, there were those times.  Like the time I escorted a young woman to the circular medical building for electroshock therapy. I know it's not politically correct, but most of the people confined on the premises had "the look."  Like they belonged there. After being there a while, no wonder! But once in a while there would be someone whom you would have passed on the street and not noticed as anyone different. Such a person was this young woman, tall and attractive, well spoken. It made me uneasy to walk with her to a rendezvous that seemed formidable. She, however, felt differently and reassured me that this treatment was actually quite efficacious for her, helping stimulate her memory, or parts thereof. With visions of Frankenstein dancing in my head, I went the distance and checked her in. I wonder what I would have done had she balked and not led the way.

Equally unnerving was being assigned to a security car to drive into Chicago with a couple of officers to pick up a runaway patient at her home. Even though I knew her and her outlandish "quirks" and that her family couldn't cope with her problems, it's a shriveling feeling to be party to taking someone into custody and depriving them of freedom.

Whether it's a necessity or not. Holding the keys to another's freedom?

Takes some serious thought, unless one wants to resort to that time honored, "I was only following orders."

I don't think I like authority, whatever side of it I'm on. So when I had to go with someone to court to have them committed or their stay extended, I was more than edgy.

Although I probably had little insight as to what was the answer, I was pretty sure the doctors and judges were not much more enlightened than I.  Is that perception? Or the arrogance of youth?



One of the most haunting memories I have is of a smiling young black woman they brought in one day in a straight jacket. I have not seen a more radiant, joyful face. She was softly and serenely singing, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray. You'll never know dear how much I love you, please don't take my sunshine away." Over and over as she lay tied to that bed. Only HER sunshine had been extinguished by a madman of a husband who forced her and her tiny daughters to be sold in her own home to men for voyeuristic sexual perversion entertainment. She had cracked. Sometimes I thought I would as I heard her sweet voice singing those lyrics over and over and her story would wash all over me. That song still hurts my heart.

On the other hand, sometimes it felt good to know you made a difference. Mostly in small human kindnesses. Once in a while it could be dramatic though, like the afternoon I was bringing my ward in the Annex back from the coed lunch room.

Somehow a tall younger fellow had gotten ahead of me without my knowledge as I was rounding the last of my charges up, and by the time the rest of us got back into the area, he had jumped on top of one of the beds and was raping one of the younger women. Word to the wise here---not a particularly good idea to try and interrupt a rape without a weapon. And even then maybe 911 is best. But I didn't take the time to think and just yelled and grabbed him and pulled him off. Well, I was a hundred pounds, and he was a strapping 20-something guy, so how that worked, I don't know. But it does remind me of that quote, "Boldness has genius to it!" Maybe he just thought I had a gun because I was audacious. Maybe our voice at times is a weapon. Or perhaps the element of surprise carries a certain power with it.  Anyway, the culprit just backed away and disappeared and I didn't even write up a report. Think we were all too stunned to even acknowledge something strange had happened. Or maybe it wasn't all that out of the ordinary to anyone except  me.

I don't know if I have guilt or not in just being a part of this place. Excuses? We were understaffed--there were shifts where I would have an entire ward of scores of patients by myself the entire time. 18 and medically untrained, dealing out heavy duty meds, kind of serious responsibility. Not a good plan. I know I never mistreated anyone or was indifferent to them individually, but I didn't go too far out of my way to demand better mental health treatment in the country either. Status quo. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

Of course no record would be complete without mention of the star "One Flew Over The Cuckoos' Nest" persona non grata- our very own Nurse Ratchett. An older woman who worked in one of the Wards I often was assigned to- the self dubbed "Mama Gunther" was the day charge aide in Lowey Cottage (the aides ran many of the places, nurses must have been hard to come by, or comparatively expensive.)  After meds were dispersed and the mundane routines attended to, she would find a patient to devote some personal time to, and take them into the little office and lock the doors for long periods. Like my sweet sunshine singer. No one ever came out looking any better for the interlude, the block of focused attention.  It was these covert therapy sessions that she thrived on that were most disturbing.

But that was just one of her personal touches, and several staff members were aware of the suspicious idiosyncrasies of Mama Gunther and wanted to change the status quo. Everyone was a little protective of their jobs though, and seeing as I was temporary, I ended up being the one to write a letter to the Governor of Illinois outlining my concerns. Mama G ended up being transferred to an unlocked ward where there was a little more transparency, and seeing as she was a stone's throw from retirement, hopefully that was for a brief time.  I settled for that, but looking back, maybe that should have been just a first step.

The only other letter I wrote at this place was on my very last day when mixed emotions washed over me and I was overwhelmingly saddened to leave so many people I had truly come to love.

Equally so, I was "maddened"- that so many who could have better lives on the outside seemed doomed to live out their lives on this small stage. So I was dramatic in urging those who could to get out.  Move on!  As if it were easy.  I was young.

Looking back, I wonder if any of that kind of idealistic passion was what helped fuel places like that eventually closing their doors.  Was such zeal misplaced?  Or were the motivations more sinister? Looking around, I'm not so sure we made the kind of progress that we needed to with mental health. Far cry.

Elgin State Hospital Part III

Of course there's a lot of mundane in every job, I suppose. Clipping aged toenails comes to mind. In my teens I looked at that as a drawback. Likely I still would. But there were other considerations as well.

I worked swing shift at Elgin State Hospital, so for two weeks that was from 7 am till 3 in the afternoon, then 2 weeks from 3 till 11. The drawback on the morning shift was the adjusting I would have to do walking up to the buildings where I would work, trying to transition from the fragrant summer morning breeze to the harsh stench of urine that emanated from the structure and reached its crescendo as I neared the locked front door. The women only bathed once a week. That says it all.

Every time I had to force myself to put one foot in front of the other to trade that beautiful fresh start of a summer morning for the counterfeit experience awaiting me inside. But not so when I worked afternoons. Maybe the heat would be overbearing enough in the afternoon and the inside/outside contrast not quite as extreme between the two oppressive realities, so I could manage to get myself inside with less nausea.

But the drawback when I worked late was for my dad---not me. He would drive out to get me and show up a little before 11. And then he would hunker down. Guess that place was eerie at night---all the deserted grounds, and no other vehicles on those roads, no signs of life. Just the silence. And your imagination. Expectations of who could be out and about in the shadows. There he'd wait---my hero dad who had been a big brave soldier in the war, seen death and destruction in the battle fields and concentration camps of Europe 20 years before. But when I would reach for the handle on the car to get in... he would invariably jump a mile!  Darkness so deep, he could never see me approaching.  Breathe.                                                  
No audible screams, mind you, but his hands would grab the wheel as he was coming down from hitting his head on the car roof. And I could see his white knuckles glowing in that pervasive dark. I loved it! I was young and absolutely fearless, and somehow I felt like we'd switched roles for a moment, and it would be me who could protect this hunk of manhood from all the zombies of the night.

Hmmm, maybe the anticipation of that high was what made it easier to work the late shift.

Elgin State Hospital Part II

More, even,  than architecture and ambience, any place is really all about the people within. Even Elgin State Hospital. I am surprised by how vivid the faces are in my memory, though the names have vanished all these years later. People who walked around conversing with the voices in their heads, people who were in straight jackets tied to beds, people who were trusted enough to be out of the locked wards and buildings to run to the commissary or roam the grounds. Catatonic people, manic people, alcoholics with DTs trying to detox, really sweet people, truly dangerous people, tons and tons of people.

Wait, one name popped up---Ida Rabinowitz!  The tiniest of ladies, all of 4 feet (maybe with shoes on), she probably weighed as much as a plate of spaghetti, without meatballs.

Even though she was a day or two past middle age, and then some, there was something so young, so girlish about her. Her bobbed hairdo? Her seeming innocence? Standing on top of her bed, Ida would read the Bible and spew out scripture & commentary to the air; she was an avid Jehovah's Witness and somehow seemed current with JW events worldwide. Guess that old Watchtower can find you anywhere.

Barbara had a bed not far from Ida's. The youngest at 27 in this particular cottage, she was the daughter of a Chicago cop. The combative paranoid daughter of a cop. Constantly vehement about the FBI conspirators lurking outside the building hiding in the bushes, she would insistently be pointing out the enemy agents (shadows)  surrounding us.

Brusque and obnoxious, she kept the routine from ever being boring. Although one day Barbara caught me off balance when she emerged from the bathroom with tears in her eyes, grabbed me and fervently exclaimed, "Every time I go to bathroom and have a bowel movement, I praise the Lord for it!" Somehow I had never considered that an actual religious movement, but it was all about new horizons in that place.

Another woman in another cottage was unfailingly at the ready and irrepressibly cheerful, dressed and eager to greet her husband who, she pointed out, was just beyond the locked door at the curb.  "Look, right out there in the car, if you would please just unlock the doors now to let me go to him and we'll be out of your way." Every 4 or 5 minutes we would have this conversation whenever I walked through the common area. Hour after hour, day after day, year after year. Clicking her pocketbook open and shut.  Clicking her dentures.  She was relentlessly polite and buoyant, and never, I mean NEVER, gave it up. Positive attitude on steroids.  She made the Energizer Bunny look like the most lackluster of slackers. And she just wore me out.  She didn't strike and pinch me like another old woman sitting in her chair did, constantly screaming about the 3rd World War we were apparently in the middle of. And she didn't gross me out like the disarmingly cute little old lady who would pick up pieces of "chocolate" off the bathroom floor and kindly offer to share them with anyone in the sitting room. But... you simply couldn't keep Gladys down.

Of course there was that tall, slender, perennially anxious and downcast German woman who had some carryover from the 2nd World War---she had a hard time speaking distinctly, not just because of her accent---her tongue was cloven, and she would shake her head and moan about that awful Dr. Stiller, things she couldn't mention any details. I didn't know if she was a concentration camp survivor or not. Her own personal Holocaust or the universal one.  There were some things perhaps I just wasn't ready to hear.

One of the angriest patients came to be hospitalized the last summer I was there. Ann. She had been confined there evidently through her parents' doing. She was intelligent, assertive, convincing as to the gross miscarriage of justice it was for her to be there, and I was sympathetic to the point of helping her plan an escape.  I think I was enlisted.  May well have been drafted.

I may have been swayed by the fact that she was allegedly a member of the famous Second City in Chicago, according to the story. Didn't you have to be certifiable to be part of that scene? That bold escape didn't materialize before back to school did for me, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad. For her. For me...it kept me out of jail.

There were lots of other things that I'm not sure I am guilty of or should be proud of as I learned the ropes in this strange environment, but that's a discussion for next time.

Elgin State Hospital Part I

Recent events have called to mind my early Illini years of working summers at Elgin State Hospital. Ahhh, the glory days of mental illness, when people were warehoused in institutions rather than on the street. We've come a long way, baby!

When I was in elementary school we used to sing a clever little ditty about the inmates at 750 South State Street. Can't recall the words anymore, but I'm sure it was mocking and mean. Not my proudest moment. At the time we seemed to think that "those others" were so very opposite of us "normals". Fast forward to my late teens and after working with them and getting to know many patients there, I was no longer convinced of our differences, but amazed at how much we were alike, regardless of extreme, bizarre behavior. At that point it seemed crystal clear to me that it was all a matter of degree.

However, at the end of that spectrum were a lot of interesting manifestations. I wandered into this opportunity of close encounters of the strange kind the summer I was a college freshman. Somehow or other I qualified to be one of a handful of psychiatric aides in a pilot program. Come to think of it, I believe we were all nursing students. Probably this was an effort to get more nurses to specialize in an area that most were averse to.

Elgin State Hospital opened in 1872. In a history written for the commemoration of its 125th anniversary in 1997, I believe I read the patient population reached its zenith in the 50s---somewhere around 9-10,000. The grounds, nearly 1200 acres of rolling hills including a man made lake, were green and lush and beautiful, punctuated by buildings from different periods. Some 50s modern, some 20s cottage, some turn of the century grand scale---pretty imposing.

Like the Annex (small version of Central-the main bldg.) where I sometimes worked during my 3 summers of surreal employment. The intention from the start was to have the place be a tranquil setting to bring the treatment of the mentally ill out of the dark ages.

But it takes more than grass and trees and shelter to pull off that tall order, and there were many grim and awful things that transpired there. In the mid 20th century, ESH was a lab for psychotropic drug experimentation. Electric Shock Therapy, Cold Therapy, and random torture befell certain individuals who inhabited this place. It was the rare patient who was not drugged morning, noon, and night. Lithium and Thorazine were as ubiquitous as the hand rolled cigarettes that graced the lips of the bewildering faces there. It was a dangerous place for them to be.

It was a dangerous place for staff to be. Many patients were criminally insane with violent pasts and potentials. We were uninsurable. And for a reason. I knew nurses who were attacked and severely injured. It was no picnic. And yet there were light moments. Every day you had to laugh at something or other. Or cry. It was better to laugh when you could.  Not in a mean way like in elementary school, but in recognition of some of life's absurdity.

I always knew the timing for me to leave was perfect when summer was ending and I could return to the normalcy of college. I could tell it was getting to me, and the effect was not good. My opinion was that many of the staff who were there year after year had problems beyond those of those were legally committed. To begin with, many of the workers were uneducated and unaware. And those fine lines were often a blur. Those, the ones in authority, were the most dangerous of all because of the power they had over others in a vulnerable state. Isn't that always the way? {Disclaimer--many of the staff long timers were absolutely the most incredible people you would ever want to meet.}

Although nearly 1,000 souls are buried at the cemetery there, the only patient ever deemed "notable" in the official history--David Hyrum Smith, son of the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith--was confined there for 27 years. According to several sources, this may presently be the most haunted place in Illinois (try StrangeUSA), if you believe in that sort of thing. While I remember with great fondness many patients and staff, I think the haunting was in the flesh. My prayer is that those who were tormented have finally found great peace.

More later---     *5 subsequent posts about Elgin State Hospital followed in Jan, 2011

You'll Never Walk Alone

When you were on the very cusp of 20, Adam, we lost Grandpa Ernie, my sweet dad and best friend. This old world has never been the same for me since. I miss him. I miss him. I know what it's like to lose your dad. It's ever after being a little lost in life on some level. I remember you as a pallbearer at the funeral. And I remember that funeral being on your 20th birthday. Grandma thought that was unfair to you. As if one can time these things. Because we had to leave at 5 am the next morning to catch our flight back to California, I wanted to go back to the cemetery that evening so my littlest kids could see that the coffin was under the earth now, not all seemingly vulnerable and uncovered like when we left him there earlier that afternoon.

So after dinner, our extended family all drove out there to humor me. Grandma & I grabbed candles and when everyone got to the cemetery, I asked each one to share one thing about Grandpa that they would like to take with them into their life. So we created a family circle around his grave, lighting the candles one by one and making personal his legacy. I said I wanted to lighten up a little to be more like him. I have tried. Succeeded a little now and then. Still can't tell corny jokes like he did though. Sigh.

I hope the memory of that stays with you. We have been through a few more funerals since then. And I hope that from each loved one in your life, you will take a little strength- and whatever else of value you find- on your journey. We are all connected, after all. We are all here for each other. Isn't that how it's supposed to be?

40 years, 40 random memories...how many more can you think of? How many more ahead??

On The Other Hand

I think my DNA may well have helped you in another capacity, though. Remember when you took Health/Driver's Ed in Summer School? And the High School called me one morning to pick you up because you'd passed out while watching some movie in class on peristalsis or something a bit graphic? Yeah, kind of a track record there. I like to think of it as balance, somehow.

Good Genes

Were you a sophomore or junior when you made the Vista High School soccer team?  For Dad, that was probably your crowning achievement.   He was beyond proud.   In his tiny High School, he had made the B-Ball team, and he knew what it felt like to be a big fish in a very little pond.  And he loved it.  But he was acutely aware of how hard it is to make any team when you're in a school of 4,000+, so he over and over would point that out to me.   I think he was in awe, a bit dazzled, really proud. I know we respected your talents as well as your dedication to the team.  

Me?  I never made any team in my life, never even tried.  So you can pretty well figure out what DNA helped you there!

Swan Song

Encinitas was good for you and you were good for Encinitas. So naturally we couldn't leave well enough alone. We had a jacuzzi in our backyard on Calle Tulipanes, and one day we were notified that a business colleague of Dad's was mourning the death of their baby daughter who had just drowned in their pool in Arizona. It was tragic, haunting.

Torrey was over a year by then, and I flashed on the time when months earlier you and Willow had found her hanging onto the edge of the jacuzzi. You two, as I remember, had gone out to kick a soccer ball around while I was at a PTA meeting and Dad was at work. No one was allowed in the back when there wasn't an adult around, and I guess the back door hadn't closed tightly, so Torrey wandered out there and fell in. No one noticed, evidently she made no noise, but luckily the ball got kicked over by the jacuzzi and she was found in time.

For me, the writing was on the wall. I called our property manager and turned in our 30 days notice. Spent 3 weeks looking for a place in Encinitas but couldn't find anyone willing to rent to a family with 7 kids. Thanksgiving week, it all changed. Our whole life. I found a place advertised in Vista, we drove up there to check it out, and moved Dec. 1.   It was hard for everybody to pull up roots this time. Really, really hard, wasn't it?

Ever wonder how life would have been different had we stayed planted? Life...and its "what ifs?"

The Good Old Days

You had a pretty good life there in that cool little beach town. Good friends like Chip, Gavin, and I forget. And a wonderful 6th grade teacher, I forget. Middle School wasn't bad either. Great grades, busy with sports, Church activities. Life seemed good. Then there were those times.... Remember when you were 14? and Dad stepped in to be your Soccer Coach because no one else would, and he really didn't know the sport at all? That was tough on both of you.

Even before that you were playing some basketball at Oak Crest and I was so proud of how good you were. I remember at one game Chip's folks were telling us what a gifted athlete you were, and what a great all around kid. "Except for his temper, he's perfect", I said. Jerry & Jan looked at me. "If he had a temper problem", Jerry corrected, "he'd be losing it down there on the court like some of those other jokers who explode when the pressure's on or something happens. If he can control when and where he blows up, that's not really a problem." I was rightly humbled about my judging. Guess we all could learn from that.

And A Child Will Lead Them

Another shoulda was when one of your siblings got assigned to clean lunch tables as a consequence, I think, of tardiness maybe. You counseled me that we should go as a family to take that on and do it together. What a great heart you have! I think you were wise beyond your years then, and had I only listened and gone with that instead of making excuses not to, all of us might be a little better off right now. Shoulda, coulda, wish that I woulda listened to you. Not everyday a parent tells you that.

Once A Week

One of the things we got involved in was helping a boy in our Cardiff Ward when he was transferred home. When he was an 8 year old Cub Scout, David was riding his bike down a hill when he was hit by a car. In the hospital, they hadn't kept the brain swelling down and so there was severe brain damage. He was now in a hospital bed at home, still unconscious all these years later. We volunteered to help "pattern" him as a family. The hope was that deliberate movement, much like learning to crawl as an infant, would trigger some sparks in his brain and retrain him, so to speak.

So one day a week Dad would come home and take us all to his house after school. One of you would grab an arm, one a leg, others the other arm and leg, and one his head. The littlest kids would stay in the front room, while we moved David's body in rhythm to the Primary songs we would sing. It seemed like a sacred errand. However, it was definitely shocking to see David in that condition the first time, and you passed out. What a trooper, tho, from then on you pitched in no matter how difficult it had been initially. Wish we could say it helped change things for David, but found out after we moved from Encinitas that he had died. Perhaps he wasn't the one who needed change, maybe it was that the rest of us gained a little more compassion from serving. Life is such a mystery, no?

And No Surfers??

Because we only lived a couple of miles from Moonlight Beach, Dad thought if you're paying for the ocean to be your backyard, you should use it. So in warm weather season, he would take you older kids to the beach every day at 4 o'clock. He had such fair skin, he insisted he would burn no matter how much sunscreen he applied if he went any earlier. I got to stay home with the babies and make dinner, etc.


Think it probably really did help all of you to be down there for an hour or two to mellow out. Would have been smart to live right there on the sand. Several years later, when some of you had already left home, the Top Gun house in Oceanside came up for rent for a good price. And was empty for some time. Should have jumped on that, but we still would have been a little crowded. Think you could ever have become a beach bum?

California, Here I Come

All too soon, our time in the Northwest got away from us and we decided, somewhat capriciously, to mosey on to California and give San Diego a try. We lived in hotels in Mission Valley for a week or two, then decided on a home in Encinitas.

It was a good experience for you, I think, but it didn't look like an auspicious beginning that first week. At Church, we found out what day Mutual was on, and so that evening a few days later, we dropped you off at the building, having no idea that it had started earlier than normal because of some kind of special trip. We were space cadets not to notice that no one was around. You were locked out of the building, and had no access to a phone, and you had no idea where we lived from there, so you couldn't just start out walking. Think you climbed a wall and got into the inner courtyard, but not into the building. You were stuck. Totally alone. Two hours. And darkness gathered.

I was more than upset when I came to pick you up and found out the story. But you didn't complain or hold it against anyone. Think you adjusted to Cali in a heartbeat. And still think you tend to give most everyone the benefit of the doubt. Funny how our "true colors" surface in the day to day details of our lives. Wait, isn't that even where God is supposed to be-the details?

But c'mon, communication, people. Always the downfall. Always gets me in trouble....

It's The Little Things

You were pretty grown up in a lot of ways. One evening, our home teacher came over while Dad and I were out. When he got there, he was so impressed that you knew exactly what to do with no prompting. You called all the kids together for prayer, and conducted an impromptu meeting so he could share his message. Evidently, he found that remarkable. Guess we show our real stuff when we don't expect to, and in often in the daily details of life. Not always on the football field with 3 seconds left on the clock. He was a former Bishop, and he knew a lot about what people were truly like and how families worked. You really touched a nerve in him somehow; he likely had seen a lot of just about everything.

At High Priests Meeting that Sunday with tears in his eyes, he shared how moved he was by the gentle and strong leadership you had shown when he appeared like that out of the blue. You made our family look really good when you stepped up to the plate like that. And he thought you were really mature and capable, rather remarkable. I think that was reflected in the new respect Dad had for you then.

Because you and Afton were so responsible, Dad and I got to where we would wake up really early on Saturdays to run down to the Temple in Seattle and do a session and then get back in time to bring you donuts for breakfast. It was nice to be able to not worry and trust all was well because of you guys. Guess I owe you.

"I Yam What I Yam"

At 10, you were primed and ready to get out with your favorite family and have some adventures---like river rafting in the mountains; ferry trips to the islands; day trips to the Peninsula Rain Forest, assorted beaches and funky towns. Even going up to British Columbia for a week at Thanksgiving when it was totally deserted up there. Who knew? The woman at the resort thought we were absolutely crazy- to come up there in a car, no snow tires even- and swore we wouldn't get out of there till late Spring! I think she was more than a little afraid she'd be saddled with us for the duration. But we managed to hit it just right, between snowstorms, so we had an idyllic week up there by ourselves.

Outside was an endless white tapestry, the ultimate winter wonderland, just for us to explore. Didn't we see bear? Inside was a fantasy as well. Lots of room to roam and play, niches and lofts to escape to. Do you remember we watched "Popeye" the movie, over and over everyday whenever we were inside? They had a VCR and we had brought only that one tape. There was no TV reception, so when we came in from the outdoors, it would be "Popeye" or hide and seek. Robin Williams on a roll. Love that movie! By the time we left, we had the whole thing memorized. Strong to the finish. I can still quote some of the lines. "Come in before you catch your death of mud." "I'm a very tolerant man, except when it comes to holding a grudge." "Not up to no good are you? 'Cause if you are there's a fifty cent 'Up to No Good' tax." "Wrong is wrong, even when it helps ya."

Best Of The Best

Remember rafting in the Bothell Slough with the family of Dad's former mission companion? All those idyllic times. Playing soccer in the cold rain and deep mud? All those non idyllic times. Actually, rafting on the Church property in the mountains was exciting, and a little dangerous. Shortly before we moved there, a young mother in our (Bothell, WA) Ward had capsized in the rapids and she went under and had her hair pinned by a log. She left 4 children.

How about picking blackberries off the huge wild bushes in the meadow on our property, lovely prelude to all those acres of towering forest? Day trips to Mt. Rainier, The Seattle Center, Lake Washington, Puget Sound? Driving all over in the rain looking for the owner of the bloated dead cow in a muddy field in the desperate hope of trying to save it? Boarding a ferry to here or there? Exploring the rain forest on the peninsula? Or boldly driving over all the huge slugs in our 3/4 mile long winding driveway? We were on 12 mostly forested acres on 39th Avenue. To me, it was like being on vacation everyday, I loved it so much. But you were in school, after all...slightly different take.

You were only in 4th grade the year we were in Seattle, but you made a friend, Jeremy, and one day when the sun came out, you guys somehow decided to get your bikes and take a trip. You went like 11 miles to a Winery, perhaps in Woodinville, and thought you were virtually now adults if you could spend a day like that. You must have felt pretty grown up when they served you grape juice in a wine glass in the tasting room. The start of your very own adventures. Sweet!

"Make My Day"

So as soon as we got all our stuff out of the moving truck when we moved to Bothell (WA), we decided unpacking could wait and piled the 8 of us into the van and raced down to the ferry that Saturday. Number #1 priority, FUN!. Never forget. ( Although I sometimes tended to confuse that with laundry, but I digress.)

About the next weekend tho, Dad and I turned our backs or were out or something, and Jared somehow clipped you with a toy drill. How is it that the boys in the family seem to end up with the lion's share of injuries? Some mystery. Anyway, we were spanking new to town, before the ubiquitous Urgent Cares materialized, and trying to find a doctor on the weekend to stitch up your face took a little doing. That perfect, gorgeous face---destined to accrue more than its fair share of scars. Shame. Guess maybe you were meant to be a tough guy in the movies?

Westward Ho

Moving on to Seattle took us out of our normal zone. Well, we were never really that normal, I suppose, but moving up there was quite an ordeal/adventure. We packed everything up and had everyone sleep on the floor of the newly finished basement for a couple of nights before we left, so that the house would stay spotless and be ready for the new owners. But Dad and I got miserably sick from all that hard work and stress and lack of sleep, so the first leg of the trip was driving an hour and then getting a motel. We plopped down on the beds in agony and you guys were on your own, we were too weak to move. Guess you and Afton were in charge, so I have no idea where you went so, or how you managed all the kids whatever you did. I'm surprised we didn't just hand over the keys and have you guys drive the next day as well, but Dad and I improved enough to be back in the saddle. "Load 'em up, move 'em out, Rawhide." (sorry, got carried away there)

I held Jordan in my arms as I drove our van and continually nursed him for over a thousand miles while you rode with Dad in the truck. I took an obscure road in Idaho and got separated from you guys one day, and think we may have had to somehow connect down the road in the middle of the night. That's a whole lost set of skills-time and endless patience- with cell phones and all now.