"How Do People Live Without God in the World?"

That's the question my friend and employer, Gaylon Ball, asked me one day when we were driving around on the many errands we had to run to maintain his 28 acres of ground. I assured him that I didn't know. Certainly I can't imagine living without God in this world. I fear for those who have not yet confronted their own mortality and the important questions of this life.

What comfort does one find in knowing all about the building blocks of the universe but not knowing why it exists? What satisfaction is there in knowing people - working and playing alongside them, teaching and being taught by them, arguing and thinking and studying and loving and striving with them - if we don't know why they are here, where we all came from, and where we are going after this brief, bitter life?

Joseph Smith taught us that the witness of the Spirit is more powerful than the witness of our eyes! Think of that! We believe that an eye witness statement is as sure as testimony can get. It holds great sway in the courts, unless, of course, some clever attorney can convince others that we didn't see what we saw. But there are some things that we know at a level that is even more basic than that of our physical senses.

I recall teaching a family in the city of Monza back in 1972. As the discussion progressed, the Holy Ghost came into the room. You know Him, right? That third member of the Godhead whose job it is to testify to our hearts and minds of what is true and to comfort us when no other source of comfort will suffice. The Spirit came into that Monzese apartment, I say, and it was as if we could have communicated without speech. I felt that I was not quite in contact with my own body, my suit, or the chair in which I sat. I knew that my companion and the young couple we were teaching felt the same way. It was common knowledge among us, commonly received and commonly held.

I felt that same Spirit after my mission when, nearly eleven months into constant dating and working at unimportant little jobs, I was almost crazy with desire to know where I was supposed to go and what I was supposed to do when I got there. My first companion, a friend from Ricks before my mission, Michael Hall, was now a married man. He had married lovely Martha. He called me one night to tell me how excited he was about the fact that he was about to go to Texas for Air Force basic training. I smiled to myself. "That's fine for you, buddy," I thought to myself, "but I promised myself long ago that I'd never go through basic military training." Getting shot at might be bad, but I could imagine no scenario worse than having someone shout in my face when I could do nothing about it. And that was the way basic military training had always been represented to me in films and by word of mouth. No way would I ever do that.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the Spirit contacted me even as Michael Hall continued to wax rhapsodic about all the opportunities he'd receive in the United States Air Force. The Spirit told me that I had nothing to fear from those things I had always feared. The program that Mike was describing to me was the answer to all the fasting and praying I had been doing for weeks and months. I was calm in the knowledge. I was overjoyed. After we said goodbye, I put down my old red table-top model phone and walked down the hall to my parents room, glowing with happiness that I finally knew what I was supposed to do. I told them. I didn't ask them. I told them about my experience and what I was going to do. If they had doubts, the never expressed them. I think He contacted them, too.

That doesn't mean that the Lord dispatched the Holy Ghost to tell me everything. There were still lots of questions. For instance, the recruiter and I thought I'd go through the Russian Language program at the Army's Presidio of Monterey, one of the oldest military establishments on the continent. But that's not what I learned in Monterey. I washed out of the Russian language program. I lost all interest in it, especially after I found the main thing I'd been sent there to find. Shayne. My eternal sweetheart. She who would be the mother of my children. Russian, even with its Cyrillic alphabet, wasn't all that hard to learn. But when I realized that I was being trained to sit there with a headset on for several hours per day monitoring radio traffic and writing down what I heard, something in me said, "No way! Call me ungrateful and uncooperative, but I just can't make myself cooperate in condemning myself to such a life." And sure enough, a U.S. Army Major who was raised as a Russian strongly implied that I was those negative things. He gave me the opportunity to fall back a few weeks to an earlier class and continue to study. But that wasn't what I wanted to do any more. I didn't really care what I did except to spend time with Shayne. And so he let me go and a few days later I got orders to George AFB, CA, 7 1/2 hours south in the Mojave Desert where the temperature can reach 115 degrees in the shade and there is no shade.

I destroyed my little car, a 1968 Volvo Model 1800S, in my constant trips up the coast and back to stay in touch with Shayne. And finally we were married in the Salt Lake Temple. I felt the Spirit powerfully again at the births of my children. The day we brought Hyrum home from the hospital, I rocked him all alone for several hours, never moving from the chair and making no move to lighten the room when it got dark outside. We just stayed there together for hours. And at the end of those hours I knew that, no matter what he did or became, I would always feel great love for him. And I have.

The next really powerful spiritual revelation I had was in 1983, as I was doing my student teaching at a junior high in Boise. I had been miserable in trying everything from Air Force clerk to potato warehouse worker to bank teller (before the service) to county jailer. I had no real aptitude for any of these things. But neither did I want to be a teacher. I didn't really like teenagers when I was in my early thirties. The idea of being confined with thirty or more of them at a time, all day long, for 9 months out of every year, sounded pretty horrible to me. But I went through with the required "education" courses just the same, because I could think of nothing else to do with my Bachelor's degree in History. This was a 60 credit major with no minor. History I was beginning to know. Other stuff, not so much, as today's saying goes.

About two, maybe three weeks into my 9 weeks of student teaching, Mr. Thomas, my cooperating teacher, told me that the cooperating professor from Boise State, Zeph Foster, was going to watch me for a whole hour with some seventh grade geography students. By this time I was nearing 33 and still didn't know what I was good for. I'd been a missionary for two years, a bum for a year, and a member of USAF for six years. But what was I made to do? I still didn't have a clue.

On the day that Prof. Foster came, Mr. Thomas introduced the class, maybe took roll, or maybe not; I can't recall. Then he turned the time over to me. I started explaining things about the lesson to the kids. I just relaxed and dumped my load, employing not only what the manual for the class said I should teach but a lot of stuff I'd just picked up in three decades of reading and asking questions and listening and observing. A couple of minutes before the bell, I turned the class back over to Mr. Thomas. Zeph Foster, a big old Saint Bernard of a guy, hooked a finger at me to follow him into the hallway. Well, I thought, here it comes. I've never been any good at anything and now I'll get to add to that list.

The hallway was very quiet after we closed the door behind us. He stared at me (down at me) for a long time. It was evident that he had something weighty that he wanted to say. I steeled myself for what it might be. But still I had to wait. He just kept looking into my eyes, almost as if he hadn't seen a specimen like me before. (I should be used to that my now. Lots of people look at me like that. And who can blame them?)

He lowered his chin a little as he began to speak, but his eye contact with me was never broken. He said, "You are a natural-born teacher." He then went on to thrill and embarrass me for several minutes, telling me about everything that I had done and how it was all done right. He rhapsodized about some little behaviors, like my saying "Excuse me, did I miss a hand over here?" He went on and on and never once tempered all this praise with the slightest criticism. And as he spoke, it happened again. The Holy Ghost contacted me. Again, I was not quite touching the floor or my clothing. Again, I was receiving knowledge straight into my heart. This was the answer for which I'd searched since my teens. This was the answer to the question, "What am I?" Now I knew and would know for the rest of my life. I am a teacher.

He informs us of truth. He is therefore called The Spirit of Truth as well as the Holy Ghost. His third name is the Comforter.

I had seen death and known of death for years. But as my wife drew closer to death, I prayed more fervently than I'd ever prayed for anything that she would be spared. I knew that I couldn't live without her. Her presence meant happiness. Her presence meant security. Her presence meant love and home and peace. Her presence made the house a refuge from the cold, care-filled and confusing world. Surely my Heavenly Father wouldn't take her. If someone else were lost, it would be horrible, but I might have a chance of getting through it only because Shaynie was there. But to lose HER?! It was unthinkable. Between Christmas Day, when the oncologist called me to say that he couldn't save her, and New Years Day when I began to be resigned to it and to the destruction I was sure would befall me along with her loss, I prayed and wept more powerfully, usually in the car, than I had ever realized a human could do. I was given moments and hours of comfort. But the horror of what was happening kept coming back. I just couldn't face it. I knew that I had to keep praying so she wouldn't leave her body.

I knew the right words. "Thy will be done." But this was Shayne, the sweet and the precious. The companion of my heart. On the night of the first of January, 1992, she opened her eyes for a few seconds. "Jimmy, am I dying?" Still I couldn't face it. I lied, I guess. I said, "Honey, we don't know." I looked her in the eye when I said it. How could I do that? Maybe because I still had hope that she'd be spared. But when I said that, she nodded as if the answer was satisfactory, and immediately surrendered to sleep again.

The next morning, I went over to the high school office and caught them up on what was happening. Then I drove to Flamm Funeral Home and purchased a casket. I also made a few other choices, like the verse for the back of the program, the third verse of Lead, Kindly Light. But still, having done all this, I couldn't say the words. Finally, that evening, I whispered them in one of my seemingly constant prayers. Then two ladies from the Church came in and essentially said goodbye to her sleeping form. She was swollen in the middle, her liver being hugely distended with cancer. She had gone from a normal color a week before to being visibly jaundiced to being the color of a dark pumpkin. She whimpered in her sleep which was maintained by a morphine drip which had to be more than was legal but just right for morality. The two ladies left. A nurse came in and looked at her. She said it wouldn't be long now. I jogged down the hall to the nurse's station and borrowed their phone. I called Egin and got Jane. While I was explaining things to Jane, the nurse came out into the hall and said, "She's not breathing." I said goodbye and walked back into the room.

"Is this it, then?" Another nurse was using the back of her hand to feel for a pulse under her chin. She nodded. This was the moment. I waited a moment for my life to end, but it didn't happen. Instead, I was propped up by a substance that filled the room. It was the Holy Ghost again, this time in His capacity as The Comforter. And I was comforted. I breathed more easily. I looked at her and muttered something about her being "the finest person I've ever known." What a strange thing to say about your wife! I looked up into the corners of the ceiling, hoping to have enough spiritual vision to see Shaynie looking down at me as I'd heard others tell such stories, but I was a bit disappointed there. Her throat continued to make a clicking sound, opening and closing for breaths that weren't being drawn. That did get me to leave the room for a while and talk with Barbra Mann in the nurse's lounge. Still, I remained propped up then and for days thereafter until, finally, in His wisdom, the Lord pulled the Spirit back and let me feel it and experience it and be immersed in all the pain and the grief. But by then, He'd gotten me through the first shocks. Other shocks continued to come for years as I realized again and again that she was gone. Looking at photos of her even now can bring back the pain in my chest. But the Holy Ghost had worked a miracle I would never have thought anyone could accomplish. He had propped me up and held me in my body when my chief reason for living was taken away and I didn't want to live. No other accomplishment has ever amazed me more.

Sharing a Generation But Not a Haircut

Johanna, Jim, and Shayne holding Joseph.

Playing Pat-a-cake with Joseph.

Bishop Gary Earl, Captain USAF and commander of the small helicopter unit at George AFB, CA.

I just had a very pleasant experience. I was checking your blogs and preparing to write something here when I noticed a comment that I hadn't seen before. A gentleman from California said he'd stumbled onto my blog by accident. He expressed sympathy in the loss of my gun collection and said he had been forced to sell off his collection of old vinyl LPs. He went on to encourage me about the future. This kind of behavior bespeaks the presence of a heart full of good will.

I checked out his blog then. He writes well and uses pleasant, ethereal music. He wrote of experiences in his youth after he'd moved to California. He posted pictures of himself and other young people. I realized, looking at those photos, that he must be about my age. Already, a type of cameraderie! And, before I knew it, I was writing a long response to his blog and telling him how very different we had been in our youths and how close I felt to people who had spent their youth as he did, even though I never lived like that for a moment.







Church leadership tells us that most of the great inventions have been brought into being so that the restored Church can be spread abroad more quickly and efficiently. I truly believe that. But I also believe that our Father in Heaven is as practical as He is kind. He knows before we do that every stride forward we take in science or thought will benefit us not only in one major way but in millions of yet undiscovered ways.


When personal computers first came out, I rather hoped that they'd be just a passing fad. Like that one old lawyer in the original Star Trek who got Kirk off on a murder charge, I loved books, the older and dustier the better! I can still hear his line as he fondled decrepit law books. "This is where the law is. Here! The Law of Moses. The Code of Hammurabi." Sigh... But computers were eventually forced down my unwilling throat. And, much to my surprise, I began to find uses for them that were almost unique to me. They were certainly unique to people in the various categories into which I fall. The seriously religious. The thoughtfully conservative. The lover of a little bit of nearly all kinds of music and of nearly all of a few kinds.







I still use a dictionary from time to time. But it's been years since I felt a need to reach for an encyclopaedia. That's amazing to me. As we grew up, we had several volumes of the World Book out at any given moment. My mother prided herself on the middle name "look-it-up" which some of the young women at Church had given her. When Joseph was still a baby, I ran an errand to the base exchange one day and found a salesman for the Americana there for a day or two. I hurried home and spoke with Shayne who agreed with me that our home would be a lousy place for kids to grow up if we didn't have a fairly complete set of reference books. It was expensive in 1970s dollars, but we just had to have them. My kids all remember them, I'm sure. Big, heavy, and dark blue.







My thanks to a fellow named Ed in California for stumbling into my blog. His words, music, and photographs have put me in a very nostalgic frame of mind. I'll attach a couple of photos here to show life in the seventies for those whose hair was ridiculously short for the period.

What I Did for Food

S&W Model 624, Stainless .44 Special

A couple of them are shown twice here. Many are not shown at all. I just felt like illustrating to anyone who might care why I felt so sorry for myself when I lost my job and we moved to Boise and I sold all my guns to help keep us in groceries.

I think there was an old song called What I did for Love. I suppose we could all write our own versions of that one. But what I did for food actually hurt me and made me proud at the same time. I've been acquainted with some men who would not have done this. But how could they not? Nothing beats our obligation to do what we can to take care of our families. I suspect there are some who think I'm failing in that obligation right now. Shrug. They might be right. But on one occasion in my life, when it mattered, I did the right thing. It had taken me about thirty years to collect them all and I had sacrificed other things sometimes to get them. But I sold them off in ones and twos until they were all gone.

No, it's not that big a sacrifice. I didn't have to give up my freedom or get shot at or brave a cholera infested slum to get the food for us. Sheryl was doing more than her share, too. But these photos represent just a few of the things that I lost when I lost my job. I also lost a lot of self-respect and confidence. But you can't show those things in photographs.

Just so he knows I haven't sold his stuff, there are one or two of Joseph's things in these old photographs. They didn't go out with the rest. And Grandpa Hartsell's old 16 gauge side-by-side was never abandoned. But these pictures probably represent about one third of what I lost. Some will sympathize with that. Thank you. Others will say, "Why does a person need all those nasty old guns anyway?" I doubt I'll ever be able to communicate a satisfactory answer to that most unsatisfactory question. If the beauty, the grandeur, and the History represented by such things doesn't jump right out at you, there's probably little I could say to engender that kind of aesthetic sense in your heart.

But I haven't given up hope. I'll probably never have as many, but I have four good ones now. And I have hope that the number will grow at least a little by the time I leave them to younger folks to enjoy.

Ruger Mark II, .22 target pistol, 10" bull barrel.

Interarms Mk X Mauser, .30-06. Marlin 60, .22 LR. Ruger 10-22 (Joseph's)



1895 Marlin in .45-70 Gov't. Ruger All Weather .22 Mag. Thompson/Center Contender Carbine in .223 Rem.



Cheap old 20 gauge that I refinished.
1896 Swedish Mauser, mfg. 1915.
Oberndorf Mauser .22 target rifle. (sniff)

Italian clone of Colt Single-Action Army, .44 Special.

Norinco (Chinese) clone of 1936 Olympics Walther .22 Pistol.

Ruger Mk II (again)

S&W 624 (again)

Glock 23 in .40 S&W

Italian clone for CVA of Colt 1862 Pocket Police which was issued to Union military police during the Civil War.

Italian clone of 1853 Enfield (British armory) .58 caliber rifle-musket.

Inaugural Report Card

Only a teacher of long standing (and lots of running around the classroom) would dare to issue a report card to a brand new president. This is really just a review of Mr. Obama's performance so far as a president-elect and of his performance and the performance of a few others on the day of his inauguration.



There's a great deal of positive comment to be made here. The man is an able public speaker, certainly the best since Mr. Reagan. The speech was well thought out, well-phrased, well-spoken, and came across as being completely sincere. Indeed, I begin this administration giving him the benefit of the doubt in that regard. I believe he's sincere in his beliefs and intentions, although I disagree with some of them. I shall grade him here on many things, some of which really don't matter in the historical sense, at least not yet. For example, his elder daughter is a true beauty and seems to be well behaved. But if, as puberty rears its lovely and dangerous head in her young life, she turns into another Alice Roosevelt Longworth, well...



Presidential children can be blessings or liabilities to their parents. Willy Lincoln used to lead his friends on martial raids of cabinet meetings. Perhaps he knew something his father didn't about how much southern sympathy lay in the hearts of some in Washington. But then there are those moments no one is able to forget such as the salute popped quickly by John-John Kennedy to his father's flag-draped coffin. Sasha Obama gave her dad a thumbs up after his address today. What a little munchkin!



Well, here's the report card. You may feel that I've made mistakes in my grades. That's fine. You may certainly write in to that effect. Don't hold your breath about getting grades changed, however. You may even feel that I've left out whole categories of accomplishment or of behavior. Please write in about those, too. They might be very good ideas.





On the ball in organizing new administration post election. A



Limiting use of the Spoils System. B



Maintaining very dapper appearance despite varying circumstances. A



Dignity when it is appropriate (such as at the inaugural ceremony.) A



Clarity in addressing the lengthy nature of the process before us. B+



Be brief. Be brilliant. Be gone. A



Chief Justice's demeanor (Bring a 3x5 card next time, Mr. Justice.) C-



Civilized transition of power. A+



Sen. Feinstein's demeanor and performance. A



Thoroughly Baptist nature of invocation. A



Thoroughly Black nature of benediction A



U.S. Navy Chorus A



Decision to dispense with the by-now traditional appearance of the MoTabs. B-



Marine One's transition to Executive One. A



Poetry A-



New POTUS' dignified reaction to collapse of Teddy Kennedy. A



Sen. Harry Reid leading toast at luncheon with water. A



Appearance and courtesy of outgoing First Lady. A



Appearance and courtesy of incoming First Lady. A



Freedom from technical glitches. A





Not bad for a first day, Mr. President. Leave the Chicago-style politics behind you, enforce and protect the Constitution, keep your hands off my guns (present and future) and you might have a pretty good administration.

If You're in This Family, You Know These Faces

Papa, aka Granddaddy, aka Sir. Jane, aka Auntie Wayne. Jocelyn, aka Jocy-pooh.

I've been scanning lots of old photos lately. I couldn't wait for some special occasion to offer this one on the blog. You know their names. You know their great faces. You see exactly what's going on without a word of explanation from me. I love it.

Specific Prayers Yield Specific Answers

Remember the wonderful Armell family? I wrote about them a few months back. We've become even more attached to them. They're a great family. We've prayed several times for ways to be opened by which we could introduce the Church to them. President Spencer W. Kimball always said that the people should pray specifically so they could be blessed specifically with what they most need and want. So that's what we did here.

About 3:30 today we remembered that the missionaries were coming to have supper with us at 5! We flew into action. (Well, actually, I strolled into a little action; Sheryl did most of the flying.) In the midst of these preparations I got a call from Aric Armell. Could he come over this evening to load a few rounds for his Model 710 Remington in .300 Winchester Magnum? Sure, I thought. Our dinner guests would probably be leaving by then. But as I was saying these things, Sheryl said, "Jimmy, just tell them to come and eat with us."

Ding! Finally the light went on in my head and all the bells sounded. Here was the chance! The missionaries would be here by pre-arrangement and the golden family was walking right into the situation. Our missionaries these days are a three-some: Elder Doan of Michigan, Elder Cameron, a delightful Aussie, and Elder Barrow, a pleasant, quiet fellow, for a Texan!

Now Elder Doan and Elder Cameron love to poke fun at each other's home areas. This was going full tilt when the Armells arrived. The Elders' appointment for the evening had fallen through, so they could and did stay late, partly because I told my wife loudly in their presence, "No, they don't have to go. Their appointment fell through!" Zannita is a very bright and well-educated young lady. Somehow, her scientific knowledge aided the rest of us in teasing the "Michigander," Elder Doan, who seemed to bring it on himself by going after the Australian boy so much. Aric's natural drollery added to the fun. For about an hour we all just cut up and laughed around our table.

Then Elder Cameron asked whether they might leave a spiritual thought with us. Of course!

He quoted a couple of verses from Helaman in which a great prophet is giving advice and loving counsel to his sons. Then Elder Cameron bore his own testimony of how he had been able to count on Christ to assist him when he'd first left home and gone to college. This led into my testimony, supported by my wife's nods of the head, of the help the Church had been to us in times of loss, Shayne and Celia being mentioned specifically. Later, as Aric finished his loads in the garage, I blundered into a discussion between Sheryl and Zannita which seemed to give me a couple of opportunities to get out the scriptures to read possible answers to questions that came up. And Aric came out in time to hear the second of these.

As if this weren't enough already, another thing had happened shortly after the Armells arrived that I've been saving for the end here. Unbeknownst (I just love that word and hardly ever get to say it, let alone type it!)to us, the Armells are a "common law" family. Aric announced that they were going to be married very soon. We all got pretty excited. I asked where this was taking place. They indicated that they didn't know yet. I said that I was pretty sure people could use rooms in our Church for free for such events. Elder Doan concurred vigorously.

With Sheryl's help, I called up the lady who schedules the use of our ward building and reserved the Relief Society Room for 7:30 pm on Saturday the 24th. They may not be members yet, but my beloved Lamanite family is getting married in a Mormon building! You can probably hear my satisfied sigh from wherever you are. Specific prayer - specific blessings! In multiples!

Now please, everyone, pray for them. They are expecting a little boy this spring, and there are lots of things Satan might do to discourage them from the marriage or from further investigation. But if you'll all pray for them by name (the accent is on the second syllable,) I think that even more and greater blessings can be anticipated for this sweet family.

The Other Side of the Story

Legend of These Three

Model of 1891 Argentine Mauser, 7.65x53mm



SMLE (Short Magazine Lee-Enfield, 7.62 NATO)



1917 Enfield (aka P14), .30'06.




I am told that my memory of the proposal was faulty. I am told that my brother did not volunteer to buy me the firearm of my choice if any anti-gun laws are passed during the Obama administration. He says that what he really said was that, if I am left destitute of firearms because of the incoming administration, he will buy me one from the black market.


That's not nearly as exciting, because I don't do black market sales or purchases.

Here are a few of my lovely blued-steel friends from years past. As Jed Lewis used to say so sarcastically, "It sort of brings a tear to the eye..."

This was my Italian-built replica of the British 1853 Enfield which was purchased by the CSA during our Civil War. It was a .58 caliber and fired a .565" hollow-based bullet (Minie'-ball) (which I moulded on my kitchen stove) from a 39" barrel at around 900 fps with a powder charge of about 65 grains of FFg black powder. It became groceries and a tank of gas in Boise.

Joining Dixie in Repetition

"She was both girl and woman."

Mark Twain describing his wife as a bride.

In today's post, Dixie refers to some repetition in the campaign pictures for Len's candidacy. I've always said (and really said it, too, not just quietly believed it) that repetition is a good teacher. A fellow playing an English professor in an old film called The Way We Were once said, "I think we learn best from that which is good." He then chose a short story written by an insensitive, beer swilling jock to read to the class. Others, like Katie, Barbara Streisand's character, were at first outraged that they had put their hearts and souls into writing their stories and here this guy who had lettered in every sport and attended only half the classes was being acknowledged as the best writer in an English composition class.

But then they listened to his story. By the end of it, Katie was ready to throw hers away and to fall completely in love with a young man she had considered beneath her until one hour before. She encouraged him, promoted his writing, recontacted him during the war, married him, had a child with him, and eventually lost him to a woman with a shockingly beautiful face and not much else going for her.

Sometimes we do that. We're going along, striving to do our best, when quite to our own surprise, we succeed! We've been trying so hard for so long that when success happens, we hardly recognize it. When Zach and Dixie (The One True Dix) got married last year I was taking pictures of everything that moved and many that didn't. Little girls gravitated to Dixie, probably because she was the closest and most recent example of what they wanted to be some day. They followed her around like puppies and she was as patient with them as you would expect a Humphries girl to be.

Lesser brides might have lost patience with them or tried to trick them into going away, but she bent down to talk with them, actually listened to what they said, and even gave one-on-one attention to them while she ate her lunch of pizza under the protective cover of a black garbage bag. She is "the One True Dix." All these little people will benefit from the time they spend with her and her good husband. I'll close with another few photos of that great day.

Dixie's New Challenge

Joseph flips Dixie.

Not yet one year married to the fine Zach, our dear, darling, and dynamic Dixie finds herself raising four of other peoples' children. She's actually doing a fine job of it, but the sporadic influence of the biological parents is having a disquieting effect on the children and the traditions and customs which seem to comfort them in the House of Hessing. This threatens to throw Dixie for a loop.

Let us all be prayerful for Dixie and Zach as they strive to do what's best for these four munchkins. I believe that they're the two who were placed into the position in which they could do the most good for these particular children at this particular time. Surely Dixie has enough headaches. Let's put our faith together to see if we can't get things to be a little better for them.

"The Best Man I Ever Knew"

The night before his eightieth birthday, Papa holds little Matthew Sterling Haeberle.

Theodore Roosevelt called his father "the best man I ever knew." That's a big statment coming from anyone. After all, we get to know a lot of people as our lives go by. And TR got to know more people than does the average person. He met thousands of ordinary Americans, for some of whom he seemed to feel great respect, such as cowboys and soldiers, football players and manual laborers. He knew literally all the great leaders of his time, not only in the USA but in Europe and much of Africa as well. He got the Nobel Prize for peace for brokering a cease-fire between the Tsar and the Emperor in the Russo-Japanese war of 1907. He got along well with some of them, but found most monarchs self-centered and out of touch with the realities of the world.

He actually said of Wilhelm II of Germany, "I found his point of view very sordid." That means low and dirty and even filthy. To say that about any emperor would take a lot of courage, but then TR was filled with that. To say it about Kaiser Bill was almost a prophecy of what would happen four years later when Worl War I would break out, an event for which many people felt Germany, and especially the Kaiser, should bear the brunt of the blame. Actually placing that blame on Germany in the 1919 Versailees Treaty and forcing her to pay restitution while struggling to rebuild after the war only further enraged the defeated German people, leaving them ripe to fall into the clutches of someone who said what they wanted to hear. And when he said it, they followed. But that's the story of World War Two.

My point here is that TR said the words in tonight's title about his father. He had known many people in academia, business, government, sports, entertainment, and in the hunting fields of at least two continents. He was friends with those he admired. He thought a great deal of Ernest Thompson Seton, the great artist,naturalist, and author, who helped found the Boy Scouts in this country. Muir, the savior of the woods, was a close friend of TR's. But it was his own father that he admired the most.

I bring this up so as to be taken seriously when I proclaim here for all the world to know that my father is the best man I've ever known. I've felt that way most of my life. His father died when my father was two. He admits to trying his beloved mother terribly at times, along with his brother, Herman, who was even wilder. Once, at age 12 or so, my father hopped a freight train and rode it to the state capital just to see what it was like. His frantic mother may never have fully recovered from that one. He has often expressed to me his regrets at the worries and trials his youth brought to his poor, widowed mother.

He served 8 years in our country's Navy. He loved being a salt water sailor and would have stayed in until retirement, but his in-laws talked him into getting out at the end of his second hitch. He tried broadcasting. His manager told him that if he couldn't lose the country boy accent he would never make it in the business. But he overcame that and went on to be the best-sounding announcer I've ever heard. I still judge announcers by him. He was a broadcaster for more than forty years.

He joined his good wife in accepting the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Together they've served faithfully in that Church since 1959. Impressive number, eh? They have raised their children to received testimonies of the truth of the Church. All their sons were missionaries. All their married children were sealed in the temple. He still loves to serve in the temple and in the genealogy library.

And now he's in the hospital with pneumonia. Nothing in this life scares me more that his mortality. I feel that, when he goes, I will break and be unable to function any more. But I kept on going after Shayne was taken, albeit in blind, painful, and confused ways. I suppose it'll be like that again. I hope it doesn't happen soon. There are still so many things to say to him, every one of which, in essence, means "I love you."

Here are some shots of the canoe trip we took together one day maybe 15 years ago or more. There are many experiences I have wanted to have with my parents. This was one we actually got done.

A CONFESSION FOLLOWED BY SMUGNESS

Perhaps I should begin this with a bit of confession. They say it's good for the soul, and my soul can use all the good it can get.

Sheryl does it all. There. I've said it. I don't know how to create the pretty backgrounds, set up the whole thing, arrange it on the page, etc. Only Sheryl knows those things. She even named this blog back in October or whenever it was that I started it. I enjoyed reading all of yours and she got the bright idea that maybe I should have a blog of my own. So she set it up, named it, and pointed out its existence to me. All I provide are the words. And a few photos. And some screwy ideas.

Before I start throwing old pictures at you (a privilege of age,) let me make one smug comment. Not wanting to start a whole big magilla with a very dear fellow who shall remain - er, uh, - my brother, I shall not refer to anyone by name here. I just want to establish what has happened and let you see how remarkably benign I've been about the whole thing, especially considering that it's ME, the most curmudgeonly of curmudgeons.

So, there was this very dear relative who told me during the recent election campaign that I could take seriously the pro-gun comments made by a certain young senator from Illinois. This dear relative even went so far as to say that, if that senator were to become the chief executive of the land and then make anti-gun moves, he, the dear relative, would personally buy for me the firearm of my choice. You cannot imagine how the greed lept in my chest! Mentally I leafed through all the catalogues I have ever looked through and started trying to narrow down the list of desirable firearms to just one. This was, after all, a rare opportunity for a guy who lives on a "fixed income," as the saying goes. I once owned nearly thirty firearms of varying types, calibers, purposes, finishes, and nationalities. But for a couple of years I've been stuck at four. Just four. Imagine the humility this has required of me! But now, there would be another piece of blued steel (or possibly stainless) in the Haeberle arsenal.

I knew it. I knew it as surely as I knew that I was fat, bald, and grey. And, because I knew the voting record of the young senator from Illinois, I knew that his new chair in the oval office would barely be warm before he started signing anti-gun bills. IF. IF they could get past Congress. Several times I actually giggled with greedy anticipation. But then my conscience got to me. Ever look closely at that word? If you take it apart, it means "with knowledge." And there I was, taking advantage of my dear relative with the perfect knowledge that he had overstated his case. I knew before the election ever happened that he would lose this sort-of-a-bet.

Besides, I really like this dear relative. He's a pleasant-spoken, quick-witted, fun sort of a guy to be around. So I sent him a private email and told him I'd let him off the hook. After all, he has a young family, and money is an increasingly scarce commodity these days.

Now my conscience feels better. But today I got a couple of emails from other sources which prove conclusively that the new majority party has lots of nasty things in store for America's gun owners. No outright confiscations. Yet. But long lists of legal firearms are on the chopping block even as we blog. Yep. You can buy them today, but in a month or two they could be illegal. Your personal goodness won't matter at all. Your good intentions will not even be consulted. Because some legislators whom you don't know think somebody might misuse them, dozens of firearms will become illegal. Millions of us will suddenly have our freedom curtailed just one more inch. But my decision has been made. I'll follow my conscience. This time.

Just in Case Anyone Noticed my Absence

Dante, age 2 1/2, pledges allegiance with a TV football game at the request of his Uncle Markus Green.

I've been scanning lots of old paper-printed photos of my children and my grandchildren lately. These will enable me to give my readers (assuming I ever have them) more illustrations and less hot air in future posts to this blog. Just as a "for instance," I'll attach one of the newly scanned photos here for your amazement and amusement. Give me a while and I'll be through with this scanning project. Then I'll be left without excuse and will have to start writing again. Ci vedremmo allora!