On August 9, 1963 I married Bonnie Jean Chambers. She passed away on June 13, 1998.

JP Hughes, Salt Lake City's next mayor, working hard to meet people around Salt Lake's City and County Building following the children's parade on Friday, July 21, 2007.

Mary is shown here working hard distributing free hats to people who came by JP's table after the parade on Friday, July 21, 2007.

Mary and I spent a few hours on Saturday, July 21, 2007 helping our good friend JP Hughes in his bid for Mayor of Salt Lake City. This great cell phone photo shows me sporting one of the hats that we gave away to people who stopped by our table. We gave away 1000 of these chapeaus.

I can't remember who sent me the story I call, "The Parable of the Two Wolves." As I recall, the sender indicated that the author of the parable is unknown. If someone reading this blog knows more about the story please enlighten me. I like the story because I think it teaches something basic and true about human nature.

Two Wolves One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, impatience, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, patience, generosity, truth, compassion and faith." The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

My wife and I visited my mother today. She lives in the home where I grew up. During the course of our visit we walked out into the back yard. It seemed smaller than I remember it, but familiar non the less.

During my time at home my dad put up the small metal shed seen on the right. Sometime after I left home he had the larger shed built.

Dad passed away several weeks ago but the two generations of sheds in the back yard are a gentle reminder of his presence.

High School

I graduated from high school in 1960. Honestly, I didn't like high school. I didn't have any really inspirational teachers and I certainly wasn't a student in any academic sense of the word. I think my grade point average for high school was probably about 2.0; about a C. I had no clear or consistent idea about what I wanted to do after high school. High school was pretty much "someone else's boat." I got on as a sophomore; took the long, boring ride until the end of my senior year and then got off. I went to school to see my friends, especially my girl friend. The last thing I cared about were my grades.

Today, 2 July 2007, I applied for a part-time, non-academic job. One of the items on the application for the job was a request for my high school grade point average. I took a guess and wrote, "C." Who would have thought that something so irrelevant to my life would matter to anyone after all these years?

It's hard to resist an evening ride these days. I pulled out of my driveway on my motorcycle tonight intending to take a quick trip around the block. I ended up on Salt Lake City's high east bench. The picture shows the Salt Lake Valley from that location at 9:00 pm. Again, I had to rely on the camera in my cell phone for the shot.

I mentioned this in a recent email, but just for the record, I rode my bike to ward prayer tonight. I traveled about 20 miles round trip from our home to the apartment near the state capital where we held the prayer meeting and back home. I think the ride was about as spiritual as the meeting.

Last Summer Mary and I visited some of her relatives in Alberta, Canada. One day whilst sight-seeing I spied this hinge on an old barn door somewhere in Southern Canada.

I had a great early-evening motorcycle ride from my home in Salt Lake City to the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon and back. It arrived at the top of the canyon at 8:50pm and took the attached from a location on Gaurdsman Pass looking west toward the mouth of the canyon.

Knowledge

My favorite reference book of late is Chris Rohmann's, A World Of Ideas: A Dictionary of Important Theories, Concepts, Beliefs, and Thinkers. I read from it almost every day. What follows are some reading notes from the entry on epistemology.

KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge: True, justified belief.

For PLATO, knowledge is simply the opposite of opinion.

for MARX, it is a construct of economic relations.

for WITTGENSTEIN, it is practical knowhow within a specific social context.

How does the mind obtain knowledge?

1. Knowledge is an inherent part of our existence in the world(Plato, Hegel).

2. Our faculties of intelligence and reason enable us to draw out the truths the world contains (Aristotle, Descartes, Bertrand Russell, et al.).

3. We create what we think of as knowledge out of our experience, which is so thoroughly dependent on our psychological historical, or social condition that it cannot be considered objective knowledge at all (Nietzsche, Marx and the phenomenologists).

4. Knowledge is a product of the way neurons acquire and store information (information theory).

(Chris Rohmann, A World Of Ideas, 118)

Church History Mini Tour

In about an hour I will be on a bus to Martin's Cove in Wyoming. JP, Armond and I are taking turns giving talks on three buses filed with young people on a Church history tour. Mary is going with us. When I accepted the invitation to give one of the talks I thought the buses would be Carrying adults.

This afternoon's motorcycle ride around the block became the summer's first trip up Millcreek Canyon. I didn't have my camera with me so I used my cell phone to snap this picture of a small water fall across the road from Loghaven. The canyon is beautiful. I'll visit it several times during the sumer.

My friend J. P. Hughes is running for Mayor of Salt Lake City. I urge all of you who live in the City to vote for him. He is a man of integrity and compassion who will serve the community well.

Recent Reading

I am just finishing a re-read of Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die. I thinks it's an excellent book written by a medical doctor who wants his readers to understand not only death, but their mortal condition as well. On page 251 Nuland observes, "The real event taking place at the end of our life is our death, not the attempts to prevent it."

I think that trees are among nature's most interesting creations. The trunk of this one caught my attention during a recent visit to a park near our home. It sort-of reminds me of my last trip to the dentist.

Cars and Gas

It's not getting any cheaper to drive a car these days. We have a 2006 Honda Civic that gets great mileage but even so we seem to spend a lot of money for gas. I've been wondering if I should try to trade the Civic for a Prius. If anyone has any advice regarding this matter I'd appreciate hearing it.

Greetings

I've been thinking for some time about starting a blog. Today I finally decided to get something posted and see where it goes. Look for great things to come.