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?