20 Years Later

In 1993 my friend Eric D. Snider founded The Garrens Comedy Troupe. In 1993 my roommate/former mission companion/best friend, Lincoln Hoppe, forced me to audition with him for The Garrens. In 1993, I watched my future wife, Katie Fillmore, audition and join The Garrens. In 1993....it all began.

You know how you have that friend who you just don't get to see very often? You are separated by distance and the busyness of life, and it all gets in the way of what you really want to do - which is design a neighborhood where you get to live next door to each other. But when you DO get together, everything picks up as if no time has passed. There is no awkward small talk. It all just clicks.

Well, imagine having 25 of those friends. And that's what this weekend was. Even with those Garrens who I never had the privilege of working with - because they came in the later years after I was gone - it was like we had this experience we all pulled from that connected us. It was like...whatever the opposite of "serving in Vietnam together" is.

We had The Garrens 20th Anniversary Reunion Show on Saturday night, and it was spectacular! We all came together Friday night for dinner at BYU's Skyroom. Garrens alumni came from Florida, New York, South Carolina, Washington DC, Oregon, California, and Salt Lake City. The stories, tributes, and memories brought back all the feelings. I remembered how wonderful those years were - the creative energy and the people who I got to be creative with. The life-influencing friendships that abounded. I remembered how coming together to put on shows felt like coming into a shared living room. It was familial. It was a safe place. There was encouragement, acceptance, and hilarity. It became a part of my being.

It was my privilege to pay the final tribute to Eric on Friday night, at the dinner. As I stood in front of a group made up of some of my favorite people, I wished I had the time to pay tribute to each of them, individually. It felt like there was so much to say. But it also felt like there were not words to articulate all those feelings and sum up all those experiences and define their influence in my life. I love these people. And to go will just make this sound suuuuuper sappy. (Too late?)

Thank you to everyone who has been part of The Garrens! Thank you to everyone who worked countless hours to bring this show to light on Saturday! Thank you to those who traveled, sacrificed, and brought their all! Thank you to everyone who came to the show and celebrated with us! Some of you traveled from out of state - you crazy, wonderful people! Thank you! And our apologies to those who didn't get in because the almost 900-seat theater was SOLD OUT! YEAH!!!

Winter 1993

Fall 1993

Winter 1994

Fall 1994

Fall 1995

The Garrens - 20 Years Ago

It was 20 years ago that BYU’s most treasured sketch/improv comedy troupe, The Garrens, first performed. And I was one of those original members. If you would like the full, unabridged history of The Garrens, you can read about it here, on the website of my dear friend and founder of The Garrens, Eric D. Snider.

Being involved in The Garrens turned out to be one of the most influential decisions I ever made and was the vehicle for much happiness in my life. I summed it up in this blurb I wrote several years ago for BYU’s alumni magazine, regarding The Garrens Comedy Troupe:

Student Performing Groups

In December of 1992 my roommate and good friend, Lincoln Hoppe, told me about a flier he had seen in the Wilkinson Center announcing auditions being held for a comedy troupe that was going to start performing regularly on campus.

Had I known how many good things would come from being a part of The Garrens Comedy Troupe, I would not have mocked Lincoln so quickly for suggesting he and I audition. Especially when I could have used the energy to mock him for so many other things, as is the practice among roommates in college.

When the original nine of us got together that December to start practicing, we thought we were hilarious. We were also fairly confident that nobody else would think we were. We practiced in a little theater in the Wilkinson Center that held no more than 100 people, and that is where we were scheduled to perform. The joke was that we would one day perform in the Marriott Center, while we were actually unsure if we would ever fill any of the 100 seats there in the Wilkinson Center. I mean with anybody besides our roommates.

The Garrens became bigger than any of us thought it would. We moved to larger rooms to perform, shows regularly sold out, we began performing off-campus, and in April 1995, just over three years from when we started, we performed in the Marriott Center.

There is great satisfaction in seeing people laugh and enjoy something that you've created. To feel like one of your talents is appreciated. But more influential to me were the friendships that I came away with. Some of the greatest people I know are people I met in The Garrens. Do I have a favorite? Why, yes. My wife, Katie, who joined the cast in the fall of 1993, decided she would date me in the fall of 1994, and married me in the summer of 1995. 

I bring this to your attention NOW because, well, we are doing a 20 Year Reunion Show! I KNOW! We are gettin' the gang back together! You will not want to miss this show, folks. It promises to be 100% sensational! This show alone with heal the earth, bring peace to warring countries, and fix the economy! There is nothing I can say that will overhype the magnitude of the amazingness of this show!

So get your tickets today, before it's sold out! Here is the link! And you'll have a chance to see all four Part Time Authors there together, because they are my friends and they are obligated to be there! (Did you read that, other PTAs? Because I mean it.)

Happy 20th Anniversary to All The Garrens!

It was 20 years ago today, January 22, 1993, that we performed our first show. This photo was taken that night. The guy lying horizontal on the floor did the lights for us that night. None of us remember his name or have any clue where he is now. We suspect Witness Protection. 

I recently received an email from Joanie, a delightful young lady I knew from my early days at BYU. And more to the point, the daughter of one Joyce Joan Garren

Joyce Garren was my “Hall Mom” my freshman year, when I lived in the BYU campus dorms previously known as Deseret Towers. (Now known as “rubble.” Apparently they felt the need to build newer dorms, so they just decided to pave paradise and put up a parking lot. Or new dorms. WHATEVER. Just destroy the home of my memories. It’s fine.)

But I digress.

I have two vivid memories of Sister Garren from that first year. One, I was in my dorm room getting ready for a Friday evening out with a lady-friend, when Sister Garren walked by and saw me attempting to sew a button back on to my shirt. She told me to hand the shirt over, and then she sat down on my bed, quickly sewed it on for me, and sent me off on my date with a hug. It made me miss my own mom; it was such a motherly thing to do. The second vivid memory from that year was…later that same night, when I came back from my date, and Sister Garren, waiting just inside the doors of the dorm, gave me a raised-eyebrow and straight-up told me she didn't approve of me dating that particular young lady. Wow, now she was really sounding like my mom.

I left on my LDS mission, returned with honor and the same hairline, and started back up at BYU, living off-campus. I had kind memories of Sister Garren, but hadn't ever anticipated her being involved in the remainder of my college life. But she sure was. 

In 1993, there were nine of us founding members of The Garrens Comedy Troupe; BYU’s first improv and sketch comedy group. The only reason for the name was that the founder, Eric D. Snider, and two of the other members were living in Deseret Towers, and Joyce Garren was their Hall Mom. And they liked the sound of it. So it stuck. (You can read the official history of The Garrens here.)

I have written about The Garrens before, as it was a wonderful part of the history of my life. I loved the creative energy, I love and value the friendships that came from this group, and it was where Katie and I met, courted, and married. (We technically married in the Salt Lake Temple, but we were still in The Garrens when we got married.) For a photo slideshow of those early years, click here. 

The Garrens performed from January 1993 until March 2001. And there, sitting in the back of the theater almost every Friday night, with her video camera rolling, was Joyce Garren. Proud to have us using her name. We didn't pay her. I don’t know that we ever even asked her to do it. But years of memories, emotions and laughter have been recorded because of her. Hours of personal history captured on film. I don’t know how to ever thank her.

Katie and I with Joyce Garren, 1995. 

That email from Joanie was to let me know that Joyce Garren had passed away. She died of cancer, at age 81.

Joanie’s email said, “We have boxes and boxes of video tapes and paraphernalia from The Garrens. She kept it all these years. I thought maybe you’d like to have it.”

I feel I should warn you that from time to time I will be posting Garrens’ videos. I want to pay tribute to those who were part of something I remember so fondly – whether they were in the group or the audience. The thing is, Sister Garren did not own state-of-the-art commercial video equipment. So…it’s pretty rough viewing. The years have not been kind to the ol’ magnetic video tape.

But for those of you who remember the glory days of The Garrens, or for those of you who want to see what Katie and I looked like in 1993, or for those of you who have already watched everything else on the You Tube and have finally arrived at the end of the Internet…I bring you another video of sketch comedy from The Garrens. (I have previously posted “Guys Apartment,” which you can view here.)

This sketch was called “Social Hugs 101.” It was written by Mark Berrett, and it’s a parody of the freshman-targeted class that was highly popular on BYU campus at the time, known as Social Dance 101.

In this sketch, Mark is our “professor,” and he is walking us through a number of socially (and otherwise) acceptable types of hugs as an end-of-semester final exam.

It was 1993, still the first year that The Garrens were performing.

Here is what I remember about this sketch:

* When Mark showed up at practice to pitch and cast the sketch…he cast Katie and I in our roles…and our eyes locked. And suddenly, we had an understanding. And that understanding was that we were going to have to talk to each other, as we had held maybe two conversations before this.

* We only had three girls in the cast at the time. We needed four for this sketch. Dave Shipp was cast as the fourth girl. The “physical comedy” between Lincoln and Dave was improvised that evening and you can see all of us shocked – SHOCKED – when Lincoln pretty much man-handles Dave. 

*I love it when Mark asks the benefits of a “Side Hug” and Jeni sheepishly says, “If you have only one arm you can still do it.”

* When Dallen and I demonstrate the Jock Hug, he really did hit my bum super hard.

If you’re interested, please check out The Garrens Facebook page and Like us! We are considering a 20 year reunion show later this year! Would you come? 

I don't often keep my COMMENTS on, but I'm going to leave them on. Let us know if you remember us, if you came to shows, and if you would come to a reunion show! And if you wouldn't, tell us why you're such a jerk. We want to know.  

I'm the only male in a red shirt. Katie is in the green shirt, far left. Here is Social Hugs 101...

Friday Films: Guys' Apartment

Today’s Friday Films is a live performance from The Garrens.

If you are not familiar with The Garrens, this is the improv and sketch comedy troupe that Katie and I were both in during our college days at BYU. This is also where Katie and I met, fell in love, tore our ACL on stage (that was mostly Katie) and were voted Most Likely to Undress on Stage (that was mostly me). I’ve written about The Garrens on a few other occasions. Specifically how we came to be, our history, and then how Katie and I came to be. You can read those bits by clicking here. And I, of course, endorse doing so.

Each Friday night we performed our original material on campus at 7:30 p.m. and 9:15 p.m., to a crowd of about 750 people between the two shows. It was a wonderful creative outlet, and I dearly miss it, as well as those I was blessed to perform with and call my friends.

This particular sketch featured today is called Guys’ Apartment. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will admit that I wrote this particular bit. One night, when Katie and I were dating, I was hanging out at her apartment and all her roommates were there and I was watching them all interact. I realized that there were these very real customs or cultures that went on in college girls’ apartments. And I noticed that they were vastly different than men’s apartments, where the only real “custom” is to shut the bathroom door when you’re sitting in there. That was usually followed.

So I watched Katie and her roommates interacting and thought how funny it would be to have a sketch where the men are acting just like college girls – not effeminate or girly, but adapting to their customs. So I went home and wrote this sketch.

Now, please keep in mind I wrote this for a very targeted audience. If you were not a girl attending BYU in the mid-90s…you may not catch every detail and joke. For example, it was a BYU tradition in girls apartments that if a girl kissed her date goodnight, she had to buy ice cream for all her roommates. So some things may be lost. Additionally, at this point, you could consider this a “period piece.” It was written and performed in 1995, for crying out loud. Most people did not have cell phones, email, or the Interwebs.

Also, the filming of it is not with the most high-tech equipment. The sound is especially inferior. So you have to listen quite carefully. Also, you should know, my character is loosely based on Katie.

Thank you for indulging me. I really used to have a good time performing this particular sketch. The last time we performed it was in the Marriott Center, about 16 years ago. So go back with me to 1995, somewhere in a girls’ apartment near BYU…

Wax On, Wax Off

I need everyone to sit down, please. I have some unfortunate news for you, and I think you should brace yourself. My dear friends, I have been diagnosed with folliculitis. That’s right, let it sink in. I know you are in shock, so take just a few minutes to regain your composure. I remember when I found out. It was 1993.

For those not familiar with this particular ailment, folliculitis is a condition where hair follicles are damaged by friction from clothing or shaving, and result in a rash or tiny, ingrown hairs. According to the Interwebs, pseudofolliculitis barbae is a similar disorder, but occurs mainly in black men, where curly beard hairs are cut too short, and curve back into the skin and cause inflammation.

I remember thinking that pseudofolliculitis barbae sounded more like what I had, but despite my vertical leap and ability to lip sync every last word to EnVogue’s “My Lovin’ (Never Gonna Get It),” the dermatologist told me it was plain ol’ folliculitis. I told him, “Whatevs, home slice. Shoo’(t).”

I asked for the cure, and the doctor told me, “Grow a beard.” I was a BYU student at the time, and in case you live in a cave or were born on the Bayou, you may have recently heard that BYU has an Honor Code; and one of the standards is you could only sport a beard on BYU’s campus with proper documentation (read: a Beard Card) and a signed agreement that you clearly understood that you were, in fact, not going to heaven.

For the next couple of months I dabbled in a cornucopia of methods to tame this ailment. One of which, I will now publicly and shamefully disclose: Waxing.

Yep, waxing. My thinking was that if I pulled all the hair out of my neck in the most excruciating method known to man, then I would not have to shave my neck for an extended period of time, and that would give my follicles a much needed vacation from the steel blade that caused them so much irritation. This seemed completely logical to me. Of course this was at a time in my life when a number of techniques or practices that were reckless and possibly illegal seemed “logical” to me.

I brought the kit home from Smith’s, heated up the wax on the stove, and stripped down to a towel, so as to not get wax all over my clothes. I wasn’t sure of the extent to which this could go badly. But I was confident it could at least destroy my clothing and possibly the entire apartment.

I had carefully timed it so that this experiment would be conducted alone, while my three roommates were occupied with an assortment of activities outside of our apartment.

Unfortunately, my roommate and dear friend, Lincoln, unexpectedly came home and walked in on an awkward scene of me in the vanity area, in a towel, slathering hot wax onto my neck.

The apartment and in fact the entire city of Provo, Utah, went silent as Lincoln and I locked eyes. Finally, somewhere in the far end of the county…a dog barked.

“What’cha doin’,” asked Lincoln, carefully, as if he were trying to talk me into letting a hostage go free.

“Just…you know…nuthin’.” I answered, casually putting one hand on my hip and hiding the container of wax behind me with my other hand. Silently praying that he wouldn’t notice the single strip of wax on the right side of my neck, or the fact I was only in a towel. Or that I had an Enya cd playing. And some candles burning.

“Is that wax?” he began his questioning.

“Perhaps.”

Then, with both hands up, as if showing he wasn’t concealing a weapon, “I think you should put that down.”

“It’s too late,” I stood my ground. And turning to face the mirror, “I’ve already started. And I’m doing this.”

“My friend…I don’t think you understand the significant pain this is going to cause you.”

“I’ll be fine,” I snapped back, coating the rest of my neck with heavy, heavy layers of hot wax.

When the wax had hardened (no, of course I hadn’t read the directions) I stepped back up to the mirror to get a good, close look at my neck, and strategize where I could get a firm hold of a corner of wax (no, of course not paper, didn’t you read the part about how I didn’t read the directions?).  I was almost giddy to pull off sheets of wax and hair and folliculitis. And there, by my side, was Lincoln, morbidly anxious to watch the process.

With my right hand, I latched on to the left upper corner of wax on my neck, just below my ear, with a plan to pull a triumphant sheet of wax and hair and folliculitis – and in fact all my problems – diagonally down. I gave it a slight tug just to test its bond to my skin. And that was the precise moment when I realized that I just might be wearing a slab of wax on my neck for the rest of mortality, because it certainly wasn’t going to come off.

“At least I’ll never have to shave again,” I thought. I tugged again, significantly harder this time.

“SWEET SAINTS AND SOLDIERS, DID SOMEBODY TAKE A FLAMETHROWERE TO MY FACE! MORPHINE! I NEED MORPHINE!”

This is what my brain was yelling at me. But on the outside, I was strong enough for a man, even if I was using this stuff that was made for a woman. All Lincoln could see was a single, huge tear well up in my right eye.

“See? It’s fine.” I over-confidently stated. Then, while Lincoln scrutinized, and I successfully kept the tears at bay, I started to painfully, meticulously, agonizingly pull bits, chunks, flecks and even shards – but never sheets – of wax off my neck. It was as if the wax was “white” and my neck was “rice.” They simply refused to be separated without a fight. 

After a long time and a lot of yanking, I finally put my foot down and asked Lincoln to not follow me as I stepped into a hot shower to try to scrape off any wax remains. I got out and checked myself in the mirror again. My neck was florescent red; literally glowing. It was like a beacon. It was the Rudolph of necks, and if Santa had been recruiting, well, I'd be on a much different career path than I am now.

Then, to add insult to red and painful injury, not only was it unsuccessful in postponing the need to shave, but it rendered my neck so raw, it was if I had tried to shave with a dull potato peeler. My ambitious experiment had failed huge.

The remedy I finally settled on, and still utilize to this day, is to shave with an electric razor every other day. This seems to keep the folliculitis at bay. However, on occasion, and usually when I’m listening to RUN DMC, I find my pseudofolliculitis barbae still flares up, yo.  

Lincoln and I in 1995, on-air for a weekly radio show our comedy troupe would do. 

The Garrens Comedy Troupe

It was 17 years ago this very weekend that BYU’s most treasured sketch/improv comedy troupe, The Garrens, first performed. And I was one of those original members. Yes, I have written about how this wonderfully creative opportunity came to be and how it influenced my life. (If you haven’t read it, may I suggest clicking here.) However, if you would like the full, unabridged history of The Garrens, you can read about it here, on the website of my dear friend and founder of The Garrens, Eric D. Snider.

Being involved in The Garrens turned out to be one of the most influential decisions I ever made and was the vehicle for much happiness in my life. I summed it up in this blurb I wrote several years ago for BYU’s alumni magazine, regarding The Garrens Comedy Troupe:

Student Performing Groups

In December of 1992 my roommate and good friend, Lincoln Hoppe, told me about a flier he had seen in the Wilkinson Center announcing auditions being held for a comedy troupe that was going to start performing regularly on campus.

Had I known how many good things would come from being a part of The Garrens Comedy Troupe, I would not have mocked Lincoln so quickly for suggesting he and I audition. Especially when I could have used the energy to mock him for so many other things, as is the practice among roommates in college.

When the original nine of us got together that December to start practicing, we thought we were hilarious. We were also fairly confident that nobody else would think we were. We practiced in a little theater in the Wilkinson Center that held no more than 100 people, and that is where we were scheduled to perform. The joke was that we would one day perform in the Marriott Center, while we were actually unsure if we would ever fill any of the 100 seats there in the Wilkinson Center. I mean with anybody besides our roommates.

The Garrens became bigger than any of us thought it would. We moved to larger rooms to perform, shows regularly sold out, we began performing off-campus, and in April 1995, just over three years from when we started, we performed in the Marriott Center.

There is great satisfaction in seeing people laugh and enjoy something that you’ve created. To feel like one of your talents is appreciated. But more influential to me were the friendships that I came away with. Some of the greatest people I know are people I met in The Garrens. Do I have a favorite? Why, yes. My wife, Katie, who joined the cast in the fall of 1993, decided she would date me in the fall of 1994, and married me in the summer of 1995. 

And now, let’s watch a short photo-history of The Garrens, from the year it all began, January 1993, to January 1996, the year that Katie and I finished school and faded from the group. (Warning: If you were NOT in The Garrens and don’t even remember them, this fanciful trip down Nostalgia Lane may not be as enjoyable for you. If you WERE in The Garrens, but not from this era (like, for instance, if you were there from late 1996 to March 2001, "The Day the Comedy Died"), then please know I think you are pretty great – I adore you – and I’m sorry I wasn’t there to take any pictures of those days.

To those Garrens out there who are a part of this period of my life, I hope you enjoy this little tribute to you. What a wonderful ride it was. How I miss you. How I miss the creativity and the energy and the familial feel that was there in those early years. I love you very much. 

Please click here to watch a slice of your life.

If You Like Me, Check This Box

December 1994 at a Christmas Party for The Garrens Comedy Troupe

I was an advertising major in college. I wanted to write commercials for radio and television. My goal was to one day work at a large ad firm in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, or San Luis Obispo. (I don’t think there are any large agencies in San Luis Obispo, but 1. I adore little beach towns, and 2. Don’t you kind of giggle when you say “San Luis Obispo?” Me too.)

In my dreams, I would have a little office with a window view of the ocean, an oversized poster of The Joshua Tree hanging on my wall, a mini-freezer filled with ice cream, and one of those little basketball hoops rigged atop a little wastebasket for the ultimate cliché of the tortured writer who rips scarcely touched paper with half-written ideas on it out of the typewriter, wads it up into a ball, and throws it at the wastebasket. (Camera cuts to the wastebasket, with nary a single wadded-up piece of paper inside, but about 23 wads peppered around the outside of the basket.) Also, everyone else in the office would give me a hard time for still using a typewriter in this day and age.

In an effort to stay true to my art form of writing and completely avoid developing any business savvy, I took only one business class in college. It was held in a stadium-style classroom with hundreds of savvy business students and me and my roommate/fellow dreamer/future commercial writing-partner – Lincoln.

We always sat in the front row. I don’t know why we sat there; maybe because we felt out of place with all the snooty business students. What with their briefcases, collared shirts, and large brains. It seemed like the average age in the classroom was 42, and I was at all times slightly uncomfortable, like somebody might stand, call my bluff, and demand my dismissal from this and any business classes. “Pardon me, Mr. Professor, your Honor, but I object to this hoodlum occupying a coveted seat in the front row of this, your stadium classroom. Furthermore, I submit that he has neither the inclination nor the maturation or substantiation for comprehending the volumes of wise and insightful tutorials you have prepared for us, your insatiable business students. Plus I heard him make a fart joke when he walked into class today.”

But I remained dutiful in attending my big business class. After all, I’d paid for it, I needed the credits to graduate…and my future wife, Katie Fillmore, happened to have a class in that same building, about half an hour after my class had started.

And then she started this little tradition that I adored.

About 25 minutes into every class, I would receive a love note from Katie. As if we were in junior high. They were always sweet and thoughtful; but my favorite part was that she would write the note, fold it up, and on the outside of the paper write: “Pass this note to the handsome, dark-haired man on the front row named ‘Ken.’” She would then sneak in the door of this monstrous classroom, tap the suit in the last row, at the top of the stadium-style seating structure, and hand him the note. The guy would read the instructions to pass it down, and he would hand it to the guy in front of him. Down and down. Down and down. Down something like 36 rows of seats the note would go, until somebody would tap me on the shoulder and hand me the note.

Now, we had been dating several months at this point, and I think Katie truly loved me. I think she knew I appreciated getting these little notes. But somewhere in Katie’s psyche, I think she also got the biggest kick out of this little phenomenon. That amidst all the no-nonsense attitudes of these business students, who would just as quickly clock you with their Franklin Planners as shoot you a dirty look for disturbing them during a business lecture, she could single-handedly reduce them to schoolyard behavior in three seconds flat. Inherit in everyone who ever went through adolescence is the knee-jerk, sociological reaction to not ask questions, just do what the note says and pass it along to the receiving end. Like you have no choice in the matter. The instructions are clear; I must pass this note on or endure the consequences!

I loved Katie for that. I loved that she found hilarity in random acts of frivolity. I loved that she thought of me every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 2:25 p.m. I loved that she would write “the handsome dark-haired man in the front row” and assumed everyone would know who that was. And I love that Katie still thinks no matter what other vocation I persue to support our family, I should never give up on that little writing office with the typewriter that overlooks the ocean.

Post Script: I actually kept a handful of those original notes that Katie sent me back in Winter semester 1995. Here are a couple (and if you click on them, I believe they should zoom in):

I should explain that my brother-like friend, Lincoln, gave me the nickname "Craigles." (A derivative of my last name, you see.) That's a story for another time. But anyway, most everybody in The Garrens called me that. Including Katie.) (Please note: This does not give you permission to call me Craigles.)

I did not want to include this note below, as it says things that make me blush and it sounds very self-aggrandizing. But Katie threatened me if I didn't. And she's tiny, but I bruise easy!

The Reason for the Season

Two weeks from today will mark 14 years that Katie and I have been married. I thought that between now and then, I’d share a few things I love about my darling Katie. After all, she is the reason for the season!

I won’t say that I knew I was going to marry Katie Fillmore the first time I met her. But I knew something was happening.

Let me back up.

Eight months before meeting Katie I had auditioned for, wet my pants over, and officially joined The Garrens Comedy Troupe. The first improvisational and sketch comedy group to ever grace the land of BYU. (Unless you count the short-lived 1876 troupe, Die Brigham!, started by German immigrant Karl Maeser. Yes, translated it means The Brigham; but with the lingo misunderstanding, I don’t think I need to tell you that the troupe was quickly disbanded, a public flogging was held, and we never heard from those folks again.)

At any rate, it was January 1993. It was the year of Schindler’s List, civil war in Afghanistan, and the dissolution of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. So, as you can see, the world was rife with hilarity already! As a society we were infatuated with Jurassic Park and Eddie Vedder’s reality-biting plaid, flannel fashion. Also Whitney Houston would not shut up about how she would always love us. (F.Y.I., Whitney; desperation is so unbecoming.)

On this particular winter-y day, my roommate and yours, Lincoln Hoppe, had seen a flier on campus, wherein some hooligan named Eric D. Snider (Hi Snidles!) was holding auditions so he could convince a couple of chumps to join him in starting a comedy troupe. Lincoln was thrilled with the idea. He was less thrilled with my openly mocking him for suggesting we go audition. (And less thrilled even further when he opened the fridge to discover I had not only drunk the last of his personal stash of Minute Maid, but put the empty pitcher back in the fridge for him to find and then properly relocate to the kitchen sink.)

Don’t get me wrong. In theory, I loved the idea of writing sketches and performing them. In theory, I also loved the idea of getting up in front of a crowd of people and not pooping my pants. So you keep to your theories, and I’ll keep to my unsoiled pants, and round n’ round the world will go.

Well, we both auditioned and became part of BYU history that year by becoming members of The Garrens. The two of us, plus seven more mirthful souls. Our popularity soared! Between the hours of 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on most Friday nights, at the JKHB building on BYU campus, to a crowd that was willing to pay $1 each to see us – we were practically celebrities! And then Winter Semester ended. And some of the cast members left to seek their fortune and fame by becoming LDS missionaries.

So we held auditions to fill their spots.

And in late August of 1993 I sat in the back of that same room in the JKHB building with about five other members of The Garrens; watching for talent, energy, and which girls would most likely let us date them if we let them in the troupe. (I’m 70% kidding.)

Enter Katie Fillmore, center stage.

But I hadn’t seen her yet.

In the back of this darkened theater room I was squinting at my pad of paper as I was still noting some detailed, astute, professor-like observations regarding the previous auditioning individual. Not that funny, I wrote.

For her audition, we had placed Katie in an improvisation with Natalie (a current Garrens’ member), wherein they had both been summoned to the high school principal’s office, and were sitting next to each other in anticipation. Natalie was an angst-y, angry hard rocker and Katie was a cheerleader. I’d heard the scene start, but I was still focused on my notes, and hadn’t yet turned my attention to the stage.

Finally I looked up. There, in all her glory, was my wife. Not yet. But in less than two years, she would change my life and make it better than I deserved.

I could not stop watching her.

The first thing I noticed was her eyes. And though I’ve never asked, I assume to this day that is the first thing anybody notices about Katie. It’s not the color. It’s not the lashes. It’s the light. Those eyes are windows into what makes Katie…Katie. Her very essence. Her personality emanates out her eyes. I looked in those eyes and knew immediately she was a happy and kind spirit. Not just for the fleeting moment, but in her core.

She was wearing a yellow shirt, 1993 jeans, white sneakers, and a huge-normous smile. She was a force to be reckoned with, but not assuming. She didn’t try to take over the stage, but had a confidence in what she was doing. And she was hilarious. A 5’2” ball of energy and enthusiasm and wit and adorableness.

It wasn’t love at first sight in any kind of formulaic way. I didn’t think, “One day I will marry her.” I didn’t think, “Roll the montage sequence, we’re in love.” But it wouldn’t be truthful to say it was nothing either. It was something. Something extremely, profoundly deep, deep, deep in my soul reacted to Katie. Almost chemically. Like I could feel a physical change. Some trace part of me recognized her. Or was drawn out to her. Or something. I didn’t know what it was in that moment. But I did know she would be in The Garrens. Her audition alone was outstanding; but even more, I could just sense she would be a part of my life. Even for just a season. Thankfully, though, it’s been much longer.

This is the first documented photo of Katie and I. It was right after a Garrens' show. Yes, that's me in the pink/red shirt, and that is Katie next to me. And who's that she is looking at? Is it the camera? No, it's ME! We had yet to even begin flirting; and yet she is looking at me. I love it.

Back stage just before a show. We had only begun flirting at this point. Yes, Katie is the one on the right. And no, that is not my real hair.

Final show of the season. Me in the middle-center, Katie on top of me, to your right.

The Clarks

Nature's first green is gold, 


Her hardest hue to hold. 


Her early leaf's a flower; 


But only so an hour. 


Then leaf subsides to leaf. 


So Eden sank to grief, 


So dawn goes down to day. 


Nothing gold can stay.

            Robert Frost

Katie and I met in The Garrens, a comedy troupe that performed sketches and improvisations weekly on BYU campus. We had been friends for just over a year, when in the fall of 1994 we started dating. By complete serendipity, we had two classes together, and though we didn’t know it at the time, one of the classes included two individuals that would become two of our favorite people ever. Chris Clark and Lisa Valentine. Now affectionately referred to as…The Clarks.

College is this huge-normous social experience, with perpetual conversations and story telling and dialogue and interchanges and meeting new people and having shared experiences… It’s this continually open channel of communication. It is its own world, sincerely. And in that inimitable little world, the four of us quickly became good, good friends.

From the fall of 1994 to the summer of 1995 the four of us seemed to be walking very similar paths. Katie and I started dating about the same time as Chris and Lisa. Things started to get more serious about the same time. All of us had similar emotions, similar interests, similar points of reference. But it was more than that. There was something very effortless about our friendships. And born out of all this was this level of trust and safety and acceptance. And genuine happiness for each other. And the hilarity. My gosh, the hilarity. So entertaining and amusing were our conversations (to us), that it became burdensome to find a break in the banter and return to our regularly scheduled reality. It usually came to an end when somebody would say something like, “Well, I’m already late for class, I better go” or “I’ve got to get up in three hours to take a test” or “I’m going to the bathroom, please don’t follow me.” And even the occasional, “You guys, seriously, shut up, ER is starting.”

We ate countless meals together, acted in several plays together, watched thousands of movies together, and created many inside jokes together. And then we all got married. (Not all four of us to each other.) Chris and Lisa were married in June of 1995, and Katie and I in August of the same summer.

And when the Craigs returned from their honeymoon just in time to start fall semester at BYU, who were the first people to see them? Yes, the Clarks. And the bonding continued.

The next two years meant more inside jokes, more eating out, more dialogues, and more similar reference points, as we started talking about having babies and having lives after college. Lisa performed in The Garrens with us. We’d all go to Chris’ plays. Sundays always seemed to be our days to either go for walks around Provo, or to eat dinner, take communal naps on the Clarks Futon, and wake up in time to watch The Simpsons.

In the summer of 1997 we all four simultaneously finished BYU. (Please note I did not say all of us graduated at this time. But we were done with school in that we would no longer be attending classes, this we were sure of.)  The Clarks weren’t sure what exactly they were going to do, but they were going to do it in Provo. And the Craigs were equally unsure about what they were going to do…but they had the impression it was going to be outside of Utah.

It was while sitting in the Clarks living room one night, discussing these very issues, that I noticed a wooden dish rack, painted green, that Lisa had made and hung over their kitchen sink. On it, she had written out the words to the Robert Frost poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay. I had read the poem a number of times before, but it became very personal and bittersweet to me in that moment.

In the eternal sense of things, of course, those things that are the most golden do stay. Our marriages, our families, eternal truths, testimonies, our relationships with others.  But in this mortal life, there are these golden moments, these golden periods of time. And they don’t stay.  

Your kids won’t always be able to crawl up on your lap and pull your arms around them. Your parents won’t always be able to jump in a car and drive to your house when you have something exciting happening. You won’t always have a newborn to walk to sleep. You won’t always be on a small Hawaiian island as a newlywed. And you won’t always be able to live next door to some of your most cherished friends.

When the Clarks visited us this weekend, all those feelings came back. How heartbreaking it is to know that we can’t walk over to the Clarks to borrow a cup of “Please tell me you TiVo-ed The Office last night because we totally missed it.” And how comforting it is to know that while it is no longer the mid-90s, our friendship is just as gold as it was, and shows no signs of ever fading. 

*Editor's Note:

I had written this tribute to our friends, the Clarks, some months back. I didn’t intend to post it as a blog, but rather, keep it as a personal note. But the timing is such that I wanted to pay tribute to them.

Chris’ sister, Stephanie, and her husband, Christian were in a plane crash on Saturday, August 16^th. You may have heard this story, as it has been widely told in the blogworld, and the focus of some attention in the news as well.

Stephanie and Christian are alive, and at this point, have shown enough improvement that they are not even considered trauma patients anymore. However, they have extensive burns and will remain in induced comas for months, while they heal.

If you are interested in reading the story you can follow it on the blog of Chris and Stephanie’s sister, Courtney. She keeps it up to date. She is also, in my opinion, a wonderful writer.

So are Chris and Lisa, if you would like to read their blogs. I find them some of the funniest people I know, and regarding this specific experience; I believe they are approaching it with an incredible balance of love, patience, and faith.

If you read their blogs, you will find links to ways you can help – donations, auctions, prayers, fasting. It is overwhelming the support this family is receiving.