Breaking Up. It's Hard to Do.

We're coming up on Valentine's Day this week, kids. Love abounds! Except when it doesn't. And you know who you are. And believe me - though I am crazy-insane in love with my wife for decades now, there was a time when I treaded the ground of "Having to Figure Love Out." And that inevitably included break-ups. And man, I hated those.

I used to work with a girl named Tobie.* Tobie had lived in Las Vegas for a number of years, but originally heralds from Planet Drama, where she is considered royalty. (*Names have been changed. Kind of. She spells it without the “e.”) Each morning when I walked into the office, I couldn't wait to see what the Crisis De Jour would be. The dramatic episodes ranged from “Last night I talked to my mom for the first time in three years!” to “I lost 1.5 pounds!” And most memorably, when she broke up with her boyfriend of eight months. Or more accurately, he broke up with her. And what, I ask you, could be more dramatic than that?! (Well, if you’re Tobie, then just about anything.)

So I’m listening to her heartbreaking story, line upon line and precept by precept, when I suddenly begin having flashbacks to my own breakups. I start getting knots in my stomach, I get a little moist under the arms, and I find myself looking for the opportunity to assure Tobie that her and I can still be friends, even though we aren’t the ones breaking up. It’s just instinct.

For me, breakups were the absolute worst. I avoided them like they were cancer. Oh, how they pained me to the core of my dating soul. It’s still hard to talk about some of them…

Tess Dresher. Fourth Grade. I can still recall the day she walked up to me during recess and asked me to “go with her.” “Sure,” I answered. And those were the last words every exchanged between Tess and myself. We occasionally sat by each other, and I gave her a very special Peanuts Valentine’s Day card, but we never did speak, or even make eye contact. So I guess technically we are still “going together.” Boy is she going to be mad when she finds out I got married and had eight children. She’ll want to break up for sure. I’m not looking forward to that conversation.

Julia Zimmerman. High School. It was the summer of 1987, and I was sixteen years old – with a license to drive and to date! I knew Julia really liked me when her mom had grounded her and she promptly ignored said house arrest to go to the movies with me. Yes, we were young and crazy in love! I was pretty sure that after the summer of 1987 I could die happy. By fall of 1987 I was so miserable I was praying for death. We went to different high schools and Julia was first to acknowledge that our long distance relationship wasn’t really going to make it. I nodded my head in agreement, but inside I felt like somebody was cramming my heart through a paper shredder.

College break-ups were the toughest, obviously. You've all been there. Sometimes it's almost cliche. But there was genuine pain, due to genuine feelings and possibilities. It might be too soon. I don't think I can talk about it. Her name was Danielle. It was Halloween night. We had gone to a party and we were sitting in my car in the parking lot of her apartment complex. I was dressed as Aladdin, she was Jasmine. Things had been in the pooper for quite some time, and it felt like a stranger walking by could glance in our direction and know exactly what was happening. It was silent for a few minutes, and then I spoke up. Tell me if you've had this exact conversation before:

“I think we should see other people.”

"Define our relationship,” she said.

“What?”

“Define our relationship!”

“Uhm…we should…see other people…but we can still be -”

“Are you giving me the Friend Speech? Don’t you DARE give me the Friend Speech!”

“Uh…NO…never, never. I think it’s just me.”

“OH, NO – the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ bit?”

“Noooo! That’s not what I mean at all...”

An eternal silence. Like…three days have passed while we’ve sat in the car. And finally she speaks.

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“I…don’t understand the question.”

“I can’t do this!” she yelled, and bailed out of the car.

Joy to the world.

It was truly painful. Of course, not as painful as Tobie’s overly dramatic reaction to the hair she found in her salad at lunch one day. “I almost ate this and diiiiiiieeeeedddddd!”

The Stake Dance: A Metaphor for Life

Without permission, my daughter Abbie turned 14 last week. And I have no one to blame but myself, as it even happened on my watch, and I did absolutely nothing to stop it. In my defense, I was distracted by my life-changing AppleTV and being able to watch YouTube videos on my television! Ah, technology. I kind of fear you, sometimes.

The thing about being 14 in the LDS Church is that you now get to experience that rite of passage known as … The Stake Dance. And Abbie will be attending her first on Saturday.

(For you non-LDS’ers, a standard congregation in the LDS Church is called a “ward.” Several wards combine to make up a “stake.” And once a month a dance is held in one of the ward buildings for all the youth, ages 14 to 18 in the entire stake. It’s a marvelous social opportunity for the young people in today’s world to come be together so they can bask in the overpowering odiferous combination of cologne and body order, circumvent actual conversations by texting each other from opposite ends of the gym, and at all costs – including death first – avoid any actual dancing.)

My gosh, what an emotional rollercoaster a Saturday night stake dance used to be for me. It was like experiencing puberty in a microwave. In one single evening you were terrified, elated, awkward, euphoric … you loved everyone, you hated everyone, wished you were younger, wished you were older, you had the sweats, and by night’s end…your voice had changed, and you were four inches taller.

The energy was palpable. Circles of friends assembled in assorted areas throughout the low-lit gym; half-dancing already, gossiping, hoping that “certain somebody” would be showing up that night, making lists of what songs you were going to request from Mr. DJ, and deciding what to do after the dance – going to Bob’s Big Boy for shakes, or going to toilet paper some poor soul’s house.

I remember my very first stake dance. My parents dropped me off outside the church, with a pep talk from my dad on how I should just grab the first girl I saw and use some pick-up line like, “Hey Sweetheart, teach me to dance.” Apparently my dad hadn’t been 14 in many, many years. And “sweetheart” must have been a warmer salutation at that time, or on that planet.

I walked into that gym alone, the youngest guy in the room, and immediately scanned the place for any sign of safety or reassurance. I suddenly found it in the face of Sherri Rosquist, a friend from my Sunday school class. I hadn’t been in the room two minutes and she came up to me.

“Hey, let’s dance!” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me with her.

“I don’t know how,” I answered, as I walked out onto the floor with her. I really didn’t feel timid about having never publicly danced before, as much as I felt I should legitimately warn her that things could get unsightly, if not physically and socially precarious for the both of us.

“I’ll teach you,” she kindly responded, with a big smile and all the confidence in the world.

Bless you, Sherri Rosquist. Bless you for saving me from a night of discomfiture and an entire adolescence of shame. Bless you for knowing how to dance. Bless you for your forwardness. And bless you for calling me back to the dance floor when, during the humming part near the end of Modern English’s “I Melt with You,” I assumed the song was over and started to exit from said dance floor.

As the song finally did end, I thanked Sherri and began walking away when a tall brunette stepped right in front of me and blocked my exit.

“Wanna dance?!” she beamed.

Oh, hold me. It was the spectacular Danielle Martin! She had been my regular babysitter when I was 8 and she was 12. 

Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, this is precisely what 

Danielle Martin looked like when she asked me to dance. 

I remembered her well, as she had occupied a starring role in my dreams lo those (many) six years.  I’d had my suspicions when I was 8 that Danielle may have had what scientists termed as “the hots” for me. After all, when the other kids were sent to bed, I was allowed to stay up and watch TV with her until we heard my parents pull into the driveway. At 8 years old, that spelled out love to me! But our forbidden love had to be kept a secret.

But not anymore!  Now I was 14 and she was a bombshell of an 18 year old, and we were on a dance floor! The scene was set, and all that we needed was the perfect soundtrack to celebrate the moment. So you’re probably thinking what I’m thinking. Yep. Cue the Hall & Oates.

The night continued down this magnificent path, enchanting moment after enchanting moment. I got jiggy wit it, I socialized with the “older” crowd, I delighted in the array of refreshments. It could not have been better.

And that’s when I saw her.

She was beautiful; this nameless lady in a red dress, with dark hair and blue eyes. Of course I can only assume you’re thinking the same thing I’m thinking. Yep. Romance was in the air. Cue the Wham!

She was standing in the midst of several other attractive and significantly older women. 18 year olds. Well, thanks to a sensational experience earlier with Danielle Martin, plus an evening of flawless socializing…I was really overloaded with a false sense of confidence. I could not be shaken. I walked boldly up to Red Dress, completely convinced we would one day tell our grandchildren about this night.

“Wanna dance?” my voice warbled, surprising even myself.

It was the last song of the evening, and heaven bless her, she actually nodded her head. Wow. Really, the only thing that would have made the moment even better would have been if she’d instead just said, “Not a chance.”

See, it quickly became evident that she hadn’t done either of us any favors by agreeing to dance with me. She clearly didn’t want to be there, and I clearly wanted her to be there so badly that my palms were sweating as if this dance were being judged by Church leaders themselves and my life hung in the balance.

Who was I to think an attractive 18 year old woman was desperately waiting for a junior high kid to come make her evening by pulling her away from her ostentatious friends and out onto the dance floor in front of a condemnatory crowd to enjoy what had to have been the single longest love song ever recorded in the history of ever?

Not a word. Not a single word spoken between us. I blamed myself, of course. But I blamed her, too. Sure, I obviously put her in the difficult situation of not wanting to crush the spirit of an overly-zealous pubescent boy while also not wanting to dance with him…but once we found ourselves in this horrific predicament, she did absolutely nothing to save me. She didn’t compliment me on my “Deacon Two-Step” (the quintessential dance move of all stake dance first-timers), she didn’t ask if that was Drakkar Noir or Old Spice that I was wearing (it was both, I wanted to smell really special), and she didn’t ask me what I thought of the intricate subtleties and underlying meanings behind Wham!’s “Careless Whisper,” which was underscoring our unending dance. Nothing. Just complete, painful silence.

It felt like days had passed.

Finally the song ended, our hands dropped to our side, and we both did an about-face and marched away from each other, equally embarrassed and ashamed.

And that’s life in a nutshell, my friends. Ups and downs. Peaks and valleys. Unstoppable, then humbled. Cloud Nine, then Cell Block Nine. But what a journey. And what a soundtrack! You’re probably thinking what I’m thinking, right? Yep. Cue the Howard Jones. 

Warm and Fuzzy Memories

The wisest choice I made as a teenager was to avoid being filmed in home videos. (The second wisest choice I made was to eat TWO Double-Doubles every time I went to In-N-Out. Ah, the metabolism of a teenager. I miss it.)

I don’t remember the precise year home video cameras were priced low enough that every American family decided to own one; but if memory serves, I believe our family got one Christmas 1985. I was 14 years old.

Few people can pull off 14 well. You’ve got Frankie Muniz, Michael Cera, and of course, Justin Bieber. I am none of those people. I knew it even then, so I avoided the lens.

There is some horrific footage of a 1988 Ward Roadshow practice where I played the unfortunate roll of John-Boy (of Waltons’ fame), and it is extremely painful to watch. If you are ever forced at gun-point to watch it, you can see that I clearly felt I was doing everyone a favor by showing up to practice. I had perfected the “eye roll” that all mentors and leaders enjoy seeing in youth, and I was chomping the heck out of a piece of gum – as if the flavor had personally offended me and I was going to kill it.

But as painful as it is, I occasionally watch the footage when I’m alone. Because it serves as a reminder that I was wise beyond my years to avoid being videotaped. I wince as I watch, then I pat myself on my back, and carefully put the video tape back in the unmarked shoe box in my closet. Never to be seen by my children.

Instead, my children snoop through things like old photo albums and boxes. And recently, Abbie found this photo of me.

Judging by the orange/pink/yellow medley going on with those swim trunks – combined with the light swirls of navel hair peeking through the life jacket – I’m going to say this is summer 1987. 16 years old.

I have no recollection of this photo being taken. But I absolutely love it, and here’s why:

1. My kids think it looks awesome. THIS is how they think of me as a teenager, and not some plaid-wearin’, gum-chompin’, eye-rollin’ John-Boy who could eat two Double-Doubles with fries, root beer, and chocolate shake. (You're judging me, aren’t you?) So this picture has won me “cool points” with my kids.
2. I think I might have U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” going through my head in this shot. This was the summer of The Joshua Tree, after all.
3. I look at this photo and I feel washed over with nostalgia and memories of the water skiing trips of my youth - every summer, all summer long. At least I think they were all summer long. My memory of my teen years may be a bit fuzzy.
4. The photo is slightly out of focus. Just a bit blurry. (Kind of like my memories of my teen years, apparently.)
5. Look closely at my face. What do you see there? Is that…smolder? I could swear it is, but I have no idea how it got there. Try not to flirt back. That young man doesn’t exist anymore.

Skydiving: The Only Way to Die

Having recently reminisced about the 20-year anniversary of moving to Hawaii, I have recalled yet another memory of that same era. The memory of the day my father tried to kill me.

It was on the plane ride from Los Angeles to Honolulu when Dad announced that when we landed in Hawaii, he had arranged for some of us to go skydiving.

sky·div·ing [skahy-dahy-ving] – noun – an ancient Hawaiian word, which, when properly translated, means “fine, go ahead and kill yourself.”

Dad had been trained in Vietnam to skydive, but was never given the opportunity to perform. Skydiving probably being the only joy that Vietnam offered my dad, and then having that opportunity taken from him, I think the idea had been festering in his heart and soul for far too many years, and now he had definitely gone bananas. (Or coconuts—pick your poison.) I wasn't too excited about dad killing himself, but to involve me seemed completely unnecessary.

It soon become painfully obvious, however, that this was not my decision to be made. On our third day on Oahu Dad informed me that we were heading for our death sentence. Dad felt we had no time for silly “lessons” or “instructions” or “legal steps” that are required before skydiving, so he had made a Plan B. How he researched this place is a mystery to me, but he found his Plan B.

On the north side of Oahu, in a spacious, grassy field, stands a tiny hut, where Bubba and Buddy hang out all day, drinking beer and admiring the makeshift airplane they must have stolen from some unsuspecting cropduster. And they sit there waiting with a small hope that fools like us will pull up and give them enough money for more beer.

So, we fools pull up, throw some money at them, and they take us inside their tiny hut and explain that we’ll be jumping “tandem” – meaning that one of them will be attached to me by a thin cord that is tied to our waists. Apparently this is the loophole by which they can legally send us up without any instruction. As if any of this sounds legal.

Dad went up and jumped first, while we all stayed on good ole’ terra firma and watched. As Dad floated gently to the ground, I was ecstatic that I would not be left to provide for my family at the tender age of seventeen. It was my turn to go, so I made the announcement that I was going to now board the plane, unless someone wanted to just put a bullet in my head now and save some cash. No takers. I climbed aboard the plane, looked at the man whose hands I was putting my life in, and choked back a tear. There was one seat on the plane, and thankfully, it belonged to the pilot. I took a seat on the wood floor, sat up against the side of the plane, and wondered if any of my friends in California would come all the way to Hawaii for my funeral, and what my mom would serve them. I hoped she would serve her delicious homemade bread. I should have said something before getting on the plane. But it was too late now.

The plane itself didn't seem all that sturdy, and as a paying customer, I was of the opinion that I should be the one wearing the parachute, instead of the “professional” jumping with me. I looked at the other men on the plane and noticed I was the youngest person jumping. I wondered why the rest of them had decided to do this. Surely their dads were not forcing them into it.

We reached the two-mile point, and the instructor slid open the door to reveal nothing but blue. I couldn't see the ground, the ocean – nothing. And I was seated, most unfortunately, right by the door. The two other individuals on the plane decided not to jump. I now had the power of the crowd on my side. I could have easily been turned, were it not for the words of the instructor “Whether you jump or not, you still pay.” The fear of confronting my father and telling him, “Hey, thanks for the $100 plane ride, Pop, but I much, much prefer it here on the ground” overpowered my fear of jumping, and I made the suddenly easy decision to jump.

“Climb out the door and hang onto the wing,” the guide instructed me.

“Pass,” I commented.

“Climb out, and I’ll climb out after you.”

I got down on my hands and knees and inched my way out the door, holding on to the wing. I clung to that wing so tightly; I think a few of my fingernails are still attached. At this point, I decided that wearing a mere tank top and 1988-length shorts was not the smartest wardrobe selection for leaving the earth’s atmosphere. I was freezing. The instructor came out, straddled over me and snapped the belt to attach us at the waist.

“Let go of the wing, you’ll swing between my legs.”

“What are my other options?”

I let go and swung between his legs, looking again at the big blue space beneath me. I sat there swinging, not knowing when he was going to jump, when I was going to fall, or when I was going to wet my pants. Actually, I had a pretty good idea of when I was going to wet my pants.

Suddenly, I was falling. I felt my stomach fall all the way back to the earth and wait for me there, under a palm tree. Somewhere around the falling rate of 90 mph my adrenaline kicked in, and I started getting really excited. I felt immortal, like I had somehow, in this single act, conquered life. Life, I was fairly sure, would never mess with me again.

After several moments of falling at over 100 mph, the parachute opened and the overpowering noise from the wind disappeared. I was floating, peacefully, and I was in no hurry to land. All my senses were alive and they were having a “come as you are” party. I was the host. They loved me.

We got closer to the ground and I heard the instructor yell “Uh-oh.” This is never a welcomed announcement, but even less so when you are in such a vulnerable position.

“Uh-oh…start running – there’s no wind.”

“Huh?”

“There’s no wind to slow us down – we need wind to slow us down – we’re going to have to hit the ground running.”

Apparently there needs to be a strong wind to slow down the chute and land you gently on the ground. And we had no such wind. I hadn't taken physics, but I didn't see how “pre-running” was going to somehow store up a reserve of “running power” so that when you hit the ground you were actually ahead of the game because, hey, you were already running. But who was I to argue with Mr. Professional Skydiving Dude Man? I started Fred Flinstone-ing in the air. It made no difference. I hit the ground, landed on my face, and slid fifteen feet or so, with an instructor on my back.

We got up off the ground, shook off the dirt and the willies that come with sliding 15 feet with a grown man on top of you, and … hugged. It’s what dudes do, don’t you know. I then declared that I needed a drink, and the instructor informed me there was a hose behind the shed. I walked behind the shed to also find something the instructor failed to mention – a large crop of your average, garden-variety marijuana, flourishing in the tropical Hawaiian weather. That was very reassuring, I can tell you. My instructor may or may not have been stoned, whilst I put my young life in his dude-ish hands.

So, nice try, Dad. But I’m still here.

Molokai Style

One night after dinner, circa 1986, my dad sat us all down and, unassisted by alcohol or peyote, told us that we were going to sell our house, buy a boat, and sail around the world. He had seven children, a flourishing CPA business, and apparently, a low tolerance for living out his days in Middle America. I was 15 and not impressed with this plan. If I could go back in time, I would smack my 15-year old self, because of course it would be incredible to live a life of globetrotting; but at the time, I was not thrilled with the dangers of the high seas. Sharks, pirates, and a lack of church dances left a bad taste in my mouth.

Fortunately, I had a plan. I suggested that before we do anything irrational we should probably rent the Harrison Ford movie, Mosquito Coast, wherein an eccentric and dogmatic inventor sells his house and takes his family to Central America – by boat – to build an ice factory in the middle of the jungle. He goes completely crazy. At least…I think he does. The movie was kind of slow, so most of us kids left my parents watching it while we went into the other room and watched a rerun episode of Who’s the Boss?, starring a pre-skanky Alyssa Milano and small screen sensation Tony Danza. Riveting.

The plan must have worked, and Dad must have recognized the dangers of going crazy at sea (as well as the dangers of assuming that all Harrison Ford movies are sensational—K-19, I’m looking in your direction), because he never brought up the plan again and simultaneously stopped insisting we answered him with an “Ai, ai, Captain” whenever he asked us to do something. Who’s the boss now?

But he was still restless.

Fast-forward to 1988. 

We had another Family Meeting. This time, Dad explained that we would be selling our home and leaving all things glorious in Southern California for the opportunity to move to a tiny Hawaiian island by the name of Molokai. While there were decidedly fewer opportunities to be attacked by sharks or pirates while on land (equal opportunities for church dances), I wasn't convinced this was a great alternative. However there were zero movies starring Harrison Ford about a man going crazy in Hawaii. Unless you count the original screenplay for Temple of Doom, which was supposed to take place in Hawaii instead of India. Which also, I just made that up.

I had no way to thwart my father’s plan.

Dad had some friends who were trying to set up a golf resort of sorts on Molokai, but none of them lived there. They collectively decided somebody involved should be there to have a “presence” on Molokai while the project was in production. Dad was involved in an accounting sort of a way (but really more of an emotional “take this midlife crisis and cram it” kind of a way), and he quickly volunteered to buy a hammock and check out of the Rat Race. So in August of 1988, we moved from Westlake, California to Kualapu’u, (pronounced, no joke, koala-poo-oo), Molokai, Hawaii. An island only six miles wide and thirty miles long.

When you tell people you lived on Molokai, you get one of two responses. “Never heard of it” or “ Isn't that where the lepers are?” You are correct on both accounts. For the most part, even people who live on another Hawaiian island raise their eyebrows and are most surprised to hear that there are people alive and well on Molokai. In short, you will not find Molokai in your Fabulous Hawaiian Vacation brochure. Unless you were hoping to see the lepers; but even then, there isn't much left of them. (Rim shot.)

August 1988 was the month before I started my senior year in high school. Do you know how hard it is to move out of the state just before your senior year in high school? Not nearly as difficult as it is to find people who will join your Pity Party, since you are moving to Hawaii and they are not.

I spent my last summer in California soaking in all that was available. The usual stuff (you can find my tribute to my California upbringing by clicking here), plus a concerted effort to date more, as my mom warned me that one really didn’t “date” on Molokai. No movie theaters, no restaurant chains, not a single luxury. Like Robinson Crusoe. As primitive as can be.

To get us acclimated to Island Life, Dad planned for us to spend the first couple of weeks island-hopping. First, a tour of Oahu, then over to Molokai for a brief introduction to our new home, then over to Maui for a few days, then back to Molokai to officially begin our slower-paced lifestyle.

To pass the time on our flight from L.A. to Honolulu, I did a great deal of blubbering. I blubbered over the girl I was leaving in California; I blubbered over missing the suburb where I grew up; I blubbered over being an entire ocean away from In-N-Out; I blubbered over the in-flight movie (Three Men & a Baby, an emotional rollercoaster of love, laughter, and life lessons); and I blubbered over the hits-of-the-day tunes on my Walkman, including Cheap Trick’s The Flame, Guns n’ Roses Sweet Child of Mine, and Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry, Be Happy. (I've never wanted to crotch-kick somebody more. Honestly, Bobby. You should worry; because if we ever meet, I am going to slap the “happy” right out of you.)

We spent a few days on Oahu doing all the touristy stuff we could manage to cram into our mini-stop – including the Polynesian Cultural Center, cliff jumping at Waimea Bay, walking Waikiki, flying in a glider plane, and touring the Dole Pineapple Plantation. It sounds like we were sitting in the lap of luxury, yes? But you forget. My dad had just taken a leave of absence from employment, he had seven children, and all these fun activities cost a ridiculous amount of money. How do you fund such an outing? Well, you do away with hotels and three square meals a day. That’s how.

We spent those first four days on Oahu in a minivan, my friend. We subsisted on bread and fresh fruit, purchased each morning. We spent the bulk of each day swimming at the beach, then driving around in wet swim suits, with wet towels (because nothing ever completely dries in humid places such as the Islands). By day four, I can’t describe the odious funk that permeated that minivan. Mildew-saturated towels and clothing, combined with old fruit rinds, combined with teenage body odor.  (Man, I missed church dances.) 

The nights were the worst, really. Dad would drive around until it got late enough that the police stopped patrolling the beaches.  Then he’d pull over and some of us would throw our towels out onto the sand and sleep, and some of the more fortunate souls called dibs on the seats in the van. It was a catch-22. Van seats weren't comfortable, but you ran the risk of being eaten alive by mosquitoes outside. I was so impressed when Dad handed that minivan back into Alamo Rental with a straight face.

Eventually we flew over to Molokai. One of my dad’s friends, Jim, owned a home on the west end of the island. Thank goodness he did, because when we landed, we found out that the home my parents had arranged to rent was up and rented or sold to some locals who most likely knew the owner and tipped the scales in their favor with some fermented poi. So we did not have a home to move in to. We stayed at Jim’s for those few days, since he was almost never on the island, and nobody was renting his home from him at the moment.

After a couple of days of frequenting Molokai beaches and driving around the island, we left for Maui to kill some time, and because other people were renting Jim’s place for the week. On Maui we parasailed, whale watched, swam…and wondered where we were going to live once we went back to Molokai.

We got back to Molokai with about a week and half until school started. My parents were on the prowl for a home to rent while we set up a refugee camp at the home of the Relief Society President. We  quickly became too familiar with her, her quiet and balding, egg-shaped husband (who happened to be a cop), and their nine-year-old daughter. It smacked of Reality TV, but it hadn’t been invented yet.  My parents slept in the spare bedroom, and the rest of us slept on the floor, spread out around the house. We were grateful to have a roof over our heads, but I wasn’t so grateful to hear the horror stories from our host, the cop, about how my brother and I were going to get the living snot beat out of us by the locals because we were A) Haole (caucasion), and B) Not from Molokai.

Here I have listed a few of my first impressions about Molokai:

• It smells fantastic.
• The dirt is red.
• There are no stoplights.
• There are barely any stop signs.
• Nobody pays attention to the stop signs.
• Everyone leaves their keys in the car ignition, because everybody knows which car belongs to whom. (Population: 6,000 folks.) Cars are never stolen…where would you take them?
• Everyone picks up hitchhikers (same reason as above).
• The east end of the island is lush, with lagoons and an almost jungle-like feel; and the winding roads to get there make the trip longer than anywhere else you could go on the island. The west end is almost desert-like until you reach the coast, where the white-sand beaches are amazing. The north end holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest sea cliffs – and at the bottom is a peninsula, where the lepers live. The south end of the island has the wharf, groves of palm trees, and some restaurants and residential areas.

My first couple of weeks on the island were unusually eventful. Especially considering there was nothing to do. We were fortunate to be LDS, because we made friends at Church almost immediately, and this led to not being pulverized by anybody else for the rest of the time we lived there, since they were like my personal PR agents, assuring everybody else I meant no harm.

Of course I wasn't so sure about these guys at first. One of my first nights there, some of our new “friends” took my brother and I for a ride into town. They convinced us to participate in some kind of juvenile behavior in the local cemetery (a very superstitious place, Molokai), and then follow them down an abandoned alleyway. It was late, dark, and foreign to me. I thought this was it; I was about to lose the original bone structure of my face. One of the guys stepped up to a door and knocked. “This must be where they put dead Haole bodies,” I thought to myself. Then, some scrawny, high-pitched gentleman stepped out and…took our order for famous Molokai Hot Bread. Baked fresh nightly. It was delicious, and, like, a million times better than a punch to the face.

My parents finally found a “home” for us to rent during the 9 months it took to have a new 2-story house built. It was down on the wharf, no more than 1,000 square feet, with bare concrete floors, an occasional door (but not many), and, as an added bonus, on Friday and Saturday nights, we were bequeathed with the melodious tunes of a local, drunk Hawaiian band, playing at one of the restaurants just down the beach from us. To be fair, we did have our very own coconut tree in the backyard. We also had a menagerie of island creatures that were pleased to see we had a “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Worries, Bradda” policy in our home. Rats, centipedes…whatever felt like stopping by seemed to have unlimited access and felt quite comfortable in our living room and shower. It was one of the most surreal times in my young life.

Some things that made life easier:

• I got to visit another island almost once a month, for some school, church, or family-related activity.
• The local grocery store owner had Haagen-Dazs ice cream imported weekly just for our family.
• The first video store on the island opened the same week we moved there. Coincidence? Not hardly.
• I made friends that were more accepting than I had ever anticipated, and they kept me sane.
• The beach, the beach, the beach.

I knew I was becoming localized when:

• I no longer made fun of the high school mascot: The Farmers.
• I ate sticky rice, poi, Portuguese sausage, and raw squid at 6:00 a.m. at Seminary Breakfast Parties.
• I left my keys in my car ignition at all times.
• I didn't always wear shoes to school.
• Some of the local superstitions started giving me the heebie-jeebies.

I was only there the one year – my senior year of high school. After that I left for college and my parents later moved to Lake Tahoe while I was on my LDS mission. For the record, Dad never did go crazy. Also the golf resort was never built. But Molokai will always a hold a special place in my soul. And Harrison Ford will always have a string of blockbuster hits to distract us from Hollywood Homicide. 

A Leap of Faith

This month marks the 20-year anniversary of a little incident I like to call “The Time I Jumped Out of a Tree and Nobody Caught Me and I Almost Completely Shattered My Back and Kind Of I’m Still a Little Mad at Those People Who Didn't Catch Me.” Sure, I’ve had 20 years to come up with a better title, but I’m not very good with titles, so that’s what you get.

It was summer, 1988, my friends. George Michael was still straight (maybe), Guns n’ Roses were welcoming me to the jungle, and Def Leppard was requesting that I pour some sugar on them. (Which, under no circumstances, was I about to do. It’s unsanitary and it creates a horrible mess.) Growing up in southern California, the summer was rife with trips to the beach, water skiing, pool parties, and theme parks. But perhaps nothing was as highly anticipated each summer as what is commonly known in the LDS world as Youth Conference.

Ah, Youth Conference. An annual event for Mormon adolescence, ages 14 to 18, that spans three to four days, promotes new friendships and affords youth the delights of engaging speakers, well-organized games, obligatory dances, and if all goes well – opportunities for smoochin’. But not this year. No, this was the year of a “new” Youth Conference. A “fresh” Youth Conference. A Youth Conference “outside the box.”  A Youth Conference “nobody wanted to attend.” Brothers and Sisters, I give you… “The Wilderness Youth Conference.”

For this special Youth Conference, we were to spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday camping in the mountains above Santa Barbara. There was no electricity and no showers. On top of that, the rules were that there was to be no make-up for the ladies, no toiletries for either gender, and no Walkmans or music of any kind. (See kids, a Walkman is the predecessor to the iPod. It weighed 8 to 10 pounds, included headphones the size of fighter-pilot helmets, and played what the Smithsonian calls “cassette tapes.” Cell phones, iPods, laptops, and any paraphernalia of that nature had not yet been invented, but you can bet your Drakkar Noir cologne that they wouldn’t have been allowed either.)

The final blow was when the leaders told us we would be placed in assigned “family groups,” and not able to handpick our friends to be in our groups, or to even have down time to hang around them. They then told us there would be no traditional Saturday night dance. If they expected a mutiny on this issue, they were sorely mistaken. Nobody was excited to slow dance with anybody who had been marinating in their own B.O. for 48 hours, or kiss someone whose teeth felt like they were wearing a sweater.

We met at the Stake Center on Friday morning, broke into our groups, and headed to the campsite. There was much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Friday was mostly spent eating dinner, setting up camp, finding a nice, soft spot of dirt to sleep on, and hoping to slip off into the dark after everyone was asleep so you could find a member of the opposite sex, and borrow their contraband toothbrush.

Saturday was Event Day. Each “family group” went to different event tents to participate in obstacle courses, parlor games, and object lessons – with each activity designed to teach some principle of the gospel or attribute or character trait, etc. You know – “do unto others as you would have done unto you,” or “a penny saved is a penny earned,” or “if you want to head off a balanced attack, you must first learn to balance a tack hammer on your head.”

The second event for our little family group was what you might recognize as a Trust Fall or Faith Fall, where the chump de jour climbs a tree – somewhere between 15 and 126 feet – and falls backwards into a net that is being held by his extra special “family”…who would never dream of letting something bad happen to their new friend, who is exercising such great faith and trust in them.

As I climbed up the tree, I must admit I felt an imminent sense of doom. But I had it in my mind that I was going to do this. I was in no way going to appear a total wimp to this group made up predominantly of strangers, none of which I was going to slow dance with or kiss. With my back to the crowd, I stood on a branch no less than 839 feet above the ground (or so). The warm summer breeze felt cool against my profusely perspiring body. All surroundings went silent. I let go of the branch and fell backwards.

I hit the ground.

My faith, as you can imagine, was in the pooper.

I couldn’t breathe. My back was screaming profanities at me, but I couldn’t apologize to it. I wanted to try to roll over onto my side, but couldn’t move. I didn’t know if I was paralyzed or partially paralyzed or was experiencing my last few minutes of mortality. The thought running through my head was “Would it kill one of these leaders to run to my side and apply deodorant so I could die with some Old Spicey dignity?”

I was given a priesthood blessing and promised that this accident would not inhibit me from fulfilling the things I was sent to earth to accomplish. My priesthood leader wasn’t taking requests, but I wanted to tug at his shirt and inquire if he could include “…and that you won’t be doing them from a wheelchair…say ‘and not from a wheelchair’….”

I was hoisted onto a stretcher and taken to base camp, where I was blessed to have many friends and visitors stop by to check on me. And a younger brother to drag me on his back, into the woods, to occasionally do my “business.” (Once again, I thank you, Justin.) One of the young women (with hair that smelled as if it still carried trace amounts of Aquanet) gave me a kiss on the cheek (making the Youth Conference experience complete) and I was ready to go home.

And 20 years later, my back still occasionally swears at me. But while it is something I will always have to deal with, that priesthood blessing has certainly kept things in perspective for me. I have never been hindered in doing what I have felt I should be doing in this life. Except owning my own island in the Caribbean. But I hardly think I can blame my back injury for that. (And yes, I’ve tried.)

There is still some mystery as to what exactly happened that fateful morning. I may have landed too close to an edge of the net and the impact was too much for little 14-year old girls to hold.  Or there is also a story that it was one of the young men who shouted to me “Ready!” when in fact, they who were on the ground were not ready and he was making a joke because they knew they were not ready; so the net was never pulled taut to catch me in the first place. But since I wasn't facing them, I didn't know that. 

No, I never did figure out what precisely went wrong – but the truth is out there. And the truth is, just like in some campy horror flick, I am going to spend my remaining days tracking down each one of those individuals from my “family group,” and delivering a debilitating throat-punch to every last one of them. Then I’m going to write a movie about it. It will be called I Know What You Did At Youth Conference. Or wait, I’ve got it. Remember Wilderness Youth Conference, Circa 1988? Me Too! Or perhaps I Don’t Know If You’ve Forgotten About Wilderness Youth Conference, But I Sure Remember It Clearly and Frequently! See, again, I’m just not so good with titles. 

Gettin' the Heck Outta Dodge

I have never felt defined by the car I drive. I believe my dad cured me of this when, upon turning 16, he gave me a 1976 Honda Civic that had been sitting idle in the garage since 1952. The paint had faded (I’m assuming, since no self respecting car should ever be this shade of orange), there was no air conditioning, no stereo, and the passenger seat was broken, so that the left half of the seat kind of fell to the side, letting the passenger rest on the driver’s shoulder. This was perfect for dates, but not so great for my friend Steve.

Anyway, being 16, I threw in a stereo, and the car was perfect. I could not care less about what anybody else was driving, or how I looked cruising through the high school parking lot listening to Beastie Boys with Steve nestled on my shoulder. In fact, I specifically remember one time seeing a guy get out of his Chevy Camaro in the parking lot, and he was blasting Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling” on his car stereo.  I thought to myself, “How embarrassing for him. He’s Once…Twice…Three Times a Nerd-o. He’s Nerdy Like Sunday Morning. I wouldn’t trade cars with him if he threw in a Brick…House!”  So clearly, to me, music was more defining than the car.

And now, as an adult, I am equally disinterested in the kind of car I drive. My criterion is that the vehicle be able to comfortably get me from one place to another as inexpensively as possible. Alas, our 1996 Dodge Caravan could no longer perform this task, so we had to finally get rid of it.

We bought said Dodge Caravan in late 2001. At the time, it had about 42,000 miles on it. Final count as of April 2008: 193,842 miles on that baby, thank you very much. Really, it had wanted to die since last April. But we just wouldn’t let it.

The final hoorah for this poor van was last August. My parents and siblings and us were all getting together for a reunion in Breckenridge, Colorado.

We left Vegas and headed north that fateful morning. The sun was up and it was already 146 degrees. We got about 3 hours into the trip, just outside of Cedar City, Utah, when the air conditioning went out. It wasn’t Vegas Hot, but it was still miserable. Hours later we were all sweaty, stinky, suffering from heat exhaustion, and a little bit cranky. The stereo had gone out on the car months and months prior to this trip (so in my mind, the car had already been useless for quite some time), so we just drove in silence. Nobody was saying much to anybody, unless they were breathing threatening remarks about staying on their side of the seat or shouting “Stop singing songs from High School Musical!”  But in my defense, with the oppressive heat, things were hazy, and I just couldn’t think of any other songs to sing.

As we finally reached Breckenridge, the temperatures were bearable. However, the transmission started acting really funny. It would take a while for the gear to catch. Hmmm. But we were distracted for a few days by the fun and frivolity of family and outdoor recreation. No sense worrying about the van. Who knows if we’ll ever really need it again?

Oh, right. We have to get BACK to Las Vegas.

Coming out of Breckenridge, we stopped at a gas station, and I poured some transmission fluid into the car. Truth be known, I resented even spending that much money on the car. I could feel the death of the car looming. I knew the end was near. It was time to pull the plug. But first, we needed to get back to Vegas. That’s all we needed. We needed to push this baby another 10 hours, and then she could give up. I wasn’t going to put another dime into this car. Not for the transmission, not for the air conditioning, not 25¢ to pump up the tire. Nothing. I wanted this van to coast right into our driveway and pass away, the way Johnny Depp’s boat sank just as he stepped onto the pier at the beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean.

I stood outside the van in that gas station parking lot. The air was still. The family, already sweating. But I knew we could make it.

Three hours later, I was feeling pretty confident. The transmission seemed to be holding up and we were making good time. But then, somewhere in the vast wasteland that is western Colorado/eastern Utah, my daughter Roxanna (3 at the time) started to complain about her tummy hurting. 

“My tummy hurts!” she said.

“It’s the heat, Sweetie,” reassured Katie. “Have a drink of water.”

“But it reaaallly hurts!” answered Roxanna.

“Just hang on,” said Katie.

“Baaaaaarrffffff,” went Roxanna.

I mean barf of Biblical proportions, ladies and gentleman. To make matters worse, she had eaten a bunch of pizza before we left. To make matters even more worse, she barfed into Abbie’s hair, who was sitting in front of her. To make matters even the most worse, it was 112 degrees, so now we’ve got Barf Potpourri going on in the car for everyone to enjoy. 

Katie climbed to the back of the van, holding out a towel for Roxanna to perpetually barf into for what seemed like longer than your average span of Vomit Time. There was nothing but freeway around. No towns, no rest stops, no gas stations, no off ramps…nothing. So I kept barreling down the highway until I could find something.

“It’s in my hair!” screamed Abbie.

“This is why my tummy was hurting!” Roxanna stated, in a kind of ‘I told you so’ fashion.

“WWWAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” said a 20-month old Tanner, who was sick to death of his car seat and was happy to join in the anarchy.

“JUST WATCH A VIDEO!” I gently whispered to my children who weren’t barfing.

“THIS IS THE WORST BIRTHDAY EVER!” shouted Abbie, who was enjoying her 10^th birthday on this very day.

Finally, I see a Shell gas station. Out in the middle of nowhere, with no neighboring town, there’s a Shell station. I don’t know where the employees are bussed in from, and frankly, I don’t care.

I pulled off the freeway, behind this gi-normous 18 Wheeler, but before the off ramp ended, the truck lost a tire…and I hit it. I mean, I hit it hard. We got some air between us and the ground. And as we pulled into the gas station, I could hear something underneath the van, dragging on the ground.

After I pulled into the gas station, I got out and look under the van. And there was this thing hanging from the van, and dragging on the ground. There were no fumes, no leaks or drips…nothing. So being the mechanic that I am, I knew exactly what do to. 

"Where is your duct tape?” I asked the attendant inside the little convenient store adjacent to the gas station.

“Over there,” she pointed, as she put out her cigar. 

"And your Wet Wipes?”

“We don’t have any.”

“You don’t HAVE ANY?” 

She looked up at me from her Hunting magazine, and I shuffled two feet back from her, a little caught off guard and nervous that she was going to stab me with the bathroom key on my way out. I grabbed my duct tape and a bunch of ice cream bars for my desolate family.

I taped up this pipe thing under the van, Katie cleaned up the barf and the people covered in it (I am so in love with Katie, the most selfless person in the world), and off we went. We still had hours to go, and there were moments of uncertainty with the transmission, or the heat, or the pipe becoming un-duct-taped. But by the grace of Dodge manufacturing, we somehow made it home.

The next morning I was prepared to take the van out into the dessert and shoot it, but Katie suggested that we could actually get some more mileage out of it. Not another road trip, but at least around town. So we got the air conditioning fixed (for around $100!) and actually squeezed some more miles out of it.

By last December, the van would only go 25 mph, and it would not shift out of second gear. We knew the ol’ girl was done. We bought a new mini-van (Toyota Sienna, 8-seater), and the Dodge sat in our garage for a while. Until last Saturday, when I sold it to an acquaintance from church with the know-how to put in a new transmission and sell it for a higher price than I could ever get for it.

So hopefully the ol’ Dodge can do some good for somebody else now. But she’ll always have our love…our love…our Endless Love…

Spooktacular

It's October and Friday the 13th... and that means that it is time to tell a ghostly, ghastly tale. This year’s narrative is entitled How to Properly Freak Somebody Out.

It was the fall of 1987. I was sixteen years old and thankful for it every waking moment. I had a driver’s license, a love interest, and a friend who was just as willing as I was to drive 40 minutes to Tommy’s, the best chiliburger in Los Angeles. I was pretty confident that if I shopped my life story around to a few production studios, it would be a made into a movie. And not just any movie, a summertime blockbuster movie. With cool cars, loud music, and an occasion make-out scene. On the beach, preferably.

One crisp weekend evening a group of us had gathered at our house for some holiday frivolity. As it got late most had gone home, but my friend Steve was lingering. Probably to see if we were going to make what we had affectionately called a “Tommy’s Run” to get chiliburgers. Suddenly the phone rang.

It was Steve’s sister, Shannon, who was two years older than us. Steve and Shannon’s parents were out of town so Shannon was home by herself. She had called to see when Steve was coming home because she had been home alone all night and was kind of unsettled. Steve looked at me with this kind of “the wheels are turning” look, and he told Shannon that we were going to finish watching a movie, and he would be home. Then he hung up and we hatched a plan to properly freak Shannon out.

Shannon wasn’t expecting Steve for another hour, at least, so we had the element of surprise on our side. Originally, our plan was just to sneak into the house, sneak up behind her and scream “boo!” or some such non-life-threatening scare. But then we reached the house…and we just sort of went with the flow.

The front door was locked, so we snuck around the side of the house to the back, and peeked in. There was Shannon, sitting on the couch watching television, with a perfect view of the sliding glass door and also all the windows along the back of the house. We had to break in, but obviously couldn’t do it with her sitting there.

“Let’s knock on the front door and then run around to the back,” I suggested. She’ll come to answer the front door, nobody will be there so she’ll stand there for a few minutes wondering what’s going on, and it will give us enough time to sneak in through the sliding glass door in the back.”

So we knocked and ran.

As we cleared the corner of the house we could hear Shannon’s unanswered “Hello? Hello…? Is somebody there…?” We ran to the sliding glass door at the back of the house, but it was also locked. Steve’s collie, Princess, could see movement outside though, and she began barking like crazy.

At that point we heard the front door slam and we knew Shannon was spooked by the dog barking and was heading back to the living room to see what she was barking at. So we ran back to the front of the house. We tested the front door, and much to our good fortune, Shannon had run away so quickly, she left the front door unlocked. We silently walked in. We stepped into the guest room off to the side of the entryway, and waited for just a few moments to plot.

Shannon ran right past the guest room and up the stairs. Sensing that Shannon was now a little freaked out, we began to turn up the fright. We turned off the TV and then went all around downstairs turning off the all the lights. Princess recognized us at this point, so she wasn’t going crazy…but she did let a couple of barks fly.

There was a guest bathroom downstairs, just off from the guest bedroom, so Steve turned on the shower. And for some reason, maybe because we were seeing it from Shannon’s point of view, but to be in a house where all of a sudden the TV has been turned off all by itself, all the lights downstairs have mysteriously been turned off by themselves, and your dog is occasionally barking…to have the shower suddenly turn on seemed so unnerving, we could barely stand it ourselves, and we knew we were the ones doing it! Like some axe-wielding maniac was washing off his axe before coming upstairs to finish you off.

We crept up the stairs then, and started down the hallway. We could hear Shannon on the phone in her bedroom, talking to their other sister, Michelle, who lived across town. “I don’t know what’s happening – but the lights have all turned off and I am freaking out and I think I’m going to just call the police!”

That should have been enough to encourage us to come clean, but instead we turned off all the hallway lights upstairs, leaving Shannon’s bedroom as the only lit room in the house, and then Steve picked up the little music box in the hallway, wound it up, and put it back in its place, emitting this ghostly echo of a miniature piano playing. And that was the final straw.

We heard Shannon hang up the phone, and before she placed a call that could have made for a very bad evening, we sped downstairs opened the front door and slammed it shut, acting like we had just come home.

We walked upstairs and gave a non-convincing, “Oh, hey, Shannon, what’s up?” At that point, she threw the phone at Steve. Some people just don’t know what’s funny.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

My co-worker, Tobie,* has lived in Las Vegas for a number of years, but originally heralds from Planet Drama, where she is considered royalty. (*Names have been changed. Kind of. She spells it without the “e.”) Each morning when I walk into the office, I am curious as to what the Crisis De Jour will be. The dramatic episodes range from “Last night I talked to my mom for the first time in three years!” to “I lost 1.5 pounds!” And more recently, she broke up with her boyfriend of eight months. Or more accurately, he broke up with her. And what, prêt ell, could be more dramatic than that?! (Well, if you’re Tobie, then just about anything.)

So I’m listening to her heartbreaking story, line upon line and precept by precept, when I suddenly begin having flashbacks to my own breakups. I start getting knots in my stomach, I get a little moist under the arms, and I find myself looking for the opportunity to assure Tobie that her and I can still be friends, even though we aren’t the ones breaking up. It’s just instinct.

For me, breakups were the absolute worst. I avoided them like they were cancer. Oh, how they pained me to the core of my dating soul. It’s still hard to talk about some of them…

Tess Dresher. Fourth Grade. I can still recall the day she walked up to me during recess and asked me to “go with her.” “Sure,” I answered. And those were the last words every exchanged between Tess and myself. We occasionally sat by each other, and I gave her a very special Peanuts Valentine’s Day card, but we never did speak, or even make eye contact. So I guess technically we are still “going together.” Boy is she going to be mad when she finds out I got married and had five children. She’ll want to break up for sure. I’m not looking forward to that conversation.

Julia Zimmerman. High School. It was the summer of 1987, and I was sixteen years old – with a license to drive and to date! I knew Julia really liked me when her mom had grounded her and she promptly ignored said house arrest to go to the movies with me. Yes, we were young and crazy in love! I was pretty sure that after the summer of 1987 I could die happy. By fall of 1987 I was so miserable I was praying for death. We went to different high schools and Julia was first to acknowledge that our long distance relationship wasn’t really going to make it. I nodded my head in agreement, but inside I felt like somebody was cramming my heart through a paper shredder.

Danielle Perrett. College. Danielle and I dated for an entire year, from October 1992 to October 1993. But by June of ’93 I knew we were not meant to be and that a breakup was inevitable. Since you know my aversion to breakups I can tell you that rather than actually breakup, I considered leaving the country. I was about to call my travel agent when Danielle informed me that she was leaving the country for three months for a study abroad program. I may have sounded a tad too supportive, but away she went, and there I stayed, to date and engage in much frivolity throughout the entire summer. By the time Danielle returned at the beginning of September, I had crafted, in my mind, how the breakup would go. And seven weeks later, at the end of October, I finally found the intestinal fortitude to go through with it. And it was the kind of train wreck that, if you were watching it in a movie, you would fast forward through it, so painful would it be to watch.

It was Halloween night. We had gone to a party and we were sitting in my car in the parking lot of her apartment complex. I was dressed as Aladdin, she was Jasmine. Things had been in the pooper for quite some time, and it felt like a stranger walking by could glance in our direction and know exactly what was happening.

It was silent for a few minutes, and then I spoke up.

“I think we should see other people.”

“I told you to see other people last week.”

“I mean you should see other people.”

“I told you I don’t want to see other people. You should.”

“I have.”

“You ALREADY have?!”

“Hey, I don’t want there to be bad feelings between us.”

“Are you giving me the Friend Speech? Don’t you DARE give me the Friend Speech!”

“Uh…NO…never, never. I think it’s just me. See, I have a problem with –”

“OH, NO – the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ bit?”

“Noooo! That’s not what I mean at all...”

An eternal silence. Like…three days have passed while we’ve sat in the car. And finally she speaks.

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“I…don’t understand the question.”

“I can’t do this!” she yells, and starts bawling as she bails out of the car. “I can’t talk about this right now!” and she leaves the car door open, running into the night. I get out and follow her to make sure she makes it to her apartment, then drive to my own. I walk into my place to find a ringing telephone. I answer.

“…Hello?”

“I just want to make sure I heard you LOUD AND CLEAR!”

“Uhhhhh….yessssss.”

“Define our relationship.”

“What?”

“Define our relationship!”

“Uhm…over...?”

Some muffled sobbing, and then click went the phone.

Excruciatingly painful, right? But not as painful as Tobie’s overly dramatic reaction to the hair she found in her salad at lunch today. “I almost ate this and diiiiiiieeeeedddddd!”

Rattlin' & Hummin'

I’m not exactly sure why, but in the pre-existence I chose November as the month that I would attend U2 concerts. I’ve now seen U2 five times, and each time has been in this blessed autumn month.

1987
The first time I attended a U2 concert was November 1987 at the L.A. Coliseum. The Joshua Tree tour. A friend of mine, we’ll call him Kyle Binns (names have not been changed), had two tickets for this show of shows. Kyle was two years older than me, and to be perfectly honest, I think he knew me mostly as the guy who hung around his younger sister. Kyle and a friend were going to the concert the next Tuesday, and I remember on that Sunday prior, in the halls at church, I joked with him that if either he or his friend didn’t feel like going, I would be happy to take one of the tickets. I pretty much thought that was the end of it. Why would anybody not go to the concert? If my leg were accidentally amputated on the way to the concert, I would still go. I would buy one of the overpriced t-shirts and bandage my leg with it. And I’m sure I wouldn’t notice the pain until the final encore.

Well, Tuesday evening, no earlier than 5:30 p.m., the phone rings. I’m going potty. My sister, Marlise, answers the phone and yells, “Keeeeeeennnnnn, the phone’s for yoooouuuu.” “I’m not heeeeere,” I yell back, wondering if there will ever be a time in my adult life that I will be able to go potty in peace. There’s a pause, and then she yells, “It’s Kyle Biiiiiinns.” I drop the newspaper and look straight ahead. If I had been in a movie, I would have looked directly at the wall where a calendar would be hanging, looked directly at the date, and on the date would have been the words “U2 Concert” written in red and circled. To this day, I love Kyle Binns for sensing that I was probably home, probably occupied, and just needed to know he was the one on the phone, and that he was holding two tickets in his hand.

"Say it, Kyle. Say the words.”
“Do you want to go to a U2 concert?”
“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!” I answered.
“I’m leaving right now. Can you be ready to go in 5 minutes.”
“I was born ready, Kyle. See, when I was in the pre-existence, I…Hello? Kyle?”

All that was left was approval from my dad. Normally, I would be a little nervous to ask my dad if it would be okay to drive into downtown Los Angles on a school night, never to return until sometime after midnight. But on this particular evening, I wasn’t nervous. I was wet-my-pants terrified. Did I have seminary the next morning at 5:45 a.m.? Yes, yes I did. Had I done all my homework for school the next day? No, no I hadn’t. Had I been treating my mom with utmost kindness as of late? No, no I hadn’t. And that would be the final nail in my coffin. Or my forehead, depending on my dad’s mood.

In one of his most loving gestures to date, he allowed me to go. My dad was just getting home, stepping out of the car, and I met him there in the driveway. I pleaded. And maybe it was the season, maybe it was the excitement exuding off of me…but when I begged him to be able to go, he just sort of looked at me with a half-crooked smile and said, “Fine.” No sooner did he answer then Kyle came around the corner to pick me up. I mean, literally, the next second. I jumped in the car and we took off. I wanted to get out of there before my dad realized that he had just given me permission to do something for which I had already given myself permission.

Man, what a concert. We had seats on the floor and it was an incredible show. For me, The Joshua Tree is hands-down one of the greatest albums of all time. And this was one of the greatest shows of all time. At that time in their career, the energy behind everything they did was spectacular.

1992
Fast forward to November 1992. I had returned home from my LDS mission that August and was up at BYU in Provo, Utah. Achtung Baby had been released a year earlier, in November 1991, and the Zoo TV tour was still around, but quickly winding down. The tour wasn't stoping in Utah, and the closest venue was Las Vegas. Myself and three of my good friends – Jim, Greg, and Justin – all bought tickets. We drove down that Friday, the night of the concert – had some dinner, toured around Las Vegas a bit, and went to the concert. Then we drove home that very same night, arriving in time for some of us to head straight to class. I don’t know how we didn’t die that night. My hat is still off to Greg, who has miraculous powers. (Powers that are based on a caffeine buzz, I’m sure.)

If you didn’t see the Zoo TV tour, you missed out on a musical spectacle that will most likely never be repeated by any rock group ever.

2001
Fast forward to November 2001. The Elevation Tour. I was living in Las Vegas now, but my friend Eric Snider (names haven’t been changed) wrote for a newspaper in Utah and had press tickets to the concert. He invited me to me the recipient of one of those press tickets. So even though I would have to drive up, I knew the amazing seats would be worth it. But I had no idea beforehand how much I would be willing to sacrifice to make it to the show.

Eric called Wednesday and said he had the extra ticket for Friday’s concert. Katie had two different meetings she needed to be in Las Vegas for over Friday and Saturday, so she decided to stay home and gave me the go-ahead to run up for the concert without her. We only had our minivan, so I borrowed a car from a friend of mine, Matt. (And by "friend" I mean "people with whom I never discuss this incident.")

I left around 10 a.m. (11 a.m. Utah time). I was on the road exactly an hour, when the car up and died. I could not get it started. The concert didn't start until 7:30 p.m., so I knew I still had some time. I was looking at a 4.5-hour drive to Provo, where Eric lived, and then another hour to Salt Lake. I was feeling optimistic.

By 12 p.m. I was not feeling optimistic. And I think we all know what the landscape between Las Vegas and St. George looks like. No services for miles. I had tried calling Katie several times – about ever half-hour – but she was out. I called my friend Matt to let him know the situation. He reported, "That’s strange – that car has never given me trouble before. Of course it's been sitting in our driveway for a year and a half."

Hmm. Now, I know relatively nothing about cars. But I am pretty sure that taking a car on a 11-hour car trip after it has been sitting in a driveway for 18 months is...how you say?…BAD.

At that point, I surrendered to the fact I was not going to make it in time. And on top of that, I felt guilty for taking my friend's car, and driving out into the middle of the desert to die. I hadn't done anything to the car, but still, I was driving it when something happened, and that made me feel bad.

A police officer stopped by to tell me I couldn’t park my car on the side of the road. Thanks for that, Mr. Law Enforcement Genius. Some Good Samaritan also stopped by and tried to help. Used to work for Ford, he did. Knew a lot about cars, he said. Couldn't see what was wrong, he admitted.

I kept trying to call Katie. I kept trying to start the car. I kept trying to fight the urge to jump in front of a moving vehicle, so frustrated was I. The hours passed by, and nothing was changing. It was 2:30 p.m. I had finally accepted, for the second time, that I wasn't going to make it. I was a little sad, but that's all. It's not like the concert was going to change my life or I couldn't live without it. It wasn't like I was a 16 year-old high school girl who HAD to see Bono.

Or was I?

I called Matt at 3:00 p.m. and admitted defeat. "I would have to be in a moving car THIS INSTANT if I was going to make it to the concert." "Well," he said, "My in-laws live in Mesquite. Get a ride into Mesquite and have the car towed to my in-laws house; then rent a car. My insurance will cover the towing, and I will pay for half the rental car." That was very kind of him. A good friend, to be sure. But still…"No. I'm not going to have you pay for half the car, and I'm out of time, anyway, and..."

Just then, a pickup with this chubby Mexican pulled up beside me and asked if I wanted to ride in the back of his truck to Mesquite. He stopped at a Texaco, and I ran in, demanding control of the establishment, as if I were holding the place up.

"I need a towing company, and I need a car rental agency – STAT!" I ordered. (I actually didn't say STAT. That's just too nerdy. Even for Mesquite.) The ladies behind the counter grabbed the phone book as if their lives depended on it. Because in a very real way, it did. I first called a car rental place, but all they had was a full-size car, and it was $48 a day, plus it only gave me 200 miles. I needed about 775 miles. I told them "never mind" and for the third time, gave up on the idea of making it.

I called Eric to let him know. I wanted to give him the option of finding someone else to take. I knew he would appreciate early notice so he would have time to invite somebody else. Imagine my surprise when he said, "Wow. Oh my gosh. Well...you'll just have to figure out another way to get up here."

I couldn't believe it. Eric hadn't given up yet. Well, if he hadn't, who was I to give up?

Out of the blue, my chubby Mexican friend that gave me a ride into Mesquite walked into the Texaco. He hadn't left yet. I asked him how far he was going. Wyoming. I asked for a ride in his truck to Salt Lake. He said sure, but he was going to spend some time gambling first. By all means. This is a free country, with a soft, chewy center. Knock yourself out. Actually, I thought this was perfect, as it gave me the chance to find a towing company and get the car towed to Matt’s in-laws in Mesquite.

I called the towing place, but they had a policy. And that poopy policy was that I would have to ride with them to pick up the car. I explained why I couldn't, but they wouldn't budge. I can't believe anybody living in Mesquite would have a policy about ANYTHING. If you don't have a policy about where you live (which you obviously don't if you are living in Mesquite), HOW can you be taken seriously about anything else?

Suddenly, the lady’s voice dropped low, and she whispered into the phone that there was a local towing place that would pick up the car, and I wouldn't have to go with them. She gave me the phone number. I called the number and talked to the guy, and he apparently does this business out of his house. I deduced this by the way he answered the phone: “Yep.” “Uh, hi. Do you tow cars?” “Yep.” “Legally?”

I told him where the car was, where I needed it to go, and that I had the key with me at the Texaco. He told me he didn’t need a credit card number. Didn’t need a phone number to reach me at. Didn’t need to know my name. But then he said the magic words – I didn't have to ride with him to pick it up. Whether or not I would ever see this car again, I was on my way to Salt Lake. I told my new tow-trucking friend that I would leave the key with one of the cashiers at the Texaco.

I ran outside to find my Chubby Mexican. He was gone. So was his truck. He wasn't coming back. It was 3:30 p.m., and I had to literally be in a car bound for Provo if I wanted to make it to Provo by 7:30 p.m., and the concert by 8:30. (No Doubt was opening at 7:30, so U2 wouldn't be going on before 8:30...possibly 9:00 p.m.)

I began looking around for cars with Utah license plates. Each and every one was heading the other direction – to Vegas. I finally found this small, red pickup truck.

"Are you heading to Salt Lake?" "Yep." as he opens his car door. "Can I ride in your truck?" "Yep," as he gets in and spits out his chew. He leans out the window to explain how I can't sit up front because they have some equipment up there. I looked. It was true. They also had some in the back, up against the cab. I threw my bag in the back, and climbed aboard.

Propped myself up against my bag, and called all the necessary people. Katie, Matt, and Eric. Katie was finally home, and relieved I was going to make it to the concert, even though I admitted to her that I really had no concrete plan for how to get back to Las Vegas. Matt was happy for me, and reassured me that all would be fine with the car. Eric asked me if I was riding with a truck full of pigs or some other form of livestock.

We hit the highway, and these guys were making no exception to the fact they had a human being in the back of their truck. 85 to 90 mph. This was fine with me, as I needed to get there as soon as I could.

The drive up to St. George was fantastic. Beautiful. Especially through the canyon. I was relaxed, I was going to make it to the concert, and I was a little impressed with the hippy in me who just bummed a 400-mile ride off a stranger. I decided that I would one day hitchhike all the way across the U.S., and for sure I would start commuting to work this way every morning. I looked up at the sky as I rode, and for the first time, I really got what John Denver and Willy Nelson were singing about.

We reached St. George and I thought to myself, "Man, I really love this crisp fall air. Even at 90 mph."

Somewhere between St. George and Cedar City, the sun had set, the wind had picked up, and the altitude was amazingly higher. I was freezing. I put my jacket on, but it was paper-thin, and made of paper, and had the wind resistance of paper. I wanted to put my sweater on as well, but was too cold to move. I finally bit the bullet and ripped my sweater out of my bag, threw it on, and put my jacket on over it. Surprisingly, I was not any warmer.

I tried to crawl up as close as I could to the cab, and tried to curl up in a fetal position. I tried to fall asleep, but was just too cold. And I sat there chattering and dieing until we reached Fillmore 2 hours later, where we stopped for gas.

I was a bit nervous to get out of the truck, still stung with the memory of the last time somebody with a truck offered to give me a ride, and then disappeared…Yes, a mere 3 hours before, in Mesquite.

But I needed to make sure I could still move. I bought a hot chocolate and drank it like Gatorade. Then I took some maternity clothes out of my bag. These were clothes Katie had wanted me to drop off to her sister, Jill, in Provo. I took the clothes and crammed them up my pants, under my sweater, and sleeves, and everywhere I could fit them. I was trying to bulk up and do "layers."

Layers are for CRAP! After we got on the freeway, I realized nothing was going to help at this point. I was ice cold, and was going to be so for the next hour and a half.

About a half an hour south of Provo, I tried to call Eric to tell him I was getting close. I had lost feeling and coordination of my fingers and was shaking so violently, I couldn't push the numbers on my cell phone. Ten minutes and several misdialed numbers later, I got a hold of Eric and told him I was almost there.

We got to the exit, and I tapped on the window to let the drivers know that I was ready to get out. They dropped me off at the Exxon just down from Eric’s condo, and just up from the on-ramp to the freeway.

I stood up in the back of the truck, but noticed I didn't have a real strong sense of my legs. They were numb-ish. So I sort of slithered out of the back of the truck. I called Eric and told him to come save my life, and that I was ready to see U2.

I ran over to the on-ramp and waited for him. The wind wasn't whipping me anymore, but my core temperature was so low, I couldn't stop shaking. Eric picked me up and cranked the heater. By the time we got to Salt Lake, I was feeling better. The concert was spectacular, and we had a great time.

I called my sister the next morning. She lives there in Provo. I invited her and her husband to come visit me in Vegas, and to pick me up on the way. I offered to pay for gas, and buy them dinner, etc. They agreed to it, and I had a warmer ride home.

Later that month we traveled up to Lake Tahoe for Thanksgiving. But we went up a day early. Why? Because U2 was performing in Sacramento, and my youngest brother, Dehn, who had become a U2 fan due to the efforts of his oldest brother, me, wanted us to go to the concert together. A sweeter gesture, I could not fathom. And we had a great time. Several of my siblings also attended, as well as my 58-year old father, who at first was offended that he hadn’t been invited to attend.

2005
And fast forward to November 2005, last Saturday night. The Vertigo tour, right here in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the MGM Grand Arena. For some reason, all the Johnyy-Come-Lately’s have made U2 tickets impossible to seize unless you are a millionaire or married to The Edge’s sister. But I had one ace up my sleeve. I knew a vice president at the MGM. I made the call. He said he couldn’t get me a break on the cost of the tickets, but he could ensure I got fantastic seats. All I would have to do is fork over one of my children. I gave him two of them, and wham-bam – I had two fantastic seats at the concert.

I really enjoyed myself. I was watching these guys perform and realized I have been a faithful fan for more than half my life. And I just appreciated the memories I have associated with their music. But what I took away most from this concert was how cute my eight-and-half-month pregnant wife looked all dressed up in her hot outfit, dancing to Mysterious Ways, and supporting her husband in his mania that is U2.