A special Weekend

A special weekend. Easter. Living in a State that has 25% of the population that is Catholic has some pluses.   New Mexico is the most culturally Catholic state, at least historically. One of the things I have noticed about our Catholic friends is that they pay special attention to Good Friday as well as Easter. It is a blessing to be around people who love the Lord.

As I thought about this subject I noticed the setting shown by my camera shot. Couple of good young men both with good young women in their lives. A very special lady presented by name on the sign and the focus of this weekend.





Our Church indeed holds sacred all the events of this week that took place in our Saviours life. Good Friday is not a day we have special services but it is an important day. The church is indeed central in our lives. As I look back at 66+ years I recall the first 20+ of those years where our church was lead by David O. McKay. Two quotes that came from him have been special ones for me.

• The purpose of the gospel is to make bad men good and good men better, and to change human nature.”
• The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

A School Bell......................Cherry Creek Idaho is a area that is 9 miles South of Malad, Idaho. The "area" consists only of old farms that have been their since the 1800's. My Grandparents home was in this area. Their house was on the East side of what was at one time the main highway to Utah from Southeastern Idaho. Across the road was their barns and some of the working core of their farm. Just to the South about a city block or so was a small one room school house. I recall when I grew up that the side of the building had fallen and that the inside was accessible. Going inside you could see the old benches. Upstairs in a loft was some of the very old school books. At some point someone took the school bell and somehow it was passed on to my Dad. The bell was something that each morning was rang by the teacher in charge to let the kids know they needed to come in. In the one room classes from 1st grade to high school were taught. The school was something my Dad went to for several years. He started school in about 1920.  The bell sits on one of my shelf's as seen in the post from two days ago. (The keys of the old typewriter mentioned are in the background)

Some History about the items on the last post..............I have posted a picture of the gun on the wall before and probably have posted some of the story behind it? Even so I might as well do so again and perhaps this time it will be a little different. I don't want to forget some of these things and hope to have the blogs printed up "one of these days". The gun is, as shown made by J.Stevens and was made in 1894. I found some similar guns on the Internet once. The gun is a 22 caliber single shot. My dad said it was sort of a family gun and that his older brothers and perhaps his day had used it over several years. He didn't say it was actually his personal gun but that he did use it. How the gun came to be in my home office is an interesting story. Sometime around 1970 I was working at Keeleys wholesale in Salt Lake. I was just out of collage and had been given the job as manager of this small company that had been bought by the company I worked my way through collage at. I had hired a cousin of mine that lived in Salt Lake to work on the night crew. He was a few years older than I was. I had not known him very well growing up but he needed a job and it helped him to get one at that time. My cousin, Michael Aylworth, and I probably had never had one on one time together growing up as he was several years older than me. One day he came to work and gave me this gun. It was his mother who had our grandmother live with them in her final years. That access probably enabled him to get the gun or maybe he got it from the farm in Malad over the years. He felt that the gun was my Dad's gun and felt that I should have it. I was surprised and never expected to have it happen. The gun has been in my office on my wall ever since.
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Another incident is interesting in comparison. I have an old typewriter in my office that has been there since around the year 2000. It was my Mothers dad's typewriter. We saw him type on it as we grew up. Many letters were typed. Grandfather Warren was a writer and all the many grandkids would have identified him with that typewriter. In the case of this grandfather as well as my fathers dad I was not a grandson who was close to them. I was working for a large wholesaler in about 2000 and my cousin Jim Warren was out of work. I reached out to him and tried to help. I had the business look at him but was not able to hire him. Jim and I knew each other. We never spent a lot of time with each other growing up but that was something that I think we both would have liked to have not happened. Jim just brought me the typewriter one day saying he knew I was interested in writing and wanted me to have it.
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Both events brought things to me that have been life long treasures.

 

 

Looking around the room ......................one question that comes to mind is why these specific things found their way to the top of the shelf?  The oldest thing is probably the gun on the wall. It was made in the 1890's. It was my dad's. The bell that might be hard to see in the middle top shelf probably was made before that and was used to announce class in a one room school house next to where my dad grew up. The picture of the Wagon with a pioneer woman on it is a replica of a mural that was painted on the entire front wall of the chapel that I went to church until I was about 14.  Most of the other items just were items that I thought might be interesting in terms of things picked up or noticed over the "journey" of a lot of years.  The sign that says "Success" is something KJ gave me just a few years ago. At first I didn't put it up. I thought at the time that it sort of reminded me of when I was much younger and I thought maybe even too much about "success". I always wanted to improve. Be better. Know more. Perfect myself. Achieve. Be thought of as having done all of those things. I tried at times to measure my progress. Those efforts had become part of the "journey" and were part of me. I wondered if I had just worked through some of the thoughts about Success so I didn't put the sign up. Then recently I was thinking about the sign in the closet and I thought it was really nice that after all these years that KJ went and got the sign for me. I figured that was enough of a reason to put it up. Then when I put it up I realized I still want to be better, to improve, to polish myself, and to become better for the journey................................................