Halloween Costumes

Since it's coming up on halloween in a month or so, I recalled some of the costumes from the past. The one I had when I was about 10 was a full body monster costume. My parents had bought it for me, so it hung on a hanger in my room for a while before halloween. I would wake up in the night and see this looming 'thing' by my closet. My heart would speed up and I could feel my blood go cold in my veins. I would then remember that it was my halloween costume. I was invited in to many homes to show off my 'cool' monster costume.
When Rob was 5 years old, he went out as Mister T. We bought the bald and mohawk head piece, then we stuffed the arms of his bigger brother's shirt to give him huge muscles. I put on every pices of jewelry I owned. He was so adorable. Unfortunately being white with blue eyes it was a really hard sell.
Brian and Steve went to headstart. They had a halloween party. I don't remember what Brian wore, but I took Nikki's leotard that she had worn to ballet classes and sewed yellow stripes around the fanny. He wore black tights, too. The hardest part was getting the hanger to look like a stinger, especially since he had to sit on it.
One year we had absolutely NO money - not a rare occurance when Bruce was in school. I bought some black dye and some orange dye. I took two sheets and made a cape for Chris, with the black dye, slicked his hair back with gel and charcoaled it black. He went out as Count Dracula. I took the other sheet and dyed it orange. Then I put arm holes in it and gathered it at both ends. Out of parts of black left-over sheet I made a jack-o-lantern face and sewed it on the orange sheet. I made a small orange cap. We stuffed the costume with newspapers and wa-la, Brian was the great pumpkin. He made a lot of noise when he ran because of the newspapers, but he got invited in to a lot of houses to show off that .35 costume.
When my brother, Dan, came home from his mission he was invited to a costume party. He had not been released from his mission yet, so he had to be careful. He grabbed one of Mom's sheets and hollowed out a huge pumpkin. He cut out the face, put his head inside of it and went as the headless horseman. When he got home he was soaked with sweat. That pumpkin nearly killed him, he got so hot.

Kids!!!

We lived in Utah for 4 years, 2 of those years was in Salt Lake City. There is this wonderful huge department store there named ZCMI (I can't remember what the official name is - the joke was Zion's Children Must Increase, but it was something like Zion's something Mercantile something). ZCMI had a bargain basement that held lots of fabric. I needed fabric.
That Christmas the only way we had any money to buy gifts was if I made and sold dolls. And, boy, did I. Bruce and Chris even helped me at night stuff legs and arms. The rest of the children were too young. I know I had to have made about 100 dolls that year.
This one evening Bruce was at work, but I needed muslin. I put all 5 children in the car and drove to ZCMI. There was a huge scandal at the time about children being kidnapped - blond, blue-eyed children, just like mine. So I had Chris take Nikki by the hand, put Rob in the baby back pack and held Steve by one hand and Brian in the other. Chris and Nikki walked in front of me so I could keep an eye on them.
We made it down to the basement without incident. As we walked from the stairs to the fabric area a beautiful black woman crossed in front of us. She was dressed in a suit (I'll never forget this moment!) and heels. She was young. And really quite pretty. My cute little guy, Brian, looked up at me and with a clear loud voice said, "We don't like black people, do we Mom."
Had the floor opened up in front of us I would have gladly sacrificed this sweet child to the tile God and jumped in after him. It was as though time stood still and slow-motion took over. Her head swiveled toward us and her eyes were filled with something akin to hatred.
My little procession stopped. My mouth opened and I finally said something about "Yes. Yes, we do." What else could I say?
I have no idea where Brian came up with that statement. We never taught any kind of hatred in our home against any group. The 'n' word was definitely never said.
The woman went on her way without a word to me. We bought our muslin and left the store. I was so humiliated. Brian had to have been around 3 years old. I tried to talk to him about not saying things like that, but I dn't know if it ever got processed or not.
We didn't take too many trips out in public like that anymore.

Opposite Points of View

When I was in the third or fourth grade at Winchester Elementary School in Detroit, MI., I had a social studies class. We got to the point where the teacher (I can't remember her name) started to teach about the founding of Utah. She said that mormon missionaries would go to farmers all over the country and ask to marry their daughters. If they had to they kidnapped girls and locked them in the Salt Lake City Tempple. The girls would escape by jumping out the temple window into the Great salt Lake and swimming away.
I was horrified by this story. I knew it wasn't true, but did the rest of the kids in my class? When I got home from school, I told my mother what she had said. The next day my mom went to my school. She asked to talk to the principle. I was brought in and the teacher was brought in. The teacher said she woould make sure the class knew the story was not true but a rumor that had gone around. My mother was satisfied, the principle was satisfied and the teacher talked to the class the next period we had.
What reminded me of this story are the actions the parents are having about the president addressing the students on the first day of school. Many have called their school and threatened to not allow their children to attend if President Obama was going to speak to the children. Many school districts are not going to play the broadcast. The claim is that Obama is going to brainwash the children.
What?!? How does a broadcast that lasts for about 1/2 hour brainwash our children? What happened to discussing things that the child is exposed to at home - like what I did with my mother and the mormon rumor? In our discussion I learned how my mother felt and the action she took. She didn't threaten to keep me out of that classroom because the teacher didn't teach the way she wanted her to.
What happened to showing respect for the President of the United States? Is respect going to go the way of the dinosaurs - mired down in tar and opinion? I did not like President Bush, but if he was going to speak with my children in school, I wouold have been pleased. There is not one thing that he could have said that would have brainwashed my children. Whether I liked him or not, I respected that the majority of the people voted him in office.
I feel sorry for the children whose parents will not allow them to experience things that are different from their own points of view. Maybe it's too much to ask parents to guide at home, to make sure their children go to church, know where the parents stand on moral issues and can approach the parents with questions.
When I was a kid in church we had a saying, "We are in the world, not of the world." Some people won't allow their children to be in the world.

First Date

I was so excited that Saturday evening in late July of 1971. The cute tall guy from work had asked me out! I didn't know what we were going to do, but I knew I had to look my best.
Bruce picked me up in his grabber blue 1966 ford falcon. I loved the color of that car. He wanted to know if we could go into Battle Creek to make a payment on his lay-away before we went to a movie. No problem for me, I was with the tall cute guy from work.
We pulled into the parking lot of this department store (I cannot remember the name of it anymore, it has long since gone out of business) and went in. Just as we were walking into the store, we heard a crash. But we were on a mission, so we didn't even turn around. Oops.
When we came out of the store, we noticed a police cruiser near where Bruce had parked his car. As we drew nearer, we noticed that Bruce's car was not parked where we left it. It was parked into the fender of a corvette that had been in front of his car.
Bruce didn't get a ticket, but the guy who had the 'vette was hopping mad. It wasn't his! It belonged to a friend who had rented it. What a mess. It was determined that the parking brake had slipped and the car rolled down into the 'vette. It was a pure accident. Not a good start to a first date.
Anyway from there we went to a drive-in movie titled "Alice's Restaurant". It was an anti-vietnam war comedy. Kind of. But we both enjoyed it and the title song by Arlo Guthrie came to be quite popular.
Bruce took me home and kissed me in my living room. On the mouth! I don't remember walking anywhere else that night. I had died and gone to heaven.

Security

In the summer of 1999, Brother Mike Harker asked me if I would be in charge of the security detail for the Grand Blanc Stake for the open house of the Detroit Temple. I was so excited! Mike had suggested my name to President Schilling and he concurred. With my experience in the martial arts, being a woman was not a problem.
October 1999 was when the open house was held. My group had three days to be in charge of the open house. We all had walkie-talkies and maps where areas were marked. I don't remember how many people were on my team, but I do remember that it was a wonderful experience.
We were told to be aware of the anti-mormon groups who were at the entrance to the parking lot. They were handing out anti-mormon leaflets. I guess they felt it was their duty to warn people about the 'evils' of mormonism. However, there were no problems at all. At least on our watch. We went over to them many times and spoke with them, but not about any trouble, just to let them know that we welcomed them in any time they wanted, but they couldn't pass out their anti-mormon leaflets on the property.
One of my guys called me on the walkie to tell me he found some cables sticking out of the ground next to the temple and he was worried someone had wired a bomb up somewhere. When we investigated, we realized it was cable for the closed-circuit t.v. that was going to show the dedication to those attending in the chapel of the stake house. We got a good giggle out of that.
Then one night it was rainy and dark. I saw a man in a trench coat sneak in the side of one of the draped walkways (people could avoid getting wet that way) that was leading to the temple. I took off running and broke through up near the temple door so I could be there in front of this man. He was very tall, and it seemed as though I had seen him before. I stopped him and asked for I.D. He pointed to his lapel, but he had a trench coat on covering it. There was no visible I.D. Then he opened his coat and showed me that he was Elder Mayo, regional representative. I felt pretty stupid.
I wore slacks the whole time (dress slacks) because if we had to go into a defensive mode, I wanted to be prepared. Nothing untoward happened, though. I did get a chance to go places on the grounds that no one else could go.
The temple was dedicated on October 22nd and 23rd. Bruce and I went on the 22nd. We were seated in the sealing room. We watched our prophet on a television screen dedicate our beautiful temple. He was in the next room from us, but there were so many people that we were blessed to be able to see and hear him with modern technology. Then we watched as the corner stone was laid. President Hinckley had a wonderful sense of humor. And who was one of the men laying the corner stone? Yep, Elder Mayo.

Murray's

One day, quite a few years ago, Bruce asked me to go to Murray's with him. I had been a little ill and he thought it may do me good to get out. My problem had been a lower intestine issue.
Murray's was not my first choice of places to go, but Bruce needed to get something for the car and just about insisted that I go with him.
Bruce found his item then found a rack with books on it about the car we owned. He decided to peruse the inventory.
I wandered down the aisle to the far end and relieved my insides of a rather insistent gas bubble. Having been ill, it smelled pretty bad - o.k., down right evil. I wandered back up to where Bruce was and asked if we could go. He said he was reading something. I looked back down the aisle and saw a little stock boy happily turning the corner into the aisle where I had just relieved myself. He had his arms full of merchandise to be put away. Right there. In the little cloud I had left.
I grabbed Bruce's arm and said we needed to go - again. Again, he refused.
I stole a look down at the hapless little guy and saw him suck in the air and emit a choking sound. He kind of turned a sick color.
I grabbed Bruce's arm again and said we MUST leave. Bruce got aggravated at my insistance and asked why. I said, "Because I just farted down there and the little guy who breathed it in is blaming YOU."
Sure enough. Bruce was getting glared at. Amazingly, Bruce closed the book and we left.

Bats

When Bruce and I had been married a little over 2 years, we bought a house. It was a big older wood frame house on a hill. It had a lot of problems, but that will be covered in another blog. This time I want to talk about bats. Not the kind that you swing, either.
One evening Bruce and I were up late in the house. I don't remember what we were doing, but I do remember that something flew into our front room, zoomed around the room then zoomed into the parlor. Freak out time! Bruce grabbed a broom and tried to knock the little bat down so we could get it out of the house.
Those little bats (probably big ones, too) are incredible at dodging. Bruce didn't connect with one swat. However, he could chase the bat with the broom and kind of corral it. He cornered the bat in the bathroom.
"Honey! Come in here!"
I hated that thought! I was quite comfortable cowering out of the way.
"Why?"
"I need your help to get rid of the bat."
This was being yelled with a closed door between us.
"What?!?"
"Get in here!" He bellowed.
I opened the door a crack and slid into the huge bathroom.
"When I chase the bat toward the window, open it then let it close when the bat flies through so it can't get back in."
O.k. So I get to stand next to a window and meekly wait while my crazy husband ran around this room swinging a broom at a rabid bat (I don't know abut the 'rabid' part, but that's how I felt at the time.). Yeah. Right.
"No!"
"It's the only way to get it out. You have to."
"What if I swing the broom and you get to stand next to the only escape the bat has?"
"Ready?"
Like eternity could ready me for a flying bat being chased my way.
BUT, I did it. The window wouldn't stay open on it's own, it would quickly slide down and slam shut - therefore I had to stand there and hold it open.
If I remember right it took about 6 hours to get the bat out the window - no, it was probably a heart-pounding half an hour.
This was the first time a bat got in. I only remember twice in that old house, but it was not fun.