I was a cute little boy, knowing this not only from the pictures in the family album, but also from memories I have of people's comments in my presence. By the time I reached teenage years, however, I had lost that cuteness, and I was thereafter destined to live the rest of my life as a rather common looking human being.
My childhood was quite carefree, innocent, and very happy. Living in a very small town I had no worries about what future things might happen to me. I frolicked all around the north end of town, hiking in the foothills, playing in the city park during the daytime, and running around the neighborhood playing "Kick the Can" and "Run, My Sheepie, Run" in the hours just after dark with other kids that lived close by. Thinking back on those times, I cannot remember having any thoughts whatsoever about life further away from possibly Ephraim, seven miles to the north of Manti, the rather long fifteen mile ride to Gunnison, or the great distance of about thirty miles to the south to a somewhat larger city called Richfield. To me, all existence was centered around this small town of Manti, then a population of about 2000.
Life was so much different back then from how it came to be in my later life. I remember living without a television set in the house, and having to tell the operator what number we wanted to reach via the telephone at my grandmother's house, a telephone that had to be cranked to ring the bell and awaken the operator at the "central office," wherever that was.
I have little remembrance of my years before I started kindergarten, but I do vaguely remember cuddling up to my mother in a rocking chair that rocked back and forth with a very comforting and calming creak. My mother’s lap meant security and warmth, and snuggling up to her was my refuge from the childhood sorrows and tearful upsets that accompany the younger years of life. It was in this chair that I was comforted after breaking my right arm while running and then tripping over our dog Boots. It was also in this chair that my mother would often ease me out of the sometimes terrible nightmares I had as a small child, especially those I had during illnesses. It was also from this chair that she would gently wake me when I would walk and talk in my sleep. I sat with her often on that rocking chair; it was probably my favorite place for the first five years of my life, and a frequented spot for several years afterwards as well.
Starting kindergarten was like discovering an entirely new world of existence. All of a sudden there were these other people my size that came out of nowhere. At first I didn't know what to think of them, but soon I realized that we had been thrust together, and that it would be this way for many years to come. I decided I had better make friends of some of them, and friends I did make. Of the boys there was Lionel, Jimmy, Randy (the closest kid to a bully in my youth), David, Carl, Owen, Jack (who later married a girl I once dated in Provo and who subsequently moved to Manti), Greg (who called me "Itchy" because of a speech impediment), Richard, and David. Of the girls, I remember Maxine, Norma, Judy (one of my first brief crushes), Bonnie, Janet (who always competed with me for being the smartest kid in the class), Venice Ann, Francis, Pauline (a near neighbor girl that was my childhood girlfriend), and Mary Jean (the girlfriend I left behind when my family moved away when I was 12). There was also another David, probably my best friend for the next several years past kindergarten. He was important to me because he was much, much bigger than I was. In fact, he was bigger than anyone else my age. David was very strong for his age, having worked on his dad's farm from the time he could walk and carry a bucket. He became my protector, and no one bothered him nor me because of his size. Later on I realized that I didn't need this protection, as all the kids in my class treated me like someone they liked and never showed any meanness towards me in any way. But I idolized David anyway, because he was just the strongest kid I knew. Later on Bobby would become my closest friend. He was more my size and even had basically the same looks as I did. We both started wearing glasses at an early age, for me when I was in the third grade. Bobby and I spent all of our free time together, and he would be the friend that would cry real tears, standing in our driveway as I looked back at him and at our Manti home, and drove away in our move to Provo. I never suspected, or even thought, that Bobby would cry visibly as we drove away, and the memory of seeing him do this remained in my thoughts for years afterward. I saw him only one other time, much later on in our lives, when I visited him in the Veteran’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, shortly before he died.
For a short time before Bobby, there would also be Ted, a boy that would give me my first crush-type feelings. He was beautiful, he used bad language, and he smelled like what I found out later was tobacco from his parents smoking in their home, in other words, a boy completely different from me. I not only idolized him; I loved him. I tried to be exactly like him. I tried to learn to draw horses like he drew them, and though I never came very close to his extraordinary talent, I did learn to draw this animal better than the other kids, except Ted, of course. Ted never came to church, but I never wondered why. We spent many hours together during a rather short span of time, probably a matter of months, which included, I believe, the summer of either my ninth or tenth birthday. Then, suddenly he was gone. He and his family moved to Grand Junction, Colorado. I saw him one other time, coming back from one of my family's trips that took us through Grand Junction. I think back now and realize how thoughtful my parents were to actually make Grand Junction a stop-over point, just so I could spend one more glorious sleep-over with my friend Ted. After this, however, I never saw him again; but I have carried this boyish love for him into my adult years, even to the present day.
I started dating girls around eight years of age, when many kids my age started socializing at two annual events. Eight years old was the community's "coming of age" for these two events, and all the boys that were interested began to ask the girls to the town "shindig," and the girls began to ask the boys to "girls' night." I don't recall always being asked for the girls' night, but then I don't think many of us were asked, or really cared or wanted to be asked. The one year I do remember was when Francis Cooms asked me out for the girls' night. Francis was quite overweight, and I was kind of embarrassed to be asked by her. But then I found out that she had quite a bit of money to spend on me that night, and my embarrassment suddenly disappeared and was replaced with visions of all kinds of candy, sodas and such. I don't recall what exactly we were planning to do that night, but it was called off when I came down with the chicken pox and couldn't go. The "shindigs" were another matter, however. I remember going to a couple of them, and the one I remember best was when I actually won one of the prizes that were given away that night. The girl I was with was Mary Jean, I believe a cousin to my friend Ted. She was the second of the two girlfriends of my early youth, the first being Pauline Miller, as I mentioned earlier, who lived just around the corner from my house. Pauline was a beautiful girl with long blond hair. Many years into the future I would attend a Manti High School reunion, and Pauline, after at least thirty years of absence, would put her arms around me and give me a very warm hug. Mary Jean was my girlfriend when I left and moved to Provo, and the summer before that departure we had many moments of innocent embracing, me resting my head in her lap in some rather secluded bushes inside the Manti City Park. I would miss her in the months following my move to Provo, but Pauline would be the one to visit my dreams for many years to come.
At age seven I expressed an interest in learning to play the piano. So my parents found and bought an old, but a good, upright piano. I started piano lessons with a lady that lived just two doors to the west. Her name was Mrs. Moffitt, and I enjoyed studying with her very much. As I progressed to the point that Mrs. Moffitt no longer felt capable to bring me further, she sent me to Jane Braithwaite, who was locally known as a very good pianist. She brought me into the early intermediate level, and then she suggested I move on to the best piano teacher in the whole area. His name was Lavar Jensen, a rather strange man that had spent most of his life as a piano teacher in New York City, and had moved to Manti for, to me, some unknown reason when he retired. He filled me with dreams of entering all kinds of piano competitions and continually told me I had an inherent talent that would take me very far -- if only I would work harder and practice much more. He seemed very disappointed when, in the summer of 1956, I informed him that I would be moving with my family to Provo. He gave me the name of a Thetis Barnett and urged me to continue my piano studies with her. I took his advice and continued on with Mrs. Barnett until I was 15 years old, when I tired of taking piano lessons and quit. Except for a semester of piano and another semester of organ during my college years, I never took another lesson. In spite of the many compliments on my playing and urgings to keep proceeding in this endeavor that I received over the years, I felt within myself that my talent was, in fact, limited, and that the efforts to go further than where I was were just too much for the little progress I would be able to make from that point. There was a time, after a later divorce, that I gave up playing completely, and I nearly lost all my playing ability. A little later, however, while living the single life in an apartment, I discovered digital, electronic pianos. I found the resources to purchase one (a Roland, which cost $2,500) and began to slowly recoup the talent I had almost lost. This story will follow later, but it became a time of emotional and spiritual recovery and uplift for me, and I literally discovered a purpose for all of the years of piano lessons.
In the summer of my eleventh birthday I experienced my second broken arm. I was at Bobby's house, and we were playing around on his front porch, when another kid named Kenny accidentally pushed me off the edge of the porch. I fell backwards, and as I twisted around to catch my fall, I broke my left arm in three places just above the wrist. The bone that was broken in two pieces slipped up and over the other bone and my arm looked like a goose neck. My arm was, of course, put in a cast, and because of this cast I was not able to go swimming most of that summer. This was very disappointing for me since Dad ran the city pool, and we kids spent much of our time around the pool, either in the water, sunning on the deck, or working in the candy booth. A week or so before the cast came off I simply couldn't take it any more, and I wrapped my cast in a plastic bag and went swimming anyway. I figured that if the cast were to get wet and become soft and even come off, that my arm had certainly healed enough that it wouldn't hurt too much.
At age twelve my father was offered a teaching position in a junior high school in Provo, then the third largest city in Utah, with a population of approximately 40,000 at that time. He took the job offer, and in the summer of 1956 our family pulled up its stakes and moved to the city. It was then that my life changed course, headed off into the unknown, and I never looked back until many years had passed and many things had happened, both good and bad.
