BE AFRED BE VERY AFRED

Yesterday at scouts I told my boys to say the Scout Laws---they said a scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, fearful (should be cheerful), thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. I smiled and asked them what that was all about. They laughingly said you know---we're afraid of you. I told them they should be AFRED BE VERY AFRED.

TOUGHEST DAY IN MY LIFE

I have been debating for a couple of days whether to do this or not and finally decided that I need to write it down for me if not for anyone else. So this is about what happened on April 10, 1985. That's right 27 years and 2 days ago.

I was working on a Ranger District where I was responsible for timber, fire, recreation and lands. I had two full time employees to help me with these jobs. One, the fire management officer (FMO), was responsible for fire and recreation and the other for timber. I did most of the lands work myself. I was way into fire before I ever got to this job so I was tickled to be responsible for what happened there. This is a little about fire but mostly about something far different.

On this day the FMO and I were going to ride horseback into a lake in the back country and light a prescribed burn. For you that are just into the game, this was way before we had to have large numbers of folks on burns to monitor and put them out should they escape. Yes even the time when you were expected to be able to light a fire and know it was going to go out on it's own when it reached your control points.

He went to the warehouse to get the stock ready and I went to the office to touch all the bases that we were, in fact, going to light the burn. I got through with the phone calls and was waiting for the FMO to pick me up with the stock. I started getting antsy (can you imagine that?) so went up to see what was holding things up as we needed to be ready to light the fire before noon in order for it to have enough time before the sun went down to burn to the control point.

When I got there he was shoeing a horse that had got his foot through the fence in the night and pulled his shoe off from his left front foot. He was nearly through when I got there and deftly put in nails 5 and 6 (of the eight) required to hold the shoe on correctly. When he reached for nail 7 he groaned and let the horses foot down and sat down on the ground by the fence.

I asked him if he was alright and he said he had a pain in his chest but would be OK with a few minutes rest. As he sat there he became whiter and whiter and acted like he was hurting more. I stood there and talked to him to make sure he was OK. After a few minutes of this, or maybe seconds, he toppled over and stopped breathing. I immediately asked him if he was OK and there was no response, so I started CPR. I hadn't done it very long when he opened his eyes and told me he was OK so I started to go get a vehicle to take him to the hospital.

As I went out the gate he again stopped breathing so I went back and again started CPR. Again he started breathing, again I started for a vehicle, and again he went into heart arrest. This went on and on until finally I was able top get to the stock truck which was about 100 feet away and get it close enough to the corral to get him in the front seat. I had gone to the warehouse at about 9 am and I got him into the truck at close to 11 am because we arrived at the hospital about 3/4 mile away at 11 am.

I parked the stock truck in the Ambulance entry to the hospital and went in to get some help to get him into the Emergency Room. A Doctor and some others came out and helped get him on the gurney and headed for the ER. The Administrator of the Hospital came out and started yelling at me to get the stock truck out of the Ambulance lane. He had no knowledge that I had just off-loaded the FMO and had him headed to the Emergency Room.

I moved the truck into the visitor parking and went back into the hospital. They allowed me into the Emergency Room where the doctors thought they had him stabilized. The doctor was asking me questions while he worked on the FMO and I was answering as good as I could the medical questions. When the doctor finished asking the questions the FMO sat up and said "Doc can I go back up there and finish that horse. I only need to put 2 more nails in to have him done." We all laughed then when the Doctor told him there was no chance of that.

A couple of days later he was life flighted to the University of Utah Medical Center where he nearly died again. Through this ordeal the bottom third of his heart died from lack of oxygen due to plugged arteries and veins. It was an uphill battle for him to get better but he finally did. No one expected that he would ever be able to do the things he loved again like riding horses, farming and hunting. He does all of those things and more to this day.

Last year, at 75, he killed a giant six point bull elk at one of our favorite locations on the district that is over 10,000 feet in elevation. The doctors told him many times he would never see that spot again.

Every one that has ever supervised others knows that there is one employee that they have supervised that all others are evaluated against. This guy is mine.

THIS DAY WAS THE TOUGHEST DAY OF MY LIFE BUT WAS ALSO PROBABLY THE BEST. I AM GLAD THAT EVERY YEAR I CAN CALL HIM AND WISH HIM A HAPPY SECOND BIRTHDAY.

THE HUNGER GAMES---****

I am not one to go to all the new movies and try to evaluate the worth of them and which one was the best. I did go to the Hunger Games with Inklings the other night and it is a good movie. I guess it followed the book pretty closely but I didn't read it so really didn't care. I am also not a fan of following what happened to whom in the future but this movie left it open to a sequel---AND I WILL GO JUST TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

JUNIOR WRESTLING STATE MEET

Yesterday we spent the day at the wrestling tournament for the younger kids, Generally K-9th grade. There were over 700 kids there and the wrestling was broken into two divisions, the younger kids in the morning and the older ones in the afternoon. We had two in each group so pretty much spent the entire day in a very hot, noisy gym. They had mats set up in three rooms and had each of the larger mats divided into four smaller mats where the competition took place. All total there were 24 matches going at the same time.

Wrestling was my sport of choice as as kid and I did well in it. I loved the competition and I LOVED WINNING. LOVED IT. We had four grandchildren participating so there was some pretty good incentive to stay and watch. They won a few matches but we tallied mostly losses and they ended up losing out. That is OK because they participated and are learning a pretty tough sport. I used to coach little league wrestling and loved doing it but I am glad that I don't do that anymore. The noise from all the people nearly drove me crazy.

I am really glad we got to see our oldest son, his wife and four of his five children for this competition. In addition to watching the wrestling we had a great visit.

STRIDE FOR STRIDE

We were at a discount store yesterday and I saw a book about a race horse written by a Thomas Marshall. When I was in High School I was on the wrestling team with Thomas Marshall. We also rode race horses together for a few years. He was way better than me and had the opportunity to ride in the big time. He decided to do what his Dad told him and became a doctor instead. I wondered if it was the same guy. I bought the book and it isn't written by him. It is a good story about twins, a colt and a filly. I have enjoyed reading it so far.

It has been quite a while since I read a book just for the heck of it and I have kind of enjoyed that too. Maybe I'll get started on the part of the bucket list that was to read a million pages---right now I am 1/4 through with that.

THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN'

When we moved here over ten years ago our youngest daughter was playing basketball. Her coach gave her an assignment to make 100 baskets every night before she had dinner. Well we lived a ways from the school playgrounds so we bought a free standing basketball hoop that could be adjusted to be the correct height or could be lowered for younger kids. She conscientiously made her baskets every night until she no longer played. (1st picture)

She wasn't the only one that used this hoop to shoot on. The boys in our neighborhood played for a few minutes every day on their way home from school too. It got used a lot. A few weeks ago there were two boys playing on it and they were rocking the backboard with the pole to make the other one miss their shot. To their amazement, and to mine as well, the pole broke at the base and tipped forward---a lot. (2nd picture)

A couple of days later the wind came up and blew pretty hard---it tipped the standard a lot further and I was worried that one of the kids would get hurt when it finally fell so I went out and took it apart. (3rd picture) While I was doing this all of the kids were coming home from school and they all told me how bad they felt about it getting broken. One boy, from a very athletic family, asked me if he could have it. He said if he could he would carry it home. I told him he could have it if his dad approved of it and I would bring it up if he did.

Nothing happened for quite a few days and I was getting ready to put it all in the garbage when two dad's in the neighborhood showed up and loaded the pole and the backboard. They tried to take the base to the dump but I had filled it with sand and then water so it was really heavy. After they left I chopped the top out of the base with an ax and piled the sand on the drive way.(4th picture) I let it dry and then put it in buckets and moved it into the garage to use for putting on oil drips on the road and garage floor.

Monday I loaded the base onto the garbage can so it could be hauled to the dump. It took quite a while but we are finally finished with the basketball standard. (5th picture)

WE TALKED ABOUT BUYING ANOTHER ONE BUT DECIDED SINCE ABOUT HALF OF THE COURT WAS IN THE ROAD AND WE HAD PUT IT THERE WITH OLDER CHILDREN PLAYING ON IT WE DECIDED THAT WE WERE PROBABLY AT PERSONAL RISK SHOULD A CHILD BE HIT BY A CAR WHILE PLAYING ON IT. HATE TO WORRY ABOUT THINGS LIKE THAT BUT FOR SURE---TIMES ARE A CHANGIN'!!!

SPENDY CAR REPAIRS

We just got our car out of the shop tonight and what I thought was wrong with it was not the culprit this time. Saturday afternoon we took a ride around the valley and when we made the final turn at the STOP sign to go back home our car quit---just quit. It has done that several other times and it has always been spark related so I told the mechanic that towed us into town that I was pretty sure the part that was bad was the distributor for the dual coils. We have replaced that part several times because it is a pretty weak link in the electrical system of the car. It was also still under warranty from the last time we replaced it so he did that. I told them to replace the spark plugs since they would be so close to them with the work they were going to do for the distributor. After they completed that work the car still would not run right.

So he started looking for the additional problem. The break down happened so fast that it had to be spark, fuel or both. Turned out to be BOTH and it was a healthy bill to replace the fuel pump. Oh well, look at the bright side I guess, we have a new distributor, the car has been tuned up and we have a new fuel pump. Inklings drove it home and said it runs real good. Although this repair cost quite a bit, I am really happy to have the car back. I love my truck but it gets lousy, no, really lousy gas mileage. This repair would pay for itself in a couple of months if we had to drive the truck for everything.

I am also glad that our favorite mechanics are back in business---GOTTA LOVE IT!!!