Miscellaneous

This story has been published several times including in the Ensign (magazine published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day-Saints). It is a particularly powerful lesson in teaching honesty and perhaps an even more important lesson may be recognizing that adults can learn a powerful message from children even as young as four…

When I was nearly seven years old my family moved from the rural farming community of Afton, Wyoming, to the big city (at least for me it was big) of Salt Lake. I remember that we moved into a small six-plex with one bedroom, a front room, dining room, kitchen, and bathroom. My parents used…

You could count on it. Every summer the Ambrose Call family would come for a visit with Grandpa and Grandma Call. In my recollection these visits always created excitement among my mother’s brothers and sisters who liked to talk about politics and then when the grandkids got old enough to offer their opinions the excitement…

The summer of 1974 was one of the most scary, traumatic, memorable, and miraculous times in my family history with Carol and Paul. Let me try to summarize that summer: while living in Knoxville, Tennessee Carol was diagnosed with ovarian cancer which led to a complete hysterectomy including the loss of her uterus, ovaries and…

Several years ago, my wife and I were in a restaurant eating a sandwich with our 9- year-old granddaughter Alicia who has an eye for noticing little things that are going on around her. We had just finished our sandwiches, and we were sitting at the table visiting and enjoying a few minutes of time…

Have you ever had one of those experiences which you can remember twenty plus years later as clearly as if it happened yesterday? I have and this story I am about to tell is an example of one of those experiences.​My dad and I lost our wives 17 days apart so during the recovery process…

Mrs. Bouck, my fifth-grade teacher, had a profound and positive impact on me, even though many of her teaching techniques would no doubt be unacceptable today. In fact, if she were one of my grandkids’ teachers, I am certain I would be leery if she were still using some of the same approaches she used…