Beneath the Wraps

On 8 January 1981, prisoners on a work assignment burning trash and debris at the Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah , accidentally caused a major power failure when something they were burning exploded, causing a fireball that shorted out transmission lines above them. 1.5 million people lost power, in almost all of Utah, as well as parts of southeastern Idaho and southwestern Wyoming* and I believe parts of Nevada as well.      I was listening to a radio station from another county when the power first started to flicker.   The DJ had made some comment about the power going off.   “Wow.   Ours just went off, too” I thought, never imagining that the outage was created by the same source.    I remember finding a transistor radio looking for something that would give us some kind of indication as to why the power went off.   We were on a different transformer or power unit than our neighbors across the street.   U...

Jenna and I have played “Crazy Countries” a game much like Crazy 8  Of course the Africa continent deck has a lot more cards than say Oceania or South America deck and so we of course don’t play with all of the cards.  We’re not learning countries so much as continents – for I have told Jenna that whenever we use a wild card to change suit, we have to say by continent rather than color. I took Spanish in 9 th and 10 th grade.  In my first year, part of our lessons included studying  the countries in South America .  We were also assigned pen pals to correspond with in hopes that it would help us learn our Spanish and assist our pen pal with his or her English. The map of South America looks the same way I remember it looking in 1975.  It looks the same way today.  And I am impressed by the stableness of the boundaries.  It makes geography so much easier to learn (and share).   After playing “Crazy Countri...

World geography has got to be one of the most frustrating subjects as it is constantly changing.   Should Jenna ever learn about the names of countries and border locations and such, I think for the most part will be quite different from what I learned. Creating maps is an endless task – but I suppose if that’s the field of work you’ve gone into, well, then you will never be out of work.  In my sixth grade history class we were given blank maps as part of our world geography – or so I’m assuming that’s what was being taught.  I specifically remember working on a European map, but for whatever reason, our time in the classroom was cut short and so we were allowed to take the maps home and fill them out there according to our own resources as we were not allowed to take the text books home. We didn’t have the resources of today where one can go to Google and pull up a large variety of maps and find information on each country with just a click of a butt...

Ben and Khonnie Andrews are professional auctioneers – who just so happened to live in the ward where I grew up.   I remember several fund raisers featuring cakes or baked goods which Ben and Khonnie would take turns auctioning off.   It was wild.   A lot of competitiveness among certain ward members.   Some with deeper pockets than others.   I remember doing two cobblers one year – a blueberry and a cherry.   One sold for 35 and the other one sold at 5-10 dollars less.   And that was one of the lower priced items.   There were cakes that had sold for 80 dollars or more during various years.   It kind of put my second ward to shame as 25 was actually among the highest bids and the hand-picked auctioneer had little experience at auctioning. My second ward was a poorer area than my first homeward. We attended an auction for the third time in this ward.   The last two times have been fund raisers for the Young Women...

  There are at least eight states covered in snow right now.   States that don’t usually have such a tremendous amount of snow.   Many cities without power because the storms have knocked down the lines.     My blog received over 200 views two days in a row.   By those who were bored and holed up I would imagine.   There have been several who haven’t been allowed to drive anywhere as the roads were closed and cars were abandoned, traveling reduced and messed up more than I remember Utah ever being.    And I feel bad about my post titled “Killer Snow” when I would imagine those living in said states thought, “That is nothing, sister.   Not compared to us” The weather forecast keeps saying that we’ll have snow in Utah.   Every time the wind blows, a promise has been made.   But I have learned, the louder the sound of the wind, the less likely ...

  There is a great difference between Black and white Day and night Sunshine and Rain Happiness and Emotional Pain There is also a tremendous difference Between the church and the gospel of Jesus Christ Sadly there are those who base their testimony upon historical figures or other members of the church, and when imperfection is revealed there are many that have gone astray.   There appears to have been some big hoopla lately about the plural marriage among some of the brethren in Church history – particularly Joseph Smith who doesn’t appear to have been honest with how it was done. Joseph Smith was the first prophet in this dispensation.   The Church of Jesus Christ had not been on the earth for 15 centuries.   Cut the guy a break.   What example did he have to follow?   God had given him instructions.   Sometimes he followed them to the letter.   Sometimes, unfortunately, he felt that he knew better than God...

Every year my family would go on vacation.   Mom and dad would sit us down and ask us what we’d like to do and we were allowed to give our input.   I think Corey was only eight or nine the year that we decided to go up through Canada.   We decided what Providences we would visit, what sites we would see and the route we would travel.    I think we hit Seattle, Washington the second day and Corey had added seeing the Space Needle to our agenda.   Corey had obviously researched it out.   Apparently he had a map in his head and kept on saying: “We need to do this.”   “We need to do that.” None of us had ever been there before and didn’t know what to expect – but Corey was determined and it was because of him that we were able to explore the shadow room, and the echoed phone, and the pulley and a bunch of cool stuff that we would have not even known was there – but Corey was well read.   He became our tour guide...

Earlier this week, Jenna came home all excited and folded an open box into a closed one, added a face and the hearts that she and her friend had cut out of colored paper.   She said there was a contest and she came up with the idea of turning her box into the school mascot. On Wednesday she was crying when I picked her up – disappointed that one class did not collect all the needed points and thus they wouldn’t be having the Valentine’s party she had so looked forward to.  On Thursday I said she should take   her box and prepared Valentines anyway – just in case. She threw up in class and so was taken to the office and put in the sick room to wait until somebody arrived. My phone was in my pocket.   Unfortunately it had been turned off.   Roland was on his cell phone talking to someone.   Randy was in class.   Carrie was at work.   Evidently the staff had gone through ev...