My 500 Words

I didn't foresee that we were starting a tradition. I thought we were just trying be a little rational during a highly emotional time of our lives. When we decided to get married thirteen days before I entered law school, my wife and I realized that it would be wise to not spend too much money on our honeymoon. We still wanted to start our marriage off right with a trip that we would remember for years to come; we just didn't want to dig ourselves into a deep hole of debt. We investigated options that we would enjoy but wouldn't require us to raid the bank. We opted to stay fairly close to home and avoided expensive fares to Europe. Because we married in early August, the Utah Shakespearean Festival was an easy choice for quality entertainment at a fair charge. And once we were in Cedar City it was natural to add stops in two of the best national parks in the country that are only an hour or so away and right in our home state. The majesty of Zion and the geographic diver...

It wasn't much of a place, but I didn't know any better. The room was cramped and the two queen beds only had 18 inches between them. The floral bedspreads were worn thin and frayed on the edges. The multicolored carpeting made it difficult to determine whether the floor was dirty or if the design was intended. The bathroom functioned, but the only light that worked was the heat lamp and it would only go on if you set it for a minimum of ten minutes. It was better to leave the light off because one look at the shower curtain dissuaded against the choice to clean up; a darkened tub made the morning cleansing bearable. Whatever its shortcomings, I didn't care. This was more than my first visit to any motel, I was on my first trip to Los Angeles and Southern California. It was the middle of December and I was walking about in short sleeves instead of wearing my heavy coat and gloves at home in Salt Lake. I saw palm trees for the first time and our debate coach drove us by th...

Like me, Spain came to the world of cold cereal late in the game. While I was growing up, it was a rare treat to have cold cereal from a box and with ten to twelve children trying to get their share it didn't last very long when we did. I suspect my parents would have gone broke had they tried to feed us prepared breakfast cereals, and certainly our trips to the dentist would be more frequent and likely more expensive. Instead, I become accustomed to a morning diet of oatmeal, cream of wheat or pancakes. If I could go back in time I would do it all again. I was really happy when my mom made oatmeal because she made a few servings extra, which is not an easy task with all of those mouths to feed. I would enjoy my bowl in the morning but I discovered that I liked the dish even better as a leftover after school. Instead of eating it in a bowl with milk, I would fry the cooled mush in butter and sprinkle it with brown sugar; a delicious comfort food if ever there was one. Cream of ...

Though I have seen grand palaces and castles, stood before centuries old art and marveled at architecture that has endured millennia, I have discovered the people I meet make a trip more meaningful than the places I see. Several years ago my brother and I planned a reunion that included a cruise from Long Beach, to Catalina to Ensenada and back. This was not an exotic destination but it remains a favorite trip because of one day in Ensenada. We took the typical tourist trip to the Bufadora, a cove where the tide comes in and the water spouts out of a natural made blow hole. As a family of six we were limited in our taxi choices and weren't able to pair up with anyone else from my sibling group, so we found a driver of a van and made a go of it. I sat in the passenger seat next to the driver. After several minutes, he realized that I could actually speak Spanish and I asked how much he would charge to give us a tour of the city. The price was so reasonable that I didn't even c...

It was my turn to cook and my companion and I were completely booked. This day, I was going to need all of the two hour siesta to prepare the chicken casserole, bake it in the oven, make the side dishes, eat and then clean up before we were back out to work. I made it as easy as possible by getting up early and cooking the whole chicken so that I could easily remove the meat from the bones. That would save a half hour or more of valuable time. I placed the chicken in a pot and brought the water to a low boil because I didn't want to overcook the bird. Once the chicken was finished I would leave it in the refrigerator so that I could manually shred the cooked meat without getting burned. As I waited for the chicken to finish cooking, I put on my white shirt and tie, brushed my teeth and checked on the chicken that was close to being done to my liking. We had almost twenty minutes before we had to make the seven minute walk to the metro station to reach our first appointment, so ...

When I gaze upon the stars, I am filled with a sense of cosmic truth and connection, I feel that somehow there must be a way to unlock the mysteries that must lie somewhere in space, somewhere out there. I am drawn to the idea that eons ago, perhaps someone just like me was lying on his back looking at the space between the stars and pondering the same questions. Perhaps he looked right where the earth would someday be and thought about what lies beyond and what might someday be. Perhaps he imagined that there would be a kindred spirit who lived  in a distant galaxy and wondered how everything he could see had somehow come to be. It makes intuitive sense that we humans are not the first beings to ask these questions. And if by chance we are, it seems to make even more sense that we will not be the last. I frequently turn to the writings of others who know more about the universe than I do, but I feel limited because I seldom understand the foundations upon which they write. Appar...

There are moments in the middle of the summer when you can hear your body perspire. At night, when the sun has gone down, the atmosphere is supposed to release the excess heat so that in the morning we awake to cool and refreshing air. Yet, from late July to mid-August, Utahns can count on a few days where you will wake up and wonder whether the sun had ever gone down. This claim may seem silly but, there remains no room for doubt when you wake up and have to peel your sheets off of your body, leaving a sweat-stained silhouette on what might someday become an infamous shroud.  The first sign that it is going to be one of those nights has to be the pillow flip. Normally the purpose of the pillow is to provide that perfect blend of comfort and support to facilitate drifting off to sleep and quiet rest. But on those warm summer evenings when your head hits the pillow, you can feel the heat trapped between your cheek and the material. It only takes minutes for the pillow to assume...

I was six or seven the first time I sang a solo. It was long enough ago that I don't quite remember the reason for the occasion but I was chosen to sing the part of the cow in the song about the friendly beasts. A few of my friends and I went to several special practices at the home of our Primary chorister. The song was fun to do and I practiced for hours at home to make sure I did my best. After the performance everyone told all of the children that we had done well and we sounded good. I took the compliment with the understanding that I must have sounded like a really good cow. It was perhaps that moment that I began my fascination with animal sounds. Parents regularly teach their children the sounds that animals make and it's hard to make it through a children's book without a moo or a neigh. But I began to notice that the sounds that people say that animals make rarely sound like the animal, but are at best a weak simplification. So I began to practice actual dog sou...

I prefer to fill out my crossword puzzles with a pen. The permanence of the ink makes the pastime seem more like a craft than a simple diversion. In wood working they say it's best to measure twice and cut but once. Likewise, a beautiful crossword grid will contain no smudges, erasures, deletions or cross outs. Each square will beautifully connect with all the others until its answers and themes lie revealed. Well crafted crossword puzzles hide layers of connectivity that do not resolve until the grid is finished. The New York Times publishes perhaps the best puzzles that demand high standards of creativity and elegant execution. I appreciate the systematic publication decision by the Times to make the Monday puzzle relatively simple and increase the difficulty level each day. It was the Monday offering that persuaded me to use the pen. After brief practice, most people can complete the basic puzzles that are offered on the first day of the week. Many Monday clues come from a lis...

Recently I lost a pair of glasses. I own one pair that I wear most of the time. My wife picked out the frames and they reflect my personality as she sees it. They are black and bold and make some statement, although because I didn't pick them out I'm not sure what that is. Most people like them, which isn't a surprise as I have come to trust my wife's judgment on most things over the years, especially when it comes to what I wear. Because of all of the cycling I do I wanted amore sporty pair of glasses that would change tint with the light. I have a love/hate relationship with these glasses because they are lightweight and comfortable and they protect my eyes from the sun. This is handy because I ride to the east when I go to the office and I return toward the west. Both directions are obviously into the sun. But sometimes I forget that they have transitioned to dark until I see a photograph of myself standing with friends or family and I'm the guy who looks like ...

The final bell signaled the end of the school year and all of the students hurried out of the building ready to embrace the freedom of summer. Dreams of sleeping in, no homework, lots of baseball, and hanging out with friends created a palpable excitement that every kid intuitively knows. There is nothing like having almost all day to run and play and it seemed like the call to come on home always came a little too soon. The only drawback to summer vacation was missing so many of the dozens of friends beyond the kids in the neighborhood. You spend so much of your time in school that having those people cut out of your life for a few months was really aggravating. I would never have believed it if it hadn't happened, but the cure for missing your school mates is to go back to school in the summer. I never had to makeup classwork during the summer break, but when my mom found out that the junior high school had a marching band, she sent me up to the school a week into summer break....

About the only time I consumed soda as a child was when I was sick. Mom said that the carbonated water could help calm an upset stomach. Because the last thing anyone wants to do is  clean up after someone who got sick after drinking a grape or other colored soda, my mom stuck to the classic 7-Up. For some reason she never bought Sprite and to this day, if I drink Sprite I think it's tasty but a mere whiff of 7-Up will send my stomach on a virtual teacup ride. While it is never fun to be sick, it's not so bad when your mom is there ready to meet all of your needs and most of your wants. When I moved away from home, I was 19 years old and found myself living with five friends in the middle of Madrid, Spain. The adventure was part of a lifelong plan to give missionary service for two years. This meant leaving my home and all that I knew to share with others my beliefs and invite all the people I could to come unto Christ. The work was very simple but it required a lot of legwor...

The wooden racket was marked with multiple dings and scratches. The green stripe running up the handle had faded and the tape was worn with near daily use. The young boy could run for hours, and it was a good thing because the wall never lost. His local park had installed a giant wooden hitting wall along one fence and this made it possible to practice when no one else wanted to play. Little by little he hit the ball harder and more true and gradually his shots landed just above the line that marked where the net would have been. This solo practice paid dividends because others were more willing to play when they knew that they would have a game instead of teaching a little kid how to hit the ball. Few people noticed the boy as they were focused on their own games. It didn't help that he was small, his hair unkempt, and his shoes looked as worn and used as the old wooden racket. But as he improved he found the racket's sweet spot and he could make the tennis ball jump from th...

I seldom miss the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. I can sit down at a computer, input a simple search and immediately receive hundreds of thousands of results as possible answers to my question. With predictive text, sometimes the very result that I am seeking comes up before I have even finished the query. I don't know how Google knew, but while I was watching a DVD of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, I was curious whether the producer, Mark Radcliffe, was any relation to Daniel Radcliffe. I had only typed Mark Ra when Mark Radcliffe, Producer appeared in a blue highlighted link that answered my specific question; they are not related. While doing legal research using the Westlaw database, I found thousands of results regarding the requirements for a direct adverse interest between two potential clients. After glancing through several results, I concluded how the conflict question could be resolved. The reach of these databases and the nimbleness of their al...

At the bend of the road in my subdivision, not quite two doors down and nearer the sidewalk than the middle of the road, sat the manhole cover. I knew it better as home plate during the day or the safe zone at night. This was the place that we always gathered to choose our teams or the spot where the person who was it would count while the rest of us scattered around the neighborhood. If the sun was out, we would play baseball or kickball, but when the moon ruled the night we would play hide and seek or kick the can. During summer break there was always a game being played in the middle of the street and you could always join in, even if you missed the start. Games would start when someone went outside and waited by the cover. Within a few minutes one or two friends would always show up and we'd warm up with a catch or a game of hot box. Once five or six kids gathered we'd start up a game. Because we were in the street we would often change to a tennis ball to avoid shatter...

I had never been on a winter camp before and despite some misgivings I went because Ron was bringing his snowmobiles. I had never been on a snowmobile and I didn't know if this chance was going to come again. I woke up early Saturday morning and once the sun was out I got my first ride on a snowmobile. Ron gave me some simple instructions and I hopped on and made my first cuts through the fresh snow. About 200 yards from our campground there lay a quarter to half-mile wide meadow that allowed for fast riding and was perfect for the beginning rider. I learnt how to lean and turn in the direction opposite of what I imagined. Even though it was cold and there was a bite in the air, each time I turned into the sun I beamed with joy and satisfaction. After riding for some time, I was disappointed when I was called back to camp to give someone else a turn. I stopped with the nose of the snowmobile facing up the mountain. Because the next boy hadn't ridden before, Ron asked me to tu...

"Why don't you read the dictionary?" my dad asked. "I can't do that," I said. "Yes you can and I promise you that if you will read one page of the dictionary every single day and choose three words from each page to use during that day, you will have a vocabulary that will allow you to express anything you ever want to say." I'm not sure which dictionary my dad had in mind, but my favorite version was part of the Encyclopedia Britannica that we had in our home. This was a two volume reference set that took me almost four years to finish. Had I followed my dad's advice and only read one page per day, it would have taken nearly twice that long. This collection of words represents the ultimate in Scrabble nightmares because almost every combination of letters spelled out some word. For years, I thought the term obs. for obsolete was the most common word in the English language as I had encountered it in what seemed like every other entry...

American capitalism finds its foundation in advertising. Consumers willingly pay a little bit more than the actual cost of products at the point of sale because almost every product carries a small percentage tied to the manufacturer's marketing expenses. For many years the three primary means of advertising distribution came through radio, television and newspapers. With advancements allowing digital information distribution, it seems that the newspaper industry has taken the biggest hit in the revenue stream from advertising. With the decline in advertisers who are willing to pay for static ads on the printed page, readers have seen a jump in prices for their daily news. But even with the increase costs, decreased subscriptions mean that the fees for a newspaper subscription still come short of paying the production costs and staff salaries leaving a void that monies from advertising has to cover. This is because the smaller subscriber base results in smaller amounts that the n...

I am absolutely certain that one of the reason I enjoy formal education is the regular chance to learn new things, or at least new to me. Five days a week I would go to school and meet with teachers and other students. Early on, lessons might have seemed like simple sessions of memorization. I sat through classes where we reviewed vocabulary words for spelling, repeated simple mathematic steps until I knew addition and subtraction by rote and the teachers recited important historical events and facts. Little by little these experiences added up to a basic set of knowledge and formed a comfortable basis to understand the world around me. With each passing year, most classes came to assume that the students possessed a certain subset of knowledge and the shift from learning facts to understanding how to learn became the purpose of education. Ultimately a post-graduate education requires even more, it demands that you discover things that might be learned and gives you the charge to dis...

Because of all the entertainment that awaits the press of our fingertips, some movies from my early marriage years go unwatched because of the seemingly outdated technology. I still possess a pile of, perhaps, one hundred shows on VHS. I have kid shows that I used to watch with my children and Spanish language versions of some Disney classics. Thanks to Netflix, iPads, and the internet in general, I don't usually expend even the minimal effort required to watch a videocassette. In case you have forgotten, you first have to find the tape, eject the tape that is already in the machine; and when you find that the show you want to watch wasn't rewound, you then have to rewind the tape before you can watch it. I hate to sound like the old guy sitting on my porch yelling at the kids to stay off of my grass, but I remember the days before a VHS. The idea that you could own a movie and watch it at your own leisure didn't arrive to me until high school days. The simply reality mea...

During the summer months, once I am out of bed I want to get on my bike and off to work as soon as possible. I ride toward the east and mountain sunrises seldom disappoint so I gladly adopt a more leisurely pace as I breathe the fresh morning air and take in the wonderful views. I can say that I don't miss the rush hour traffic that rolls along just a little later. Those morning rides are near stress free and infuse a calming perspective that lasts all day. But when the temperature doesn't even drop below 70, it really pays to get out before the sun's heat is ready to beat you up. The afternoon ride is a different story. Riding through a concrete jungle, the sun's heat doesn't just hit you once, no the solar rays find a multiplicity of ways to sap your energy and slow you down. I emerge from the parking tunnel rolling and confident and as long as I am moving the wind on my face repels the debilitating heat. The quality of my entire ride can turn on what happens ne...

I have never been able to watch "Schindler's List" from the beginning until the end in one sitting. I have had to watch the drama five or six times to actually see the entire program. The movie causes such swells of emotion that I simply cannot endure the visual experience that portrays such horrific inhumanity by one group against another. The real capability of humanity to lose sight of every moral compass and wander so far afield frightens me to the point where I am unable to continue to watch and reflect on the hows and whys. Yet, the heart of the story reminds us that there were always some people who were willing to push back against pure evil in an attempt to do some good. I thought of this experience when a friend recommended the documentary "Nicky's Family," which tells the story of an Englishman who helped rescue more than 600 children from Prague at the onset of World War II. It tells the story of what this man did as well as how decades later h...

As I entered the dimly lit room, I notice my wife lying on the sofa, reading a book under the soft glow of the piano light. It was just after Christmas and she had settled in to enjoy a novel that she had received as a present. I was a little surprised when I noticed that she only had a few dozen pages remaining because we were still in the middle of the Christmas break; I don't even think we had come to New Year's Eve. I chose to express this surprise by saying, "Have you read that whole book?" To which she coyly replied, "I know how to read." We've returned to that little dialogue, especially when one of us is very near the end of almost any written work. Because our family loves to read, this happens more often than you might think. With all our reading I have noticed that my time in university and law school tended to turn me into somewhat of a literature snob. I came to opine that any piece of literature that was adored by the general public had t...

I wasn't sitting where I wanted to be. I was stuck in a courtroom with no air conditioning. Conservation persuaded management to turn off the air conditioning over the long July 4th. Unfortunately when the facility team went to turn them back on, nothing happened. So the sweltering courthouse felt just as uncomfortable as a squirming witness under intense cross examination. It wasn't quite a scene from "Twelve Angry Men," but everyone was a bit out of sorts with the old-time working conditions. When Tuesday came around and there was still no change, the constant heat simply beat the motivation out of you. But it was more than the heat that was under my skin. No one had checked the World Cup calendar when we scheduled the hearings for today and even if we had, there was no way of knowing that the host nation of Brazil would be confronting the machine-like German squad. This was destined to be a match that you didn't want to miss. But instead of meeting up with f...

I used to listen to baseball on the radio. I'd sit on the floor, glove in hand, resting my back on the sofa as I closed my eyes and imagined each pitch, hit and throw. The radio announcers would tell a story but it usually confirmed what I would already see in my mind's eye. A well hit ball makes a very distinct sound. When the path of the ball perfectly intersects the swinging bat the resulting sound reverberates on one distinct harmonic pitch. I listened for that sound with each and every pitch and when I heard it, I waited for a fraction of a second, not for the announcer, but the sound of the crowd would report whether it was a hit or an out. But not all hits are pure. I suppose that most hits come from good swings that just miss the sweet spot. Those will not fly out of the park for a home run, but they will loop and drop, or curve and dip, or run and hop. The imperfect contact of bat on ball sounds very different. The sound comes off the bat as a cacophonous blend of a...

While vacationing in Southern Utah, I decided to work in a twenty mile ride from my hotel to my sister's home in St. George. I had traveled the route many times before and I longed for the chance to soak in the natural beauty of the red rock and the calming desert air. It wasn't too long of a ride and I felt the ascents would pose an enjoyable challenge, they would require some work but the effort would be well worth the price. I eagerly began the ride even though I knew that the first several miles would require a steady rise. Every mountain demands a choice; turn back, attempt the ascent, or look for an easier route around. Some peaks become well known companions and highlights along a journey to a favorite destination. Others exploit any uncertainty and erode every personal sense of confidence. On this ride it was like meeting an old friend who suddenly seemed like an enemy. I had loved this route because of the canyon pass where most every turn reveals a new and even m...

Every nine weeks I essentially clear my calendar because I am on call to respond to new cases of child abuse and neglect. I work with two monitors and I generally have my email in view at all times, but on these weeks I catch myself checking for the email notification every morning around nine. The state's child welfare staff sends me a the names, ages, and a brief summary of the situation that caused them to take the child into their custody. While some weeks are busy and some weeks are slow, I cannot remember any week when substance abuse was not a reason that a family was brought before the juvenile court. This week was no exception. Every single one of the situations that led to juvenile court involvement came from substance abuse. Some children had been born with drugs in their system. Other children required care because their moms and dads were incarcerated. Two families suffered physical abuse because of the father's choices while intoxicated. The one factor they had ...

My wife is something of an extreme traditionalist when it comes to America's National Anthem. During the pre-game to the 2014 Super Bowl, Renee Fleming sang The Star Spangled Banner to a very receptive crowd. I still feel the chills as I listened to my country's song performed by a gifted and talented singer who allowed her voice to emote the passions of patriotism as well as excite the energy for the game. But my rave review of that exquisite performance was immediately shot down by the critical ear quickly identified a change in the time signature; apparently the music was set to a 4/4 time. It was musical treason. Recently I have noticed a trend to slightly modify the closing words of each verse to the anthem. Each stanza ends with the imagery of the red, white, and blue flying, "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." The popular edit changes the word home and turns it into "Because of the Brave." Before I go any further, I must say...

Emerging from the parking garage the outside air smothered me with a hot blast that sapped my energy from the start. I made a right hand turn and immediately headed west. Although it was hot, I found a comfortable gear and traveled quickly along the road without needing to stop at a single light. After a mile of riding I arrived at the T in the road and turned south, smack into a constant 25 mile per hour wind. The downtown buildings and flowing traffic had muted the effects of the wind and its strength caught me off guard. Fortunately it was only a half mile until I could travel west and find relief from the constant gale. Though it had been a short stint, I felt a subtle tightness behind my left knee. It was still early in my ride and nine miles separated me from home. I quickly determined that this was not going to be a time trial type of ride. I was going to listen to my body and not push too hard. As I made my way toward home I felt every single rotation as I pedaled with a qui...

I might have missed a photo opportunity, but it's alright. Two of my children had accompanied me, only half-heartedly complaining, to my mother's house to help her discard a heavy, old treadmill. We had to lug it up the stairs from the basement and out to the curb. I didn't weigh the machine, but it was heavy enough that I had my 13 and 16 year old children with me. When we got to the basement door we discovered the hardest part of the move. We had make a tricky maneuver to properly align the treadmill and then we swung it through the door opening in one motion. Then we lifted the beast up the stairs. I then dragged it to the curb and thought that was the end of our visit. As we made our way to the car I glanced at my mother's garden and asked her where the arugula was - I like the peppery flavor and eating it right in the garden is better than with a complete salad. She had planted it farther to the west and away from the car so we strolled toward the backyard until ...

Several years ago, the courthouse where I work installed bicycle racks so I could leave my bicycle in the parking garage instead of carrying my bike into the elevator and keeping it against a wall in my office. There is a lot of generally accepted protocol on an elevator and lugging a bicycle violates every single one of them. I would often make my commute to work 30-40 minutes before the rest of the employees just to increase my chance of getting an empty elevator car. That way I could avoid the inevitable small talk. These days I still get the occasional quick glance but now that I am taking up no more room than the next guy, the small talk is ready made with the two most popular questions. "How was the ride?" and "How far is your ride?" People ask those questions on an order of magnitude more frequently than any generic comment about the weather or my day. I can answer the questions and get the canned replies in the time it takes to reach my floor. The bigge...