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...