# 24 - Suicide Hill

On the North side of Cogburn’s Knob, facing away from Town is a rather steep hillside that has been cleared of brush and rocks. It was well worn by a few Jeeps and dozens of motorcycles. Four Wheelers hadn’t been invented yet. My gang had none of that, but we loved Suicide Hill anyway. In the summer we’d roll flaming tires from the top and watch them boil as they rolled into the large canal at the bottom.

In the winter we’d tube. We’d build a big bonfire, then haul our tubes to the top and ride them down for half the night. We rarely made it anywhere near the depths of the empty canal, some distance across the flat, but we tried. As each night wore on, the run would get slicker and faster and scarier. Few ever thought of going shy of the summit. We were immortal and the faster the better!

One winter it had been bitter cold for several weeks and we stayed off the hill. When the weather finally broke though, we planned a big party up on Suicide. We invited everyone who dared. About an hour after we got started Ronnie Mayhew showed up. We’d been too busy to wonder where he was. He’d been to OK Tire looking for a used tube he could afford, but we’d already cleaned them out. Out in his barn yard he’d found a huge tractor tire and decided to use that. He spent most of the evening dragging the monster to the summit. As we passed by we kept telling him it wouldn’t slide, but Ronnie was determined. Finally, we all pitched in and helped him up the steep last stretch.

When we finally reached the top, Ronnie laid the tire down, stepped back several feet, ran for all he was worth (to get momentum) and leapt on top of his tire.
It didn’t move an inch! He tried and tried, but the beast was not going to slide. We teased him. We offered him rides on our tubes. We tried to help him get it started. All to no avail. Ronniejust sat there on his tire with his chin in his hands while we made several more runs. We couldn’t get him or the tire to budge.

On our last run of the evening we all climbed to the top planning a giant chain to go down all together. As we were getting ready, Ronnie was cooking up plans of his own. He called our attention and requested we hold the tire up while he climbed inside so we could roll him down the hill.

Now we were not physicists, or physicians, but any dern fool knew such a ride would be suicide. Suicide Hill is not small and it begins with a very steep slope for 100 yards before it even begins to level out. We all chimed some version of, “No Way!” “Besides,” we told him, “if the ride doesn’t kill you the smash into the dry canal bed at the bottom surely will!”

“Naw,” said Ronnie. “Jinx and Pee Wee can launch me and the rest of you toughs can get down there and catch me before I crash.”

We were scared, but also excited! If he survived it’d be the greatest stunt ever pulled!

The guys all slid down to the bottom and got ready. They stood in two parellel lines on either side of the run. They braced themselves and hollered, “Ready!”

It took all three of us to get the thing standing in an upright position. Pee Wee and I couldn’t believe Ronnie had actually got the oversided pile of rubber up there. Ronnie crawled in and got tucked nicely down in the belly of the behemouth. After several are you sure you wanna do this’s, we shoved him over the edge.

Pee Wee and I had intended to follow Ronnie down on our tubes, but he took off so fast! We just stood there amazed and in shock. Meanwhile, 16 or so tough guys were standing there waiting to catch him. They each had their arms stretched eagerly in our direction. It was two rows of hands and faces gazing intently at 400 pounds of hurtling flesh and rubber. As the tire ran that braced guntlet nothing moved but their heads as their astonished eyes followed it’s path. 16 pea-brains were at least smart enough to conclude that it wasn’t wise to step in front of a locomotive.

The Leviathan completely cleared the canal! Then, it rolled 100 yards up the opposite slope and headed back! The crew, at least, tumbled pell mell through the canal bed and up the other side before Ronnie could crash back into it. When I got there, I had to muscle my way through the circle. There, in the snow, lay Ronnie, half in and half out of the tire. Vomit was everywhere. 360 degrees of corn, carrots, peas and other less distinguishable stuff. We carried him to a car and drove our sick pal home. We didn’t see hide nor hair of him for a week.

All Ronnie got for his efforts was bragging rights and standing ovation in the school cafeteria a week later. Oh, and perhaps a little smarter.

# 23 - The Pink Panther

Himni had a little theater called the Cozy. It had an aisle down each side and about fifteen rows of eight seats. There was a hole in the screen where Butch had pierced it with a pop bottle while trying to join in an on screen saloon fight. The movies were never current, for those you had to drive over to Roosevelt or up to Vernal. There was always a cartoon before the movie. I never think of that theater and cartoons without remembering Rob Hanke.Rob was a Jekyll/Hyde sort of individual. He could be found hanging with us, drinking pop and eating popcorn, but he was just as likely to be seen having a beer with Butch. There was room in his heart for all of us. It was one of his most endearing qualities. I don’t recall either side trying to reform him. It’s not like we didn’t care, we just somehow knew he was alright.

Rob worked at Dal’s Sporting Goods Store and took much of his wages in ammo. He loved shooting things. One year during the deer hunt, he and Butch Farley went hunting down in the Book Cliffs. They took 30.06 shells and beer, a case of each! They got ploughed and started taking shots at the trunk of a large Ponderosa Pine. After a while Butch knocked a pretty large chunk out of the side of the tree. It then became a contest to see who could shoot off the biggest piece. Before the night was over the beer was gone, the bullets were gone and they’d felled the tree!

Anyway, one night a bunch of us went down to the Cozy to see Cat Ballou, we were in love with Jane Fonda. Rob showed up a but tipsy. Not as bad a Lee Marvin, but almost! There was a Pink Panther cartoon showing before the feature. Rob climbed onto the small stage in front of the screen and attempted to keep his shaddow in front of the Pink Panther all through the cartoon. It was hilarious and even Mr. Hornby the owner of the theater got a kick out of Hanke’s performance.

We laughed about Rob and the Pink Panther for weeks. Everywhere he appeared it seemed someone was singing the the Pink Panther theme music. Da Dum, Da Dum, Da Dum Da Dum Da Dum Da Dum, Da Dum, Da Da Da Dum. Rob didn’t make much of it himself, he wasn’t the show off type, but the rest of us carried the ball for him.

In the Spring it came time for the Senior Assembly at school. I hadn’t been invited to participate. That was understandable, it was, after all, a talent show. Mr. March was Senior Class Advisor and was ramrodding the event. He was so good at such things. He’d followed our class though all three years at HHS and thus, we had the best decorations at Prom and won the Homecoming Float Contest all three years. We loved Mr. March.

One day Mr. March cornered me after Algebra and asked if I would please attend the Assembly Dress Rehearsal after school. He wouldn’t tell me why, but he made it sound urgent. I went and sat next to him in the audience. They had decided to build the program around a Hogan’s Hero’s theme. You remember Hogan’s Heros, the comedy about a bunch of American prisoners in a German Prison Camp during WWII. They had cast it pretty well. Lew Hopkins was Sargeant Schultz. Douglas Winger was Hogan. Gavin Richardson was Colonel Klink. The talent was great but the dialog between the Hogan’s Heros cast was pretty dull. It was due to show in the morning and Mr. March was desperate! “How can we give this some life?” he pleaded.

I pondered for a moment and the light came on. “Leave it to me,” I shouted as I headed for the door.
“But what do we do?” He lamented.
“Nothing, leave it just the way it is. I’ll take care of the rest!” I still can’t believe he trusted me.
“Oh,” I shouted, “and tell the cast that no matter what happens the show must go on exactly as planned!”
I couldn’t hang around to explain, I was going to be busy ’til show time. Besides the success of my plan depended on complete surprise.

The next morning the student body assembled in the auditorium, not exactly excited but glad to be out of class. I seated myself next to Mr. March. He was as nervous as an expectant father outside the delivery room. I urged him to relax, but he seemed to take little comfort from my confidence.

The curtains rose to display a pretty reasonable representation of the prison camp barracks. Hogan and Schultz were having a bit of a tiff which was artfully leading up to the first talent presentation, a solo by Marjorie Green, who has since performed with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. As she was finishing, the back door of the Auditorium opened and in stepped the Pink Panther. Rob’s mom had been up all night building him an amazingly accurate costume. He carried a brush and a pail of pink paint.

Marjorie stepped off the stage and the Pink Panter stepped on. Many in the crowd were singing, “Da Dum, Da Dum…. Colonel Klink began dressing down Sargeant Schultz about some incompetence and the Pink Panther began painting Klink’s costume. The cast did a marvelous job of not noticing while Rob painted everything pink including the barracks and most of the soldiers.

The audience ate it up! When the curtains came down the crowd roared, Rob Hanke took a bow and Mr. March gave me a bear hug. When he thanked me, I put on my best German accent and replied, “I know not’ink!”

# 22 - The Pep Rally

We got a new drama teacher our Senior year. Her name was Miss Lana Crosby. She’d grown up in Duchesne but had gone off to college before the two years I lived there. She had married young and then divorced, finished her degree and come to Himni High School for her first job. She was young, attractive, flamboyant and eager to inaugurate a dynamic speech and drama program.

I was interested in politics so I took her forensic speech class. I was excited to participate in debate tournaments. She had other ideas. Politics was definitely not her thing. She was artsy artsy artsy. She encouraged me to attend the first ever Thespian Club Meeting and I was elected President. I wound up with the lead in the School Play and most of my extracurricular efforts that year were wound around the drama department. Lest you think I had a crush on Miss Crosby, not a chance, that would be reserved for someone else. I promise to share that story with you one of these days.

During basketball season the cheerleaders organized a pep rally. We needed one. The basketball team was an embarrassment and attendance was dropping off fast. Miss Crosby had been a cheerleader at DHS and suggested they do a spoof of Duchesne’s cheerleaders at the rally. They thought it to be a great idea.

The plan was to get some hairy legged boys to pose as DHS cheerleaders and stir up the crowd with some antics. Duchesne had a great ball team that year and I guess the idea was to demystify them a bit. Miss Crosby took charge of the project, which is how I got involved.

She instructed me to find three friends and recruit them to join me in the skit. I was reluctant until she promised makeup sufficient to completely disguise our identities. I recruited Mitch Warner, Douglas Winger and Pee Wee Lundquist. We should have practiced, but never found the time. When it came down to it, we barely found the time to get made up and dressed in our cheerleader outfits. In makeup we sort of talked our way through a couple of ideas. We decided to stuff the bodice of our uniforms with a couple of balloons each. Those were procured and filled things out quite acceptably. We wondered who’d worn these things before Miss Crosby scrounged them up.

Douglas and I were made up as blondes with little heart shaped red lips. We each had shoulder length wigs with bangs, pale makeup base with rosy pink cheeks. We looked like a couple of Scandinavian lasses. Mitch and Pee Wee were done up as brunettes with long brown hair, fully painted lips and long black false eyelashes. I was embarrassed for them, they looked forever like a couple of whores.

It was fun rummaging through Miss Crosby’s huge makeup case for resources. It was like the largest tackle box I ever saw and was crammed with everything imaginable. There were warts, noses, beards, scars, eyelashes, wigs, falls, and pigtails. There were teeth, mustaches, and nose jewe…wait a minute. Those pigtails caught my attention.

Every skit needs a bomb and I had found mine.

We hit the stage with a bang. All made up cute and girl like, except for oversized Converse All-stars, to make us look goofy. Actually, I don’t think the All-stars made that much difference. We cheered and bounced and giggled. Mitch in a damatic effort to look like a spaz, was, and falling, gave himself a nasty floor burn. Blood ran down his hairy leg the remainder of the performance.

After leading the crowd in a rousing cheer we jumped up and down with glee and hugged one another with balloon popping enthusiasm. One of Pee Wee’s didn’t pop though, it just bulged out in an embarrassing manner. That nearly brought down the house.

No one knew why Douglas and I kept our elbows to our sides through all our antics. Some, said they supposed we were just trying to look silly. But, when, during the grand finale, we did raise our arms to expose our braided armpits, the house went wild!

We had glued the pigtails, with Spirit Gum, to our underarm hair. They looked remarkably real. We thought we’d kept it a secret from Mitch and Pee Wee, but they made us. When we stepped forward to expose our Norwegian grooming, they stepped behind us and in one coordinated grab, pulled our braids out by the roots! Whereupon, two blonde cheerleaders, screamed every bit like girls.

The next evening during the big game the crowd had invented a new cheer:

Rip those pits,
Rip those pits,
Forget at about the basketball,
Rip those pits.

Douglas and I were still too sore to put much enthusiasm into it, but oblivious to it’s meaning, Duchesne seemed quite discombobulated by the yell and in an 84 to 81 upset we beat them.

# 21 - Rooney Bloom

I had to quit my job at the IGA in order to attend Boy’s State. I still find it hard to believe they wouldn’t work with me. Maybe they were just looking for an excuse to get rid of me, who knows?

When I got back from Boy’s State I took a job hauling mud in the oil patch for an outfit called Baroid. I didn’t stay there long because it was hard backbreaking work. Throwing a whole semi-trailer load of 100 pound stacks of drilling mud was no picnic. It paid well so I stayed longer than I would have liked. Now-a-days the mud comes either in a bulk tanker or loaded on pallets to be unloaded with a forklift. In those days labor was cheaper than equipment.

The fellow who drove the truck and also threw sacks of mud was named Rooney Bloom. He was a salty old character, who’d lived a pretty tough life, by the looks of him. He was probably in his mid-forties, but back then I had him pegged for mid-sixties. He drank and smoked and to my knowledge never darkened the door of a church. He no longer had a wife and didn’t have much to do with his kids either. Rooney’s whole life was work. He loved it. He did little else. Day in and day out he showed up, put in long hours, didn’t complain and hummed a quiet little non-descript tune all the while.

I can’t say we became buddies or anything. He never said much. I’d try to start a conversation on the long drive out to some remote well location, but I always failed. He didn’t seem much interested in hearing me rattle on about nothing, so I took to napping on the road. I was always tired so it all worked out.

One Monday morning I showed up and found Rooney hadn’t come. Somebody else drove the truck. He told me Rooney had to go to the hospital for some surgery. You didn’t ask what kind of surgery in those days. I still have no idea what was wrong.

After a couple of weeks Rooney was back. He looked a little peeked, but seemed ready and eager to get back on the job. We drove out to Natural Buttes and rumbled through clouds of dust to a location overlooking the White River. After we unloaded the mud, Rooney pulled the rig into the shade of some cottonwoods down by the river so we could cool off over lunch. I asked him, “Did they treat you good?”

“Who”

“The folks at the hospital.”

“Yea!”

“What was it like?

“Pretty good actually!”

“Pretty good? What do you mean?”

“Them pretty nurses gave me a sponge bath every day!”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yup, they’d bring in soap and water and lotion. Then they’d uncover me down as far as possible and wash me all up. It felt so good.”

“I’ll bet,” I replied.

“Then , they’d pull the blankets back up, nice and snug and go down by my feet and uncover me up as far as possible and wash my feet and legs. Oooh, that felt good…
Then, I’ll be derned if they didn’t wash Old Possible TOO!”

# 20 - "We Want A Mat Dance!"

My Sophomore year was a challenge. After being big fish in a little pond at the Jr. High, now we were little fish in a big pond. Actually, I never was a big fish at the Jr. High, so I felt especially small at the High School. Playing football in the fall had helped some. I had toughened up, but what good is tough when you still only weigh 105 pounds! Mostly, I laid low and kept out of the way.

One day in the Spring, though, I discovered there is great power in numbers. It was a lesson I would never forget.

I don’t know who started it. As things like this happen, it really doesn’t matter. After lunch, as I was wandering back to class, I discovered a bunch of kids sitting against the wall on the floor of the hallway outside the Principal’s office. They were chanting, “We want a Mat Dance!”

A Mat Dance or Matinee Dance was an occasional occurrence at Himni High. Classes would be shortened to free up an hour, maybe even two in the afternoon for a dance in the gym. We all loved them. Not necessarily because we loved to dance, but any excuse to get out of the classroom was great. Often Mat Dances were a carrot to motivate us in some way. They usually worked.

I wanted a Mat Dance so I joined the chanting crowd. “We want a Mat Dance.” “We want a Mat Dance…..”

Pretty soon it seemed the whole school, minus Marcy Merriweather was chanting in the halls. We lined almost the entire length of the main hall. I guess most of the kids knew what was going on but I didn’t really have a clue. Mr. Steckler came out of his office after a few minutes of this and instructed us to get to class. Those closest to him acted as if he hadn’t said a word. They stared him down and he retreated to his office. I’d have cowered at his command and skedaddled to class in a heart beat, had I been alone. Instead, as the crowd stayed, so did I. I looked around for some of my pals, but none were in sight. Even though I was isolated from my friends, I felt sort of empowered by this rebellion and was getting pretty excited.

The first bell rang, we chanted on. When the second bell rang Mr. Steckler returned to the hall. His face was red with frustration. He wasn’t a powerful man by any stretch of the word. He had a situation he needed to handle, it was going badly and he was not prepared to deal with it. He shouted at the top of his lungs, “If you are not all back in class by the time I count to three, so help me, I’ll flunk every last Jack one of you!” I still don’t know what Jack had to do with it.

“One!”

“Two!” No one flinched except Mr. Steckler. Beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead began to trickle.

As “Three” escaped his lips a loud and simultaneous shout of “April Fools!” drowned it out. In an instant, we vanished to our respective classrooms, chuckling at our clever prank. I too was chuckling and somewhat exhilarated, but there was this nagging dismay. I hadn’t even known what was going on. “April Fools” was as big a surprise to me as it was to Mr. Steckler. As I ducked into Mr. Olson’s class I glanced back to see the Principal still standing there, in shock.

That afternoon went along as usual until the end of fifth period. As there was no intercom, a girl was sent around to read a message to each class. We were to meet in the Old Gym at the beginning of sixth hour. The general consensus was that we’d achieved our goal of a Mat Dance!

When the bell rang we wasted no time getting down there and seated.

The Old Gym was built along with the “new” Himni High School. The School Board had not anticipated the impact the oil industry would have on our community and so in just a few years the facility underwent a major expansion. Added were: several classrooms, and new cafeteria, the library was moved to the old lunch room, an auditorium and, of course, a new spacious gymnasium. For events like dances we still favored the Old Gym. It was a bit cozier and the coaches had less angst about it’s hardwood floor. The Old Gym was quite small. It had two rows of benches on each side of the playing floor and a large set of fold out bleachers on the stage. We all situated our selves on the stage bleachers and on the west side benches nearest the stage. I was actually sitting on the front edge of the stage at the west end. The faculty and administration seated them selves on the east side benches near the entrance to the gym, near the east end of the stage. A microphone on a stand had been set up in front of the teachers.

Mr. Steckler stepped to the mike, cleared his voice and explained that Mr. Parker, the Vice Principal, who also, of course, was my Dad had an important announcement to make.

Dad took his place with an unusually, somber look on his face. He too, uncharacteristically, cleared his voice. “It may come as a surprise to you that this is and EDUCATIONAL institution.!” He sounded angry. “The incident in the hall this afternoon has reminded us that the student body has largely lost track of this fact. We have determined, therefore, to make some changes to ensure the educational integrity of Himni High School. We have met, therefore, to inform you that as of this moment, the Student Council has been abolished! In addition all classes involving sports, music, dance, drama and art have been discontinued as well as all future extracurricular activities! It is our intent….”

“YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” came an angry voice from the bleachers. “THAT’S COMMUNISM!”

I looked to see who it was. Rick Majors was racing from the stands. His fists were clenched and his face was red with rage. Rick was our Student Body President/Quarterback/Heartthrob/Straight A Student.

“THE HECK WE CAN’T!” shouted Mr. Parker. “WE’VE ALREADY DONE IT!”

Rick crossed the hardwood in a flash and with one right cross, decked my Dad. Who went down like a ton of bricks. Mom was kneeling at his side almost instantly.

I, on the other hand, was paralyzed with fear. Rick’s bravado had spurred the student body and they were hot on Rick’s heels in a seething pursuit of justice. This furious, raging mob was going to massacre the faculty, including my beloved Mom and Dad! In my memory it seems like slow motion, kind of a bleary streak of greasy hair, white T-shirts, pegged blue jeans exposing five inches of white socks and black oxford shoes all storming pell-mell toward disaster.

The horde made it about half way across the gym floor when Mr. Steckler flung the contents of a large pasteboard box at them. It was a colorful cascade of Salt Water Taffy accompanied by a victorious shout of APRIL FOOLS!

The mob skidded to a confused, chaotic halt. Know one knew what to do next.

Mom had looked up from patting Dad’s cheek to see what had happened. When she looked back she saw this huge cheesy grin on his face. She slapped him so hard she knocked his false teeth across the floor. In awkward silence the students began picking up the candy, more like they were cleaning up a mess than racing for goodies. Mom stormed out of the gym in a fury, Dad in desperate pursuit. Rick was sitting on the east side bench with his face in his hands.

The music began and Mr. Steckler, like he didn’t even know what had just happened, announced, “ENJOY YOUR MAT DANCE!”

We didn’t - we couldn’t.

# 19 - Sci-Mo

In Seventh and Eighth Grade I had a friend named Marv Benson.
Most of the kids never knew his real name, we all called him Sci-Mo. Sci-Mo fancied himself a Scientist and loved his nickname. While the rest of us were playing outside, Sci-Mo was cloistered in his room with his Chemistry Set or some book, or experiment. He had a broad forehead and horn rimmed glasses and he really looked the part of the proverbial egghead. For Christmas his Mom actually made him a lab coat. He often wore it, even to school. He took a lot of ribbing from the guys, but he was so lost in concentrated thought, he never seemed to notice.

Sci-Mo was expected, by all of us, to grow up to become the absentminded professor. There is no question that Marv was smart, but he didn’t think things through very well. Like the time he wanted to make a Geronimo Line from the great Cottonwood Tree in his back yard to the garage behind his house. He secretly bored a hole in one of the roofing members of the garage. (Secretly, so his folks wouldn’t find out.) He tied a length of rope through the hole and ran it high into the tree about 30 yards away. He even used a Come-Along to tighten it up. Sci-Mo had threaded a pulley onto the rope and had things all set up for the ride of his life.

I wish I could have witnessed what happened next, but Marv was a loner when it came to his Science. Probably, it was good that I was nowhere near the place. At least I got no blame for what happened next. Marv climbed the tree and got into position to ride the line to the ground. He had a short piece of rope attached to the pulley for a handle. At this dizziing height he must have wondered if he could hold on to the rope for the whole distance. As a “safety” precaution, he tied a loop in the handle rope and placed the loop around his neck, in the event his grip gave out. The only reason I knew anything about it was because my grandmother was his next-door-neighbor and Marv’s mom and she were close. Mrs. Benson cried on Grandmother’s shoulder over Marv on more than one occasion. Grandma frequently counselled Mom and Dad to keep me away from that disturbed boy.

Anyway, Sci-Mo was all set for his ride. I’m not sure what he expected. I can’t imagine he anticipated what he got. His experiment completely and utterly confirmed Newton’s Laws of Motion, with a strong emphasis on the effects of Gravity. He fairly flew down that rope and at full velocity, bashed his body into the side of the garage. This knocked him unconscious and so his hands let go of the rope. This left him dangling by the neck from the pulley. Fortunately, his feet were on the ground and the loop didn’t cinch up. His poor Mom heard the bang and looked out the window over the kitchen sink, where she spotted Marv committing, what she thought to be, suicide. It was clearly self inflicted, but hardly intentional. Sci-Mo limped to school for the next few days.

Another time, and this incident may have precipitated the Benson’s departure from Himni, Sci-Mo made a bomb. Can’t tell you how. It must have been a pretty good one though, it took a backhoe to fix the damage. Apparently, after constructing his explosive device Marv was hard pressed to find a place to detonate it. He didn’t really want to destroy anything and he’d been restricted to the yard, for his own protection. There was a mysterious four inch pipe sticking out of the ground out back and he figured that was perfect. Down in the ground, what damage could it do?
Hopefully, that pipe would muffle the sound, while doubling as a cannon barrel. Sci-Mo cut off a six inch piece of lodge pole to serve as a projectile and was hoping to shoot it into orbit. He lit the fuse on the bomb and dropped it into the pipe. Quickly, he followed it with the chunk of wood, and stepped back a few feet.

What we know is; Mrs. Benson was standing at the sink doing the dishes. How she failed to see Marv drop something into the septic tank vent, remains a mystery. It is clear, though, that the projectile stuck in the pipe and the septic tank backflushed into the house with considerable force. It emerged in the toilet and every drain in the house, including the kitchen sink!

The Benson’s moved away that Summer. Sci-Mo went on to college and graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He took a job with Boeing and contributed to the design of the Space Shuttle.

# 18 - Pride Cometh Before the Fall

Mr. Hess was a favorite in a long line of Band Teachers at Himni High School. We never kept one longer than a year. We always said it was because the School Board wouldn’t pay them what they were worth, but looking back, I wonder if there weren’t other reasons. Mr. Hess arrived in time to begin a Summer Band program. I signed up. It was probably the best band experience I had in all my years in Himni. Mr. Hess was amazing. He was competent, if not masterful at every instrument in the band. He could out play every one of us, on our own instruments. He was magnificent on the trumpet and we even thought he looked a lot like Al Hirt, a rotund trumpet player we often saw and heard on TV. Al Hirt was big, Mr. Hess was huge! I would guess him to be close to 400 pounds. He was completely unencumbered by his weight. In fact he prided himself in being able to do anything a thin man could do.

One day during Summer Band, we rented the local pool for a party. Mr. Hess spent most of the afternoon on the diving boards. He could empty the pool with his cannonball! He even did a swan dive off the 3 meter board. He stood back by the rails, took a deep breath and, quite gracefully, hopped to the end of the board where he took a remarkable preparatory leap. When he landed on the end of the board it sank so low I couldn’t imagine it could withstand the strain. The tip of the board seemed more vertical than horizontal. As it reached the bottom of its valiant bend, the board seemed to just quiver there for the longest time before it finally sprang, launching that giant man into the most wonderful arching swan dive I think I’ve ever seen! He entered the water, completely vertical. His back was arched, near as we could tell. His legs were straight, knees together, toes pointed. It was a beautiful thing to behold! But when the water colapsed back into the crater he’d created the concussion nearly broke every eardrum in the place. He surfaced to a standing ovation.

We all loved Mr. Hess and occasionally, we thought he loved us too. Mostly, though, he was all business. He really hoped he could make something of our band. He was a strict disciplinarian and everyone knew he meant business, especially after the Rob Hanke incident. Rob, you’ll recall, played the Sousaphone and sat on the back row. You’ll also recall, that Rob often needed to catch up on lost sleep. This was the case on a warm Spring day in Mr. Hess’ class. Rob was half hidden by the bell on the Sousaphone and half hidden by his music stand. Mr. Hess noticed that he wasn’t making any music and suspected he was napping. All he could see between the instrument and the stand was Rob’s forehead. No one noticed him slip over to the chalkboard and pick up one of those footlong, half foam, half leather erasers. He placed it on his music stand and began to conduct a march by John Philip Sousa. Rob had a pretty strong part in Stars and Stripes Forever and when he missed his cue Mr. Hess let the eraser fly. It went end over end and slipped through that three inch window as slick as you please where it nailed Rob right in the center of his forehead. He and the Sousaphone went over backwards with a crash. When we started to snicker, one glance from the man who could squash us like bugs, straigtened our faces and silenced our titters. Rob seldom missed another cue.

One day in late May the power went out. There were plenty of windows so we carried on without interruption in the band room. When the lights came back on, someone in the office came on the intercom and asked us to reset the clock. The band room was terraced, making the wall behind the conductor’s stand at least 12 feet tall. The clock was situated high on that wall. He could have asked any one of us to climb on a stool and set the clock, but his pride got the best of him and he determined to do it himself. He placed a tall stool beneath the clock. Next to the stool he placed a chair. Stepping onto the chair and then the stool, he agilely got into position. The intercom announced the current time. Mr. Hess reached up to set the clock. Even on the stool it was quite a stretch. Stretching has a tendancy to redistribute the body. The folds that normally, applied pressure to his belt, somehow vanished and his belt, pants and all, dropped abruptly to the floor. Tapered pants were in vogue in the mid-sixties, making cuffs barely big enough to slip a pointed foot through. With his shoes on there was no way he was just going to step out of them. And so there he stood facing the wall, on top of a three foot stool over which his voluminous pants were inverted. There he stood trapped, in front of a classroom of 45 gaping mouths. There he stood with three yards of white cotton fabric printed with little red hearts fashioned into one gigantic pair of boxer shorts. (My first exposure to boxer shorts - and was I ever exposed!)

There was dead silence in the room, no one dared breathe. Finally, after about forever, Mr. Hess hissed, “Warner! Hand me my pants!” Mitch hurried to his aid. The band teacher pulled up his britches, sprang from the stool to the chair and from the chair to the door and disappeared.

There were three days left in the school year. We never saw Mr. Hess again.

# 17 - The Biggest Buck on Anthro Mountain

The year we moved to Himni, Curt Roush was our Scout Master. Curt was a Forest Ranger and had a handle on all things outdoors. My dad was his Assistant Scout Master. Dad had mastered a lot of stuff in his life, but camping wasn’t one of them. He’d taken us a couple of times. Both times we got home about four in the morning with a trunk full of wet sleeping bags. For Dad, camping and disaster were synonyms.

Dad and Curt hit it off and Curt invited Dad, Todd and myself to join he and his son Pete on a hunting trip that Fall. “We need the meat,” he whined to my Mom, as he feebly tried to justify the used 30-30 he bought from the paun shop in Roosevelt. “We could have bought a half a beef for what you paid for that gun!” she complained.

The Forest Service had a wall tent pitched on a platform up on Anthro Mountain above Duchesne. We drove up after school on Friday night. It was dark by the time we made it to the campsite. The tent had a sheep herder stove in it and was warm and cozy. This was camping! Todd and I had were having the time of our lives!

Antro Mountain is a large flat top. It is a remnant of the ancient Colorado Plateau before it was carved up by massive erosion. The top is mostly sage brush. Cutting from the rim of the mountian, in every direction, are draws of various sizes. These are filled with Quaking Aspen and a sprinkling of pine and spruce. It’s hard to realize that the mountain is over 9000′ in elevation, until you look off the South Rim into Nine Mile Canyon. What an awe inspiring sight that is. The best draws to hunt are on the North because the South is too precipitous.

Early, before sunup, Curt had us up and fed. Steak and eggs and hot cocoa! Dad would have made oatmeal at best. We rumbled down a two track for a couple of miles and Curt got us kids out. “I want you three boys to head off here into this deep draw. It’s pretty steep so, be careful. When you get to the bottom spread out a bit and head up the canyon toward the sun. Me and Winston here, we’ll go back a ways and get situated so we can pick off the deer when you scare ‘em out on top.”

We were up for the call of duty.

“Oh, and make lots of noise!” Curt called as the crammed the green Dodge pickup into gear. “We’ll see ya in an hour or so.”

We made it to the bottom alright and headed up the draw. Shouting and knocking sticks on the quakie trunks, we made quite a racket. We didn’t see any deer though, and were pretty sure we were wasting our time, when we heard a couple of shots up ahead, then another. We hurried toward the sound of the last shot and breathlessly coming out on top, found Curt gutting out a nice little three point. We looked around for Dad and couldn’t see him. Curt pointed him out to us. He was another quarter mile up toward the head of the draw. When Todd and I reached him, we found he was cleaning a dandy four point with a nice spread. We weren’t old enough for our necks to be swelling with testosterone, but we did get a pretty good adrenoline high.

We got the deer both loaded up and headed back to camp to clean up and grab our gear. As we came around the bend we saw the biggest buck of the day. He was standing not 30 yards from the tent! Curt just smiled and said, “Maybe next year boys.”

Next year came before you know it. Curt had been pretty quiet, but Dad had made a huge deal of last year’s success. He’d invited Coach Morton to join us. Principal Steckler got wind of it too, and begged and pleaded until they invited him as well. Bringing him along kind of threw a wet blanket on our prospects for any fun. He was such an annoying man. When we got to camp and had our sleeping bags rolled out on the cots, we couldn’t get him to shut up and go to sleep. He was like a kid on Christmas Eve. When he did settle down, he snored like a jack hammer. I was never so happy to hear bacon frying in my whole life. It meant I could get up from a near sleepless night. From the looks of the rest of the guys, I handn’t been the only miserable camper. Mr. Steckler, on the other hand, was wound up like a fiddle string and back to his wide eyed chatter.

Curt Roush had seen Old Gnarly (that’s what we called the big buck) a couple of days earlier a two draws to the west, over by Sowers Canyon. We headed over there with the same plan that had worked so well last year. Pete, Todd and I were pushing the draw in short order. It seemed like we’d hardly got started when we heard four, five…six shots. We scrambled up to the rim where we found Dad and Curt. They were hustling toward where they last saw Old Gnarly go out of sight. As we approached the spot we could see Mr. Steckler’s head over the top of a large sagebrush. He was kind of looking strange. When we rounded the bush we found him with his coveralls down around his ankles, whiping himself off with one of his socks. It seems that just about the time Old Gnarly had emerged Mr. Steckler had had to make a call of nature. Dodging bullets, the buck had jumped over the very sage brush he was hiding behind and knocked Mr. Steckler down in his own pile. It took both socks and a half a roll of toilet paper Curt got from the truck, to get him cleaned up. Mr. Steckler never spoke another word the whole trip.

Curt and Pete moved away that next year. We were too proud of Old Gnarly to ever want him dead, so we went hunting somewhere else. We were too embarrassed for Mr. Steckler to ever tell anyone. As far as I know he never went hunting again. And, Winston Parker, my dad, somehow didn’t seem like such a lousy outdoors man after all.

# 16 - Church Bugs

Before we built the Omner Valley Stake Center, we used to drive over to Vernal and use the Uintah Stake Tabernacle for Stake Conference. Us kids really enjoyed sitting in the balcony and looking down on the garden of lady’s hats. When conference was in the Fall, the first year I was a Deacon, our Ward got the Church Bug assignment.

There were a lot of Box Elder trees on the Tabernacle grounds and that meant Box Elder bugs. We called them Church Bugs because every fall they flock into homes and other buildings, including churches, to find shelter. The Tabernacle was crawling with them. In the end we hauled off five 40 gallon garbage cans full of them. It was no easy task, sweeping up living moving creatures. We went through the whole place five or six times.

Still, come Sunday, there were dozens of them crawling about during the meetings. Of all the bugs, Church Bugs are my favorite. They aren’t much trouble and don’t do any harm. They’re tidy nice looking little creatures, all dressed up in their dark suit and red tie and vest. I always thought it was sort of nice to have them around. I remember once my brother Todd did a Science Project on Box Elder bugs. The teacher suggested he make observations about their behavior. After a couple of weeks, all Todd had observed was, “…their persistent habit of lying on their backs with their feet up and doing nothing at all.”

While we were waiting for the meeting to start, Dad told us a story on Grandpa. “Way back, when Grandpa was young, he was sitting in Stake Conference in Star Valley. They were on the front row of the balcony, just like we are here today. Grandpa was sitting beside his nephew Evan. Evan had a sinus problem. The meeting was long and the room got hot and stuffy. Evan fell asleep. His head rolled back and his mouth lolled open. He couldn’t breathe much through his nose. Grandpa, had a bit of the Dickens in him. He took to tearing up a piece of paper into tiny little bits. He had a whole pile of them. Then, he up and dumped them in Evan’s open mouth. Evan choked and blew a blizzard of paper confetti out over the audience below. It created quite a stir and embarrassed Evan near to death.”

I’m eating this story up!

“Evan swore he’d get even, and get even he did. Later in the Summer, during a long hot Sacrament Meeting, there was a break for a rest song at about half way. Grandpa was asleep and never even noticed the singing. During the last verse of Abide With Me, Evan nudged Grandpa, from the row behind and whispered, “Fred! They just called on you to say the closing prayer.” Grandpa hopped up and arrived at the pulpit just as the chorister was sitting down. He bowed his head and dismissed the meeting. The Bishop didn’t know what to do, so he called on someone to reopen the meeting so they could hear the final speaker. They say that was the last time Grandpa slept in church!”

I felt a strong kinship with Grandpa that day.

Years later, when they turned the Uintah Stake Tabernacle into the Vernal Temple, I went for an Endowment Session. After the session I was sitting in the beautiful Celestial Room, contemplating what had become of that grand old building. And there on a window sill crawled a Church Bug! I felt like Grandpa was near and I smiled as warm memories flooded my soul.

# 15 - UFO Summer

The summer of 1967 was pretty exciting around Himni. There were frequent UFO sightings and everyone wanted in on the action.

The reports came in on a frequent basis. They were hard to dismiss. Miss Landon the English/Spanish Teacher at the High School and her friend Miss Francis an Elementary School teacher, saw one hover along side their car while driving through Gusher. Later, after a skating party at the roller rink in Vernal, they were driving a couple of carloads of Indian kids home to Randlett. Those in Miss Francis’ car observed a UFO hovering over those in Miss Landon’s car. These were not drunks cat fishing on the river, these were respectable, church going, educated, young women.

Vida Martin and his kids saw one hovering over their cottonwoods while they were choring one night. I spoke to one of those kids just last week and after 38 years, he still stands by his story. “It didn’t make a sound, just shined this bluish spotlight on us, then flew away real fast!” he told me.

Garn Mooney was in the Omner Valley Stake Presidency at the time. He reported seeing them on numerous occasions. He held the theory that it was the Lost Ten Tribes scouting things out in anticipation of their imminent return from the center of the Hollow Earth. He had books backing up his theory and, though shy of preaching his theory from the pulpit, he spoke of it often from behind the counter in his hardware store.

I was about to turn seventeen. I was awkward around girls. I was self conscious because of my acne. My view of life and living was distorted as a fun house mirror. In short, my adolescent hormones had kicked in - finally. It wasn’t pleasant. I spent lots of night time hours laying out on the back lawn looking for UFOs and praying one would come abduct me and save me from all this.

To this day I find myself weighing the events of that summer in the balance of my mind. On the one hand, I feel compelled to give credence to the respectable folks who claimed to have seen one. Most of them saw it on repeated occasions. On the other hand, I had spent countless hours out watching for UFOs and never saw anything even suspicious.

I had about concluded that they all saw something, but that it wasn’t likely to have been anything from outer space or the center of the earth. Then one day not ten years ago I was driving down west of Randlett. I intended to take an old back road over to Independence when I encountered a 12 foot chainlink fence, topped with coils of razor wire. It was posted with Federal no trespassing signs and enclosed about 400 acres. No one seems to know what’s in there. Nobody ever sees people going in or out. No agency, that I can find, claims jurisdiction over it. It’s like we have our own Area 51 right here in the Uintah Basin.

One night I was out on the back lawn watching for unusual phenomena. It was a cool, quiet evening in late June of 1967. Mom turned on the porch light and called me to come to the phone. It was Rob Hanke. “Get down here quick!” was all he said. I jumped in my 1956 Chevy Belair and headed for his house. I found him out back by the barn. It was pitch dark and Rob was using just a feeble flash light. He had an air of conspiracy about him. This was not unusual. Leaning up against the barn was a long orchard ladder. He handed me a wad of thin plastic and said, “Here, take this end up to the roof and hold it!” I grabbed whatever it was and headed right up. Obviously, there was no time to waste.

When I got positioned, I heard the sound of a fan or something. As Rob reached for the flashlight I could see that I was holding some sort of plastic bag, about fifteen feet long and three feet in diameter. Rob was inflating the bag. Once that was done, I was nearly blinded by the sudden flash of a road flare.

“Don’t let it snag on the shingles!” he whispered, as the bag started to tighten and lift.

“Let her lift off, but keep her away from the barn.”

As Rob’s homemade hotair balloon ascended past me, I got a better look. Suspended from the bag, was an aluminum snow saucer, concave side down. Fitted on top of the saucer was a nice little rack to hold a burning flare, fixed in a vertical position. Suspended from three wires, below the saucer, was a second flare, which Rob lit as he released his creation. I couldn’t believe how quickly it rose into the air.

There wasn’t much breeze, but the balloon was slowly drifting off to the West. We jumped into the Chevy and set out to follow it. Rob figured the flares would burn for about 45 minutes. It looked really cool up there. Two tiny red lights, one reflecting eerily off the bottom of the saucer. There was a ghostly glow from the bag too. Staying back, we followed it across the valley for about a half hour. It was headed for Cogburn’s Knob up by the cemetery. That was a favorite parking place and had been pretty busy that summer with the added interest of possibly sighting flying saucers.

As we approached the cemetery we fell in with a long line of cars who were apparently “doing the same thing we were.” We looked like a late night funeral cortege. Rob and I looked less guilty than some of the kids who’d arrived before the excitement began. The balloon crashed near the top of the knob. There was a crowd of about 50 folks gathered near the Cemetery gate. We were kind of milling around, wondering what to do next. Then, with a crunch of gravel, President Garn Mooney arrived. He jumped out of his Cadilac and took charge.

“I’ve had experience with these things,” he declared.
He instructed us all to, “Wait here while I hike up and make contact!”

It was an awkward night all the way around the crowd. Parking and spectators don’t mix. Neither do the gospel and speculation. President Mooney never really said much about UFOs after that.