How I met a Guy Named Roger at Temple Square (and other stories)

Just by way of technical details—I've decided to rededicate myself to daily entries today—no more going weeks without writing and playing catchup. We'll see how this goes.

First off, let's review Friday's Elder's Quorum campout at Balsam Campground in Hobble Creek. Well actually, let's just briefly mention that I spent a lot of time at work getting the pictures converted to TIFF format, as well as figuring out how to do photo log entries on my website, the latter of which activity I know I shouldn't be doing, especially with 6.0 pressure. But anyways, I got off around 4:30 to get packed for the campout, which went okay—we had ten people at night, and six left in the morning. Saia drove with a big camper in the bed of his truck. It was actually a pretty cool setup, with a kitchen and a bed and a generator and anything you could possibly need for a campout. I think the weather scared a lot of people away though (like Mike Davis, the wimp). It thunderstormed all afternoon and even set the mountain just north of the "Y" on fire. But honestly, it was great weather for the campout. It was a bit wet when we got there, but we had no rain. And it was a bit chilly at night, but that was refreshing. The steaks from Saia's family's cow were great and plentiful. Most of us had two steaks, one plain and one in our tin foil dinner. Participants in the activity included me, Saia, Jacob Hiatt (who had to leave Friday night), Junior, Roger Pack, Spencer and Phillip Bingham, Jan Phillips (a guy from the neighborhood, just barely got back from his mission), and Trevor and Dan (who also had to leave). I was really hoping for more, but it was a good experience. We watched "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" on my projector. When that ended, it was about 1:00 AM, and we all retired to Mike Davis' huge tent for the night. The only bad thing about that was Saia really snores loudly and him and the rough ground kept me up all night. At about 5:00 in the morning, I took a little walk outside. It was a beautiful night. A full moon, plenty of stars. Quite beautiful. After that, I finally managed to get some decent sleep until about 8:00. Then, we made breakfast—breakfast tacos, with tons of bacon. It was some good stuff, let me tell you. And unlike our last campout, I did most of the cooking. We definitely had too much food, though. After that, Saia informed us he had to get back to Provo because work had called him in urgently. Which kind of sucks, because with only two cars and six people, that pretty much ended the campout before noon. But all in all it was a good time.

After the campout, I tried to play Ultimate, but as soon as I got there, everyone left. I got to throw a little while with Kristie and a couple of other people. Worked on my backhand. Which is really sucking now. I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with my mechanics, because the high release and the outside-in stuff is going okay, but everything else backhand is a crapshoot. So I'm adding an air-bounce to repertoire as well as figuring out what's wrong with the rest of my backhand throws. Anyways, it's kind of frustrating, and I hope I get it worked out before the season starts.

I went out with Heidi tonight. We drove up to Salt Lake. When we finally got there (really bad traffic), we ate at the Blue Plate restaurant, a small but kind of eclectic American place, that is most famous for its breakfast. I found it on the AADining list, and there were some other good reviews on the Net about it. I got a Caesar Salmon Salad. The restaurant took a while. So we were late to Temple Square, where we were going to see a concert in the Assembly Hall.

But the funny thing was that on our way into Temple Square, Heidi started talking to a couple of sister missionaries. At first, they kind of ignored us because we were in the plaza north of the Temple and I guess they aren't allowed to proselyte there. Plus, with the way Heidi said hello, I could see them thinking "oh no, anti-Mormons." No, it's not like a mean hello. It's like a "hello" that seems almost too nice to be anything but mocking or patronizing. But then we got into the square and it became clear that we were nothing of the sort, and we ended up talking to the missionaries for like ten minutes. One was from Connecticut, and the other was from Stuttgart. Naturally, they tried to commit us to refer a friend. Heidi gave them her number, but I didn't.

By the time we got to the concert, it was about 7:55. We had to wait for a pause in the concert, so I went to use the restroom. When I got back, Heidi had met just about everyone in the crowd. There was a couple from Aruba. Someone from Ottawa. She found a seat right next to this old guy who she throughout the entire concert was from Iowa. They even had conversations about Iowa and stuff. Except he said Ireland, not Iowa. Anyways, more on this guy later. The concert itself was pretty good. Basically, it alternated between a performance by a Soprano, accompanied by a pianist, alternating with several pieces from violinist and a cellist. I enjoyed the violinist more than the singing, but it was still pretty good.

After the concert, first of all the Soprano did an unusual thing for an Assembly Hall concert and thanked everyone and their dog for helping her to get to this point. Everyone performing in the concert seemed to be family (the violinists were 3 sisters, the youngest of whom was 12), and I wonder if this was for her, at least, a first performance. Then we got trapped in a conversation by Irish guy we were sitting next to. I was hoping on getting over to see Testaments, but we couldn't escape. Heidi kept looking over at me, I think asking me to find some way out of the conversation, but I was like, "You started it. See, this is what you get sometimes when you meet random people." Besides, I was kind of enjoying it. He was a character. He spent his entire time rambling on about his agenda that America is headed gutter because of rock-and-roll and rap and a total lack of culture, and that everyone needs to keep learning; needs to be open-minded. I mean, it's a great agenda, but he went on forever about it. He was 70, his name was Roger, and I think he really enjoyed having people to talk to. He had a notebook in his pocket and a number of pens, which made me wonder if he was writer, but now I see it's more just for "scholarly" notes. He also had a lot of knowledge about weird things. Like the Holy Grail. Apparently, there's this mind-blowing book out there about the Holy Grail. And he kept telling us other things we should study, all of which bordered on the occult, so he qualified them: "Don't believe anything you read, but read them. It really makes you think. You should always have an open mind." I think my favorite thing about him was his enthusiasm. I hope I have that much enthusiasm when I'm that old. Not about the same things, necessarily, but learning for sure. I also think I'm going to use him as a character someday in a poem or story. Except, I'm having trouble reducing him to a stereotype, and I'm not sure I could get inside his head enough to be a main character.

We headed back to Provo and went to Leatherby's. When I came back home at 11:00, Kristen and Tonya Blake were there. Mike was supposed to have put together a party, but he decided to go buy a new car (a Saturn Ion) instead, so that's all of a party there was. So we sat around and talked until about midnight, when we went over to see Jillene who is moving (sort of) tomorrow and didn't even tell me. That makes me kind of sad. We gave her some pizza, said goodbye, came home, and I slept.

This morning I slept in way too long. Elder's Quorum Presidency Meeting was at 11:00, and I thought surely I'd wake up by then. Well, I woke up at 10:30, and was very surprised it was so late. But I got to the meeting on time. The whole presidency was there, as well as Brother Wood and Roger Pack. We've designated the third Sunday as the day our committee chairs should participate in the meeting, and I was a little disappointed by the lack of turnout. But the formula of the meeting—discussing the various committees—worked well. Then we had ward council again, except none of the committee chairs showed up then either. I guess last week's meeting threw everyone off, and no one called to send reminders. That ended like at 1:22, so I drove home, grabbed some crackers and cheese, drove back, ate the cheese and crackers in front of the building (which is a great way to meet people as they come in) and got into the chapel at 1:35, right as they were starting. It was a short sacrament meeting. Liz talked at the beginning—sort of a farewell talk. But her talk was short. Spencer did a musical number. The next speaker went short. And Brother Beck had to talk for about 15 minutes to fill space. Sunday School was like an hour, which is very unusual. I mean, I got all of my business taken care of and there was still time for me to sit in for half an hour of class. That's the first time I've had time for class in a month. Paul gave the lesson for Elder's Quorum again. We had kind of left it up in the air who was supposed to teach this week, so I'm glad he was ready. We shouldn't have the problem again, fortunately. Shane has agreed to be another instructor, and we won't need a third instructor until September. And then we had PPIs afterwards.

After church, I headed immediately over to Becky's and Wayne's. It was Wayne's birthday. Their house is starting to look pretty clean. The couch fits in nicely. And their table is much bigger than I thought it was. They had it all set up nice with a tablecloth and China and stuff. Some of Wayne's friends came over: couple (Jon and Faith), along with a recently separated girl named Coby and her mother. We had pot roast. It was pretty good. We also watched Oscar, which was pretty hilarious, I have to admit. And then we had cake and ice cream.

By then, it was time for ward prayer and I headed back to the church. We had ward prayer outside. Mike announced "ward bonding" over at our place. We had a lot of people over, almost all of them from the 229th ward. That's a first.

Posted August 17, 2003 (11:58 PM) | Comments (1)