September Mourn -Melancholy Month 1

Good Morning October 1, 2014!

I am entitling this section September Mourn. I am going to be in mourning this month.

It is 3 years since that fateful email from Kathy telling me she was divorcing me.

I am so sad. So disappointed

She is a huge part of my life. I lived for her.

What I say she may not agree with, but this is me.

Her opinion was paramount. I so wanted to make her happy.

I love the fact that I worked and sweated one summer outside painting and earned the money for her piano. She meant everything to me. It was the most miserable job. So sweaty, so hot. Up and down ladders. Laying on the roof and leaning over to paint facia. Hot tar and pavement. Dirt and dust and plants and brick. Drop cloths and calking and paint rags and sticky fingers and on and on. But with that dream of getting her the Country French Yamaha Piano it was worth it.  I was so excited. I could finally make her dream come true. 

And when she moved out she did not leave it behind.

I would have so loved to have been able to make her happy in all things. But I couldn’t.

How she scrimped and made pinto bean pizza those first years. In fact if there was a piece of material that might be used again it was saved.

What a history we made. BYU together the first year. Graduation. Job applications. Painting in SLC from Provo. Wray, Colorado and Kayenta, Arizona.

A “shoe in” at Manilla, Utah. Wray was disappointed not to get me. Kayenta provided housing and the desperately needed a pianist in the branch.

We slept overnight in the Manti La Sal national forest one time. We only had my one thick polyester orange sleeping back. Who cared! We slept together. No tent, no cushion, and a youth group showed up and camped across the way. We had never been there before. Good thing it didn’t rain. We were embarrassed about the two of us being in one sleeping bag.

That was the morning I found out about Kathy’s spunk and determination. I thought she would be completely dependent on me. I was wrong.

We went down to the stream to play. It was good sized and at the bottom of a steep incline. Lots of weeds and undergrowth. I threw her shoes across the stream and waited for her to beg in her helplessness for me to bring them back and give them to her. Surprise! She fought me until she had mine and threw them across the stream as well. I drove home stunned. The world changed for me that morning.

Have you ever graduated from college and then had to work long and hard to try to find a job? Utah was in a teacher glut. They didn’t need me. I didn’t know that and so we applied to all the big and little school districts. I traveled and interviewed. I think some of them thought they were doing me a favor to interview me. They knew there were no openings or already had someone in mind. I had not planned on coaching and yet I had traded one of my two student teaching experiences for another High School experience. There was no way in the world I wanted to teach Jr. High, ever!  Little did I know.

I was amazed at Kathy’s determination to get us a job! She visited the placement center regularly and mailed dozens of letters of application and resumes and my placement folder. It didn’t take me long to discover That Brighton HS science department and under-rated me. I student taught seminary during my prep period at that school as well. : (

Luckily my BYU supervisors and Spanish Fork HS evaluations from Mack Sly were great. Bob Moderhak gave me a glowing report to Steve Peterson at WCSD after my two years at Niwot High School in Colorado. Once again I wasn’t a coach and they needed one at Niwot. They called it "reduction in force".

Kathy and I collected our SS alternative retirement fund and used it to move to Saint George.

Kathy loves big trees. The city had them but Bloomington Hills didn’t. She liked the city blocks and the quaint old houses in the city.

She loved well landscaped yards and nice cars and rich homes even though we called our house our dream home to start with.

It was tough living with all that envy although I did not know what it was at the time. I tried to console her by saying, We really couldn’t afford this house and neighborhood, dear, if it were not for my sweat equity and painting trade. We just are not in the same economic class as the people out here. The only teachers that lived here had both spouses teaching or the wife taught as a second income.

The economy was way down and we bought and built when it was depressed. We got way more for our dollar than we should have. Plus, Dad made a deal with LeRoi Merril that I would be able to be his painter so I could make my payments.

I had a Master’s class one or two nights a week at DMS. Dr. Miller wanted us to do something we had never done before in our lives and report on it by the end of the term.  We went around the circle and shared what we had done. I lied. I said that I played in my first faculty/student basketball game in front of the student body. He loved it though. You wouldn’t believe the stress of playing in one of those games if you are not a good/  show off player! For me I felt my reputation was on the line. And I was having a hard time with my reputation as it was. Mr. Rogers at Niwot HS and Bobby Devo at Dixie JH. I would get so cynical and sarcastic as the school year drew to a close. : (  It was hard reminding the students over and over again and having them defy the rules. And I felt like I was the enforcer, the public’s authorized policeman/parent. If there was a rule broken I would fix it or report it. Dang! So sad and so hard. I didn’t understand!

So what did I really write my paper on? I did not work on Sundays but I was putting in 30, 40, 50, 60 hours of painting at the Lindhart’s current house as it was built! $10/hour. I had some call back work that I billed LeRoi for after that job and he never did pay me for those hours. : (  My kids even saw me up on the top two stories of the Saint George temple in December, priming and painting. They sure looked small way down there. The scaffolding was cool.  You wouldn't believe how small the top story is to make an optical illusion of height.

How did my SUSC professor respond? He understood how tight a teacher’s income was and accepted it. I was proud and felt understood.

And this is just the surface of those challenging and difficult times.