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Larger than Life

He was larger than life. He moved in when I was in 9th grade – the guys in my neighborhood and I could hardly believe it. We didn’t even know what to think, he was just so “alive”. And he’d try anything!
John was all about social interaction. I’m not sure how he did in school, because when he talked about it, it was about the people who were there, and his crazy-funny-interesting interactions with them. I remember that a couple of days after he started school he managed to create quite the sensational fight. After school hundreds of kids gathered around the pool in Wade’s backyard to fight one of the Lambson brothers. Nobody fought the Lambsons, they were crazy mean and we all kind of gave them reverent fear.

But there John was, finding the toughest kids in the high school (John was in 8th grade and Lambson was in high school) and taking him on. I was afraid, I didn’t go watch, and don’t remember what he said happened. But I do remember after that everybody knew who John was. Soon he was hanging out with the Lambsons and being great friends with them. How did he do that? The kid dripped charisma.
One night we picked him up to go out, I think we were in Ben’s Gran Torino. John came running out of the house and jumped in the car smashing half of us and laying on the rest yelling “go go go”. The thought now still makes me laugh. He was all smiles and energy and once we were away he answered all of our questions about why he was acting like that by pulling a bottle of his mom’s cooking wine out of his pants (with great effort as I recall, there were 8 of us in that Gran Torino). John knew his mom was going to kill him when she found out – but he just couldn’t resist the opportunity to make an entrance.

He was a good looking kid – amazingly athletic. Girls were never a problem for him. I liked hanging around him just to talk to the girls on the fringes of his entourage.
He never told a story about himself and his adventures, but we always had a new one to talk about. He gave our lives more life, more adventure. I think we all were proud to know John – to be in his inner circle of friends – to relate the stories again and again and laugh and be amazed and wish we had the courage to try.

One night we were going somewhere, John and I, I think we were 17 or so by then – he was driving some old car, a brown Rambler? It was a car that wasn’t very cool, but John was cool enough to cover that fact. He had enough cool for himself, me, and the car.
We were right there at 1300 east and 2100 south going north on 1300 in a rainstorm. He turned to me and told me I didn’t have to be like I was. I had a choice. I didn’t have to be afraid to try new things, I could take my life into my own hands and do whatever I wanted to do. I could work out and buy a new wardrobe and “get laid” a lot, or I could go to europe and travel, or I could be a professional photographer. It was my choice.
The sincerity of the moment shocked me. The message took years for me to understand. I always thought that somehow God had just made him that way – that he was just larger than life at birth. As I look back now I’m pretty sure he was telling me that he lived that way because it was fun – living larger than life was a choice he made. And he was good at it. He was great.
Memories of him and that conversation that night have always been part of the building blocks, way down there at the foundation, of my life. The foundation that gave me permission to move out into life and just try things without knowing the outcome in advance, to simply try things because I thought it’s the right thing for me to do.
After years of me feeling that everything I did was wrong here’s one of my heros telling me that it’s all a choice, that I could be great by the definition I give my life, that I could do and be anything I wanted. John knew that at a very young age, and had a great adventure of a life because of what he chose. That’s cool.
Years separated us. I had heard he wasn’t doing well. Rumors like a divorce leaving his heart broken, him being overweight, alone. I went to his mom’s house one to ask how to find hime and ran into him while I was there. This was about three or four years ago, I think. The rumors were all true.
When I saw him my mind couldn’t even grasp what I was seeing, or why. I wish I would have taken the time to remind him that it’s all a choice. But really, all of this that I’ve written here didn’t come together for me until right now. It’s helping me see why his death is affecting me so much.
John passed away from a stroke at the age of 46. That fact has brought tears to my eyes many times this weekend. I had no idea he meant so much to me.
When I saw him at his mom’s house I was prompted deep inside that he needed me, needed a friend. But I almost couldn’t believe it. How could John, one of my heros, need me? I never followed up on that feeling. Never reached out. Now I feel like I let my hero down. When my buddy needed someone, I wasn’t there.
I will work hard to follow through on those feelings more completely in the future. Maybe learning another life lesson from him will help me feel better when I see him again.
Wherever John is, I hope he knows he is important to me.

….note…..

I know I’ve kind of set up a “thing” here on my blog where I take a photo of the people I’m talking about. No photos of John in my collection though. However it’s one of the deeper things I’ve felt for a while. I’ll get back to the photo thing next time. For now, I just wanted to honor my friend.

I’m moving the blog!

I’m working to consolidate my two blogs with some video content that I’m beginning to develop – so it’s going to be a bit of a transition.

http://blog.democard.com/ is the new temporary home of Who I’ve Met. Thanks for your support!

The Man Who Lives in a Cave

I have seen this house before – the “Cave House” up in the cliff. I went to southern Utah this time to meet the man that lives there. I was sure I could take some great photos of the “cave” and entertain my readers with a great story. As I talked to Phil, I found there’s something far more interesting than the house itself.

Don’t get me wrong, the house is a marvel. And Phil’s life experience seems to have suited him perfectly to build and maintain it properly. From working in mines as a youth to a career in the construction trades… but I’m getting ahead of myself now.

First let me tell you a little about Phil. As I drove up his driveway, he was down in his orchard/garden area, down a steep little path from the driveway I stood on. He shouted his greeting, and by the way he climbed the path, I thought I would be talking to a thirty-something year old man. As you can see from the photo, thirty-something he is not. One of the first things he told me about himself is “I’m a little hyper, so having a place like this gives me a lot to do”. That is to say the least. He had just returned from a bow hunting expedition, where he walked over 10 miles to try to bring down a deer! This guy is in shape – wiry and strong.

As we talked he told me so many amazing things that he has designed into his house, how many things he had to overcome to build it, but the most amazing thing to me is how the house came to be.

This story starts shortly after “the war”. Phil came home and got a job working in an underground mine. Everyday he would work to shore up the tunnels so they could extract the coal. Then, in his off hours Phil would work for a guy he knew that owned some land in this canyon. He would pull sage brush, drive tractor, help him with the wheat he grew – overall Phil was a general worker helping this guy out. As he worked in those fields, he started to realize that the caves that had formed (lots of caves in this canyon) were all in the red rock – none of the caves were carved into the pale rock layer above. He began to see the pale layer as a roof of these caves – a stable roof.

It was then he started to develop his dream. As he looked at one cave in particular, he could see the windows, the structure of the house. He knew he could build a house in that cave.

Life moved on. Phil got married, and in order to support his family, moved to Salt Lake City where he was an electrician for thirty-two years. In 1973 he went back to that canyon and asked if he could buy that land, and the cliff, from his former employer. After a bit of wrangling and negotiation, he was the owner of that land.

First, he had to know there was water. After a successful well was drilled, he got under way with the construction. Remember, Phil had been thinking about this dream for over twenty years, and he had some pretty good ideas on how he was going to build it. He would work long hours four days a week in Salt Lake City, then drive down to Monticello on Thursday night (about a 4.5 hour drive one way), work long hours Friday and Saturday building his dream, then come back to Salt Lake to take care of his church responsibilities on Sunday.

For thirteen years.

It wasn’t easy. Not even close. But he stuck with that schedule, finding inventive ways to solve problems as they arose, and slowly shaping the dream he had formed as a young man working in the field below.

Phil told me with obvious pride that the day he drove the last nail into his house, the day his dream was finally completed, and he owned it outright. He not only built his dream, he did it all without going into debt once.

Once again I am amazed at the power of a dream held in the mind, developed to a point where a person can almost taste it, and the sheer determination that is born of that vision. The incredible sacrifice, the discipline, and the work ethic to create a dream retirement where he can continue to work the land that he owns, the land that he loves.

That’s a pattern for success if I’ve ever seen it. I’m glad I took the time to knock on his door.

Just Enough Cattle to Cause Trouble

Well, technically he’s a retired cattleman. He told me he sold the ranch, and only has a wet farm and enough cattle to cause trouble. I wondered outloud how many cattle it takes to cause trouble.

The answer: 60. Now you know.

He used to run thousands of them, if you’ve crossed a cattle guard on a mountain in southern Utah in the last 35 years, chances are you’ve been driving past some of Hardy’s cattle.

However more amazing that thousands of cows and bulls running around on the open range, is the fact that Hardy has seven daughters. SEVEN! I can see why, each time he’s thinking “ok, odds are catching up, this one’s got to be a boy!”. Heartbreaking really.

I have one daughter. More drama in that one human being than all of my boys put together – times two.

He told me there had been plenty of drama, and it still kind of continues. But Hardy has that quiet strength kind of personality. I met a couple of his daughters, and they have a great relationship with their dad. He was a man of few words, but the way his family interacted with him spoke volumes. A life of hard work and putting his family first has Hardy in a pretty good spot now. I’m glad our paths crossed.

Bachelor of Vineyard Administration

On a recent trip to southern Utah, I found myself driving through an amazing canyon with scenery that looked like this at every turn.

This is the canyon with a couple of cave houses in it too – see a photo of the cave house and more of the canyon here.

So imagine my surprise when I come around a bend and see a whole section of the canyon floor that looks like this:

I stopped the car and stared in amazement at what looked an awful lot like a vineyard right in the middle of the southern Utah wilderness. I was so surprised. I hadn’t been there long when I heard an ATV coming up behind me. The driver stopped and I learned more about this amazing place.

I’d like to introduce Danny. There’s three really remarkable things I learned from Danny I want to share.

Ok, the first isn’t really about him, it’s more about his parents. When he was growing up, his parents would take him to the four corners region of the world pretty regularly. Now unlike most parents who fill a trip with distractions for young passengers, Danny’s parents would stop and teach him about the land that they were traveling through. He told me they would show him Anasazi ruins, and they would hunt for, and find, arrowheads. I could tell that these experiences early in his life really captured his imagination and spirit. I have wondered in my travels if we, as a culture, aren’t too focused on the destination. There is so much to be gained from understanding the journey. It was cool that Danny’s parents took the time to share the journey.

Years later, Danny decided to go to college and get a degree in Film Production with the goal of becoming a producer. Right out of college he got a job as a Production Assistant living and working in Los Angeles. In only took six months for him to realize he was completely on the wrong path. He was miserable and wasn’t enjoying his life at all. His thoughts started turning more and more to the southern Utah area, and a patch of land he and his parents had purchased a few years before.

After traveling to Montezuma Canyon several times, he moved there permanently about a year ago. I admire someone who can look at their life, realize it’s not what they want it to be, make a new plan, and go for the change.

Now for the third thing I learned. The ranch, when it was purchased, had a large orchard on it. The orchard hadn’t been watered properly for many years, and a great number of the trees were dead. Other farms in the canyon raise wheat and hay. As Danny and his peers there at the ranch looked at the hand they had been dealt, they decided that grapes were the way to go. They are hearty, use far less water, and the price would make it easier to sustain the ranch as a money making venture.

Danny told me they had been working on the vineyard for a year, and it would be two more years before they had their first harvest! That was amazing to me. I could see the kind of time and hard work that it had taken to get the ranch to it’s current state (ever tried to remove a tree and it’s roots?), and how much more of that hard work was in store for the next two years. All of that without a harvest! I was impressed once again by the power of a focused will – how much the human spirit can work on the vision of what the future holds. I found the work ethic at the Montezuma Ranch to be an inspiration.

Oh, I almost forgot…

I asked Danny if he felt like he had wasted four years on a degree in Film Production when it looked like his life path was taking him in such a different direction. He told me that in his eyes the wine industry and the film making industry are a lot alike. He said “A good wine will never sell as well as a wine with a good story.” So his background in storytelling will serve him well in that capacity.

The other point he made is that going to college teaches you how to learn. He’s in an environment now where he has to learn and adapt quickly. From deer jumping fences to bears tearing up pear trees to learning the distribution for grapes and wine – he’ll draw on that ability to learn quickly a lot in the next few years.

Danny’s a good guy. I am so glad I happened to drive by while he was out watering. Ten minutes earlier or later and I might have missed him. I’m planning on stopping by when I’m in the area and checking in, heck, maybe I’ll run some pipe with him while I’m there.

Here’s to Danny, and his grand life adventure, and all that he will learn in his continuing education.

A Balloon Twister Named Seven

You know I should follow my hunches more often. As I got off the elevator to go to lunch, I remembered I had left my camera on my desk. “It’s ok”, I thought, “I’m just going to buy food and walk back to my desk today anyway”. I should have listened…

As I walked down the sidewalk I beheld one of the most amazing sites I’ve ever seen. A lady was sitting there dressed from head to toe in black! Not just any black – she had on combat boots that came up and over her calves, a black shorts down to her knees, a Motorhead t-shirt with the neck ripped out and the arms ripped off exposing multiple tattoos. To top it all off, she had her short red hair wrapped in a black bandana. In her hand she held…

A balloon butterfly. Pink and Yellow and Bright green. A balloon butterfly!

This is where I started kicking myself mentally – a photo just waiting to be taken and I don’t have my camera.

I approached her to ask how much longer she was going to be there. Her reply was “It depends on how long it takes me to make enough for the train ride to Ogden”. Ok, this was intriguing… She indicated that she makes balloon figures for tips, and that she only needed three dollars to make the train (indicating that if I wanted a photo of her, I’d better hurry).

I hurried! I needn’t have bothered. When I got back she was surrounded by kids and their moms mesmerized by what she was doing, and paying her tips for doing it. She had told me that kids don’t care how you look, they just need to know you care. I could see instantly how she put that into action. She would greet each child, ask them what they wanted her to make, and then try to talk them into something she actually could make! She wasn’t shy about looking at the parent and confessing “I really don’t know what I’m doing, just learning as I go”. Her hard exterior fell away and the kids were mesmerized.

Soon she looked up at me and apologized and asked me to wait. I did for about fifteen minutes, and since the group of people waiting for her was growing, decided waiting was the wrong thing to do – and just started taking photos and talking to her while she worked.

She told me her name was Seven.

I asked her how she got started, and she told me it was because of her strongest talent. I asked her what that was and she said it was “comprehension”. She has a talent of comprehending how things are put together and how they work.

Years ago she and her husband were stuck in a “bad” city. They were out of money, didn’t have a place to stay. They were working outside an arts festival playing music for tips – and getting next to nothing. As they played they noticed a guy twisting balloon animals across the way, and every time he handed a balloon animal to a kid, the parent would hand him five bucks. It took him less than a minute to twist the balloons, and they watched as he made $100 in 20 minutes!

Seven’s husband asked her if she thought she could do that. She has the gift of comprehension! Of course she could! She went and bought balloons, sat down and watched the other balloon guy very carefully for about half an hour, and started twisting balloon animals.

Since that day, she’s travelled all over, twisting balloons and “lots of other stuff” to make money – she even has a book published out of San Francisco called “Seven’s Way” with her own balloon designs and how to create them. She says she sees her butterflies at fairs all over the country, and is proud of the fact others have learned from her book.

She said she was “hot, hungry, and needed a drink of some kind” (I think those were her exact words). She very nicely shoed the waiting people away, and was gone. Leaving me with a very small glimpse of a very interesting person, her amazing talent of comprehension, and her way of life.

Another Crossroad?

This is Cindy. She has a big long fancier name, but I’m just not that fancy name remembering type of guy. I’m glad she made it easy on me.

She grew up in a small town in southern Utah. She participated in 4H, slung pipes in the summer for her dad’s farm, and made it through high school with all those great memories of growing up in a small town.

Then she went away to a big college in a big city. Worked hard, got her degree.

Now she works in a very large eastern city for a giant retailer. She’s been there three years and loves the team she works with. She’s aware of the growth that she’s gone through. She told me that when she moved east the only person she had ever met in her new city was her boss. A city of a million strangers – daunting for a kid just out of college to be sure. But she’s loved it. However…

A year ago, she started getting this itch.

She thinks it might be time to go back to school. Her energy level clearly increased as we started talking about the future and what she could do once she’s back in school. Now here’s the hard part.

The place she works clearly rewards MBA degrees with advancement and higher pay. She’s confident that it would further her career there to get those three letters behind her name – Cindy M.B.A. Yeah, looks good too doesn’t it? However she sees what the MBA’s in her office do. You know, beyond the new title and bigger numbers on the paycheck, what they “do”. They sit in meetings, they talk on the phone, they compete hard to move up the ladder.

But her degree and her heart are in Dance. She loves it – loves the expression of the artform and has this desire (dare I say deep desire) to become a choreographer, to go to work each day and express her creativity through dance. To reach out and create emotion in the lives of concert goers.

But all that money invested in an advanced degree in dance or choreography would be hard to earn back – lots of love and passion in the artistic and creative endeavors, not a lot of cash. At least from the surface where she and I stood discussing the possibilities…

I got the impression as we talked that she was a little surprised that she felt the need to change again so quickly after her big move and career launch. I’m old now, and have seen how it works a little. I didn’t want to tell her to never get too comfortable, because in my life, it’s always changed, and not quite as I expected.

I encouraged her to follow her heart. As a guy whose made his living following his heart and being creative, I’m rooting for her heart. Following mine has always led me to great places.

One thing I am certain of though, no matter what her decision, life will make sure her education continues one way or another.   I’m convinced each one of us has that gift to create greatness out of the specific learning experiences we are presented with in life – so I’m confident Cindy will be great.  I’m happy to have met her, and wish her nothing but the best.

Wisdom Shared Over a Drink

I talked to Bonnie at church for a minute, but didn’t really get a chance to see what she was like until we ran into each other the next day at the gas station.

Bonnie works across the street from the gas station/convenience store, and we were both there for a fill up. Or our cars had plenty of gas, it was refreshment we were after! It was pretty clear that Bonnie was either a really thirsty lady, or she was getting drinks for several people she worked with.

I only had one cup to fill, so we exchanged pleasantries and I walked to the cashier to pay. My total was under a dollar and you don’t pay for stuff like that with a credit card. I had to buy more to reach the three dollar minimum. That’s when Bonnie came to my rescue.

She walked up with her multiple beverages and a couple of items, I swiped my card and told the clerk to add Bonnie’s stuff to the tab. It was over three bucks! I had made it with Bonnie’s help!

But that would be a dumb story to base a blog entry on.

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were in town, and we needed cash. I dropped her off at the bank so she could use the ATM (she knows all the right numbers – numbers and I don’t get along so well). She came out of the bank and got in the car and said “Those are the friendliest people I’ve ever met! I just wanted to use the ATM and they were STILL nice to me!”.

Well I didn’t know Bonnie back then, but I knew her now. So I passed on that compliment.

. . . . . . . . . . . . digression . . . . . . . . . . . .

Isn’t it sad that we wait so long to tell people good things about themselves and their lives? When i was much much younger, I went to a funeral of this ornery grouchy old so-and-so. The place was packed! They had a section of the funeral where everyone that wanted could walk up and say something. I’ll bet 25 people got up and said “I wish I would have told him while he was still alive, but I really admired him for this reason”.

I thought at the time – if half of these people would have told this guy while he was still alive, maybe he wouldn’t have been so mean. Maybe they would have been happier and he would have been happier too!

It changed my view of life.

So next time you think something good about someone, tell them.  I’m not the boss of you.  No pressure here, I’m just saying…  And at the risk of sounding like John Lennon: just imagine all the people, sharing the good things they think about each other as often as they share the bad!

. . . . . . . . . . . . end of digression . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bonnie said something I thought was pretty cool. She told me she loved the people that she works with in that bank like family. When you love and appreciate the people you work with that much, she said, you can’t help but be great at customer service.

Now one of you readers can take that last line and wrap 300 pages of fluff around it and have the next best-selling business book. What a great place in life for Bonnie. If you’re going to work, that’s a great way to do it. A couple of drinks and a bag of chips got me a nugget of wisdom that I thought about the rest of the day as I drove. What if love really is the key?

. . . . . . . . . . . . disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . .

I still get really ornery sometimes, especially if I haven’t had enough sleep or I’m low on blood sugar, and there are lots of good thoughts that go through my head that don’t come out of my mouth. And there are people that so rub me the wrong way I may never think a good thing about them ever in a million years. It changed my view of life, I’m still human.

. . . . . . . . . . . . end of disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . .

A High School Diploma Made All the Difference

This is George. I met him while he was sitting in the shade with a cool beverage and a video poker game. He had brought his grandson up to Blanding to see about a job, and he was enjoying the cool of the morning while he waited. George was born and raised as a part of the Navajo Nation that occupies the reservation that includes Monument Valley, and his life is fascinating to me.

I’ve driven through the Monument Valley area many times and marveled at the scenery and despaired at the poverty of the people that live there. Often I see mobile homes parked in the middle of the desert. A double ribbon of compacted dirt road leads out to one solitary trailer – an old pickup might be parked there, but no wires lead to these homes. As those trailers sit there in the shimmering 110 degree heat, I wonder if it ’s possible that people really live in that kind of place without electricity.

George assured me that they do. When he was growing up there as a child, he said, there were very few people that had plumbing, electricity, or any of the modern conveniences that we take for granted. But there was no bitterness in it for George. He was so happy to report that the current leadership of the Navajo Nation is very forward thinking, and that most of the people that live on that reservation now have the same standard of life as the rest of America.

I was just amazed at his bright outlook. For George everything in life seemed to be just one big opportunity – things aren’t as good as they could be, but things are getting better all the time. His big open heart was just so grateful for the amazing things around him. He commented on how great it was to be able to sit in the shade and enjoy ice in the middle of July. I guess when you have grown up with no electricity it’s easy to be grateful for a cup of ice and a cool beverage. I soon learned that he is grateful for other things I take for granted too.

When George was 14 his dad got a job in the local sawmill. The sawmill is in ruins now, but at the time it meant that George’s family had to move from Monument Valley to Blanding, Utah so his dad could work. George told me that one event in his life has made all the difference. You see, it enabled George to go to Junior High and High School. George had a rare opportunity. The chance to be a Native American with a high school diploma.

He told me that he, his wife and his family have always had the nice things in life because he was able to get his diploma.

As we talked, he told me he has worked for the school district down in the Monument Valley area for 32 years. He started as a bus driver, then worked his way up to teachers aid, then assistant coach. Now he works in the district offices in transportation administration. I could feel the joy in him as he told me about the great opportunities he had enjoyed, how good life had been for his family because of his education, and how now his grandkids are thinking about college. He could afford to move off of the reservation to a small town close by, a event he was very happy about, but he was really excited about education being a great asset for the Navajo Nation. He could see them starting becoming an educated people and the opportunities that fact presented were very exciting to George..

A high school diploma changed his life. Changed his family’s life. Is starting to change the destiny of a nation. I could feel the power of that as I talked to this outgoing man. It gave me something to think about as I drove – about the opportunities education, both formal and informal, have given me in my life. I’m glad I had a chance to think that through. I’m glad to be reminded to appreciate some of the simple things – the great simple things of my life.