Learning to Crochet

Just as promised and warned, here is a very rough draft of the story:

When my Grandma Bishop was alive my father would go to the care center every day to check on her and feed her dinner.  Often, my siblings and I would accompany him just to visit.  She was getting on in years and didn’t always remember us or know what was going on, but it was still important for us to let her know she was loved. 

At the time, my other grandparents- Grandma and Grandpa Jones- were serving as counselors for a girl’s camp run by our church.  During the summer months they would spend all their time on the mountain making sure there was enough firewood, fresh water, and whatever else the girls needed.  On occasion, my family would go up on the mountain to visit them.  I have many wonderful memories of time on the mountain with my grandma and grandpa and their friends.  One such visit sticks out in my mind more than any other; however, it is not a fond memory at all.

It was a Friday afternoon.  My brother and I were getting ready to go on the mountain with my grandparents.  My mom was also getting ready to go camping- she was taking a group of young women from our church to a different camp.  My dad came home from work and invited us all to go with him to visit Grandma Bishop before we left.  My brother and I both declined stating that “we can go see her when we come back”.  We were far too excited for this trip to be bothered with things that didn’t pertain to it.  In our young minds it didn’t make much of a difference either way, she wouldn’t remember we came anyways.  Soon thereafter, we headed up the mountain.  Justin and I excitedly pitched our tent and went about exploring.  The days went by quickly and were filled with splitting wood, riding four-wheelers, and enjoying the company of those around us. 

One morning, Grandpa Jones came to our tent and woke us up early- about six-o-clock.  All he said was “Roll up your sleeping bags and take down your tent, breakfast will be ready soon.”  My brother and I looked at each other with surprised looks.  We weren’t supposed to be going home yet, we still had a few more days.  And why are we getting up so early?  None of this made sense.  Something had to have gone wrong.  Very wrong.  We hurried and collected all our gear and headed to the camp trailer in which our grandparents slept.  Grandma Jones was in there getting some food ready for us.  When we sat down, she gave us each a slice of ham and a sliced, toasted croissant.  She offered us eggs, but I didn’t take them.  Something in her demeanor confirmed that during the night, something bad had happened.  My brother and I exchanged several worried looks during that meal. 

Just as we were finishing up, the door to the trailer swung open.  Grandpa Jones, who had mysteriously disappeared after waking us up, stepped inside.  He had tears streaming down his face as he told us what was going on. 

“Grandma Bishop passed away last night.  Get your stuff loaded up, we’re taking you home.”

I have always remembered the way he said it.  Those first words to come out of his mouth- “Grandma Bishop passed away last night”- have haunted me for years.  This was the first time I had ever seen him cry.  He said it like it was his grandmother. 

Solemnly, we packed the truck and started the journey back.  It was a few hours from the camp to home, but this trip seemed like forever.  As we were winding our way through the Utah canyons, my mind wandered.  “Ultimately, this is a good thing,” I comforted myself, “she was old and it was to the point that life on the other side of the veil will surely be a vast improvement.”  But I still couldn’t help that feeling of sorrow, of loss.  I needed something to help me cope.  My grandma was sitting in the front seat crocheting.  I was mesmerized by the movements of the hook.  My mind still raced, but at least this provided me with some distraction. 

When we got to the house, the entire Bishop side of the family had already gathered, minus my aunt from the east coast.  There was a lot of crying, a lot of sorrow.  We cleaned ourselves up and joined the family.  Grandma and Grandpa Jones left to allow our family its personal grieving time and the process began.  Phone calls, viewings, the funeral, through it all I had one nagging thought in the back of my mind.  It was as if Grandma were asking me: “Why didn’t you come to visit me?  Did you not love me?”

After it was all over and the family had returned to their respective homes, life went on as normal.  It is still odd sometimes, to drive down Main Street and not make the turn to the care center.  It is even odder to drive down to where the care center used to be and find a home for troubled youth.  As much as I tried to move on, those same thoughts kept creeping into my mind.  The vivid memory of sitting on the stairs and telling my dad, “No, we’ll go see her when we come back.”  That was the last chance I ever had to see her in this life and I refused to go. 

One night my family was watching a movie, and the same thoughts were going through my head.  I could almost see Grandma Jones crocheting; almost hear Grandpa Jones give us the news.  I found a ball of yarn and a crocheting needle and began to replicate what I had seen.  Before long, I had a row, and then another.  My mom was shocked to see this happening and asked me where I learned how to do that.  I explained about the trip home, that I had watched Grandma and figured out how to do it.

 Every now and then for the next few years I would pull my little blanket out and crochet a few rows.  Though it has never been finished, that little lap blanket means a lot to me.  Every stitch is a reminder to always live life to the fullest and make time for what is important.  You never know what life will bring your way.  Had Justin and I known that we would never again have the opportunity to visit Grandma Bishop, I’m sure we would have gone.  In fact, we probably wouldn’t have gone camping at all. 

And that is how I learned to crochet.

Cycles/Warning

I go through cycles in my life where I write all the time and then I never write.  As of right now, I am in a writing cycle.  I never share what I write because it is very personal and I am a very secretive individual; however, lately I have been thinking about the possibility of being more open and sharing more of what I write.  This post is not meant as a “get to know me” session but rather a warning: I have a work of literature in the early processes of being written (ie. There is nothing on paper, just in my head) which will likely find its way onto this blog as my next post.  When I post it, it will most likely be a rough, ROUGH draft.  Since I never share what I write and I hate the revision process that may also be the final draft before it is added to the list of things written only to be deleted, but it will still be rough.  Just a warning.

*Added later:
It has been written, but is a very different style than I have ever attempted.  The main topic of the essay is not the important part of it at all and I'm not sure how I feel about that.  I'm going to post it later, after people have had a chance to read this post, and would ask a favor of you, the reader.  I'm not fishing for compliments- in fact I much prefer constructive criticism- but if you would please just leave a comment about the story I would appreciate it.  How it made you feel, what areas need more work, something it reminds you of, anything is fine- I would just like to get a feel for what people think.  For those of you who may not have a blogger account, feel free to leave an anonymous comment. 

Its that time again

Time to quit dragging my feet and write a new post. 

Christmas was wonderful at the Bishop residence.  My brother came home from college and my sister, her husband and their three children came down from Washington.  Our little house was pretty full, but it was fun to have the little ones around!  Christmas Eve we acted out the Christmas story, sang songs, and my dad shared some powerful experiences from Christmases past.  The next morning, watching the kids open presents was a blast.  Seeing their eyes light up when they get that one special gift they've been begging for is absolutely priceless.  Dylan (the 5 year old) can speak a lot more Spanish than I expected, though trying to get him to say anything was quite difficult. He has been in an English/Spanish class for school and it seems to be working out alright. It was wonderful to have everyone around.


Next up is New Years.  Sheena and Roy packed the kids up and headed home the morning of New Years Eve.  That afternoon, Justin went back to Richfield for the celebrations over there.  The house seemed eerily quiet.  I headed over to the city party were a buddy of mine and I played chess for a few hours.  I have never been much of a chess player and got soundly beaten every time, but it was still fun.  After a while we went to play Family Feud (with a group of people, not really family).  The first time I was the announcer (my buddy's mom was running it).  After the first game though, there were no more teams.  So, we got a group together and waited for another team to come play.  We won and got $10 per person! Then I went home.  Boring, I know.  Even though the city had a fireworks display, we lit off some fireworks of our own, and then I went back over to help take down the equipment used for the night's festivities.  That didn't last long before I was ready to come home and call it a night.  One of the perks of not actually working for the people is that you can do stuff like that. 

I haven't had much of an appetite lately.  In fact, I haven't really wanted any food for a couple of days.  I eat anyways, no worries, but today something finally sounded good.  I got online, found a recipe and headed to the store to buy the necessary supplies.  I made penne pasta with a vodka cream sauce.  In some recipes, white grape juice works for a substitute for vodka- not so much in this one.  Way too sweet.  And by the time I was done cooking it I no longer wanted it, but ate it anyways (still eating it as I write this). It worked out ok. Next time I'll use something different, it'll be better.

Travels

My parents and I went to Oceanside Ca a couple of weeks ago.  We saw all sorts of amazing things!...

...and didn't take any real pictures of any of them...

...but back to the point- it was cool.  The first day down there we went out to an old Catholic mission- San Luis Rey.  On the 21 mission chain between San Diego and San Fransisco it was the largest and is still in use by Franciscan Friars so some of it was off limits.  It was fascinating to see some a little bit of  how they lived and imagine what it would have been like to settle the area.

The next day we took a trolley ride around the city that hits all the historic parts of town.  We got off and went to the USS Midway- a decommissioned aircraft carrier- and wandered around.  We spent the bulk of the day on the ship.  You could probably spend the whole day.  Though I (naturally) dislike the Navy, I was captivated by the mess facilities, the brig, the infirmary, etc.  The most telling area though, in my opinion, was the bunks.  It would be miserable to have to live in that tiny space.  I tip my hat to the men and women who do it.  After the ship we got back on the trolley and finished the tour.  By the end of the tour it was time for dinner and back to the condo.

As cool as those were, the next day was just as fun.  We started the day off at a maritime museum.  There was a 45 minute cruise of the harbor to show us the ships and share a little bit of the history of the area.  We got to see the Carnival Splendor- the ship that burned up a while back.  Then we hit the museum exhibits.  There were two submarines, one Russian and one American.  The Russian sub was easily 4x the size of the American one, but comparatively the American sub had tons of room to move around in.  That's American ingenuity- building something much smaller but getting much more space out of it.

We got to see the HMS Surprise which should be a familiar ship to those of you who love the movie Master and Commander.  Yes, it was the original HMS Surprise, and yes it is also the one they filmed the movie on.  The last ship was the Star of India.  It is the oldest still sailing boat on earth.  They take it out for a spin every year on its birthday.

Speaking of birthdays, there was a birthday party going on down on the bottom deck.  How cool would that be to have a pirate themed birthday party on an old, old sailboat like the ones pirates used!!  Complete with old pirate, treasure chest, and all the other things that go along with it.

Because it is an active (though not very) sailing ship everything has to be maintained in good working order; therefore, the work areas were all still active work spaces.  Nobody happened to be there at the time, but it would be cool to watch them work and just see how things were done.  There were also models of old war ships.  The biggest and coolest one was Lord Nielson's last ship (also should be a familiar name if you like Master and Commander).  It had 4 or 5 gun decks and in the neighborhood of 100 cannons. 

After the maritime museum we went to the Mormon Battalion visitor's center.  It was newly remodeled and was fully interactive.  The story was told by some of the men, women, and the one child who made the trek by way of talking portraits.  It sounds kind of cheesy- like something from Disneyland- and it was, but it was really cool.  They even reacted to your responses (or lack thereof).  Everyone knows the story of the Mormon Battalion, but I learned much more about it than I ever did before.  It was shocking to learn some of the details that were shared.  After the story, there was a room with some of the artifacts from the march and computers that you could use to search the rosters of the Mormon Battalion.  Since my family has two ancestors that were a part of it-both on my mom's side- we looked them up!

That night when we got back to the condo, we went to the hot tub and sauna for a little while.  We returned to the room to find that our keys no longer worked.  The security guard passing by tried his master key, and still couldn't get it.  After getting our keys re-magnetized without success we were sent to the top floor lounge to relax while they tried to get the door fixed.  They were able to get it open, but it was going to take quite a while to fix it.  This meant that one of us had to be in the room at all times to let the others back in.  It also means that the next morning- Sunday- we couldn't go to church.  We were moved into a new room and headed for home on Monday morning.  Quite the adventure.

The next adventure came last night.  My mother, neighbor and I went over to Richfield where we met up with my brother and we all went to the Forgotten Carols.  I had never heard the story or really known that much about it but it blew me away.  If anyone has the chance to go see it, do.  If you don't have the chance to, get the DVD.  It has a very powerful spiritual lesson and teaches about the true meaning of Christmas in a way I never could have imagined.  Amazing!

Update

So the last couple of times I wrote on here, I mentioned that there is nothing going on in my life worth writing about.  Lately that hasn't been the case, I've just been too lazy to fill you all in on the goings on of life in Delta.  We have done some traveling, but for the sake of not making this entry a mile long, that will be posted separately (and still be a mile long).  

We are still working on expanding the warehouse at work (as mentioned a few blogs ago).  The walls are up and the roof is almost completely finished.  It has been somewhat fun, though often unpleasant, to get a small feel of construction.  It is definitely not the right field of work for me, but it is useful to know how to do a few more things and is a fun change of pace for me. 


This project has used a lot of very large steel pieces.  The steel all has to be ground down (to remove rust) and painted over (to prevent rust).  Somehow that job fell to me.  One day as I was grinding on the gigantic I-beam the grinder popped out of my hand and tore a large section of flesh away from my wrist.  Imagine a wire brush spinning at about 16000 RPM digging into you.  Yeah, didn't feel great.  I bandaged it really quickly and went back to work-without cleaning out the grinder head.  The stench of burning flesh quickly filled my nostrils. Yuck.  A few minutes later it was still burning a lot worse than I figured it should have been so I came home to clean it out and bandage it properly.  Soon discovering the lack of medical supplies in my parent's home, I climbed back into the car and drove to the pharmacy to pick up the necessary materials.  All this with one functioning hand mind you.  As I am standing there bleeding and trying to buy the bandages and tape needed to fix such a problem, the lady behind the counter- a wonderful woman and friend of my mother- saw no real need to hurry.  I mean, its not like that gash could possibly be painful or need to be cleaned out or anything.  And the blood? No big deal, right?  Anyways, I got it all cleaned up and went back to work.  As I showered that night I spent about a half an hour just scrubbing it with soap to make sure I got all the rust, steel, etc. out of it.  It has healed up nicely, though there's still a pretty sizable scar.

Beyond that there hasn't been much other than the traveling.  I have been kinda sorta helping out with the swim team.  Not sure how much help I've really been, but oh well, at least I'm trying right?

suit shopping

So, like I said in my previous blog, I have been needing a new suit.  Today I went to rectify that situation.  Before going to Provo to look in person I did some shopping online and picked out a good suit.  It was a three-piece suit from Men's Wearhouse, but figured that I should look everywhere else first- just to explore my options.  I'm glad I did!  Sear's was having a sale on ties so I picked up a couple nice ones.  Then Mr. Mac had 2 suits that were both amazing.  The one I finally went with is black with some subtle pin striping (here- but you have to click on black fine pin stripe).  Since I drove up from Delta, they were willing to have the alterations done based on when I could pick it up.  We (Mom, Dad and I) are going up on Tuesday to take Mom to the airport so that was the day we decided they should have the alterations done.  I called tonight to make a small change to the way they were hemming the pants and the alterations were already done!  Which is great, except that means they can't make the changes I was hoping for...

Shopping in Mr Mac was interesting though.  They have two sections- the Board Room where all the really nice, expensive suits are and the other part for us normal folk.  The sales associate that helped me happened to be from the board room because they were so busy everyone else was too busy.  This means I picked out the suits I was interested in and took them to the rich person side of the store to try them on.  People were amazed to see such a young man trying on suits worth so much money.  It was fun to see the reactions, even though that was really not the case.  I'm pretty excited to get the finished product

I've been told...

...that it is time to update the blog again.  I know its bad when Sheena isn't even the one telling me its been too long between posts.  So, I'm going to try to give you something to read, but there's not much exciting going on in my life right now.

I have moved back home with my parents.  After searching for a job for a while I called and old employer looking for a reference.  Rather than a reference, he gave me a job.  I am once again a bee keeper for Stephenson Honey Company.  So far we have extracted a lot of honey, gone to Needles, extracted more honey (can I just say how much I hate extracting for days on end?), started melting down all the excess wax and started on a huge construction project.  All of the empty comb after extracting has to be stored in an airtight room where we can burn sulfur to kill off wax moths and other things that will destroy our stuff.  The business is switching the kinds of hives we use so there will now be a lot more comb to store and we don't have enough room to store it all.  As a result, we are building a huge new storage room.  It will be nice when it is finished, I'm pretty excited.

My suit is about shot- the pants in particular have about seen their last church meeting.  It gave me at least 4 years of good solid use so I really can't complain but I was hoping it would hold out until it was time to buy mission suits.  Next weekend I'm planning on going to Provo to buy a new one.

Yes, I am really talking about clothes.  That is how little is really going on in my life.  I might post about the trip after it happens, but other than that I can't imagine anything coming up to blog about.  This means there will be quite a famine of posts for the next while.  Sorry to those of you who check this blog often, there's just not anything to update you on!  If anybody has ideas on what I should write about, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me a text/email/other form of contact. 

Oh, and to answer a question I am frequently asked: yes, I do miss West Point- but at the same time it is nice to be away.  My relationship with the Academy has always been a mixed one.  I love the place, and I hate it.  In much the same way I miss the Academy and yet I am glad to be rid of it.  I will definitely be ready to go back in a few years though.