CV Rick

Growing Up Mormon - The Reality Sisters - Part Two

  

          
“Rick, what are you doing here?”

I stood alone in the entry, melting snow dripping from my parka and boots. Bishop Payne after shaking my hand left to find Christine. It looked like she found me first.

“I'm supposed to help you with math,” I said.

“But I have plans.”

Bishop Payne walked in. “Rick, take off that coat and you two can get started.”

“Dad, Jake's going to be here soon and we're going skating,” Christine said.

“With your grades? Why would you think you get to go anywhere with your friends?”

“Jake's my boyfriend, Dad!”

Bishop Payne looked at her calmly, fatherly, like I'd have expected a bishop to look at a young girl in his ward. “Jacob is not your boyfriend, Chris. First of all you're not sixteen and you know that Mormon girls don't get to date until they're sixteen. Second, he's not of the faith and you don't think I'd allow you to date someone outside the fold do you? Now you have some homework to do and I've asked Rick to help you with it.”

She turned and stalked into her house. The bishop put his hand on my shoulder. “You're a good, upstanding young man. Maybe Chris can learn from your example.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

Christine was breaking pencils at the kitchen table. She'd grip the number two in her small hands and bend until it snapped. Then she took another from the box.

“I'm sorry,” I said. SNAP

“I didn't know. I mean I thought you wanted some help.” SNAP

“Hey let me show you something.” I figured that as long as we were snapping pencils, I might as well do one too. I placed it on the back of my fingers with only my middle finger over the top and then I slapped my hand on the table and the pencil broke. SNAP

“How'd you do that?”

“Like this.” I showed her how I held it and she took another pencil and did the same thing. “Be careful,” I warned. Her fingers weren't much thicker than the pencil itself.

She slapped her hand on the table and then screamed, “Ow!” The pencil was unharmed. “That fucking hurt,” she said.

I must have made a shocked O with my mouth because she quickly realized what she'd said. “Sorry. I have a potty mouth sometimes.”

“Is everything okay in there?” her dad called from the family room.

“Everything's fine,” she called back.

“Do you want me to help you with math?” I asked.

“Kind of. I want you to show me how to do the homework from last week,” she said.

“Sure.”

So I did each problem and she copied it in her careful swirly writing. She learned nothing, copied everything and smiled at me a couple times. That made it worth the time.

As I was getting ready to leave her sister, Lisa, came walking in.

“So Dad is pushing Rick at you this week. What a joke.”

I left quietly.

Growing Up Mormon - The Reality Sisters

Christine had delicate features; a porcelain doll so fragile that I wanted to put her in a case and protect her from damage.  I stared at her during Sunday School and she'd smile back.  She knew I had a crush and I wasn't the only one. 

Lisa was younger by a year but she was the wild one.  Where Christine's brown hair curled perfectly and held combs or ribbons Lisa's hung straight and unimpeded.  Christine spoke softly and giggled when she was happy.  Lisa laughed loudly and used words I'd rarely heard - Damn, Shit, Fuck! 

They were sisters but in my thoughts I separated them and gave them different backgrounds, different lives.  In those daydreams I was part of Christine's life. 

Lisa made fun of me for my love-struck fascination with her sister.  I knew I didn't stand a chance, but Lisa rubbed it in cruelly.  During games at Wednesday Mutual meetings she'd loudly tell Christine not to be on my team because it'd give me false hope.  On Sunday mornings in Sacrament Meeting she'd turn and point at me and smirk while whispering into Christine's ear.   They'd both laugh. 

Lisa smoked cigarettes out behind the school.  She hung out with the kids who yelled at the teachers and skipped classes.  Christine wasn't like that and even though the other boys thought Lisa was better looking because she was sexy and edgy, Christine was the princess and I wanted to be her prince. 

Not only was she out of my league because she was so beautiful she was also on the Officer side of the base.  My father's rank entitled him to the third apartment of a dumpy four-plex that looked like every other dumpy quad for ten streets either way.  Her father was a colonel and they got their own house.  They shared walls with no one and even had a private driveway and a hedge.

At church my dad was a counselor to the Elder's Quorum President.  It was a menial job in the Priesthood, an all-male construct in the Mormon Church.  Her father was Bishop because he was more righteous and he was a natural leader.

Then, just Maryanne to Peter Parker she needed help in school and she asked me.  She was going to fail math and be held back - could I just come over and show her everything she needed to know for the finals?  It was her dad's idea - Mormon kids are supposed to help each other so I couldn't refuse.  He was right about that, I couldn't refuse Christine. 

I put my math book in my frayed and taped book bag and headed over to Christine's house to teach her some math and learn a lot about life . . .

 - to be continued.

Saturday Meme - Glad I'm Not Mormon

This is for all my ex-Mormon buddies out there and for those non-Mormons who've read my blog and realized that they grew up more sane and well-adjusted than any Mormon.

Why are you glad you're not Mormon:

1. Time.  This may not seem to be the ultimate reason.  I mean there's the indoctrination and the fear and the guilt and all the other religious trappings, but for me it's time.  I don't have to spend 4 days a week at the church building and another day visiting people I don't care about to make sure they're living the righteous life.  I don't have to dress in a white shirt and tie all the time and mingle with a bunch of other nitwits in the foyer waiting for yet another meeting to start.  I don't have to drive to the temple and drive other people to the temple and drive to a conference and drive to the stake welfare farm/office/warehouse.  I don't have to, and I'm glad.

2. Fear.  I'm not afraid of the end of the world and God's wrathful judgment.  I'm not afraid of Satan who lurks in every corner, inside every beverage machine, in the heart of every pretty woman, in the hands of every non-Mormon acquaintance waiting to tempt me into eternal misery.  I'm not afraid of the incursions of secular evil.  I'm not afraid of alcohol and caffeine. I'm not afraid that I won't see my family and friends in the afterlife - behind that veil - because they strayed from the path and I did not. 

3. Separation.  I'm glad that I'm not Mormon because I like being part of the world.  I love my education, that which is formal and that which is auto didactic.  I love being involved in politics, volunteering and donating.  I love having friends from different backgrounds and with differing attitudes.  I love my city and my life and exploring new activities with my son.  Mormons are encouraged to separate themselves from life and live in a cocoon of Mormon friends, Mormon experiences, and even Mormon field trips.   Education is never as valuable to a Mormon unless it came from a Mormon school. 

Growing Up Mormon - A Conversation With a Client

Normally on Thursdays I write some vignette or an episode from a longer story of my childhood in the Mormon Religion.  Today however, I had a conversation with a client that stayed with me and I'd like to share it with you.

We were talking about how he had become an attorney.

"I was a field agent with the F.B.I. for five years.  But when I found out that there was no chance for advancement I decided to apply to law school."

I said, "Were all the positions filled or were they just not promoting?"

"I don't suppose you know anything about Mormons," he said.  I remained silent at that.  "The FBI had a very high number of Mormons and in my office advancement was dependent on how well you got along with them.  Since I wasn't about to pretend to be interested in their religion and I wasn't interested in changing my supposed bad habits, I was far down the list."

"Really?  It was about the Mormons?" I asked.

"They are a very cliquish people.  They take care of their own first and foremost.  My partner wouldn't follow orders from our direct supervisor unless he cleared it with the highest ranking Mormon in our office.  He'd call him at home and talk about what he'd been told to do.  He said it was a matter of respecting his priesthood leaders.  To me it all seemed like some weird cult.  I could imagine them in robes around a dark altar offering blood oaths to each other." 

At that I laughed openly. 

He continued.  "I had to get out of there and law school seemed like a good place to make my own advancement."

"It really turned you off to Mormons, didn't it?" I asked.

"Yes, it did."

At that I told him a bit about my story, Alma the Lamanite, and my experiences growing up.  I also explained the doctrinal reasons why Mormons believe darker skin color is punishment delivered by God on his more unworthy children. 

My client is African American.  At the explanation he shook his head and sighed.

- rick, atheist

Growing Up Mormon - The Mormon Uniform

Mormon missionaries wear white shirts, dark ties, a nametag, and a bicycle helmet.  That's their uniform.  When I turned twelve I received the Aaronic Priesthood and was then worthy to pass the sacrament, water and bread, to the congregation.  From that point on I had no choice about what to wear to church: white shirt, dark tie, dress shoes.

What happened the day I decided to wear something different?  After I broke my hand in wrestling I had this nasty cast plus a frame and pin set up.  I couldn't get anything over my arm, so instead of the uniform, I wore a t-shirt, stretched to fit over my hand and a track jacket over that.  My dad went to church early and we followed later, so my outfit wasn't 'approved' by him although my mother commiserated with me on the difficulty of donning the normal uniform. 

First, an older boy, a priest - I think he was 17 - told me I couldn't pass the sacrament dressed like that.  Fine, I thought, no biggie I'll just sit with my family.  But that was just the beginning of the shitstorm.  The Aaronic Priesthood counselor found out and told the Elder's Quorum President who told the first counselor to the Bishop who then told the Bishop and he came to talk to me. 

"You'll have to go home and change."

"Why?  Don't you know about my wrist?"

"We have standards that must be adhered to and any wild clothing choices are a distraction from the spirit."

Then my father came marching into the foyer.  He'd obviously been told.  His lips were stretched so tight across his mouth that they disappeared.  He focused on me to the exclusion of all else. 

"I've got this handled, Bishop," he said.  Then he grabbed my by my hair and marched me out of the building and into the work van he'd driven to church.  He didn't speak to me because his embarrassment was too great for words.

At home I was having trouble with the door because of awkwardness with the injury, equipment, cast.  He pushed through me, opened the door and went ahead where he grabbed one of my white shirts.  It tore over my metal frame and it hurt like hell.  I don't think I cried, but I know I wanted to . . .

He handed me some safety pins to close the rips and I grabbed a tie and headed to the door.  I remember being surprised that he'd kick me right through the front door as I opened it, but I guess he really felt the embarrassment strongly and the spirit demanded that I pay retribution for mocking his presence in church.

To this day Mormon men wear nothing but white shirts, dark ties, and slacks.  Because conformity above all else is holy - just look at the words of Jesus . . . wait, uh maybe someone else was a better example of conformist.  I'll get back to you on that.

- rick, owner of no white shirts.

I Think I'm Becoming a Homosexual

Or at least an exhibitionist:

Sometimes masturbation is the introduction to the more serious sins of exhibitionism and the gross sin of homosexuality. We would avoid mentioning these unholy terms and these reprehensible practices were it not for the fact that we have a responsibility to the youth of Zion that they be not deceived by those who would call bad good, and black white.
(Mormon Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, "President Kimball Speaks Out on Morality," New Era, Nov. 1980, 39)

Graciously swiped from Gunner.

- rick, sinning daily

My Sister Found My Blog

My sister found my blog. 

I moved out of the house when she was three months old.  I've never really known her very well, so I don't really have much of an opinion about her.  I do know she grew up in the heart of Mormon country and adhered steadfastly to the principles of the church.  Everything she writes about on Facebook is Mormon related, all her friends are derived from the church (at least as far as I know) and her life revolves around this gospel she holds so dear.

Which is why finding my blog must be so troubling. 

I'm sure she'd rather I follow the "if you don't have anything nice to say . . . " meme, but then I wouldn't have much of an interesting blog, would I?  What's a story without conflict after all?  And if y'all know anything about me and my life, it's full of conflict. 

Unfortunately, while I know she found my blog because she comments, she's apparently so wrapped up in her myopic vision of churchly goodness that she can't focus on anything else.  See my blog is rich with content that isn't about this so-called true church.  I run a story club and that's been great for reading and conversation.  I talk about my time in the military, my journeys around the world, and my loves, successes, and failures.  I talk about my family, my work, my kids, and my dog.  I talk about movies, books, politics, and culture.   There's a wide breadth of subject matter for her to read and participate in, albeit some with very adult content - but no more adult than I'm comfortable with my own teenage children reading.   

Yet, with all this content she's like the Mormon Defender, only commenting on topics that offend her own religious sensitivities.  Sad, really.  Why?  Because there is no reason to rush to the defense of the Mormon Church here because my posts either directly relate to my own experiences, growing up Mormon, or they are directly from the words and actions of the past prophets of the church - documented and supportable.  Firstly, you can't say my experience is invalid because I don't represent it as all experiences.  Secondly, if you are a true believer, you can't defend and redefine the words of your own prophets.

Everyone, welcome my sister, Krista, and encourage her to participate in more than just self-inflicted  outrage.

Oh, and Krista, in order to keep my professional life and my blog separated, I've banned my own last name from this site.  That's why your comments always get caught in my spam filter.  Just sign your first name and it'll be fine.

- rick, morally outrageous.

Growing Up Mormon - Fast Sunday

Let me tell you what Fast Sunday is all about in the Mormon world.  It was the one weekend a month that I hated more than any other, it was dread, it was the pain and suffering that can only come from the directives of a vengeful God.

My father never did anything halfway when it came to adhering to the principles and precepts of the gospel until after I had moved out of his house.  I hear he softened a bit for the younger kids but I'm not in touch with them enough to know if this is true.  However back in the day, when it came to Fast Sunday there was no softness in the old man. 

We were always busy doing this or that for the church on Saturdays.  Sometimes it was helping people move – Mormons move more than any other group of people on earth: excepting perhaps Gypsies and Mongolian Herdsmen.  Sometimes our Saturdays were spent working at the Ward's welfare farm or in the Stake cannery where the food storage items are prepared.  Sometimes it was Home Teaching – which is where a pair of Mormon men (the pair must have an adult, but sometimes the junior companion can be as young as 12) visit four to six families in the ward and teach them a lesson about the gospel, offer to help them an (usually with moving I discovered) and generally see how they're doing. 

After a full Saturday working for the Lord, we'd go home and eat dinner.  My father would bless the food and dedicate the fast.  Then it was on . . .

No food or drink, not even water for the rest of the night.  In the morning – nothing.  We were fasting. We'd awake, get ready for church and go.  If we were caught going toward the water fountain at church it was a whipping later for disrespecting the Lord.  All through church, hungry.

Growing Up Mormon – Apartheid Billy – Part Five

Things between Billy and my father were coming to a head.  Billy couldn't repair a television if its only problem was that it was tuned to a dead channel.  William and Billy wouldn't work together another day.  The shop was losing money like a sieve.  Every day Dad would yell at me and every week he'd promise to pay me some money next week.  My mom worried all the time and cried a lot.

There was only one thing to do:  Pray.

And pray we did.  We prayed in the early morning before work or school.  We prayed every night before bed.  When we weren't praying, we were arguing and when arguing didn't work, blaming did.  I was blamed sometimes but not often.  The situation just wasn't working for anyone. 

Billy had another idea.  For him praying wasn't enough.  Dad got a phone call and then made a trip to the LDS Stake Center building. When he got home, we had a family meeting. 

“We're going to branch out into the video business,” Dad announced.

Mom had her arms crossed.  “How are we going to afford that?”

“I've been assured that the Lord will provide.”

“Maybe the Lord will help pay for the inventory.  Maybe he'll pay the mortgage.  At least the payment we're behind.”

“Dear, it is not your place to question what the spirit dictates.”

Mom's eyes became glassy.  She'd heard enough, but my father wasn't done speaking.

“I am the priesthood holder in this family and the Spirit will communicate through me.  The stake presidency and I prayed about this decision and it's the right thing to do.”

Obama and the Politics of Racism

I'm putting my Apartheid Billy conclusion on hold for a week.  Right now I really want to talk about Obama's Religion Speech.  If you haven't watched it or read it, please do so. 

What I've encountered on a discussion board saddens me, because the slander and the onslaught against Barack Obama is really getting into full swing.  It's based on mischaracterizations and lazy talking points. 

Here's my part of this exchange, what's in quotes is what I'm responding to:

 

Quote:

I think that Rev. Wright preaches hate, and that Obama should not have taken his children to listen to that. I think Obama should have denounced Wright completely, not excused his more recent actions because he "grew up during segregation."

I don't think anyone should ever take their children to the Mormon church. I think it's child abuse to subject children to a doctrine that has never disavowed its earliest teachings that dark-skinned people were not brave and honorable during the heavenly "pre-existence" war. However, when I brought this up on Conservative websites before Romney dropped out of the race I was universally derided for being a bigot. Where Obama explained that he did not accept these inflammatory preachings of Rev. Wright, Romney never addressed this uncomfortable but still doctrinal precept of his own religion. Romney's speech on religion was a poor shadow to Obama's in what it revealed about character, truth, and integrity.

I think you should disavow everyone in your life who believes such racist rubbish. I think you should tell them they are racists and I think you should never speak to them again. I think you should put a sign in your front yard saying that your Mormon friends and relatives are not welcome in your lives until they specifically disavow every racist word Brigham Young, Joe Smith Jr, et al ever said from the pulpit or during doctrinal lessons/writings.

How far do you want me to go with this?  How prominent does the double standard have to be before you recognize it? 

Whatever happened to the maxim "condemn the sin but love the sinner." That's what we do for our family, our friends, our associates. None of us accept every belief of all the people in our lives, but that doesn't mean we reject those people for political expediency.

Growing Up Mormon - Apartheid Billy - Part Four

I worked nearly every day at my dad's Television Shop.  My duties included cleaning the store, answering the phone, calling customers, and delivering televisions, both new and used.

The television deliveries were often very difficult and almost always a long drive.  The sets were big, bulky wooden consoles.  Remember, back then televisions were pieces of furniture that you placed vases on and that you matched your couch to.  Some of the sets were triple consoles - a television in the middle, a stereo record player on one side, and an eight track player on the other. 

Since it was a small shop and we couldn't afford to take the technicians, William, Billy, or my dad away from their work, I'd recruit a friend to help me on deliveries.  Sometimes it was Kelly, my rock-solid red-headed classmate who resembled a tank more than a boy.  Sometimes it was Blaine or Shane, twin brothers who were always anxious to make some cash but rarely capable of actually carrying something bulky and heavy without dropping it.  Sometimes it was Alma, my troubled Native American friend.  He almost never wanted the money and wasn't excited about the work, but getting out of the house and away from his adoptive parents was motivation enough.  We also talked a lot on the long drives.  All the other kids told me that Alma was quiet and reserved, but in that delivery truck he was animated and talkative.  I don't know if he was like that with anyone else, but I feel like I got to see a side of Alma no one else saw. 

I think y'all can see where this disaster is heading, so I'll skip a lot of the niceties.

One day I called Alma to come over and help with three deliveries.  The standing rate for my friends was five bucks a delivery, so that was going to be fifteen dollars to drive around for an hour and carry three large, bulky sets up horrible, small staircases.  I just now realized that all of my friends were saints or masochists. 

Growing Up Mormon - Apartheid Billy - Part Three

I rode with my dad to Idaho Falls to greet Apartheid Billy.  They were flying in from Salt Lake after flying from South Africa. 

I didn't know what to expect.  They way I'd heard people talking this was going to be a destitute family escaping from a battlefield.  I knew South Africa had problems, so I guess I assumed that there were troops in the streets and black people were fighting white people and everyone was dying. 

Billy wasn't what I expected.  He was as tall as my dad, but he was very thin with broad shoulders.  His hair was thinning and blonde.  I put him about my dad's age – mid-forties.  Billy's wife was beautiful.  She was maybe twenty-five, blonde hair, blue eyes, slim and perfectly put together like a make-up model.  Their daughter was just a baby.  It was one of those marriages that a teenage boy doesn't understand – why was she with a guy who could be old enough to be her father? 

Billy shook my dad's hand and ignored me.  Billy's wife nodded but didn't speak. The men discussed some things for a few minutes until the Stake President and one of his counselors showed up.

The stake president handed Billy some paperwork and keys to a car.  Billy drove away in a brand new Oldsmobile.  We drove back home in a beat-up delivery van with a failing clutch.  I didn't understand what was going on.

A few days later Billy showed up at work.  The first thing he complained about was the dinky little shop.  The second thing was that he was expected to work on equipment that ought to just be thrown away.  Those weren't the last of his complaints.  He complained more than anything else. Every word out of his mouth was against someone or something.  He held nothing back.  I think he should have because it got old. 

Billy had a a South African accent, but since I'd never heard a South African accent before, I couldn't distinguish it from Australian.  I just knew it didn't really sound British. 

Growing Up Mormon - Apartheid Billy - Part Two

Last week I told you about how my mother and my father consulted with the Lord about purchasing a radio and television repair shop in my father's hometown of Blackfoot, Idaho.  My uncle Bob worked out a deal where the current owners would finance half of the purchase price and the other half would be through a bank loan guaranteed by some Veteran's Administration program.

Now this is important to remember: What my father got for no money down was a building, three delivery vans, a shop full of equipment, and a library of maintenance manuals. This is what my uncle inspected and negotiated for.  “We're lucky to have an advocate right on site,” my father said.  “Between our prayers that this is the right decision and my brother's prayers over the property, we have the Lord on our side.”

My father put in his paperwork and three months later we were a civilian family headed to our new life in Blackfoot, Idaho. 

Blackfoot is a potato town halfway between Idaho Falls and Pocatello. It sits against the edge of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, one of the poorest reservations in the country.  The residents of the town are mostly laborers, working in one of the three potato processing plants, or in services that support them.  But in Blackfoot potatoes rule and are only rivaled by the second area crop: beets.  In case you didn't know it, Southeasterrn Idaho is a desert.  It's also an ancient lava bed.  The finely ground lava seem to make the perfect soil composition for potato growing and not a whole lot else, except for beets.    

When we got there we went to the Sanderson Radio and Television Repair Shop first thing, even before unloading the station wagon at Grandma's house.  I was shocked. 

We drove across the main road in town, over the railroad tracks and through an old residential neighborhood to a low brown building next to a large pole barn. 

“This is it,” my father announced. We piled out of the car.  The parking lot was dusty dirt and the building was tiny.  The front door was flimsy and twisted when I pulled it open.  Before me was a showroom with permanently stained carpet, a counter greasy like you'd expect to see at an old garage, and double swinging door with a sign above: “Employees Only.” The televisions in the showroom were all used cabinet models with the fake wood veneer.  I turned one on and it hummed while the vacuum tubes warmed up. 

Growing Up Mormon - Apartheid Billy - Part One

The man who said the prayer at our dinner table was an unabashed racist.  He called blacks brush-bunnies, niggers and spear-chuckers.  He thought Americans were stupid to not finish the job of exterminating the American Indians. He felt that the holocaust was an exaggeration and that they Jews had brought it upon themselves.  This man had been invited into our home and into our lives by my father at the urging of the Lord and this is the story of how he ended up there, praying to a white Jesus to bless our food.

18 Months Earlier:

“I will not go,” Mom said.  Dad had just gotten orders to go to Germany on a four-year accompanied tour. That meant that he'd get to take all of us with him – that was me, my mom, my younger sister, and our baby brother.  Mom wasn't interested. 

She stood there with her arms crossed in the tiny living room while my father sat on the dingy plaid-brown sofa pleading with her.  She was wearing her church dress, dark blue yet faded, floor-length.  It had a wide belt that she'd had to pin to the dress just to keep it in place.  She's only a shadow over five foot but that day she towered over my tall father. 

“It comes with another stripe,” he said.  “I'll be running the avionics shop.”

“Then you go by yourself.  I don't want to go back overseas.  I don't want to fly in an airplane.  I don't want to leave the states for the rest of my life,” she said. Mom hated life overseas.  For her it was entrapment.  When  we got a spot in base housing, she never left the confines of the compound. When we didn't get a coveted housing spot, she stayed inside the apartment.  She was scared of people who didn't speak English.  She didn't like food she couldn't recognize and for a North Dakota Norwegian, that was almost all the food out there.  She hated subtitled television programs.  Trans-Atlantic telephone conversations were so expensive that she couldn't afford conversations with her family.  For seventeen years she'd lived this transient lifestyle and she'd had enough.  Besides she was really scared of flying. 

“Can't we just pray about this?”

“I have prayed.  The spirit tells me that I'm going to go live with my family.  The spirit says you can go to Germany if you want.”

 

I Never Had a Party

When I was sixteen years old I wanted to have a party.   I was fairly popular, on the basketball team, a track star, getting good grades, and there wasn't anyone of note who wanted to beat me up.  It was a pretty good year.

I went to my parents and asked if I could have a party.  Mom smiled brightly, I remember.  “That could be fun,”she said.  This was an opportunity to make me happy at home, and as a teenager, I didn't have much happy time in the house.

“No,” my father said. 

“But, why not?”  I asked. 

“There is no reason to have a party here.  If you want to have a party, then just ask the clerk if you can reserve the gymnasium.”

“At the church?” I couldn't have wrung any more disappointment from my voice if I'd twisted my tongue like a rag. 

“Nothing wrong with the church. There's a kitchen, the gym's big, and it'll fit all your friends.” He was staring at me, daring me.   I knew he had his comeback locked and loaded, and I was set to release the target.

“Not all of my friends are Mormon,” I protested.

He fired, “Then it would be a perfect opportunity to fellowship them.  You could give them your testimony.”

“But I just want to have a fun party, not a missionary moment.  I was thinking that we could use the back yard and maybe grill some burgers,” I pleaded, my voice rising to a whine.

The Public Perception of Mormons

The New York Observer had an interesting article about Mormons on the 8th of January.  The article speaks of the young, single Mormon professionals who live in Manhattan.  With some surprise it reveals that Mormons are "everywhere" and that they aren't freaky costume-wearing Fundamentalist wackos or something.  It paints them in a fairly positive light. 

It brings up a different side of Mormonism than I usually post about.  Reading my blog one would have reason to believe that Mormons are all-bad, all the time.  The truth is that they really aren't.  There are some positive qualities, and some attractive benefits for having Mormons as neighbors or employees.  I'd like to discuss that for a bit:

Mormons are dependable.  If you are looking to hire someone, a Mormon isn't a bad bet.  You'll most likely get someone with a strong work ethic who won't come to work with a hangover and won't be fondling members of the opposite (or the same for that matter) sex at the office.  You'll get someone who'll put in hours of overtime when you want, so long as you let them be at home for Monday evenings and at Church on Sundays.  If you send a Mormon on a business trip they won't be expensing bar drinks or strip-club visits.  They'll be in their room, sleeping by ten.  They won't add porn movies to the hotel bill. 

Mormons are healthy.  Sure they eat at McDonald's and a lot of them have weight issues, but they don't drink, they don't smoke, and they don't take coffee breaks because they don't drink coffee.  Overall they're not going to show up with tales of wild parties and embarrassing episodes.  They won't call you for bail money or needing you to show up in court as a character witness.  They won't be asking for an alibi.  In fact, Mormons are a whole lot less intrusive than I am.

If a Mormon has a neighborhood party, it'll be an affair of cute games, poorly sung songs, and biblical life lessons.  There won't be a problem with noise if you have Mormons as neighbors. 

Mormons as a rule, aren't obnoxious people, it's just their religion that's bad for this country.

Growing Up Mormon - Religious Doctrine Lesson 3

Mormons believe that their church is not only true, but that it is the "restored" church, just as it was in ancient times. 

The LDS Sixth Article of Faith: We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.

This means that for Mormons, they believe that the current prophet has just as much authority and connection to God as Moses and Abraham, Isaiah and David, Noah and Job.  They also believe that these prophets are more that simply executive officers of a megalithic church corporation - that they have the "gifts" that other prophets have had.  The LDS Seventh Article of Faith: We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth. The scary thing about these articles of faith is that even after all these years, I can still recite them all from memory. 

But that's just the Prophet.  This religion, Mormonism, has a structure set up for maximum control and enormous growth and it's organizational framework rivals the Catholic Church in its complexity. 

There is the Prophet, his two counselors, and then twelve apostles just like Jesus had.  After those rich white guys there is a thing called the Presiding Bishopric and they help figure out what buildings to build and what properties to buy.  Then there are two "Quorums of Seventy."  These figures are referred to as the Church's General Authorities and they direct the entire church, its membership and all the affairs from offices in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

But where does Mitt Romney fit into this structure you might ask.  We'll get to that in a minute.   

Growing Up Mormon – Religious Doctrine Lesson 2

Polygamy – Mormons believe that a man cannot become a God without multiple wives.

I already covered the infallibility of Mormon Prophets, but it's important so let's go over it again.  If a Prophet reveals something it is as if God were speaking directly. This is the power of the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator of the Mormon Church.  He is after all the man called by God to deliver God's word to the earth.

The above is a true statement and is supported:

Brigham Young also said: "I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call Scripture" (Journal of Discourses, vol. 13, p.95).

And to prove that very point, when he made the statement that Adam is God, F.D. Richards said, "Concerning the doctrine that Adam is our Father and God...the prophet and Apostle Brigham has declared it, and that is the word of the Lord" (Millenial Star, August 26, 1854, vol.16, p.534).

Interestingly, this is reinforced here:

"When Brigham Young proclaimed to the nations that Adam was our Father and God...-he made the most important revelation ever oracled to the race since the days of Adam himself" (The Women of Mormondom, p.79,179,196-197, 1877).

and here:

"if the President makes a statement it is not our prerogative to dispute it...when I first heard the doctrine of Adam being our Father and God, I was favorably impressed---enjoyed and hailed it as a new Revelation" (Minutes of the School of Prophets, Provo, UT, 1868-1871, p.38-39).

Enough about the Adam = God thing. Back to the infallibility of Mormon Prophets.

Here is a document and teaching aid of the Mormon Church, reviewed and approved by the Presidency, including the Prophet:

"When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy" (Ward teachers message for June, 1945).

Growing Up Mormon - Religious Doctrine Lesson 1

A new commenter got me thinking about my view on the Mormon Church today.  He brought up a standard meme with respect to the church:  If you have a problem, it can't be the gospel, the church as a whole, or its unerring leadership.  It must be isolated incidents dealing with individuals who are weak and misrepresent God because of their weakness of spirit and sinful nature. 

The truth is far simpler.  The gospel itself creates the weaknesses and abuses in its people.  The Doctrine is flawed, and it focuses and excuses those flaws in its adherents, creating the very situations I experienced as a child, as a young man, and as an adult.

If you teach people that skin color is directly related to righteousness, then you foster racism as a basic tenant. 

    "You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind.

    The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of any one of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings.

    This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race--that they should be the "servant of servants;" and they will be, until that curse is removed."

    Brigham Young-President and second 'Prophet' of the Mormon Church, 1844-1877- Extract from Journal of Discourses.

Now, you can't teach people that a prophet of the church speaks directly with God and gets revelation from the Almighty in order to lead the restored church and then ignore the words of that prophet.  You just can't do it, because that's like saying the words of God aren't important.  And if you teach people that 'Negroes' are stupid, cursed, and cowardly isn't it reasonable that those teaching will color their actions, speech and attitudes? 

Growing Up Mormon - Sex on a Temple Trip - Part Two

The Bishop drove a large black Cadillac.  It had plush tan leather seats that embraced you in warmth when you sat in them.  The car was spotless and whispered down the road with a smoothness that swayed where my car bumped.  We packed his car with teenagers for the temple trip.  Shane and Julie sat in the front with Bishop Hare.  Blaine, Randy, and I sat in the back.  I was right behind the Bishop, Randy sat beside me. 

The Bishop guides the spiritual health of his congregation.  He hears confessions, but not like Catholic Priests.  Face to face he questions, interrogates, and draws out those confessions and then renders judgment.

Randy and I started the Temple Trip holding hands.  We liked each other well enough, but neither of us were in love.  I'd have called it holding our place until someone better happened by.  We were each other's past time.

Holding hands on a long, boring drive wasn't enough entertainment, especially with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir playing on the car stereo.  I leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, but she turned right as I leaned up and the kiss was on the mouth.  It was brief, innocent, but there it was, we'd kissed in the Bishop's car.  I was embarrassed.  I looked at Bishop Hare's rear view mirror.  No eye contact.

The Mormon Temples are where the most secret, or sacred, ceremonies happen.  Endowments are the most common, but since I never received my endowments it's a bit mysterious to me.  I know you get a pretend name and stand in a Holy circle while worthy actors recreate the circumstances of the war in heaven.  Interestingly, Brian David Mitchell the man who kidnapped 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart, raped her and declared her his additional polygamist wife was the guy who played Lucifer in this ritual at the Salt Lake City Temple. 

Other ceremonies are marriages and baptisms for the dead.  Yes, Baptizing the Dead.  Mormons baptize people who are already deceased and they do it by proxy from long lists of dead people culled from government or religious records, funerals, obituaries, and postings from all over the world.  This is the rite that young men and women go to the temple to perform. 

Growing Up Mormon - Sex on a Temple Trip

Defiant Randy moved into the ward boundaries a month before the Temple trip.  She had long, dark brown hair and a tiny silver hoop in her left eyebrow.  In 1983 Southeastern Idaho this was uncommon.  In the Mormon church it was radical.  She made eye contact with each girl in the Young Women's Organization.  It made them uncomfortable, and they talked about her. She swore, “Hell, damn, shit.”  In the parking lot when she dropped her car keys she said, “Christ.”  Gasp.

She wore tight jeans and she had the perfect teenage body for them.  Her t-shirt was cut short; as she moved I could catch glimpses of flesh above her wide leather belt.  I quickly looked up and saw her watching me watching her.  Deep, dark unblinking eyes, long black lashes, challenging.  Soft full lips in a 'Like what you see?' smirk. 

A round turquoise medallion hung on a silver chain around her neck.  It fit in the cleft made by the V she'd cut into her t-shirt's collar.  It was black of course.  The t-shirt I mean.  It was black but it didn't have any writing on it, no band's logo, no concert schedule on the back.  Just a black t-shirt cut short, a V snipped into the neck, hugging her body, showing her tits in silhouette.  They were round and stretched the t-shirt.  It was her tits that caused the shirt to ride high enough to see some skin at her waist.  She caught me staring at her chest just like she'd caught me staring at her waist.  Her stare scared me a little but it also excited me. 

She'd moved from Roy, Utah where she'd been living with her grandparents.  She was too much for them to handle.  She moved to Blackfoot to live with her sister who was older, active in the church, had a nice little family, and could provide a great influence on her.  That's how she ended up in our ward.  And that's how she ended up in the foyer with me during temple recommend interviews. 

Growing Up Mormon - The Christmas Tree

Our tree was artificial, of the kind you can't find anymore.  The trunk was a metal pole, the branches were aluminum core and bent this way and that, but fit into holes in the trunk.  Unfortunately the quality of the tree and the many redecorating attempts made the branches loose, so dad had to wrap electrical tape around the branch ends in order to make them fit properly.  It was stored in a moving box and wrapped in two black garbage bags.  I don't know why we used the bags except that maybe my mom thought the insects wouldn't be smart enough to figure out that plastic and metal didn't combine to make a real tree. 

We always pulled this tree out of the box and put it together the Monday after Thanksgiving.  Monday is Family Home Evening in Mormon households.  My dad thought that there'd be no better scriptural lesson than learning about Christ while decorating the tree.  We never said trimming the tree because my mom thought that meant we were going to take pruning shears to the bright green plastic needles.

We started the evening with prayer, giving thanks to Jesus for allowing us to be forgiven, for the sacrifice he willingly made.  Then dad and I would haul the pieces of the tree upstairs while mom and my sister would pull out all the decorations - lights, bulbs, tinsel.  While Dad put the tree together, mom would pull cookie dough out of its tube - that's how it came from the frozen section of the Base Commissary.  She'd put it in the oven and set a timer. 

And I almost forgot, dad would haul the reel-to-reel up and plug it in.  This was our record of the events, a passive recording of the room, it's ambient noise, our voices, the tinkling of the ornaments and the changes as the evening wore on.  Somewhere in a box, there's a couple dozen reels labeled Christmas, with a date.  I've listened to them all when my parents were away.  One of these days I'll steal them and put together an ensemble of arguments, fighting, hurt feelings, and gritted-teeth commands.

Growing Up Mormon - The Record Albums

I watched my father's music choices change as he gave his life over to the Mormon church. 

When I was five years old the record collection occupied a prominent place in crates in our living room. I used to thumb through the albums and put the ones I wanted to hear on the top of the television.  It was one of those wood veneer Zeniths large enough to hold the record player, with space left for a stack of records.  The player was a turntable with a smoked opaque top on hinges.  It had this cool blue strobe light near the base of the needle arm.  When the player was at the perfect speed, the silver dots on the turntable looked like they weren't moving under that light. 

Dad had an impressive Elvis collection. He also had all the Johnny Cash records.  There were records by Hank Williams, Conway Twitty, Dolly Parton, and Charlie Pride, the only black performer my father owned. 

My dad really went for the rebellious songs by Johnny Cash and the wild drinking songs by Hank Williams. He liked buddy songs, where two of the musicians would sing back and forth impromptu, like they were just hanging around having a good time.  Roy Clark and Buck Owens performed that way on albums as well as on Hee Haw, one of the few shows that followed us to every military base across the planet.

He returned from the war reconverted to Mormonism, but his love of those performers didn't disappear.  He still had the records, and he still listened to them, but with meetings and obligations he didn't have as much time for music.  The other difference was that he used to have friends over: neighbors, guys from work, or war buddies passing through the area.  After his reconversion he didn't have anyone over to the house who didn't have scriptures in hand and he didn't turn on the record player for company.

Dolly Parton was the first casualty. Her albums disappeared from the boxes.  “Ricky,” he said, “a man can't keep chaste thoughts in his mind if he fills it with unchaste images.” 

Growing Up Mormon - Thanksgiving Day

Not until I was fifteen years old did I go to the annual family Thanksgiving Day event.  It's not really a reunion per se, but because no single family member's house is large enough they started having an event instead of just a dinner. 

They rent a school.  Seriously.  Not just a gymnasium or a cafeteria, but an entire school.  Back when I was fifteen it was an elementary school, but the family's grown and now it's a large high school.  Different branches of the family, each identified with a patriarch, is assigned a classroom or a couple of them.  That's the gathering spot.  One would think that the patriarch would become a matriarch when the dude is absent from the day or from this life, but it is not so.  My grandfather, even though he has been dead since I was eleven years old, is still the name on our rooms.  My grandmother takes this as honoring his name, not slighting her importance.  Typical Mormon misogyny in my opinion.

When I first arrived at the school, I was overwhelmed.  There are hundreds of people in my family.  I don't know them all.  I don't know most of them.  I don't even care to learn about them, even most of their names.  It's just too much.  I have 72 cousins from six Uncles and an Aunt.  Add second cousins, great Uncles and Aunts, and nieces and nephews - you end up with a mob even if only a portion of them show up.

Picture it this way:  The high school rented houses four grades, each about 125 students.  To that add staff and the school normally houses 600 people on a weekday.  My family usually matches or exceeds that capacity.

Then they pray.  The event inside an event. 

Growing Up Mormon - Learning to Cheat

I learned how to cheat in church.

As if Sunday meetings - Sacrament, Priesthood, Sunday School - and Wednesday Night young adult meetings, and weekend conferences, and Saturday fellowship weren't enough, the Mormon church forces all high school kids to spend one class hour a day in religious training - Seminary.  My freshman year I had to be at the church at 6 AM and sit for an hour learning the scriptures.  After my freshman year, we moved to Blackfoot, in the heart of Mormon-Land, and the Seminary was in it's own building right across the street from the school.  For the next three years Seminary was taken as a class, just like the rest of the curriculum. 

Selected verses were deemed highly important within the scriptures, and we had to highlight them, memorize them, and find them quickly when requested.  There were actually drills and exams related to our memorized scriptures.  For me this was easy and I memorized them all without a lot of effort.  The competition to find a particular verse and raise one's hand first was called Scripture Chase and these I rarely lost.  I just had a knack for remembering where the scripture would be found and opening to it. 

Recognizing my talent, the instructor put me in for the Multi-Stake Scripture Chase Tournament.   Imagine an academic bowl for repressed and over-indoctrinated religious nuts. 

You may have gathered from my blog that I'm a very competitive person.  So, I'm on the team and I'm going to win.  We had practices and tested each other and got faster and faster at finding these verses.  We thought we had a very good shot, but no guarantee since it was a big Mormon region. 

Then Elder Dana came to help us out.

Growing Up Mormon - My Mom

I've been asked this question by several people who read my blog, “Why don't you talk about your mother in your stories?”  It's true that she's not a major character in my Growing Up Mormon tales, and that's intentional. It's not that she wasn't a major part of my life, or that I don't love her; certainly I do.  It's just that she isn't an assertive person in the dynamic of our family and never went out of her way to influence the outcomes of any of these incidents I write about.

My mother didn't have an easy childhood in North Dakota.  The youngest of four children, her family barely scraped by and things went from bad to worse when her father died of cancer when she was only fourteen years old.  Shortly thereafter she dropped out of school and went to work in various jobs, from waitressing to doing laundry for a nearby hotel. 

She didn't miss school because she wasn't doing very well at it anyway.  She didn't like the books that were assigned and had no real gift for numbers.  Living near an Air Force Base, it wasn't unpredictable that she'd meet an Airman and this is where my father enters the picture.  He asked her out and they fell in love and got married on New Year's Eve when my mother was only 17 years old.  My father was 21. 

In our house my father was the law, and my mother went along with that.  The only times I remember her standing up to him was over issues of money.  My mother remembers hungry days and having to work as a child to put food on their table. As a result she's a saver.  She'll squirrel money away in various hiding spots all over the house and in a dozen different bank accounts distributed around town.  This is a habit that I inherited from her – I take pride in my change jar and my box of one-dollar bills.  It's rare that I don't have a little bit of extra money stuffed away in case of emergency. 

Growing Up Mormon - Inactive Families

One Halloween my whole Mormon world was turned upside down. 

When I was fourteen, we went on a young adult scavenger hunt for a church Halloween activity.  The object was to go to member's houses and obtain items to complete a list of requirements, bring all those items back to the church, and assemble the perfect scarecrow.  Items included an old flannel shirt, straw for stuffing, a hat, boots, etc.  We were given the list and a ward directory.  Each team had an adult leader to drive them around and we were off.

The car, a blue Toyota Celica, squealed to a stop and three teenagers jumped out, ran to a familiar door, rang the bell and blurted out the object and showed the list to whomever opened the door.  For a few houses we were successful, but then we started to find that the other teams had already beaten us to houses.  We were all covering the same ground. 

Our adult leader, Terry, came up with a new idea.  “Let's go to some inactive families,” he said. 

This suggestion scared me.  Inactive families had been influenced by Satan.  They'd fallen away from the true gospel and were separated from the rest of us by something worse than true ignorance.  These lost souls were willfully rejecting the teachings of the Lord and the Gospel of his one true church.  They'd had the gift and turned their back on it.  My father said that there was a cursed place for them in the afterlife where God would turn his back to them.

Without the church they couldn't have the blessings of health, prosperity, peace and happiness.  Without the gospel they couldn't have love in their hearts.  Their families would be in disarray, they'd be drug addicts, alcoholics, or worse. They'd always be punished financially because they didn't pay ten percent in tithing.  They'd be anxious to drag all true believing Mormons down with them.  I knew about fellowshipping the inactive because we'd been told that it was important by the Prophet and the general authorities, but I'd never come near any inactives.  My father never had them over, never introduced me to any, and even when he went with his Home Teaching Partner to visit an inactive member, he'd come home and desperately pray with the family, pleading God to not let us fall away from the path of righteousness. 

Growing Up Mormon - Tammy part 2

“I'm pregnant and I haven't told my Mom yet.”

“How?” I asked stupidly.

She must have understood the gist of my question, not the stupidity of my disbelief.  “This guy from school, my boyfriend."  Her emerald eyes glistened with moisture and through sobs she said, "He's not interested in being a dad though.  He doesn't care."

“Do you love him,” I asked.  At that time in my life I bought into all the stereotypes of love, sex, pregnancy.

“No.  We were just messing around."

"Messing around?  I didn't think," I began.

"That I was that kind of girl." she finished.  "What kind?  The kind who likes to go on dates and make out?  Or the kind that thinks sex is fun.” 

Fun?  The girl of my dreams, the devout Mormon girl who was so beautiful that no one deserved to touch her was just out having sex for fun?  How could this possibly happen? Unprepared, that's the word to describe how I felt right then. 

“What can I do?” I asked.

“Nothing.  I haven't told anyone besides Jim.  That's his name.  But he doesn't even believe it's his.  You won't tell anyone, will you? Please.”

“I won't tell anyone,” I said. 

“I knew it was wrong, I suppose.  Do you know what I mean?” she asked.

“Do I know what?”

“What it's like.  You're not a virgin, Rick,” she said accusingly.

“No, I'm not.  Do you mean that I know what sex is like?  Yes, I know.  It's fun.”

“And exciting,” she said.  “How many times have you?”

Growing Up Mormon - Tammy part 1

Having been all over the world, I shouldn't have been as naive as I was.  But when it came to Mormons, especially Mormon girls, I was. 

In Southeastern Idaho it seems as if people are all related to each other somehow.  I'm directly related to seventy-two cousins out there.  Sometimes I Google names just to see where people are.  Unsurprisingly they're all still in the area.

This story is about a family, related to my own by second or third cousin ties to my father.  They lived out in the Snake River Valley on a farm with cows, pigs, sheep, and some crops.  The man, Brother  Thompson, worked the farm part-time. He also had a full-time job at a machinery company in town.  His wife was a full-time homemaker and sold eggs, milk, chickens, pork and beef right from a little store on the property.  They had eight children, seven girls and one boy. 

Eight children.  Seven of them girls. The oldest, Tammy, was a year younger than I was, although she was two years behind me in grades due to the fluke of where our two birthdays fell. (I was young for my grade – although not as young as Alan who started school in Japan a full year early)  She was beautiful, more than beautiful.  She was perfect.  Even today, twenty-four years later, I think of sixteen-year old Tammy when the word beauty comes to my mind.  She had waist length straight blonde hair so fine it reflected moonlight.  Her eyes were a piercing green, her cheekbones were defiantly high, her face was fired porcelain like you'd find among a collector's greatest treasures.  She was athletic. Her body, lithe and graceful was perfect for her chosen sports, volleyball and track. 

Growing Up Mormon - Black Cat Fever, the Adult Episode

The flight line started to pulse before my eyes.  It wasn't the concrete, it was my vision dropping in and out of focus in time with my heartbeat.  I put one hand on the fuselage of the F-16 Fighter to steady myself.  Slowly my vision narrowed until I focused on the single yellow line illuminated by an overpowered halogen bulb.  Nearby the  generator that powered that spotlight roared, pouring nauseating exhaust into the steamy summer night.  The line, painted to guide fighter pilots to the taxiway, started to rotate picking up speed until all of Korea spun.  I sat down on my toolbox as it was the only way to secure my pivot spot on that Merry Go Round without falling into its centrifugal clutches.  I couldn't catch my breath, every exhale laced with a dry hinge wheeze. I was going to pass out or puke and neither inevitability thrilled me.

“Sarge, you don't look well,” Captain Hendricks said.  He was waiting for me to finish fixing his plane.  We both had night missions to fly.  His included a simulated bombing run over North Korean targets, and mine was to be a launch and drop, where we launched the planes, then deployed to a Southern location, dropped in and set-up a complete temporary base in less than an hour.  My mission ended with a radio call.

“Echo One Five, this is Captain Hendricks in hanger ten.  My crew chief needs medical attention.” I heard the crackle of static as he released the transmit button.

“Roger that, sir.”  Master Sergeant Tibedau, pronounced Tee-bi-dow, pulled up in the expediter truck. Two mechanics jumped out and took over as I stumbled into the truck with Captain Hendricks's help. I grabbed the left bench and held on like a seasick sailor hugs his bunk.

I concentrated on not vomiting through left hand turns, and right hand turns and even sudden stops.  I concentrated on not vomiting through radio chatter categorizing me as wounded for purposes of this exercise.  I concentrated on not vomiting until the back doors flew open and the medic reached for me. Then I vomited all over him.

Growing Up Mormon - Black Cat Fever

When I was growing up we had a cat.  I think it's true name was Blackie.  It was black.  It was also large for a cat, around fifteen pounds, but slim and it's mood tempered by the Siamese in its mix so it was independent and mean.  It tolerated the family well enough and it loved my mother, but outside it was a fighter.  That cat got into more fights, yet never came out on the losing side.  It would prowl all night, returning at five in the morning for food when my father dressed for work. 

Sometimes my father was away on Temporary Duty (TDY) and the cat would slide into my room at five in the morning.  He'd jump up on the rickety dresser, next to my Bugs Bunny alarm clock and howl.  He wasn't a patient animal and he wanted to be fed, so when the howling didn't work he'd step onto my blanket and search for my head which was usually buried in the covers.  He'd scratch the covers away until my ear was exposed, then that damned cat would bite my earlobe, hard, like he was giving me a piercing. Then he'd jump aside and howl some more. 

“That's so cute,” my mother would say about it.  “You can just feed him and go back to bed when that happens.”

I'd trudge to the kitchen where the cat (I said his name was Blackie, but we never called him that.  We called him Kitty Kitty, or Cat) had already opened the cupboard where his food was kept, opened the box, and pulled out an individually sealed envelope.  He knew what he wanted, when he wanted it, and who was going to give it to him.

Growing Up Mormon - Delivering Newsletters Part Two

Delivering Newsletters Part One - Here.

Even as an eleven-year-old, I was a creature of routine and efficiency.  I'd ride my blue, plastic skateboard along the main sidewalk kicking for speed until I reached the next duplex.  I'd jump from the skateboard, sprint across the lawn, slip a newsletter into a screen door, onto the next door, and back to the sidewalk where the skateboard would be slowing to a stop. I'd jump onto it and head to the next duplex.  The houses were long, low single story structures with front doors on both sides.  Matching single car garages were next to each unit with only a narrow tunnel-like sidewalk separating them from the house.   

I let my mind wander.  I had the routine down and the houses were identical so I didn't have to think about the landscaping, flat; sidewalk obstructions, banned by base rules; or even the doors, since they were all identical. 

I was a skinny blond boy in a loose t-shirt and Levi jeans that were tight everywhere except my ass.  I practically flew through those neighborhoods on that cheap skateboard and equally cheap Converse High-Tops.

I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I was just harboring anger for having to hand out thousands of newsletters for twenty-five bucks.  I might have been figuring out how much I was making an hour and wishing for the financial freedom of an Indonesian sweat shop instead.  Perhaps I was concentrating on my technique for jumping back onto the moving skateboard.  Every landing I wanted to perfect, to transfer my momentum into forward propulsion for the board.  Jump, sprint, deliver, deliver, sprint, and Jump.  I had a digital Timex that my Mother had gotten me for my birthday.  It had a stopwatch.  I must have been timing myself.  I'd cut tenths of seconds off my time and think about how to improve.  If the skateboard went to the right or left, I'd concentrate on jumping off cleanly.  Sometimes I'd stop and jump up and down on the edge to force the board back into straight alignment, or I'd twist the trucks to loosen them.  Jump, sprint, deliver, deliver, sprint .  .  . I don't know if I saw something or heard something first.  It was brown and there was a grunt, or maybe it was a snort.

Growing Up Mormon - Delivering Newsletters

My father always came up with ideas to supplement his income.  He did this because we never had enough money.  The problem with his schemes was that he never had time to follow these ideas through.  He spent all his spare time at church or performing duties for church.  He used more gas and paid more for automobile wear and tear for church than for anything else.  He also paid ten percent of everything he made, everything my mother made, and even everything I made to the church.  That was the gross, before taxes.  As a result, he was always short on money and was always thinking about how to make ends meet.

There was Amway, of course.  We had several starter kits in the food storage room.  We moved them from house to house, but really the only thing Amway ever did for us was provide a way to buy overpriced soap and laundry detergent. 

Several times he took part-time jobs repairing televisions and other electronics.  His job in the military trained him for such work.  Unfortunately that same job ordered him to go anywhere at a moment's notice and more often than not, his part-time employers needed someone who wasn't going to be scheduled to work yet find out that he was going to be in Australia an hour before he was supposed to show up.  Combine that with his unwillingness to ever work on Sundays, Mondays, and any Saturday that the LDS General Authorities wanted to drone, brought to us by the large screen at the nearest Stake Meeting House and you get sporadic part-time work but more likely a 'we no longer need your services' note.

 

Growing Up Mormon - Reading About Tesseracts

Madeline L'Engle died last weekend. That makes me tremendously sad.  See, Ms. L'Engle was instrumental in my education, and from my own freedom from Mormonism.  It was Ms. L'Engle's book, A Wrinkle in Time, that was my first act of defiance from my father.

We were on an Air Force base in Texas. Dyess, I believe.  I was hungry to read anything I could, but it was my eighth year and I'd just been baptized.  Everything for my dad was about the Mormon Church and nothing was more important than that. I'd already read, from front to back, the 28 volume Encyclopedia Americana.  Some salesman had convinced my parents that children couldn't get through school without the encyclopedias or the monthly payments or even the yearly updates that came with a healthy bill. But at age eight I was glad to have them because they weren't scripture and they weren't church magazines.  Other than assigned books from school I was prohibited from reading anything else for fear that it might weaken my spirit. 

I want to be clear with you, not all Mormon parents act this way.  Most of my friend's parents allowed their kids to read novels and engage in discussions that weren't church related.  Some of my friends were even allowed to watch television on Sunday and even more were allowed to watch television during the week without having to have all the shows approved by their father.   My dad took this religion thing to the extreme and I think it's because he sees the world in a black and white view.  It's all or nothing with him, and Mormonism was an “all.”  There was no other option. 

So there I was, eight years old, and desperate to read something new because I'd already read the scriptures twice – all of them, the Book of Mormon, the Bible, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants.  Frankly they didn't interest me except as tools to reference to point out flaws in Sacrament Meeting talks.  In the Mormon Church, there isn't a sermon, but instead members of the ward are asked to give “talks” and so every week three different speakers would essentially prepare mini-sermons to teach the members something about the gospel.  The idea behind it is that you learn more by teaching than you would as a passive listener.  Everyone got their chance, even me, even at age eight.  Most of the time, I'd sit in the pew bored to tears, looking through my well-worn scriptures trying to find something interesting while speakers rambled on and on. 

Growing Up Mormon - Bad Teeth (and a Mormon Primer)

Before I write about my bad teeth, I have a treat for you.  I talk a lot about Growing Up Mormon, but I haven't really given an overview of what the church actually believes.  This  cartoon is a pretty good rendition of the beliefs I was taught as a child.  There are a couple of inaccurate parts - like Joseph Smith being more important than Jesus (he only implied it, he didn't say it), but for the most part it's spot-on.  Enjoy this and feel free to ask questions.

Mormonism is a very chauvinistic religion.  Men get the priesthood, get to become Gods in the afterlife, get to have dominion of their wives (all of them), and get to decide which wives join them in heaven.  Women get to bear children and be happy homemakers.  There is a heavy-handed disdain for women who work outside the home.  This is important to my story, by the way.

I've hated my teeth since I was a boy.  Instead of attention-straight and lined up, my teeth are the bums and misfits lounging at the bus station.  Because I had a tremendously high fever as an infant I have these calcium spots on my teeth - white pools of hope in an otherwise dingy mouth.  Every time I went to the dentist there were more x-rays, more drilling and filling, and a lecture about dental hygiene.  I brushed and flossed and scrubbed, thinking there'd be some white appearing eventually.

My sister, on the other hand had nice white teeth which were a little crooked. 

Growing Up Mormon - A Cowboy's Fan

It's the end of August and football season starts this week.  Tonight I'm going to watch the Dallas Cowboys play against the Minnesota Vikings in the Minneapolis Metrodome with my friend, Mark.  He managed to obtain an available seat from among the block of season tickets he and his friends get every year.  It's great for me because the Cowboys have always been my team, but it's been years since I was able to see them live. 

Growing up on and around military installations I never had a home team to root for.  My grandparents lived in Idaho and North Dakota – no home teams there.  But I loved watching football because I loved playing football.  Unfortunately I wasn't any good at the sport, basketball and track were more to my talents.  I still loved football and I didn't have a team to root for . . . until . . .

We were on Guam – Anderson Air Base, and I was in elementary school, third or fourth grade.  We went to church all the time, at a branch building that had just been built right outside the base fence.  I wasn't allowed to watch any television except shows my father specifically approved.  I wasn't allowed to read any books that weren't assigned in school or obtained through the church.  I didn't really have any free time because as I said, I was always in school or church – we were undergoing a really heavy immersion of Mormon at that time.  The only exception to this (lack of) entertainment schedule was the USO sponsored shows.

The USO puts on all kinds of entertainment for military members and for their families all over the world – not just in war zones.  The shows were filled with music and comedy, some of the performers were well-known, but most of them were B-list talent – musicians, jugglers, comedians, magicians, etc.  I liked the shows because they were well done and because they had nothing to do with religion. 

Growing Up Mormon - Sunday School Retard - Part Two

For the entire story, click the Bankrobber topic at the end of this post, in the sidebar to your right, or just click here.

For several weeks everything went fine. Robert would come to Sacrament Meeting with his family and then leave to go home and issue traffic tickets to passing pedestrians and yell, “Breaker, Breaker” to speeding cars.

That didn't last because Robert's mother felt that he needed as much exposure to his “friends” and to the spirit of the Lord as he could get.  That meant he was to come back into our classroom.  The Bishop was convinced and Brother Stewart was convinced and so he returned.  I remember telling my father that I wasn't comfortable with Robert returning to our class, especially with a teacher who couldn't stop him.  My father told me that the Bishop's decision was made with careful prayer and that we'd be protected in the House of the Lord.  Blaine hadn't been protected. My father said that was because that he was being irreverent and disrespectful when he got hurt.  The message:  God allows retarded giants to beat up adolescent boys in church.

We entered Sunday School quickly, rushing to take seats away from Robert.  If you ask a psychologist, that might not have been the proper behavior but we were kids, what do you expect?  I didn't talk to him because I wasn't sure what would set him off.  Some of the others, like John, Terry, and Lisa said hi and he answered, “Breaker One-Nine” to each of them.

Growing Up Mormon - Sunday School Retard - Part One

For the entire story, click the Bankrobber topic at the end of this post, in the sidebar to your right, or just click here.

Robert was retarded.  I know I'm supposed to say he was mentally challenged or that he was special, but I'm not very P.C. and the fact of the matter was that he was retarded.  He was mentally and emotionally developed to the level of a three or four year old with a speech impediment, yet this underdeveloped brain was trapped in the body of an 18 year old man. I say man because he was big, over six feet tall, strong like an athlete: rock hard, no body fat. 

Traffic was his enemy.  During the week he'd stand on the sidewalk and yell at passing cars, pretending to talk into a microphone at his shoulder.  “Breaker One-Nine,” he'd say over and over again.  It was all he could remember from television.  When someone walked by he'd cite them for offenses imagined by pretending to write on a ticket book and then slamming his hand into their shoulder as if to pin it on them.  He'd exclaim, “Ticket,” and send you on your way.

On Sundays he was in church.  Sacrament meetings with his Mother and Father, Brother and Sister Green, but Sunday School with us in the 15 to 16 year-old class.  It was a class of eight kids, four boys and four girls. 

We didn't want him there.  To be a teenager was to be cruel, but not wanting Robert to be in our class wasn't a matter of cruelty, it was fear.  We were afraid of a man-sized boy who had no capacity to control his temper.  We were afraid of his fists and his outbursts. 

Growing Up Mormon - Bishops With Money

Everyone in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has a job; a position; a calling.  Some callings are more prestigious than others.  One of the most prestigious callings is Bishop who is the leader of a congregation, called a Ward.  Another is Stake President: the leader of several congregations which comprise a Stake.  Other callings are doled out seemingly as punishment:  Primary Teacher, Sunday School Teacher, Clerk, etc. 

Throughout my childhood my father wanted to be called to an important position like Bishop or Stake President, but he never was.  When a Bishop was due to leave, either through job transfer or because his time seemed to be up (Bishops usually serve for five years) my father would begin praying and being especially vigilant about his church duties and just as strict on his family.  The announcement would be made during the main Sunday service, Sacrament Meeting, and my father would never have even been in for an interview. 

“Why didn't you get called to be Bishop,” I once asked him.

Growing Up Mormon - The Fun Things I Used to Do in Church

When you spend as much time in churches as I did growing up you're bound to find some fun things to do in spite of the drudgery of being there.  Here are some random ones I remember with a bit of explanation where necessary:

1. One year we met for Sunday School in the Kitchen because all the classrooms were taken. During that time we perfected the art of slapping a spoon handle over the edge of a table and shooting a frozen pea at a target dot on the wall. (we made two different Sunday School teachers cry over that little trick)

2. On one Air Base we had to meet at the base chapel in the late afternoon after the Baptists were finished, but before Catholic Mass.  Mormons don't drink coffee so we kids took it upon ourselves to discourage the Catholics from partaking as well.  We used to mix random things – pepper, dirt, crushed cat food – into the Folgers and then hide in the back stairwell during their social time in the basement just to see if they exhibits strange, sour looks on their faces while drinking their coffee.

3. I learned about butter packets during Wednesday night Mutual meetings.  Mutual was the co-ed fellowship classes for teenage members.  If you unwrap a butter packet into the center of a kitchen towel and then snap the ends of the towel apart under a light fixture, the cold butter will fly up into the light and stick.  Then as the evening wears on, the butter will melt and drip on whomever is seated below that light.

Growing Up Mormon - Island Park Girl

I'm on vacation.  It's a decent little resort with a freaky beach – sand and shallow out as far as you can walk, until the clear water turns into a mass of seaweed and these frankenleeches the length of small snakes slither through the water looking for prey.  We brought a canoe, some games, and enough food for an army.  I've been sleeping in till near noon and then taking afternoon naps.  The boys have been exploding firecrackers all day and the sheriff came out to investigate.  When he came to talk to us, sitting around our picnic table I just looked at him confusedly, pointed and said, “I think they were down by the beach over there. You say firecrackers are illegal?  It seems someone doesn't know.”

When I was a kid we never had vacations like this, no obligations and no pressure.  When I was a kid vacations were a time of dread.

When I was fourteen we went to Island Park, Idaho with my father's all-Mormon family.  It was a really big deal because it was the first family trip to Island Park since Grandfather died.  He was the only voice of sanity in a family deserving a double segment on the Springer show.  Grandpa drank Budweiser, smoked Marlboros, and thought the Mormon chapel was a great place for the women and children to go hang out while he worked in the garage.  He was the chief of police of Blackfoot and I remember one trip in his Chevy pickup to Salt Lake City where he got turned around on the one-way streets around Temple Square and was pulled over by a squad car.  He flashed a confident smile at the junior officer, showed his badge and said, “but officer, I was only going one way.”  That bit of cheesy humor stuck with me to this day.   Sadly, I'm the only one who's ever laughed at it.

Growing Up Mormon: Alma the Lamanite Part Eight

For the entire story, click the Alma the Lamanite topic at the end of this post, in the sidebar to your right, or just click here.

“Hi, Rick.  It's me, Alma,” the voice at the other end of the phone said.  I hadn't heard from him in more than three years, since he ran away that night and here it was, twenty years ago today, July 19th, 1987.  “Happy Birthday,” he said.

“Holy Christ, Alma.  How in the hell did you remember my birthday of all things?” I asked.

“You were my best friend in Blackfoot, Rick.  Maybe ever,” he said.

After he'd left, things had gone into meltdown in Blackfoot.  The Bishop called me into his office where Brother and Sister Bischoff were waiting.  They grilled me for over an hour about where Alma had run off to.  I had no information for them.  They assured me that if I heard from him that they could get him help.  “I heard you got him help before,” I said.  That ended the meeting and I left the three of them to discuss methodologies.

My dad said that it was for the best, some souls are beyond saving.  Of course he'd heard the rumor that Alma was gay, but his worry about my own sexuality transcended logic.  I'm sure he figured that I'd been seduced into the life of homosexuality by that “degenerate.”  My father would never come out and just ask the questions, however. Instead he tried to turn everything into an uncomfortable joke. “You're not wearing pants that tight, are you?  That's what the fruits in California wear.”  “I thought Lisa looked really pretty in church today but you didn't even look at her.  I bet you would've if that dress had been on Larry.”  “I'd ask you to help Brother Simmons move, but with your limp wrists and lisp you probably aren't strong enough.”

Conversely, Kevin wouldn't even speak to me.  He was afraid that I'd ruin his carefully crafted fictional life.  It became unbearable on the team. He'd never pass the ball back to me.  Finally I got angry enough during the regional finals that instead of a nice alley-oop assist he expected; I grabbed the ball in one hand and baseball-pitched it straight at his head.  Damn near knocked him out.  “Sorry, I thought you could handle a hard pass,” I said in apology.  We lost the game and that ended the season.  I was glad.

I never acknowledged anyone's accusations, or questions, about Alma's sexual orientation.  I'd made a promise and I didn't feel a need to talk about it.

The Ice Cream Cake

When I was a kid Dairy Queen came out with the most fantastic innovation I could imagine.  The Ice Cream Cake. I knew about it because my friend, Billy Frank, got one for his birthday.  I wanted one also. 

As far regular cakes went, I just liked things plain.  White cakes with a little frosting and that's it.  I don't like nuts or fruit or multiple layers or wild decorations.  Truth is, I prefer the ice cream over the cake.

Which leads me to the three problems with my birthday.

The first problem with my birthday is that it falls right in the middle of the summer.  In my family that meant that we were on the road for summer vacation.  Oh, but you were on vacation you might say to me . . . and that's fun even without the cake.  You who would have the audacity to say that simply don't understand Mormon family vacations.  At least you don't understand MWOM (Mormons Without Money) vacations.  See, all of our vacations involved driving from one relative's house to another, staying a night or two, helping with chores and tasks, and if we were lucky getting to attend church at their ward meeting house.  Oh joy, oh joy, oh joy. 

"It would be rude to shove your birthday cake in your Aunt Maggie's freezer," my mom would say.  She was the coaxing gentle one.  My father would just say, "No" and "Tough luck."

The second problem with my birthday was my sister.

Growing Up Mormon: Alma the Lamanite Part Seven

For the entire story, click the Alma the Lamanite topic at the end of this post, in the sidebar to your right, or just click here.

“Your faggot friend tried to make the moves on me, Rick,” Kevin yelled across the parking lot.  He was standing next to his corvette surrounded by the other monied Mormon kids.  Walking over to them made me feel as if I were visiting another world.  These were the children of wealthy professionals and they had their own section of the parking lot, a showroom for new cars.  I imagined them making fun of the teachers and other school employees pulling up in vehicles with dents and faded paint.  I know they made fun of kids like me, who made monthly payments for beat-up cast-offs. 

I tried to look surprised.  Emily was leaning on Kevin's chest looking contented.  Not the emotion I'd have expected from a girl who caught her righteous boyfriend fondling another boy's balls just the night before.  He was telling the story, “So he told me he wanted to show me some cool Indian stuff up on Riverside Road and we drove up there. But when I parked he took of his shirt and started making moves on me.  He tore my shirt off and I think he was going to try and rape me.  Can you believe that Alma's a faggot?”

I asked, “He tore your shirt off?”

“Yeah, he was on me before I'd even finished parking.  Good thing Emily and her friends showed up and scared him off.  Even if he is a fag, I'd have hated to have to hurt him.”

“Yeah, good thing,” I said.  I walked away without a confrontation.  I walked away keeping what I knew to myself.  I walked away like Judas, betraying my friend before Pontius Pilot.  I was sick.  This was going to get really ugly I knew.  It was going to go around school and no one would doubt Kevin's story.  Not even Emily doubted it and the story he was telling contradicted her own eye witness account. He was too good looking to lie.  He was too righteous to lie.  He was too Mormon to lie.

Growing Up Mormon: Alma the Lamanite Part Six

For the entire story, click the Alma the Lamanite topic at the end of this post, in the sidebar to your right, or just click here.

There were several reasons Alma wasn't on the High School basketball team. First of all he wasn't a team player, he was a ball hog.  Secondly, he refused to follow the strict workout regimen demanded by Coach Watkins. And thirdly, he couldn't be trusted to show up to the practices and the games.

He was the best player I've ever seen on the court.  However, each of those reasons came directly from Coach Watkins who'd been grooming his teams since they were in Middle School.  Despite the fact that over twenty years coaching the Blackfoot High School team, he'd amassed a total win-loss record slightly under .500, he was the team's coach and therefore the authority in all things basketball.  I didn't like his reasons because I liked to win and I knew that Alma was a superstar.  Oddly enough, when looking along the wall of team photos going back to the mid-sixties there wasn't a brown face to be found on any of the teams.  That was startling considering the large percentage of the student body from the Indian Reservation.

I made the team because I could play.  I also made the team because my family name carried a lot of weight in Blackfoot, in both Mormon circles where the extended family was so large as to have tendrils in just about every ward in town and in civic circles where my uncle was the City Manager and my grandfather had been chief of police when he'd died a few years earlier.  I was in.

Growing Up Mormon: Alma the Lamanite Part Five

For the entire story, click the Alma the Lamanite topic at the end of this post, in the sidebar to your right, or just click here.

Warning: This episode contains very disturbing content.  Please don't read it if the ugliness of humanity is too much to bear.

What do you do when you're confronted with your prejudices?  Are our biases so ingrained that we'll tear apart people and friendships? 

With that one phrase, that open admission, Alma sank right into an ugly part of me, a deep visceral fear.  I was homophobic.  Maybe I still am.  My thoughts were a jumble of memories and questions.  The body to body contact on the basketball court, shirtless sweating, manly; did he want to have sex with me? Our drives in my car talking about everything from music to movies; was he coming onto me? Lying in my bedroom reading comic books and laughing over jokes made at one or another character's expense; did he think I was gay also?

Oh it might sound dumb today, but those were all fears and phobias then. I didn't know how someone became gay.  I just knew it was evil.  It was against God.  But I also knew that Alma was my friend and we were both outsiders in a Mormon community, uncomfortable and similar. I didn't want to believe that he'd do something, or wanted to do something that would harm me or subvert me.  I was confused.  I was scared.  I was also sworn to secrecy and until I wrote it about on this blog I'd kept that secret, because he asked me to.

It did change things between us.  Then, it hurt him that things were changed and now it hurts me.  Then, it was my ignorance and fear and now it's my shame.  For several weeks I avoided being alone with Alma.  For several months I didn't have him over to my house.  He didn't act like it bothered him and I didn't act like it was a conscious change.  We coasted.  But I liked him and finally I got up enough courage to talk to him about it.

Growing Up Mormon: Alma the Lamanite Part Four

For the entire story, click the Alma the Lamanite topic at the end of this post, in the sidebar to your right, or just click here.

Alma looked up from the bean bag chair where he'd been sitting for an hour reading comic books and asked, “Why aren't there any Indian superheroes?”

The loophole in my father's ban on non-Mormon books was comic books .  Since he'd enjoyed comics as a kid and since there was never any message in comics that wasn't altruistic, righteous and pro-American, he allowed me comics as a reading past-time.  It was a good thing he didn't actually look at my comic collection to see how the stories had become more complex, the characters deeper and flawed, and the subject matter much more adult than in the Silver Age of Superman and Batman.  My comic book collection was quite impressive at the time.  I kept them in a foot locker and there were a couple thousand, all paid for out of money earned through various jobs.

Alma and I had been spending an entire rainy afternoon reading the comics and listening to music in my room. We hadn't prayed, sang any hymns, or studied anything more religious than how Daredevil could possibly defeat Bullseye.

“I don't know.  Maybe they can't sell enough comics to Indians to make it worth their effort,” I said. “What kind of Superhero would an Indian be?”

“I think he'd be able to teleport through nature.  He'd touch a tree and be able to appear next to any other tree anywhere.  Or he'd jump into a stream and leap out of a river hundreds of miles away.”

“Sounds cool.  What would he look like?” I asked.

“Like me,” Alma said.

Growing Up Mormon: Alma the Lamanite Part Three

For the entire story, click the Alma the Lamanite topic at the end of this post, in the sidebar to your right, or just click here.

Three weeks went by and Alma stopped coming to church, both on Sundays and Wednesday nights.  We'd talked once and I told him that I'd gotten in trouble for hanging out with him and playing ball on the rez.  I saw him at school but we didn't have any classes together so there wasn't any time for us to really hang out.  On the other hand some of the other kids were far friendlier to me now.  Veronica and her cousin stopped by at lunch every day to say a few words to me and Lester moved across the room in chemistry and we asked for the change so we could be lab partners, thereby guaranteeing us both top spots on the grade curve. 

Some of the white kids noticed.  I heard “Indian Lover” tossed in my direction as well as whispers about me ruining my reputation and not wanting any “good” or white friends.  I was a teenager and these things really did hurt.  I was torn because no one had shown me any particular fondness, being the new kid, and since Alan (Success Warrior) had moved away there wasn't anyone who really wanted to hang out with me.  Lester and Veronica and their friends were really nice to me and didn't care about appearances and cliques.  They were far nicer than all the Mormon kids.  It wasn't until I was much older that I really stopped caring what people thought of me, but as a teenager that's a hard hurdle to leap.

Then my father got called into see the Bishop after church one Sunday.  Because I was on restriction (grounded), I had to go to church and return from church with him, meaning I had to wait while he had his meeting. 

Growing Up Mormon: Alma the Lamanite Part Two

For the entire story, click the Alma the Lamanite topic at the end of this post, in the sidebar to your right, or just click here.

Alma was both athletic and quiet.  Kids interpreted that as confident and intimidating, but because he was so quiet he didn't have any close friends and the others either stayed away from him because he was an Indian, because he was trouble, or because his silence made them think he didn't like them anyway.  He talked to me, though.  At first just a bit while we shot baskets, but later on he started opening up.

Alma spent a lot of time speculating about his biological family and I suspect that was a result of the amount of time his parents spent telling him how horrible they must have been.  We talked about the Navajo, which was the tribe that he'd been adopted from.  Alma craved knowledge about them and had scoured the libraries for information, but all that he could find was written by white people, second or third hand.  We'd play ball and while we did we'd theorize about the kinds of games he'd play if he'd been born two or three centuries earlier.  We'd talk about what it would've been like to learn hunting and tracking as a true warrior. Truth was that most of our information came from stereotypes from Hollywood but it was fun because we both enjoyed the game.  “If I came into your hunting lands, would you have killed me, Alma, for being a cruel white invader?” I'd ask.

“Damn right I would, Paleface,” he'd answer.

“Alma, do you think that the Navajo were really Lamanites like it says in the Book of Mormon?” I asked him once. 

“Sure, why not?”

“Well, if that's true, then they were cursed to be brown.  Do you think your skin color is a curse and that God will change it to white someday?”

He shot several free throws while thinking about that.  I got used to him taking his time to answer questions.  He wasn't one to speak to fill silence or to answer thoughtlessly. 

“Yes.  I do believe that,” he answered.

Growing Up Mormon: Alma the Lamanite, Part One

For the entire story, click the Alma the Lamanite topic at the end of this post, in the sidebar to your right, or just click here.

Living in Idaho, I considered myself an outsider.  For one thing I moved there in high school while most of the kids in town had been there since birth.  For another I'd been on several continents and most of those kids hadn't even left the Mormon Valley which stretches from Southeastern Idaho to Southern Utah.  But I wasn't the outsider I considered myself to be.

During my junior year I became friends with Alma Bischoff, a boy who showed me everything I'd ever learn about being an outsider.  Alma was the fourth and youngest child of an elderly couple in our church ward.  He was also the only one of the four to have been adopted, and obviously so, for you see Alma was Native American and his family was decidedly Caucasian.  It was from my association with Alma that my interest in American Indians and their heritage first began.   

At church everyone knew him, but no one was close to him.  He was dark and sinewy. In his legs and arms his muscles were defined in long strokes like those of a paintbrush, creating the illusion of rapid motion even when he was standing still.  His face was cut at angles that contrasted the rest of us with our softer, rounder, whiter features.  He looked through people with an intensity that would convince you he could.  For those reasons he was watched intensely by the girls as if he were the forbidden fruit.