A Semi-humorous glance at my life into college

7/03

My Life in a Nutshell

I was born, once. Fortunately it was only once—it would be truly horrifying to think there were two of me wandering the streets, pen and tablet in hand, a million ideas milling in the fevered brain. My birthplace was Bozeman, MT. We lived in a place called Bear Canyon for six years. Nice place—for big blizzards. Once I’d had enough of those I insisted my family move to Virginia. We crossed the country and saw many sights, very few of which I remember now. In Virginia, we lived in an isolated spot called Broad Run for two years. One winter we had snow that drifted up to our second-story windows. No wonder white isn’t among my favorite colors. Actually, as a child I remember enjoying it. How times change.

You might say I’ve been drawing ever since I was knee-high to a short Shetland. I was always too busy oozing monsters, bulbous-nosed faces and “cowboys & Indians” to join one of those gangs you hear so much about. My loss, I guess. In 1970, we headed back west and ended up in a backwater place called Shelley—Potatoland, USA. By the time I was twenty-two I would have a passing acquaintance with more than a few million tubers. Some of my more exciting friends.

I spent 14 years in Shelley. More snow. Ice. Freezing winds. Then came summer, with 90-100 degree temperatures and hot, dusty winds. Who ever said Idaho was no fun? It was here that my brother Kirby and I whiled away the hours creating endless variations on a theme with 11-inch-high plastic western figures, one of whom was the immortal Johnny West. Those were the days. If people had been willing to pay us to “play West” for the rest of our lives, we might be doing it still.

At last I graduated from high school. I had coasted through my classes, almost never having to expend any effort. Except in math situations, that is. That’s one language I can’t seem to learn to speak fluently, even after applying myself. (Ironically, I now work in a job where numbers reign supreme . . .) Once I was out of high school, everything became a lot harder. Job-hunting was—if you’ll pardon the American
French—hell. Eventually I was hired at R.T. French’s Potato Wonderland. It was here that I was hypnotized by mile after flowing mile of loveable Russets. Somehow I found the motive to escape that bliss, though, and put in my papers for an LDS mission (see “A Word on Mormons”). My brother Kirby put his in at the same time; I ended up being sent to Puerto Rico, he to France. Puerto Rico was just a bit different from anything I’d experienced. No snow, for instance—not one ever-loving flake. When I wasn’t bathed in my own perspiration I was bathed by sudden rainstorms called aguaceros. The mission itself was a somewhat grueling experience but had its moments. I or my companions baptized around thirty people, including one man who had liquor on his breath at the time. Most are inactive now. My first and favorite was Ana Maria Torres, who would prove to be one of the most precious friendships of my life (my correspondence with her continues to this day—I heard from her early this year).
I returned twice to Puerto Rico in the same year (’89), because of an unusual quirk of circumstance. In the first visit I pursued my doomed relationship with Madeline Toro (a story unto itself; in the second I had the privilege of baptizing Ana Maria Torres’ twin sons, the hyperactive Omar and Alex. Another great moment in my life.

When it came to continuing education, I pulled my usual and took a year’s vacation or so before starting attendance at Idaho State U. There I chose a tentative major in Art, but unlike Van Gogh I valued both my ears. I decided that a foreseeable future of peddling my odd creations on a rural street corner wasn’t such a great idea, so I opted for a major in Spanish instead. It made sense, certainly, as I’d come back from a certain tropical island very fluent in that language. And BYU, in glorious Provo, Utah—the heart of Mormondom—offered 16 automatic credits for the ex-missionary who took one intermediate level Spanish class. So I gathered my courage and made the great move . . .

With a lot of help from family (my mother, my older sister Kandy and her main man Bruce), I trucked all my belongings down to an apartment in Provo in fall of ’90. Thus began college. (ISU really hadn’t ever impressed me as such, though I did experience a couple of good art classes and a high-caliber literature course taught by my uncle, Dante Cantrill.) One of my first BYU courses was Creative Writing, as taught by the highly impressive, eminently humble Bruce Jorgensen, and there I met a young woman who threw me for the proverbial loop—high, fast and hard. Her name was Anna Harbrecht. She combined looks (chestnut-blonde hair with gray eyes and a face that none of today’s Hollywood actresses—exceptions being Sandra Bullock and a few others—could come close to) with grace (she was taking high-level dance classes) and intelligence (she was an avid reader and had no trouble keeping up with my intellectual conversational bent). I thought we were a shoo-in as a couple, but after the second date she simply told me she was too busy with her dancing, her coursework, etc., for a social life. For some years afterward, my will to romance was destroyed. I guess, in retrospect, that I was suffering from the classic broken heart. It set the stage for the darkest years of my life.

Fortunately, during my college years I also connected with a group of fellow writers, which eventually acquired the name Epsilon. Among them were the laughing horse-lover Mary Jo Tansy, the elfin bookworm Marva Ellis, the soft-spoken, fantastically sarcastic future lawyer Duane Ostler, the charmingly sensible and utterly down-to-earth April Peterson . . . for a while they were probably the most important people in my life. Due to distances, I had far more contact with them than with my family.

To be continued . . .