BE HONEST.

Are my blogs too long? Wait a minute, let's be real. Since when did I care what you thought more than myself? LOL.

Truthfully, this is probably about me anyway. I needed something to focus my attention on at this time in my life. Big changes and starting to settle into being a Burley-ite has it's unique aspects for sure. Don't get me wrong, I love it. But, after living the fast paced life of Utah for so many years I get the shakes if I don't have something to do. Things get so quite at times now. Trying to resolve the past year and complications of shutting down a business and all tends to create dominating thoughts I would prefer not having. So, this blog thing has been very productive and helpful. I truly hope in the process I don't bore you all to death. Resurrecting my old memories has been interesting and fun.

So, just as I thought my life might improve and that as I got into high school I might even become somewhat popular due to "maybe" being one of the better basketball players on our team (with only 24 kids in my grade and less than 100 in the entire school it wouldn't have been much of an accomplishment but very realistic). But, setting records that would stand for decades at Happy Camp high was not in the cards! The spotted owl successfully shut down the lumber industry in the late 70's and dad found himself out of work like everyone else in town. So, halfway through 9th grade we moved to Canon City, Colorado. Not long after moving there dad moved to Paul, Idaho to take a job. The family stayed in Colorado until we finished the school year and then we moved to the big city of Paul! Sound very similar to the experience I just put my 15 year old Garyn through!!! Yes kids, I do understand.

In Canon City I have quite a few memories for living there so short a time. There was an abbey across the field from our home. We would walk the ditches and fence lines of the fields picking asparagus that grew wild everywhere. My little brother Roy and I got our first "new" bikes for Christmas that year. They were dirt style bikes instead of bananna seats with sissy bars so we were very excited! They were matalic gold in color. There was a really fun hill near our home where we loved to ride and go off jumps. The state prison was not far from our home there which always kinda freaked me out. Any stranger was a possible escaped convict! We went to the highest bridge in the world if memory serves me correctly, the Royal Gorge Bridge. While there we saw people jumping off the bridge with huge stretchable cords (popular today as bungy-jumping but at the time it was very novel!). That bridge is VERY high above the river below. Dizzying. Every day I ate a packet of chocolate hostess gem donuts and chocolate milk for school lunch. Mmmm. I took woodshop in 9th grade and loved it! I still have the first school project I ever made hanging in my garage "a gun rack". A girl way beyond my maturity level very matter of factly told me that she really liked me and wanted to know if I liked her too because she intended to date me. I was VERY intimidated because she was smart, nice looking and far from the type of girl that acted on teenage crush like emotions. She was quite mature for her age, at least like a Junior in high school or something. That fact alone was what scared me to death! She was so together and smart that I was totally scared of her. So, she quickly came to realize that I wasn't her maturity equal and that I very much was like a 7th grader or something. Early morning seminary was an interesting experience and my first truly organized experience with the church. I enjoyed going but felt quite out of place at first. Well, our short stay in Canon City came to and end so we said goodbye to our nice old neighbors, Harley and Flossy and headed for Idaho. As we pulled into the Burley area it was very late and dark so it looked to me to be a huge city with lights from one end of the valley to the other. Truth be know, I moved from the little city in "California" to the big city in "Idaho" which just doesn't sound right. 24 kids in my grade in HC and 274 in Paul. Quite the change!