Fleeting Memories

My new life started when I showed up at Orem High School at the end of August 1992. We had been on vacation a couple of weeks before that eventful time. I walked into school and went to my classroom, good old D-2. There I found two student teachers. They said that they were to take my class, and the principal wanted to see me in his office. I really didn’t know what was going on, but I went down to his office to see John, the principal. He asked me to come in and sit down. He said that he had heard that I was taking some administrative classes at BYU. I told him that I had been. He said simply, “You have a new job.” I was to be the assistant principal on special assignment. My office was two doors down from his, and I should go and get started. It was a surprise to me, because I hadn’t applied for an administrative position in the district. I just wanted to work for BYU. I didn’t know what he wanted me to do, so I asked him. He indicated that I was going to be over all of the voc...

From the time I was a sophomore in high school until the summer after I graduated, I worked at the Frosty Freeze in Boulder City, Nevada on the highway that went through town. There were other jobs that I had at the same time, but the Frosty Freeze was a fun job to have in the evenings. I usually closed up after eleven at night. The Frosty Freeze is where I first heard of flavored chipped ice as a drink. We would freeze a mixture of concentrated flavored drink. We used a Kool-Aid type powder with a lot of sugar. When it was frozen, we would bring it out of the freezer and begin to chip it up with a tool that had four metal-like spears coming out of a handle. Well, when I say we, I mean me. I was the one who had to chip all of the flavored ice in a five-gallon bucket, to be ready to dip out and served. I can remember getting a blister on the palm of my hand from chipping. I always hoped that no one would like it, and then they wouldn’t sell it any more, but everyone liked it; I ev...

I was the faculty advisor for the yearbook class. That means I was the teacher and responsible for making sure that the book was completed and ready to be passed out during the last week. It was a fun class. We had a great darkroom which was necessary for yearbook production prior to digital photography. We met during the lunch hours. We had three lunches, one after another. That enabled the students to go to lunch and still have someone there during all lunches to help sell the yearbooks. The Yearbook staff was also responsible for making activity cards during the lunch times. One year, as it was getting time to distribute the books, each of the yearbook students were given an excuse slip to miss the whole day to get ready to pass out the books. This was how we were able to get the books to the right tables that were set out with each letter of the alphabet so the students would know where to go to get their books. One of the teachers refused to let one of the yearbook student...

When we first started getting computers at Orem High School, the library got about nine or ten just to be in the library. That was a really great thing. After a few weeks, this announcement ended up on the library door and on the main office door “Whoever is taking the balls of the mice needs to replace them.” The old mouse on the first computers had a ball that rolled around on the mat to make it work. After a good laugh in the principal’s office, it was determined that because I was friendly with her and was the newest administrator, I should go and talk to the librarian. She was a good friend. I explained to her that many people were taking her signs in a way she had not intended and recommended that the signs and announcements to each class be ended.   Another story coming to mind is about the marble machine that my father made. The marbles would run from the top down a zig zag route to the bottom. All the young grandkids really loved it. Many of us who were much older lo...

I didn’t really go far in the Scouting program, but I do remember the Scout law. I often used it in the classroom. At some point during the school year I would give the classes a test with an answer sheet to fill in the blanks a,b,c,d, for the answers. When it was time to start the class, I would tell them to clear their desks and get out a pen or pencil. I would then pass out the test and an answer sheet. I would give them time to finish the test and then I would collect them all. After school I would go down to the workroom and make a copy of each answer sheet. The next day I would pass them back to the students and have them correct their own tests. I would read out the correct answers while they checked their sheets. I would then look at the copies I had made and staple them to the original answer sheets. The next day I would pass both sheets back to the class. I asked them to look over the two answer sheets. I wanted them to see for themselves if any answers had been chang...

This is a story about two fathers that I observed and had the opportunity to meet during the time that I had their daughters in my geography class. At the end of a term I had passed out a slip of paper with each students’ scores on it and allowed them to figure out their grades. Most of the students wanted to figure out what they were going to receive for the term. I had already gone through and figured out all of the grades, but it was a good check for the students to also figure out their own grades. Once in a while they came up with a different grade than I had, so we would then go over them together to make sure the grade was correct or change it to make sure it was correct. There was one particular student that didn’t like the grade she had earned. She had come up with the same grade from her scores that I had, but it wasn’t the grade that she wanted. The grade was an A- not an A. The next day her father came to school early and wanted to see me. This was all fine, I sup...

This all began with a family trip for a particular item at yard sales, or garage sales, which ever may appeal to you individually. While looking around at several stops, I came across a programmable mechanical parrot. You could turn the switch on at the bottom of the stand, and it would record. You could turn the switch around, and it would play back what had been recorded when ever a sound was made near it. You can still buy this bird "Pete the Repeat" on ebay  I took it home and we all played with it for a while. it was a lot of fun. After we had it for some time, I took it over to school, and Vance and I would say things into the microphone and then turn the switch and make a noise and listen to it play back what we had said. We thought it would be fun to record something and put it in John’s office. John was the principal and my boss, but it still sounded like fun so we did it. I said into the microphone “Hi Baldy.” John was not totally bald, but was concerne...

One of my early years of teaching in the 1970s, I had one of the smartest groups of four students that I had had up to that time and actually, pretty much since. I had them all in my class at the same time, and they all knew more about what I was teaching that I did. They never tried to embarrass me, which they easily could have but were great to have in a class together. They may have gotten bored with the whole going to school thing, but they kept a comin’. It was a real pleasure to have them in class. Carl J. Stubbs at Orem High School One of the things I enjoyed the most were their antics. I had them first period. It was a great way to start the day, but as the day went on, they seemed to grow restless and mischievous. On several days before the end of school, the bell would ring early, before it was time for school to be over. There was always about five or ten minutes of class left. After a few times of this happening, one of the office staff would come on and tell the s...

About the second year of teaching around 1970 I had a student that was continually interrupting me when I spoke and students when they were trying to talk. I had finally had quite enough, so I took him out into the hall and was explaining what he was doing and how it was disrupting the class. He kept talking while I was trying to let him know about his unacceptable behavior, Finally I said you don’t have the brains of a jackass, at which point he did slow down a little. We went back to class and finished the hour and a half without too much interruption. The next morning, I got a not from the principal that I was to be in his office during my prep period. I showed up and there was the father of the student in the office waiting for me. The principal was already there and so the inquisition was ready to start along with the rack. The father said that he was very upset that I had told his son that he didn’t have the brains of a jackass, and he demanded an apology. His son was not...

I used to read the Reader’s Digest and there were some different areas that had humor or jokes. Throughout my teaching career there have been some very humorous events that have happened, at least they were to me. They could be called “humor in the halls” or maybe “who in the hall cares.” Two of them happened during school lock downs, one for an actual explosion that went off in the girls’ bathroom and another for a search by the city and state police of the school lockers. The first time was when someone decided it would be a good idea to tape a firework of some kind to the wall in the girls’ bathroom. I don’t know how big it was, but it blew a hole in the wall and scattered broken ceramic from the walls all over the bathroom. Most of the teachers were not aware what was going on, they knew only to clear the building. While doing that I was clearing the hall and student lounge next to my room. A number of football players had decided not to exit the school and were in there toget...

I have often wondered what would happen in a school if the principal was gone? I have been a student, a teacher, and an administrator. They are all important for the smooth running of the school, but I know that if a principal is gone to a conference or something like that, no one knows. If a teacher is out sick or taking a vacation day, a substitute is hired. If the secretary is gone, the whole place goes to hell in a hand basket. That being said, all areas of the school workforce are required for a smooth and peaceful educational day for the students, Oh yes, the students. Over the years I have observed some of the following things that may or may not interest you, but they do me. There are many who think that schools were created so that they might have a job, students are just a necessary nuisance that they must put up with. The truth of the matter is that the students are there to be taught, counseled, fed and always taken care of by all areas of the educational system, from...

Carl James Stubbs 1964 I served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the Vietnam war. It was called a war and people were shooting at each other, but no war was ever declared. It was really a police action, but it sure seemed like a war. Well anyway, because I was on a mission, I received a deferment. When I returned, I was listed as 1A and even though I was a college student, I was to be sent to Los Angles, California to an enlistment center for a physical and mental test. All of those going from southern Nevada were to meet at the bus depot one morning. There were three buses to transport us to California to a large facility for the testing. There were close to ninety of us on three buses. I wasn’t sure that I would even pass, because of my poor eyesight, and the orthostatic hypotension, which means I pass out if I stand at attention. The first night we were all put up in a hotel close to the testing center. I had someone who was supposed to ...

One of the many activities that my parents had me take part in was the Cub Scouts. When you turn seven you were able to join and take part in the activities that were available. The different levels that you could achieve as a Cub started with the Bobcat badge, then the Wolf badge, then Bear and then Lion. Finally, there were a lot of different activities that you need to do at each level to be able to advance to the next rank. The final step was to receive the Arrow of Light that you were able to wear on your shirt as a Boy Scout when you entered the troop at twelve years old. As one of the Cub Scouts I went on many activities that were designed to help us do enough to receive one of the levels. One of the activities that we went to was to a television studio where we were to be on TV. In 1951 most of the programs were broadcast live. You can imagine the lectures and downright threats to life, limb, and worst of all, telling the bishop and our parents. This would have been a dou...

I have been sitting here trying to think of what I should write about my life. I can’t think of anything so maybe my life is over, and I just don’t know it. There are a lot of things that I don’t understand any more, and I’m not sure that I want to. I would ask around, but it is not good for me to go outside with the allergies, and there aren’t any people outside now because of the pandemic. I am going to have my head lasered tomorrow, maybe that will help. My brain reminds me of the old TV set. TV didn’t come on all day and on many channels. It had a test pattern that would come on, and that would be all that was on until a certain time when a program would come on. That is what it is like for me sometimes. I just sit here, and then finally my brain leaves the holding test pattern and turns on. Now back to the story, such as it is.   Albert Owen Stubbs with Mail bag 1948 Colorized by myheritage.com The whole family would go to my grandfather’s home on Sunday evening a...

This story appears in my autobiography that Joy helped me publish last year, but I wanted it also to be on my blog, Fleeting Memories . It really belongs in a series of stories about Scout trips. Originally written about 1980. When I was twelve years old, our ward leaders organized a trip to Mexico for all of the boys in the Aaronic Priesthood who had 90% attendance or better at all their meetings. At the end of the year I had 100% attendance and got to go.   There was only two other deacons, Harley Pace and Richard Stubbs my cousin.   There were three teachers: Mike Traasdahl, Keith and Karl Edwards, the twins; and one priest, Hugh Scott. Carl James Stubbs (Jim) on the Los Angeles Temple grounds. Taken in April 1956 colorized on MyHeritage.com.  It was an exciting time getting ready to go. We were going down through Mexicali to San Felipe to go deep sea fishing. We were going to stay at churches on the way down, visit the Los Angeles Temple grounds and stay o...

Our Scoutmaster had arranged for the troop to go down to San Diego and visit an aircraft carrier. The carrier was called the USS Boxer. It was named after a ship captured from the British in the war of 1812. There had been five other ships with that name prior to the aircraft carrier being commissioned with that name. Carl James Stubbs and Rose Carolyn Stubbs, 1957 When it came time for us to go, the Scoutmaster was not available to take us. Bert Whitney, now Bishop Bert Whitney was no longer the Scoutmaster. I’m not sure who it was; I think maybe Bro. Rowley. The young men from the troop who were able to go were the following: Rulon Gibson, Harvey Boyce, and I. We were feeling bad about missing the chance to go on board an aircraft carrier. As the time drew near, my mother Rose Carolyn Stubbs, went to Skippy Barnson, a car dealer, and borrowed a car. With Mom as our driver, we were off to San Diego for a rendezvous with the Wasp class warship. It was quite exciting to even...