Fleeting Memories

Cops and Robbers July 30, 2020 When I lived in Bullhead, Arizona, I was in first grade, and my friends and I loved to play cops and robbers. It was during this time that we actually hung a robber who was gotten down quickly by one of the store clerks. It continued to be one of our favorite games to play along with cowboys and Indians which I’m sure is not an acceptable game anymore. I bring this up because when I returned from serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was hired by 7-11 and had the unwanted opportunity for play cops, robbers, and clerk. The first store I worked at was located on Nevada Highway just past Henderson, Nevada. I really liked the job and the money was good, especially for someone who had not worked for some time. The store was managed by a man named Art. I should know more, but I can’t remember. It was a great job. I worked from two in the afternoon to ten at night. After a few weeks, I was the assistant manager and work...

“A day late and a dollar short” is something that my Father used to say, not just to me, but about other people. I wasn’t exactly sure what he was talking about, but I figured that I wasn’t working hard enough or often enough for him to see. Sometimes we don’t look at what we should be doing or when we should be doing it. There is a story in the Old Testament that talks about when the children of Israel are getting ready to leave Egypt that tells of the marking of their doors so that the angel of death would pass over and not bring them harm. Those that did not mark their doors with the blood of a lamb would have the first-born male child taken in death. That included not only the Israelites but also the Egyptians. Another time when the children of Israel were traveling in the desert, they were afflicted by deadly snakes. Moses had a tall pole set up in the camp, and it had a carving of a snake on it. If they would look up at the snake on the pole, they would be healed. If not,...

There are many times in my life that I have done things that I should not have done but did anyway. The statute of limitations is past so I shall write about some of them. This is not from playing tag. It is a picture  of my car that went off a cliff  on the way home from Dixie College.  I have always had God looking over me. I have always liked to play tag and some of us got the idea to play bumper tag with our cars. This was not a really great idea. The idea was to bump the car ahead of you and then take off and see if they could catch you and bump into the back bumper of your car. There were three of us in different cars playing. It seemed to be going fine until heading down towards the lake, one of the cars stopped instead of just going on around the corner, and I hit the back end which would have been fine except that a bus was coming down the road that met at the intersection. I just about lost one of my good friends that night. The bus barely missed his...

It seems like during my whole life I have had the opportunity to volunteer at one thing or another. It started at a very early age. When I was about eleven or twelve, I had earned enough money delivering papers to purchase a new reel lawnmower. My father didn’t like the rotary type of mower so we got a reel. My father helped me with some of the money which I was to pay back, and I did. I earned money watering and mowing lawns all over town. I also cleaned some of the businesses uptown and worked in the grocery store sorting soda pop bottles. I cleaned the Nava-Hopi, the Greenwell’s flower shop, Bob Broadbent’s drug store and the old LDS church. Many of my jobs were lucrative, and I was able to save some money. I also ended up with some jobs that were not quite as lucrative. It seems as though whenever a widow needed her lawn cut or windows washed, I “volunteered.” I remember in church often they would come to the quorum meeting and ask for volunteers to do one thing or anothe...

I have always been an early riser. I used to set my alarm as a teenager to get up to deliver my papers and start the water for the places that I took care of. I would clean the old church early in the morning. It seems I have always enjoyed early mornings. I would set my alarm for high school, but I was always up to deliver papers long before it was time for the alarm to go off. I would set the alarm when I was a student at the BYU to get up even though many of my classes were later in the day. When I was teaching in the classroom, I was always there by 6:45 am, and when I was in administration, I was always there by 6:30 am. I ran the river for many years and was up at around 5:30 to get the boats pumped up and start breakfast. Carl James Stubbs on the Colorado River in  Cataract Canyon wearing Tour West shirt   I love the early mornings and the coolness and usually clear skies. I loved the river and the ability to get up stretch and face the early morning cool...

As I watch several of my children who are in education work during this coronavirus, I see them using the internet to reach their students. This writing will probably let you know that I started teaching many years ago. I will help you out with that. The first year I taught in public school was 1968. It was at Orem High School. Carl Stubbs in classroom D-2, 1985 In my room, D-2, the chalkboards were black. Not long after, it was determined that green was a much better color, easier for the students to see. I was not teaching there long before they came in one summer and put in the new improved green boards. They were still called blackboards by the teachers and students. These boards worked just fine for many years. I should deviate from the story of boards to let you know that my penmanship is not good. In fact, it is terrible. In fact, I remember in college I would take good notes, but have to hurry home and type them before I forgot what they said. I had a difficult time...

I have always enjoyed eating out, not because my wife is not a good cook, because she is. I just really enjoy going to a restaurant. This is something that I can’t really do, not with the coronavirus loose in the land, at least not right now. The first really good restaurant I remember was the Swanky Club. My parents took our family there a couple of times, but not often. It was a lot more expensive than most cafes in Boulder City. I remember that there were so many different kinds of food you could order. I remember eating at the Flamingo in Las Vegas a couple of times. I saw the Flower Drum Song there. I was pretty new at the deciding what to order, and my Dad helped me out. I ordered, with his help, squab, which of course is pigeon, a thing I didn’t know. It sure wasn’t much to eat. They say it tastes like chicken, but there wasn’t enough of it to really tell. I’m sure my dad got a kick out of watching me try to find something to eat. Years later I took Joy out there to se...