Fleeting Memories

Neither of my parents had encouragement from their families to receive a formal education. It was something that wasn’t important to most people during and after World War II. I didn’t know that my father had graduated from high school until after I had been married for several years. I don’t believe that he valued formal education. Dad would never talk about school. I learned later that during his senior year he had been asked not to return until he could make a commitment to attend regularly. He was not attending because he had a good job at Central Market as a meat cutter. Dad did go back the next year and graduated. Graduation was required if he was going to be a pilot. He was a brilliant man and was well educated in several fields. He was an electrician and was a religious leader that had to know many different things, which he did. My mother married my father before she graduated from high school and did not continue formal education then. In 1962, a year after I graduate...

  After we had Stephen, Joy wanted to have one more baby. She wanted a little girl. I said no and said we were through having children. I didn’t think I could earn enough to provide for any more. Joy would just not let go of the idea to have one more child. I asked her if she realized how old I would be when a new child would be twenty-one. Joy simply said that I would be the exact same age twenty-one years after her birth as I would be if she wasn’t born. I really was worried about being able to provide for another child. It didn’t take Joy too long to convince me that we should have another child. She asked me to pray about it. I hate it when Joy asks me to pray about something. We started planning for a new child, but there was none coming. After quite a while Joy was pregnant with a little girl. A few months later our oldest daughter Anna let us know that she was expecting her first child. So, we would soon have an aunt and niece combination joining our family. In my ca...

Stephen James Stubbs, who was named after me, Carl James Stubbs, and his brother who had passed away, Andrew James Stubbs, and in turn named his cat James. The name in our family comes from my grandfather on my mother’s side. From a very early age, Stephen was able to take anything apart. As he got older, he also put them back together again. He seemed to be able to just look at something and determine what was wrong with it and then fix it. It was wonderful to have someone who could not only take things apart but put them back together while fixing the problem. Stephen J. Stubbs When we got computers for our home, Stephen was working at an online service that helped people with their computer problems. He was always working on a computer and getting it fixed and working. He was amazing. I would just say that it wouldn’t work. Stephen would look at it and say, this is why it won’t work and then fix it. Leonard and Rose Stubbs He has also worked as a mechanic and for ...

After surgery on elbow after sliding headfirst down the railing (shown beside Jim)  This morning I woke up at about three o’clock. As I laid there, I realized that there was no pain. My feet didn’t hurt nor my knees. My hip and back were silent as well as my arms, neck, and head. I was lying there in complete peace with no pain anywhere in my body. I have lived with pain as a constant companion for over seventy years since I was around seven years old. At seven I slid down a banister at my Grandpa Horn’s home and broke my elbow. I had to have surgery and wear a number of different casts for almost two years. Since then I have had many different events that caused more damage to my body. I learned to ignore much of the pain as I got older. It was similar to wearing a pair of glasses. If you stopped and looked you could see the frames, and you knew that they were there, but you learned to ignore them and just look through the lenses, which provided you with relatively g...

Nathan Stubbs and his friend Adam Lawson at Orem High in 1996 "Out of the Frying Pan" Nate was not always that enamored with high school, but I was of the opinion that if I had to go to school each day, he should too. Nate was too much involved in his own life of acting. He loved drama in junior high and also in high school, not really enjoying many of the academic classes. Nate chose a different path, one that was great for him and his future. He went to Florida and was in the Burt Reynolds theater. While there he met the woman who he was to marry a few years later, Kathleen Kenny. Kat moved to Salt Lake City and registered at the University of Utah in the drama field. Nate came with her, and even though he was not a student, he was in a couple of the productions at the university. He continued his study of the arts as he worked at the restaurant, Fridays, for the four years as did Kat. They had the typical student experience, lots of work, little food to eat, an...

When Joy gave birth to the twins, Anna and Andy, Anna was just fine, but the little boy Andrew was severely handicapped. He had an encephalocele and had to have immediate surgery. After their birth Joy and I decided that we probably should not have any more children because one of the doctors said that it might be hereditary. Not long after that, we were again waiting for the birth of a little boy. We had a great fear during this pregnancy. We were afraid that there might be a problem with another birth. The day of his birth came, and he was born, a beautiful perfect baby, and we named him Mark Joseph Stubbs. It was a joyous occasion. Our fears were for naught. Mark Joseph Stubbs As Mark grew, he was always able to focus beyond what anyone around him was able to see. He was always loyal to his friends. He seemed to have an early grasp of how the economics of business and the world worked. He was always interested in politics and what was going on around him. He loved to rea...

Many of my family are involved in teaching, starting with me and my wife Joy. In Carl’s family there is Carl, Jenny and Amanda. In Anna’s family there is Anna and her husband Alan and Nathaniel. In Amy’s family there is Amy, Brad, and Josh. In Nate’s family there is Nate and Kat. All of my children were exposed to someone who was in the teaching profession from a very early age. I was teaching when all but Carl were born, but I was going to BYU to learn to be a teacher. Joy and I have always attempted to stress education in our family. I have had the opportunity to teach at Orem High School and BYU Independent Study and after retirement from public school at Liahona Preparatory School. Joy was a substitute teacher, homeschooler, and she taught sociology for a while at BYU. Carl C Stubbs, Anna Stubbs Kendall, Rachel M Stubbs,  Amy Stubbs Gibson, Brad Gibson, April 1996 This teaching started early in our children’s lives. I had gotten some old wooden desks from DI and the...

I remember in my early teaching career that all of the students were to read the newspaper, and I provided a class copy of U S News and World Report . I would assign different articles in the magazine and there was a quiz over the reading material both in the newspaper and in the magazine. I remember reading one article and assigning students to read it. In the article, it said that the Soviet Union was guilty of espionage and spying on the U.S. military installations in Turkey across their border. The U.S. knew of this because we were monitoring and observing their action across the border. Hopefully, after reading and discussing it with the students, they were able to see that both sides were guilty of exactly the same thing. That, at least, was my intention to teach them. At about the same time there was a parent that came to our home and said that Carl was throwing dog poop at her two boys. After talking to Carl and finding that it was true, but also finding out that the two boys...

I remember hearing someone say that he sure got out of bed on the wrong side, or he is on the wrong side of that question or the wrong side of the law. I didn’t really remember in what context the saying was always being used. Most generally it was that someone or other had gotten out of bed on the wrong side. I wasn’t really worried about me because there was only one way I could get out of my bed. It was up against the wall. One time I was told that I had gotten out of bed on the wrong side, and then it was explained to me what it meant. Amy on the river trip I was reminded of this saying when I was thinking of a river trip, I took with my daughter Amy. She was fearless, actually,  she was really quite scared, but you would never know it. She was willing to try anything on the trip. She was really very brave. After hanging on through all of the rapids and coming to the last fun rapid that people were allowed to float through, she was game and wanted to do it also. I cut the mot...

How does one grow old? I think it must happen automatically for those who live long enough to achieve it. I have two children who died early, one at eleven and one at twenty-nine. I myself started with a very young father and mother who lived long lives. The first I can remember that there must Carl J Stubbs (Jimmy 9 months) be some kind of art to growing old was when I was told to grow up and behave. So, growing old may have something to do with behaving, but if that is true, why am I still alive? There is a song that talks about a little girl and when her father turns around, she keeps getting older and doing different things until she had a little baby of her own. I remember when Joy had our first baby It was a beautiful little boy. I was only twenty-five and Joy was twenty-one. We subsequently had eight more beautiful children, and all the time I must have been getting older. I didn’t have to practice at getting older. It just happened, and I didn’t even need to behave...