Fleeting Memories

November 2019 Carl Stubbs As a young man, I wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps as far as the Church was concerned. He had a strong testimony of the gospel, and he instilled that belief into me by his example. There were many people in my life that helped me along the way. I soon learned that the Church was true, but that all of the people who were members were not always so, including myself. Some of the men that were influential in my life besides my father were Frosty Traasdahl, Karl Snow, Glenn Snow, Jake Williams, Bert Whitney, M J Christensen and Bishop Cheeseman. I’m sure there were others, but these are the ones that come quickly to memory. One that I met prior to my mission was Alma Sonne who was the one that called me on a mission. I have always believed that the Church was true and have known that all of us are not exempt from the temptations of the world. I believe that we are all attempting to do our very best with the abilities that we have been given. As I went...

When I returned from my mission, I applied for a job for 7-11. It was owned by Southland Food Corporation at the time, and that in turn was owned by Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of President Johnson. I was hired as an assistant manager of one of the stores on Boulder Highway near Las Vegas. After a little time, there was an opening in Las Vegas for a manager. I took the job. I really liked it. They sent an older man to the store to be trained as an assistant manager. He was a friendly man and was doing pretty well.   The company had a contest for all of the stores, and my store won. What I won was a keg of beer. I was not really interested in it, and so I gave it to the assistant manager. He had been looking for a car for transportation. I wanted to sell my 1958 Cadillac and he wanted to buy it, so after work one day he took the keg and drove the car home for his wife to look at it. I didn’t see him for a few days after that. He just didn’t show up for work. I think that the keg w...

Our scoutmaster Bert Whitney took us on many different activities. One was to the Potosi Mine. We drove from Boulder City, Nevada to the edge of where Las Vegas is now. There we left the main road that went to California and headed up into the mountains near there.  I’m pretty sure I could not find the road now, but the scoutmaster knew where it was. I think that he spent a great deal of time out in the desert looking around. He lived near there with his family when he was fairly young. We drove through the desert for a ways and came to the backside of a mountain. The car was parked, and we started up a trail to the opening of the mine. It was quite a hike for me and for some of the other Scouts, but it seemed easy for our scoutmaster. We finally all arrived partway up the mountain to the front of a large opening into the mine. The hike up had been hot and somewhat hard, but as soon as we arrived in front of the mine, there was nice cool air coming out. We went back into the mi...

Written on October 12, 2020 As a young man between eighth and ninth grade, I had the opportunity to go from Boulder City to Kansas to work on my uncle’s farm. I say given the opportunity, but I was really just shipped out. His farm was in the southwest corner of Kansas. Looking back after sixty-two years I realize that my parents, my dad, in particular, wanted me out of town. I’m not sure why, but I guess I was not all that enjoyable to have around. I can’t even remember the name of the little towns they lived by, but I remember the farm. I suspect that my uncle Harry and his wife Inez were not that excited to have me there, but they treated me ok. I was there for about three months. They had two sons who were older than me. Duane was eighteen and Manley was about twenty. An old wheat truck like the one on my uncle's farm I got to work on the family farm driving a tractor, a large wheat truck, and a 1947 Kaiser-Frazer car. After work and on the weekends, I was allowed to driv...

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...

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...