Fleeting Memories

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...

I have had what I consider an exciting and enjoyable life, at least for me. I have enjoyed all of the jobs I have had and have been grateful for all but one of them. I enjoyed the money from BYU, but I did not really enjoy the job. I never got to see the students, only their work. I loved teaching, river running, grocery stores, lawn care, and other jobs that I have had during my life. Jim and Joy Stubbs  We have always had adequate income for our needs and most of our wants. I fear that I did not spend enough time with my family. I have always worked since I was in about second grade. I am retired and do not have any job, and the only good thing is that I am with Joy now. I get up in the morning and often have trouble getting my body to work. I sometimes think that this is most likely my last day, and I will not wake up in the morning, but then here I am again. Because of the pandemic, I can no longer go swimming each morning. Swimming seemed to get my body moving and ...

When I started school each year, I knew that there would be a mail-order that would come from Sears. There would be new blue jeans, shirts, socks, underwear, belts, coats, and many other items. My shoes I always got from the Men’s Store owned by Gleason. It was next to the only bar in town at the time. It made it just a little exciting to be so close to that iniquitous place. Carl J. Stubbs at work with Robert Stubbs visiting  I worked as a kid in the grocery store. Often, I would just deliver groceries in a couple of paper sacks that were more substantial than they are today. I always got to meet people and often stopped to talk to them. Sometimes when I got back to work, they asked me what took so long, and I just shrugged my shoulders and said they wanted to go over the register list with the groceries. When I went to college, I would work there in the summers as a clerk to make enough money to go back to school. People would call in their orders, and we would fill them ...

Since this Pandemic and the fact that Joy and I need to stay isolated, our hair has grown. I now have tangles in my hair, especially in the morning. They are also sometimes called rats. I understand that they used to sell rat combs or picks so a person could stack their hair up high and then smooth it out. Well again I have strayed from the topic, but not the ideas. My brain has rats in it or tangles which are becoming more obvious, at least to me, and probably everyone I talk to. The problem is that they are not thereby design, and I am unable to smooth them out so they are beautiful. Because I am over sixty-five and have existing physical problems, I am told that when they start opening things, I am still in the red zone. It doesn’t matter what everyone else is on, I am stuck in limbo which is what I call our personal financial status right now. I think that it is really Venmo, but I don’t really understand it. I know that the money travels electronically, and then when it arri...

I saw a movie some time ago with John Candy and Steve Martin called Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It was funny, but also frustrating to watch. It seemed that everything was going wrong for Steve Martin trying to get home. I think that my life recently feels much like that film. The last week has been a very difficult for me and for many that I love. I am usually at peace and pretty happy. Right now, I see my family members struggling with life and the problems that it brings. I have many drawers in my mind, and most of them hold happy peaceful thoughts, but there are some that hold only sadness, pain, or misery. Those latter drawers I have closed and marked them to stay closed, but sometimes somehow some of those drawers are ripped open, and much like Pandora’s box, they cause pain and misery. I slam the drawer closed, but it is too late, and the memories, thoughts of sadness of times gone by rush out. I want so badly to take care of each of our children, but I am not able to...

I have written about Billie Bates before, but here is an experience involving her again. One of the things that she did for me was to give me voice lessons. Mowing her lawn turned into a fantastic payday. She taught me to read, took me to the opera, ballets, plays, musicals, and taught me to sing (somewhat). One of the songs she taught me was “Just One Day at a Time.” This song held some very important lessons for me throughout my life. The Lord is teaching me how to live just one day at a time. This peace I know is enough reward just one day at a time. May every day be a work of art in which I may play my humble part. I pray for an understanding heart just one day at a time. I’m not sure of the exact words, but the words above are the main gist of the song. I have been sick for the last four days while Joy was out of town. Yesterday I finally went to the doctor, and he gave me a prescription for cough medication, an antibiotic, and an inhaler to open up my bronchial tubes....

I see Dream Catchers quite often in cars hanging from the rear view mirror. They look nice there, but I question whether that really is an appropriate place for them. They are hung where ever you are going to sleep, to help you have pleasant dreams; that is their purpose. I have always been blessed with peaceful or at least enjoyable dreams. I think that somewhere in my sleep mode hangs a beautiful Dream Catcher. More recently it seems that there has been a false Dream Catcher. It is like a spider web and hangs on to my thoughts. They are held tight like a moth or fly in the web. Both the catcher and the web look similar in design, at least to me, but do not have similar functions. I often dream of something that is important to me, but when I wake up the thought has been captured in the spider’s web, and is being held captive somewhere in my brain. Once in a while the web gets shaken and some thoughts that have been captured are released. The only problem with this is that...

I remember as a young elementary school student that we used to do some things that were to help us become readers. I was never a good reader, but I remember some of the activities. There was one that you would see a picture like a ball, book, bat, and other items and then on the other side of the paper were words that matched the pictures. I think back about that now sometimes and can see it is pretty much how my minds works. The problem is that now there are still pictures on one side of the page, but many of the words are not there to match up with pictures. I see people and I know them and can tell you somethings about them, but I often don’t have a name to match up with them. In my mind I know many things, but often have trouble expressing verbally what my mind knows or sees. The pictures and the names are not all there. Even if I search my mind and I know all about something I can’t remember the name that goes with the idea or person. It seems that it is the nouns that a...

I have always been blessed with a mind that might seem strange to some, but is able to figure most things out. It seems as though my mind is becoming like a roulette wheel, each of the numbers and colors that the marble passes are like a thought. It would be great if it would just stop and land on a number or color or hop off of the table, even that would be fine, but it just keeps on going around and around. Each of the possible stops is a thought or an idea that is somewhere inside of my brain. I have trouble stopping or completing a thought or idea before it moves quickly to another number or color or in my case another thought. In other words, I have extreme trouble now concentrating on one thought or idea. The only way I can write and keep a thought is if I start writing and then I can always look back and see what it is that I started. So, this is just a short thought and now I can jump off this number, or excuse me it was a color and go on to something else if I can rememb...