Salt Lake Living

Mountain View Mobile Home Park 

As the school year was ending, i knew i couldn't stay at stadium way any longer. My parents we're staying at a mobile Home Park in West Valley and they had a room that was open; so I moved home for the summer. This was partly because I had obtained work at an upholstery shop on State Street; and their home was relatively close by. I knew I would be only staying for the summer. The mobile home community was in a rather dry part of the valley and certainly subject to the heat because it was a fairly new community and had very few trees lining the streets. Being only there for about 3 months; I knew that I wouldn't be too much of a burden on my parents. Hence, I spent the summer of that year living at home in the first bedroom down the hall of their mobile home. 

 

Mastercraft 

At the commencement of that summer, I went to work at an upholstery business on State Street in Salt Lake City. I was initially hired to drive their delivery truck with a coworker and helped the co-worker deliver and install the many pieces of furniture they had reupholstered. My coworker was an older gentleman and I was his helper. We spent a number of weeks driving the vehicle up and down the Wasatch Front and delivering the many sofas and chairs that the upholstery shop had recovered. My coworker was a somewhat dim person and qualified as a truck driver only. I on the other hand had demonstrated an ability to do more and one of the upholsterers in the shop (Clint) determined that I would make a pretty good upholsterer. Thus, after about four weeks of driving truck and delivering furniture; I was reassigned into the shop where I learned how to upholstered furniture. There were three men spending all day upholstering furniture and I was to be an apprentice. We went next door to a Whataburger for lunch and I remember picking up a pretty good hamburger at that restaurant. We had another person who spent his full day cutting out the fabrics that would be used to upholster the furniture. This was a more elevated position and I was not slated to learn that anytime soon. I still went out to help deliver the furniture with my coworker and spent other days learning to upholster. Clint, the individual who seemed to take to me and recommended me for the apprenticeship; was a pretty funny individual and had a ribald sense of humor. One of his favorite antics was any time he found me bending over, he would begin to act like he was unbuckling his belt and would shout (amidst many men and women in the shop), “I'm gonna make you screeeam!” The first time this ever happened to me I immediately stood up and looked around surprised at the manner and words of my fellow upholsterer. Clint had developed a rather good sense of pitching softball. Thus, he would spend breaks and lunch times in the alleyway pitching softballs to me. He could zing a softball in rather rapidly and I was careful not to get in front of it. I remember one time that we had arranged to take an entire truckload of reupholstered furniture to a location in Wyoming. This was the only time I had ever been to Rock Springs WY and found the day to be a rather strenuous but exciting one. I would later live near Rock Springs and frequent the city fairly often. 

BYU Student 

After I had worked at Mastercraft for several months, my former coworker terminated his work and I was called upon to be the primary driver in the delivery truck. The fellow that was hired to help me was a young BYU student who was working for the summer. We had numerous opportunities to discuss many things as we sat in the truck and drove to and from our deliveries. One particular day this young man was sitting in his place and took it upon himself to reveal that he was a homosexual individual going to school at Brigham Young University. I realized he must have developed a significant amount of trust in me because he would not have revealed his proclivity to me otherwise. Nevertheless it presented me with a fairly difficult and challenging circumstance inasmuch as I found it very uncomfortable to work so closely with a gay individual. I also found it difficult to discern within myself what I would best do. Would I reveal his proclivity to the school administration or not. I determined after some thought-provoking rumination that I would leave his proclivity to himself and carry on with my own business individually. After leaving Mastercraft and going back to school I never ran into that individual ever again. 

Dogs 

One morning as I was on my way to work, I was driving down Main Street and was travelling at about 40 miles an hour which was within the speed limit. As i travel along a couple of blocks before I came to my workplace, a German shepherd type dog ran out in front of my car the (my rebel) and got caught under its carriage. I thought Oh my gosh I've run over a dog just as it seemed to hit my undercarriage several times. I stopped and discovered that the dog was dead in the road and I pulled it off to the side of the road and left it. I then carried on to work, somewhat dazed at the experience of hearing the dog tumble beneath my car. That same week I was travelling home from work along State Street and a small dog ran out in front of my car and I could not stop and it was hit by my car and also killed. I saw the home from where the dog had come and picked it up and took it to the woman who answered the door at that home. I explained what happened and she understood that I couldn't do anything to stop it and she received the dog's body in her arms. I excused myself said I was sorry for what had happened and travelled on home. I still remember it was a very unusual week to have killed two separate dogs in two separate events within blocks of my workplace. 

Swimming 

One Saturday afternoon, Hugh and his family had come to visit mom and dad.  it seems like Rick was there also. We decided that we were going to go down to the park’s Office which was nearby and enjoy some of the benefits that came from living in that mobile Home Park. We played a little bit of pool on their pool table and then we decided to take a swim in their nearby swimming pool. I had decided not to swim and was standing near the pool when Hugh dove in from the other side. I watched him swim almost the length of the pool underwater and then surface. To my surprise, Hughes head was rather bald and I had not allowed myself to think of him that way. (because he wore a toupee) but seeing him as he surfaced while swimming, I became very aware that he was balding and I had not realized it. It was quite a revelation to me and I still remember Hughes lasting change. He had always had a really good head of hair and was now losing it as he grew into manhood. 

Light 

One afternoon, I was at home in my room and Rick came and indicated that there had been a few things he'd left in that room and wanted to collect them now. I invited him in, and he looked through a chest of drawers there and found a couple things he wanted to keep. In the midst of that visit, Rick explained that he had been continuing on with his intellectual journey in gospel topics. I found his explanation of such depths to be rewarding and questioned him further regarding what he'd been thinking about. We shared a few things that each of us had learned and then he explained that he had been contemplating light. I asked him what he meant by light; And he explained that he believed that there was significance in the light that had been brought to pass by our heavenly father in the beginning. I found such an exchange with my brother to be genuinely thought provoking and I have never forgotten 1. that he would think on such a level and 2. that he was contemplating such an interesting gospel topic. I've never forgotten our exchange.