Eight years ago I started a blog. I did it because I was very opinionated — I was a liberal living in a conservative small town in the heart of a conservative county in a conservative, reactionary state — and I didn’t feel like I had an outlet to express my opinions. I also worked in a conservative school district that had many heavy handed, unnecessary policies that were rooted in the predominant, reactionary religious culture. In other words, I was stuck in Crazy Mormon Town without a voice, but I needed one for my own emotional well being. I love to write, so blogging seemed like a natural solution to my problem.
My ex-wife suggested I name the blog “Hairy Liberal Curmudgeon.” I didn’t realize at the time that the word “hairy” would attract Google attention that I didn't necessarily want, but it did eventually amuse me that people searching for photos of hirsute guys or women would inadvertently land on my daddy blog instead, and be subjected to my rantings. I blogged about a lot of different things — politics, religion, education, my family, and the strange community where I lived at the time. My blog was way more popular than I ever expected it would be, especially after I used my Facebook page to publicize each new blog post.
I loved to blog. As I look back at my old posts, I’m embarrassed by some of my more boneheaded blogging, but I also like the posts that still ring true. Through my blog I dealt with some difficult events in my life; death, divorce, loneliness, and unemployment were all topics that I tackled at various times. Some of my blog posts caused me some personal problems and in hindsight, I — maybe — should have been a little more discreet. I don’t regret blogging though, and I sometimes wish I still blogged more frequently. The ideas are still there; the energy and ambition aren’t.
All of that navel gazing is my way of saying that I am reviving my original “Hairy Liberal Curmudgeon” blog, and I’m using Blogger as the vehicle for publishing it. Wordpress is probably a better format, but I kind of like the symmetry of going back to Blogger. If nothing else, it has a retro, old-school look that screams 2008.
Anyway, I’m hoping to publish something that’s actually meaningful here soon. Stay tuned.
I rediscovered this picture today. It was taken in Provo, UT, in my former in-laws’ backyard during the summer of 2006. The photo presents a very placid, serene picture of me playing with my kids. In some ways that’s exactly what was going on, but oh boy, the story behind the picture … this was the day I found out how hypocritical and sanctimonious some LDS Church leaders are, and realized how negatively their actions had affected my late brother Phil’s life.
Phil had died four months previously, on March 15, 2006. I was still trying to cope with my grief over his death when the picture was taken. On the day that the picture was taken, July 10, 2006, we were visiting my ex-wife's parents in Provo. My ex-wife's sister was there as well. The adults were visiting in the kitchen that morning, while the kids played outside. My ex-wife's distant cousin came up in the conversation, and someone casually mentioned that, thanks to the intervention of an LDS General Authority, that cousin had been allowed to go on an LDS mission, even though he had fathered a child outside of wedlock.
My curiosity was piqued, because the LDS Church cancelled Phil’s mission call in July 1984 when someone claimed Phil was the father of her (then unborn) child. Local and general LDS Church leaders (including an apostle) told Phil he was obligated to financially support the girl and her baby, even though there was absolutely no proof that Phil was the father. The leaders cancelled Phil’s mission call because of that alleged obligation, and because of an LDS Church policy that said anyone who had fathered a child outside of marriage wasn’t allowed to serve a mission. When I questioned one of those leaders about the situation, he told me “girls just know who the father of their baby is.” The baby still hadn’t been born when I asked that question.
A paternity test later determined that there was no possibility Phil fathered the kid, but because of the “inspiration” of a handful of men (who believed God spoke directly to them), Phil’s life went into a tailspin from which he never recovered. The LDS cultural stigma of having a cancelled mission call was more than Phil’s self-esteem could bear, and he ended up marrying the first woman who was kind to him. Unfortunately that woman had borderline personality disorder, and made Phil’s life a living hell for the next twenty years. Phil was never able to break away from her and it ultimately cost him his life. Whenever Phil tried to get away, she played the “I loved you when …” card, which, along with the stigma of ending an "eternal" marriage, worked on Phil.
So I asked who the General Authority was who allowed the cousin to serve a mission.
According to my former mother-in-law, LDS General Authority Hugh Pinnock ensured that the cousin was able to go on a mission, even though the cousin – unlike Phil – had actually fathered a child outside of wedlock. Fortunately for the cousin, he lived in the same wealthy neighborhood as Pinnock, so Pinnock pulled a few strings and the cousin went happily on a mission.
Hugh Pinnock was one of the LDS leaders who cancelled Phil’s mission call. At the time of my brother's call, Pinnock had responsibility over the area where my family lived, and he, our stake president, and an apostle, were the leaders who dealt with Phil. According to The Mormon Murders by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Pinnock was a pompous, sanctimonious prick who was better known for inadvertently aiding Mark Hofmann in scamming money from a bank to purchase nonexistent LDS Church historical documents at just about the same time he was dealing with Phil. So much for Pinnock’s divine inspiration and powers of discernment.
When my mother-in-law said that, I thought my head was going to explode. I didn’t know whether to be angry or to cry. Pinnock’s hypocrisy was almost more than I could stand. I managed to say that Pinnock was the guy who cancelled Phil’s call. My former sister-in-law responded sympathetically, “Boy that guy (meaning Phil) couldn’t catch a break.” I didn’t know what else to do, so I walked outside and played with the kids. I couldn’t be in the kitchen any longer. I felt like someone had hit me in the head with a baseball bat.
And that’s when someone snapped that picture.
In the years since, I haven’t ever really gotten over the anger I felt about that bit of information from that seemingly innocuous kitchen conversation. My mother-in-law didn’t know the significance of what she had told me, and I don’t have any bad feelings for her that she said anything. It just was what it was: another nail in the coffin of a “testimony” of the “truthfulness” of the LDS Church.
To someone outside of the Mormon bubble, the belief that LDS leaders are always inspired by God sounds very cult-y, and it probably is, especially when he or she looks at the LDS Church’s policies on gays, women, and – until 1978 – African Americans. Also in the years since, I’ve learned a lot about LDS Church history, and how truly despicable most of the early leadership was, especially Joseph Smith. They basically believed that as long as they said, “thus sayeth the Lord,” they could get away with whatever they wanted, including murder and misogyny. Not much has changed since.
My brother’s life and death are a sad part of that legacy.
Ten years ago tonight you left us. Cardiac arrest brought on by an overdose of narcotics, and I’m still not sure exactly how it happened. I have my suspicions, but I guess it really doesn’t matter now. The point is you’re gone, and you’ve missed a lot.
My girls still talk about you. Susan remembers you; she was a few weeks short of her sixth birthday when you died. She remembers you were planning on coming to her birthday party. Caroline and Grace were too little to remember you when you died; Gracie was only twenty months old. But they love to hear stories about you, and I have some good ones. One of their favorites is about you flipping off the evangelical Christian protestors outside a Bruce Springsteen concert in Denver. I called it the patented Phil one finger salute. I like the story too. What were those people thinking, anyway?
Phil after the Springsteen concert, September 1985
My girls are awesome, Phil. You would be very proud of them. Susan has your attitude and smarts. Caroline and Grace have your twisted sense of humor. They’re great kids and I wish you were here to see them. Their mom moved them away from me a few months ago and that still stings a little. But I call them every night and I see them as often as I can. In my heart I hope you are able to check in on them for me sometimes.
Susan and Phil, November 2000
A lot of stuff has happened in our family since you left. Dad and Ray have passed away. Kind of hoping they’re with you and Mom. It would be cool if they were. I got divorced. I’m back to being a principal and I have a great job. I get to help kids who really need it. It reminds me of the stories I heard from your cop friends about you the night of your viewing, only happier. Apparently you never met a kid on a call that you didn’t feel compassion for and want to help. One of your friends called you Officer Sugar Bear. That made me smile on an otherwise very unhappy night. I like to think you would be proud of me for doing what I’m doing.
Officer Sugar Bear, WVPD
A few months before you died you called me expressing a lot of regrets about things that happened when we were growing up; stupid fights, unkindnesses, etc. I think about that conversation sometimes. I was telling a good friend a few nights ago about that phone call. I wish I could talk to you about it now and let you know that everything is okay. I told you that then too, but I’m not sure you understood. Those “hurts” you thought you did to me were just a part of growing up fourteen months apart. It makes me smile and feel a little sad that you regretted not working a shift at Day’s Market for me when we were in high school when I wanted go chase some girl. I didn’t even remember that incident, but you did; just a symptom of the world famous Rasband over-active conscience. Now that I’m pushing fifty-two, I really do understand that life is too short and precious to be spent on silly regrets about things that don’t matter.
Speaking of over-active consciences, I have some profound regrets about you, Phil. I feel like you were hurt badly by people who should have helped you, and I was too young to really understand how adversely that affected your life. People who were supposed to be your religious and spiritual leaders did you a huge injustice. I regret that I didn’t step in and push harder when you needed me most, when someone you trusted was isolating you from the people who could have made a huge difference in your life. My mind tells me that there was only so much I could do, and that I couldn’t rob you of your free will, as much as I wish I could’ve. My heart tells me I should’ve done more. Stupid heart. It’s probably right.
Anyway Phil, you’ve missed a lot. There is some damn good rock and roll we could be listening to. Bruce is still going strong at sixty-six and touring away. Caroline texted me this afternoon to tell me that he is going to be in Seattle next week. I imagined what it would be like to head up there with you, pick up the girls, and take them to their first Springsteen concert. Instead you're dead and I have to work. I know you could’ve come up with even more colorful adjectives to describe Donald Trump than I have, too. Susan would have appreciated that.
I miss you Phil. You were a hell of a guy and a damn good brother. I miss your laugh and your no bullshit attitude. You left an incredible legacy to the people who knew and loved you. And I hope you finally understand how much you were loved.
One of my brother Ray’s greatest contributions to my life was introducing me to the magazine Famous Monsters Of Filmland before I was even old to read it by myself (Ray used to read it to me.) “Famous Monsters,” as we affectionately nicknamed it, was all about the great Universal Studios monster movies of the 1930s and 40s - Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and of course, Frankenstein. The magazine contained photos and articles about cinematic classics - a least in my eyes - featuring those monsters, as portrayed by Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Lon Chaney, Jr.
We also actually got to watch those classic monster movies on Nightmare Theater every Friday night at 11:30 on Channel 4. My mom used to sit up and “watch” - actually doze - with me while Bela Lugosi snuck into a victim’s bedroom in the original 1931 version of Dracula. I had to smack Mom’s leg and wake her up when that happened, because it gave me the creeps:
Our favorite place to buy Famous Monsters Of Filmland was Palace Drug on Main Street in Heber. Palace Drug had an awesome selection of magazines, comic books, and paperback books. Here’s a photo of it from 1968:
The old Palace Drug - before it was remodeled and expanded in 1974 - was long and narrow, with the magazines in front, a marble soda fountain running along one side, and the pharmacy in the back. There was a large window by the magazine area, an awning to block the sun shining through that window during the summer, and black and white tile on the outside of the store. There was also a large orange Rexall sign above the awning.
By the summer of 1972 Ray had outgrown Famous Monsters, but because he had me hooked, I started buying the magazine myself. I mowed my parents‘ lawn to earn the enormous sum of seventy-five cents that each issue cost.
One warm August evening I convinced my mother to take me to Palace Drug because I just knew the latest issue of Famous Monsters had to be there. I ran into the store, turned to my left toward the magazine rack, and this is what I saw:
I happily bounded back outside. Mom took one look at me and knew why I was so happy. She handed me seventy-five cents and said, in mock exasperation, "I was afraid it would be there."
She was teasing me of course. I knew that, because I knew that Mom was an avid reader of Batman and Superman comics back in the early 1940s when she was a kid. I was just grateful I had a mom and an older brother who broadened my horizons.
Not many eight-year-old boys could brag about that.
I have a friend named Bernie McGuire. Bernie is an amazing man; an attorney by profession, he specializes in Social Security disability cases. There are literally hundreds of people who know Bernie and admire him for a variety of reasons; Bernie has a great sense of humor, and he’s a babe magnet, among other things. Bernie is also an inspirational guy; he has a great attitude about life, and his resiliency knows no bounds.
Did I mention Bernie is quadriplegic? He is, and what happened to Bernie could happen to anyone.
Let me take you back to the last Sunday in October 1981, the twenty-fifth to be exact. It was the first Sunday after the time change back to standard time, which is a factor in this story. Other than the time change, it was just a typical Sunday. Bernie and I were in the same LDS ward. I’d known Bernie for the previous ten years, and he was a fun guy to hang out with. That particular Sunday he and I decided to skip Sunday School. We were loitering in the foyer outside the chapel and noticed that my mom, who was the Relief Society President, had posted sign-up sheets for enrichment night mini-classes.
Let me stop right here to say that this story doesn’t have anything to do with what happened to Bernie, but it is a good example of Bernie’s sense of humor. I’ll get to Bernie’s accident later
Anyway, there was a man in our ward whom I’ll call “Roy Jones” (not his real name, of course), who was the ward character. It seems that every LDS ward had to have one back then; it was required. Roy was in his late fifties, divorced, very obese, seldom bathed, and wore the same ill fitting ten-year-old dark blue polyester leisure suit to church every week.
What Roy was best known for was his OPD - obnoxious personality disorder - which isn’t a real mental illness, but ought to be. Roy was on disability, so he had lots of free time to bother people. The conductor of the Heber Creeper once kicked Roy off the train at Bridal Veil Falls because he was making such a nuisance of himself, and Roy had to find a way back to Heber on his own. Roy used to accost people in the supermarket where I worked after school, and follow them around the store talking to them as they vainly tried to escape from him. Roy was also infamous in our LDS ward for holding forth during testimony meetings for anywhere from twenty minutes at a time to most of the meeting.
Bernie and I saw those sign-up sheets on a table outside the Relief Society room door and had the same devilish thought at the same time: wouldn't it be hilarious if we signed Roy Jones up for every single one of those classes? We gleefully did, and then I forgot about it because of the events that happened later that evening. A few days later I heard my mom frantically talking to one of her counselors on the phone about how the bishop was going to just have to tell Roy that he couldn’t attend the classes because they were only for Relief Society sisters. Listening to my mom gave me the one good laugh I had during a rotten week, and I confessed that Bernie and I had signed Roy’s name to her lists. She was so relieved she forgot to be mad at me.
So, that was Bernie (and me too, I guess).
Later that evening, Bernie and some other guys from our ward were driving down a dark country road to toilet paper the house of a girl who Bernie liked. The time had changed the night before from Daylight Savings to Standard Time, so it had gotten dark early. October 25 was the girl’s birthday, and toilet papering her house was Bernie’s way of letting her know he cared. Bernie was driving, and they didn’t notice that there were horses standing in the road at the bottom of a hill until it was too late. The car hit the horses at the knees, bringing them down on top of the car and breaking Bernie’s neck. I remember hearing ambulance sirens - we lived right next to the hospital - but not knowing what was going on.
The next morning Mom woke me with the news about Bernie. I felt sick inside, and felt even sicker when I got to school and saw he really wasn’t there. I remember trying to talk about the accident with our choir teacher - a really good lady, and one of my all-time favorite teachers - but she was too upset to speak about it. Later that day, my brother Phil and I, along with one of the other kids who was actually in the accident with Bernie, went to the salvage yard where the remains of Bernie’s car were stored. While looking at the shattered windshield and caved-in roof of the car, which was splattered with gore where the horses landed, I came to the realization that it could just as easily have been me in that car.
Confronting my own mortality as a seventeen-year-old wasn’t an easy experience. I’ve had a few of my own brushes with death since, but that was when it really hit me I wouldn’t be on this earth forever. However, if I wrote here that on that spot in that auto salvage yard on that autumn afternoon I swore to live each day of my life as if it were the last, I would be lying. I was seventeen, for crying out loud. Seventeen-year-old brains don’t think that way.
What Bernie’s accident did for me was give me enough perspective on life to realize that the cliquish, kind of mean-spirited way that most high school kids live their lives was not the way to go. Since then, I’ve tried to be kinder to and more accepting of everyone who crosses my path, because you never know what life holds in store for you or anyone else.
Bernie never physically recovered from that crash, but he has done some incredible things with his life, such as graduating from law school and having a successful law practice while sitting in an electric wheelchair. I heard he even once bungee jumped. However, the greatest thing Bernie has accomplished - in my eyes at least - is teach by his example that no problem is insurmountable as long as you’re breathing and have a functioning brain. When life gets overwhelming, I stop and think about Bernie and what he has accomplished with his life. It puts my troubles into perspective. Bernie will be the first to tell you he didn’t do it all on his own. He had the help of an awesome family and good friends who didn’t let him down. Like I said, Bernie is an amazing guy, and I’m glad he’s my friend.
Here’s a ten minute mini-documentary of the man himself that someone posted on YouTube. It’s definitely worth checking out.
Kind of a bittersweet anniversary today, one that I usually don’t think about much anymore. Today, however, it’s on my mind. Thirteen years ago today - February 16, 1998, Presidents' Day that year - we lost Mom. She’d been an invalid - wheelchair bound because of a stroke - for nearly two years previously, so it was a relief for her to go. I guess I'm thinking about her today because I would love to have a chat with her. I could use a dose of her common sense and wisdom. I’m mildly irritated that I can’t pick up the phone and call her. I thought T-Mobile had coverage everywhere.
My mom was well known for many things. She was the happy, friendly lady behind the counter at the Dairy Keen. She was the enthusiastic referee or line judge at LDS Young Women’s volleyball and basketball games. To the people who knew her, she was always Vera, never Mrs. Rasband or Sister Rasband. Her most famous creation - other than her children - were her chocolate chip cookies, otherwise known as “Veracookies” to friends, neighbors, and my college roommates. She always made sure there was a bag of cookies in the freezer for me to take back to Logan when I came home for the weekend. When I started teaching school in Heber, Mom’s sour cream sugar cookies were my students’ preferred treat for Halloween and Valentine’s Day school parties. I had students from miles around show up at our house on Halloween night just for a second (or third) cookie.
My mom was the yang to my dad’s yin; they brought out the best in each other. Mom was outgoing, friendly, and optimistic. My dad was quieter (until you got to know him), reserved, and more of a pessimist. I could take a road trip with Mom and have an interesting, entertaining conversation all the way to our final destination, even if the destination was seven hundred miles away. I could take a road trip with my dad and ride in comfortable silence with neither of us saying a word for hundreds of miles. It’s interesting to look at my brothers and sister and see who inherited which trait from my parents. I think I’m a weird mutation of some of their best and worst qualities; sometimes I can talk your ear off, other times you’re better off not bothering me.
My mom’s greatest attribute was her faith that things would always turn out all right. I remember after her stroke, when she was completely paralyzed on her left side, she tried to persuade me to take her out to the car and let her go for a drive, never mind that she couldn’t use her left arm or leg, and her peripheral vision was gone. Mom just knew that if she just had the chance, she could relearn to drive a car.
In many ways, Mom isn’t really gone. I see reminders of her everyday in my daughters; Susan’s athleticism, Caroline’s smile, and Grace’s small stature, funny personality, and penchant for waking us all up in the morning with her singing, all came from their grandma.
So that was my mom. I’m sorry my daughters never got to meet her in this life, but there are enough reminders of her in themselves - and me - that they know her anyway. I’m grateful for the legacy of kindness, happiness, and optimism that she left. If I can leave a legacy half as good when I depart this veil of tears - sorry for the cheesy language, but that phrase always makes me smile; it would have made Mom gag - I will have accomplished something.
This month marks the twentieth anniversary of the official beginning of my career in education. In January 1991, I started Level II classes in the Elementary Education program at Utah State University. Although I didn’t get my first real teaching job until August 1992, Level II was my first taste of what would eventually become my livelihood. I was actually working in the public schools, and had a few instructional responsibilities.
Starting the first week of January, I drove twice a week to Sunrise Elementary in Smithfield, a small town north of Logan, to observe and to work as a quasi-teacher’s aide for a practicum class. I worked in the classroom of a fourth grade teacher, Terry Olsen, who was very enthusiastic and had a lot of fun with his students. He was a big influence on me. After four weeks I moved to Adams Elementary in Logan, right next to Adams Park, where I worked in a second grade class for another four weeks. Good times.
Looking back at Winter Quarter 1991 makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It was something of a milestone in my life. I was finally progressing in my academic career, which had felt stalled up to that point. I’ve been rereading a journal I kept during that time, and it has been quite entertaining. My outlook on what I was committing myself to for the next thirty years was awfully naive.
That winter was also an interesting – if tumultuous – time in the U.S. The build-up to the first Gulf War was occurring, and the war would start on January 16, 1991. The night the war started I was sitting in the Salt Palace arena in Salt Lake City, waiting for a Paul Simon concert to begin. Paul came out fifteen minutes late because he and his band had been listening to the first President Bush address the country. I also remember listening to war news on the radio as I drove to Smithfield. That was the era when we all learned about Scud missiles and other slightly surreal words, like Kurds and Basra.
A disconcerting thing happened to me that morning of January 16th. I had an early morning class on campus, and as I scraped the ice off the windshield of my car – it’s too cold to walk very far in Logan during January – I managed to scrape the skin off of one knuckle as well. I didn’t think much about it until two days later when my hand began to swell and a red streak started making its way up my arm. I went to the campus infirmary in the student center and found out I had a raging case of blood poisoning. The doctor lectured me about the severity of the red streak. I’m just grateful I was smart enough to go to the doctor.
So here it is, exactly twenty years later. I’m now doing pretty much what I expected to be doing back in 1991. I’m occasionally nostalgic for those seemingly care-free days, but then I read something I wrote back then and think to myself, “Gosh, I was an idiot.”
I hope I won’t feel the same way when I read this blog in another twenty years.
