I WIll Find You

A cloudy night. A semi-strong breeze. A dying moon. Perfect night for a jog. That's what Anna thought and she invited me along. I'm glad I went. We drove a mile east to the River Trail parking lot and parked in the darkest corner to begin our late night run.

We walked through the parking lot to the paved trail and began our run. The trail borders along the Rillito River. And if you know your Arizona, you know river is synonymous with wash, so we were basically running along a very wide wash, probably a hundred yards wide. The river cuts through the heart of Tucson. It's flanked the entire length by ranches, parks, and corrals so you really don't feel like you're in the city. But since you are in the city, the lights bounce off the clouds at night and light up your way like an eery Hogwart's night setting. It's great. And along the way you pass giant sentinel Eucalyptus trees. The Ghost Gums' branches literally float in the wind; giant dementors to scare you along the run.

And to perfect the ambiance, you're in the desert, which I'm convinced is the BEST spot on earth in the winter. It's not too cold, but nippy enough to wear warm clothes. The animals are still out - not hibernating. And the plants are still alive. There you go: mother nature in her happiest mood. Tonight we could hear the chorus of Coyotes howling along with us as we ran. They were in the wash. To liven up the run I did a goofy "Last of the Mohicans" dash through a part of the trail to show Anna my manliness. Sadly, a skinny runner man has little claim on James Fenimore Cooper's idea of masculinity. For that I would need fifty more pounds, a hatchet, and a lot of leather.

Luckily, our only hunting at the end of the run would be at Trader Joe's, our reward for the best run on earth.

Partners in Crime, Watch out J Edgar

How It Happened (A Primary Source)

We came around the corner of Harvest and Allen in the late afternoon. As second-graders we were just two nondescript Mormon boys having some after-school exploration through the neighborhood.

But let's provide some context. The neighborhood was what our parents called "blessed." At the time that meant nothing to me. But I did know I had a lot of friends. And if I walked down my street my arm could possibly tire out from the number of waves made to passing neighbors and cars. Waves were reciprocated earnestly. So waving in our neighborhood was as common as the warm sun. Nothing big here other than the fact that everyone knew everyone and was on good terms all around. This was to be a terribly important setting for what we were about to do.

Around the corner...I spotted a newspaper in the Kleiner's yard. Late in the day I thought they didn't need it. So I grabbed it. We kept walking and two houses down another newspaper lay in the driveway. So my partner in crime went and grabbed it. Two boys. Two newspapers. No. Big. Deal.

But here is the deal. If you throw your mind back to when you were a young boy in the prime of youth with only a pencil box in your desk at school to your name, you liked things, especially free things. And you were competitive. If your best bud had one, you wanted one. And if your best bud didn't have one, you never though about having one. We both had one newspaper. But I wanted another one.

And so, a few houses down, I grabbed another newspaper I saw (apparently our neighbors were not well-informed of what happened the day before in Mesa). Well, my buddy grabbed the equalizer at the next available driveway.

So, we got home with newspapers. Nothing big, but it was an easy booty. I bid my friend good evening and walked home to dinner with the family, passing the "Return with Honor" plaque on our front door.

The next day at school, my buddy and I started talking about resuming our collection. But newspapers were boring. And each one said the same thing. What else could we collect out there in our world? The answer came on the way home from school. Another one of our buddies was out of town. So we knew he must have had uncollected mail in his mail box. I told my buddy to watch out for anyone watching us, and I quickly opened the mailbox, which was stuffed. My heart skipped with joy as I plunged my hand in for the easiest "free" stuff in the world. We ran around a fence and sat down with my buddy's mail. At this point you might wonder where our consciences were vacationing. To this day, I never know why they were AWOL, so I cannot answer that question, I really was otherwise a good kid.

Back to the mail, one of the envelopes was a birthday card for our mutual friend. We opened it. I know, terrible. And we read it. And laughed at the words, though it was nothing special. But our hearts were racing. This was cool. It was fun. It was exciting. We looked down the street at an entire line of mailboxes, standing there on their posts like prisoners in front of a firing squad, unmoving and silent.

We moved on and at the next house opened the mailbox. Nothing. But at the following house the mailbox was again full of mail. I grabbed it all. This one was lucrative, veritable booty, if you will. It had a brand new shiny penny inside the envelope. The face of Honest Abe staring right at me. I was pumped up about this new scheme of ours. Funny birthday cards. Free pennies. Why hadn't we done this earlier?

We moved on down the line of waiting mailboxes. At this point you have to realize we were feeling no remorse. Not only were we pre-baptismal age, we simply had no idea about the significance or consequence of taking people's mail. That's another thing, we truly felt we were "taking" not "stealing." If it comes everyday, why would they miss one day's worth? With my hands full, my buddy grabbed the next box's contents.

By this point in the afternoon our hands were full. We crossed the street to my partner's home. On the side yard was a large vine with big, flat leaves. It crept up from the ground to the roof and spread across half the side wall. It was a perfect treasure spot. We cleared away leaves and branches and placed all our mail on the cool, shaded ground. No one ever walked at this spot except potato bugs.

What happened that night I cannot recall. I'm sure I was looking forward to more mail. Because we got more mail. And more mail. Day after day. How many days this happened I also cannot remember. I just have vague episodic memories that haunt me to this day. After one illegal excursion my partner and I sat atop the fence dividing his home from the neighbor. We had scored an actual box in someones mail, as it turned out, the box of my future church Bishop. We opened it up - a box of pills. We gleefully threw each pill into our neighbor's pool. That was fun! I remember they were red and white pills.

Another episode nearly ruined our fun. We had opened an envelope with two bank cards! One for each of us. We played with these cards in the downstairs of my buddy's house. His dad walked by while we had them out. He asked to see one. We didn't sweat it or skip a beat at all, we simply said we found them on the street. Now, looking back, I realize our "Sherman's March" through the neighborhoods of our youth was widespread. Because my buddy's dad had no idea who the person was named on the card. We might be talking a full square mile. My memory suggests more like a half-square mile.

After a few days we had loads of mail under the ivy. Our treasure was our fun. And no one suspected. I can't believe we were not caught. We always took mail during the day in full view of front windows and living rooms. But I think people started noticing. How else would Mom have been tipped off?

One afternoon we were coming around the street north of Harvest, which is my street. Our hands were full of mail. And there was Mom, walking with a purpose, to us. We both turned around to face away from her and quickly stuffed the mail up our shirts. Great minds think alike. Apparently, authoritative minds think alike, because Mom asked, "what is up your shirts?" I distinctly remember saying, "nothing." By now you realize my IQ equaled my age at the time, so you can understand the response.

I don't remember the long walk home with Mom. I don't remember what happened to my loyal partner when he went home. But I do remember that evening we were returning loads of mail. I can only imagine what our parents thought when we uncovered the ivy. What they saw must have made their hearts drop. But, in the 1980s and in a good neighborhood, we were cushioned against reprisals from the victims.

One evening soon after our capture was devastating. We had to sit through a half-hour lecture from our neighbor across the street who was...a mailman. He told us what could happen to us and where we could end up. I walked out the door feeling all eyes, including the birds, were trained on me. The worst part of the evening was that they were showing Crocodile Dundee II on TV. Mom would not let me watch, as part of my punishment. I learned my lesson. I loved Dundee.

About a week later my partner in crime and I were playing in my back yard. When it was time for him to go home we walked out to the front. And there, right in front of his house were two cop cars! We knew we were in trouble, possibly headed to where the mailman said we would be going if we ever stole mail again. So we ran into my backyard and spent the next hour crouched under a table. We were spooked. Way after dark we emerged, peeked over the fence, and saw the cops had left. Whew! Close call.

Not much happened after that. But the episode, referenced often at family reunions, brings a few laughs. It could have been worse. It should have been worse. But then again, we grew up in the best neighborhood on earth! So if you decide to steal your neighbor's mail, try it in Mesa, AZ. Just avoid the half-square mile around 1336 E Harvest because they're on alert!

Lives to Word By

When I was a freshman at Arizona State I lived with Bill, Jennifer, and Andrew Hall. My family had recently moved to Utah and I wanted to save for my mission to Brazil. So I took advantage of the Hall's goodwill and moved in. Plus I had a nice deal going with ASU (free school with a stipend).

The Halls are my second family, so I can't really say I grew any closer during my freshman year. I had lived over there for 18 years as is. Another year was nothing new. However, Bill quickly found out I was particular about two things: homework and sleep. If either my homework or sleep routine were violated, life was rough. When I wasn't slaving away on essays or counting my sheep, I was usually hanging with the Halls. We had a great year. It was a memorable year in history, the year of the twin towers attack, the D-backs World Series, the beginning of the Afghan war. It was a year of mission calls and friends starting to talk marriage. A lot of change. But I was able to note something I wasn't expecting: Jennifer's work ethic.

It's not that I did not know Jennifer worked hard, it's just that I didn't pay attention to it. Like a word you learn and suddenly begin hearing everywhere, as soon as I learned how hard Jennifer works, I noticed it everywhere. In a year of living in her home, I caught her sleeping a total of two-and-a-half times. The half time was when she was doing this pseudo-slide off the couch, downstairs. She reached the ground before she reached REM, so it counts as a half. She had just finished hooking up Andrew's CF treatment at 5:00 AM and I was leaving early to school to witness the rare event of Jennifer pausing for a break.

Jennifer works crazy hours. She is a professional caterer, working as many as four receptions a week. She teaches swimming lessons in her pool to all the kids and their kids in Mesa. She works actively in the church. She cooks homemade meals nightly. She is constantly running errands for family and friends. And she is never too busy for people. When a client comes over to discuss a reception, she will spend over half-an-hour just shooting the breeze and getting to know the person and their family. Her product at receptions and swimming lessons is more than time, it's love. And that's why people keep coming back for her swimming and catering.

I'm again staying with the Halls this month as I work at St. Joseph's hospital in Phoenix. I haven't seen Jennifer sleeping yet in two weeks. Though she once told me, "I'm going to bed," a phrase I never heard her speak before. This past weekend she pulled off something that would have made my legs fall off. She catered a reception Friday night for over 400 people. She directed a staff of ten, paid them all, sent them home, cleaned up, went home, and began packing for the next day's reception in Sedona, AZ. At around 12:45 am she began making her shopping list for her 7am trip to stores. I was tired and went to bed. Then next thing I heard was her footsteps upstairs at 5:30 am. She had an appointment with her running buddy. They are running a half-marathon in two weeks. After that she was off shopping. She came home, cut up veggies, made two sauces at the same time while listening to me jabber mindlessly, and finished packing her trailer. The amazing thing about those sauces was she had to quadruple the portions, doing the math for the different sauces in her head. By 10:30 she was off to Sedona. I stayed back to study, and re-attach my legs that had fallen off while helping at the previous night's reception.

At Sedona she had to improv as grills went out, the trailer didn't fit, and her cell phone stopped working. Once more unto the breach she went, and she came home victorious, early Sunday morning. When I talked to her Sunday evening, her voice was tired and hoarse, the effects of two straight days of giving directions beginning to show. I went to bed and today saw her in the afternoon. She was giving me an update on the day even though she was late for a service project for a girl she helps with cerebral palsy. Then her daughter called, who she stopped to help. Then she told me her dear friend had passed away this morning from a heart attack, her tired voice beginning to break as she began to cry. I couldn't help but think: God bless you Jennifer for all you do and are.

A while ago she once told me, "If I ever stop I'll break." We were running on the beach at Santa Monica at the time. She was talking about more than running. She was talking about life. Thanks Jennifer, for showing me that whatever we do, we give our best, because anything less is "to sacrifice the gift" (Prefontaine).

Because I'm proud to be an Arizonan

The state covers a lot of territory. But from Tombstone to Tempe and from Pine Top to Prescott we consistently celebrate one thing well: History. See below:


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/us/a-celebration-for-the-london-bridge-in-arizona.html

The Tucson Sunset

The Insider

If you walked into a store and an associate said, "Here, buy this, it's on sale today for real cheap. See, look out on the window where an ad is placed on this item," then I would listen.

If I walked into the same store and the associate said, "Come here, don't tell the manager this but I'm going to let you know of a sweet deal just for you today on this item. No one else knows about this," then I would be inclined to furrow my forehead and pretend like someone was calling my phone so I could leave.

My wife and I have learned that the special treatment, often under the table, heavily persuades us to not buy a product. We have walked away from apartments and car dealerships because of the sweet deal "just for us," when "no one else is supposed to know about it."

I really believe the most comfortable sell is the one open to everyone. And there has to be transparency in company hierarchy, from top to bottom. If not, it just feels like your buying into something that feels at best, vaguely slimy.

Four Years Reputation

We celebrated our fourth anniversary a couple weeks ago! Thanks to my oldest, most wisest sister, we dined at a classy joint. While I was contemplating how to make a dinner of chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, and cookies and ice cream romantic on our front porch, I contacted Whitney. Her input caused my plans to evaporate to the voice of reason. The voice consistently says, "She deserves finery." But for some odd reason which might be due to maleness, or just plain cheapness, I ignore the voice. As a side-note I wonder if the sound of the voice resembles those Sirens of old.

And in pursuit of finery, I embarked on an internet search of the classiest joints in Tucson. In the end, I relied on the quotation of an ESPN article I read that morning reporting Coach Mike Stoop's favorite restaurant in Tucson is Vivace. We've already dined at the table next to Lute Olsen, so I had to broaden our value-less bragging potential with the possibility of sitting near Stoops and Co. Plus, our anniversary was the night before the football season home opener. What coach in his right mind would not dine at his favorite place the night before a big game?

So we arrived and dined. It was fine. No football coach present, but I didn't notice, even after four years.