A few weeks ago I was in Anaheim and wrote the following:
Sitting in a hotel room outside of (because my conference is next door in the conference center) on a Sunday night brings back memories of a family trip we took over thirty years ago. I remember sitting in a hotel room on a Sunday, with manicured bushes trimmed in the shape of animals outside, so excited to be going to Disneyland the next day. I wonder where that hotel room is. Maybe its the same one and animal bushes have gone out of style.
1. I was so excited to get the chance to drive the little race cars that went around the track that I ended up leaving my camera in the car. The camera that I had saved up for months and months. And thus began my career as a destroyer/loser of cameras.....
2. Going to a Sambo's pancake house that had pictures of the story of Sambo, a boy in (India?) who is treed by four hungry tigers, but gives them his fine clothes after which they become jealous of each other and chased each other around the tree until the turn into butter. Thinking it was really cool that you could turn tigers into butter and wondering if you could do that with other animals.
3. I learned my first lesson in capitalism. I don’t remember the exact details, but it had something to do with soda drinks. I somehow thought that since we were at Disneyland the place built for kids, that they gave kids drinks. My dad explained that wasn’t about being a magic place for kids, it was about making money.
4. I remember wanting to ride on the submarine but we didn't have enough A tickets, back when Disney assigned rides A, B, or C status.
5.I also remember being excited that I was tall enough to ride the Matterhorn, but being disappointed that I couldn’t ride on Space Mountain
6. I remember really, really wanting mickey mouse ears. There was a show on TV, the mickey mouse club, where the kids all had the mickey mouse hats. Both my older sister and I got them and I think they stuck around or house for nearly 10 years in more and more tattered forms. Just a piece of felt and two pieces of plastic stapled on, and they meant the world to me as a child. I also really, really wanted a davy crockett coon skin cap. Now I live in Davy Crockett's homeland and see dead raccoons with some frequency. Haven’t had an urge to wear one on my head for some time.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
May Day May Day
There is much to say, but not the time and energy to do it in. Someday we will post pictures.
Our city has survived a millennial flood. We feel so fortunate to have been spared, but it hurts to see how badly this has hammered our community and neighborhood. Sad too to realize a city could drown without much notice from the rest of the nation.
On the other hand, I have never been as proud of my community as I have been in the last two weeks. I am also proud of the response of our ward. People helping their neighbor, putting in long hours on dirty, smelly work to help out people who may have been strangers just a few days before. It brings tears to my eyes thinking of one of the men in our ward late at night mucking out the water soaked insulation from a dear sister in our ward's crawlspace. That is what it means to bear one another burden and to mourn with those who mourn. I am thinking of our good bishop who during the three days that their neighborhood was cut off from the rest of the city and from any electronic communication including cell phone, was working night and day to make sure people were safe and to save what could be saved and then took work off for the next week to work the cleanup. I am thinking of my son and the young men of our ward who had a whole week off from school and spend most of it cleaning homes. I am thinking of a isolated part of our city that literally had ten or twelve person per house for blocks and blocks helping with the stripping and clean-up of each home. Church groups, community groups, all coming together to help. Not just on one day, but day after day. After a response like this, I think I understand why Tennessee is called the volunteer state.
Sadly, many did not have flood insurance, often because they were told that either that it wasn't offered for their area or because it seemed improbable that they could ever be flooded. Ironically, we live in the FEMA flood plain and are required to have flood insurance, but our house (and new home) was spared despite having water running on all four sides of the home at one point.
It is also surreal to me because I wasn't here during the actual days of flooding, but had to watch the response of our ward begin to unfold from a far thanks to a google document that was set up by a member of the EQ presidency out of the flood zone that quickly evolved into a command center for the response to a building crisis. What was scary was when people who have been updating the google document became radio silent and could no longer be reached even by cell phone. Especially when my home became one of these. In time, it became apparent that most of our area had lost power and phone and internet, as individual portions of the neighborhood became trapped in their little islands as the flood waters covered the roads. Fortunately, no member of our ward died or was injured, although sadly a number of older couples from our area were swept away or drowned in their cars. A good many of our friends and neighbors homes are devasted. Our prayers are for them and for all our city.
Our city has survived a millennial flood. We feel so fortunate to have been spared, but it hurts to see how badly this has hammered our community and neighborhood. Sad too to realize a city could drown without much notice from the rest of the nation.
On the other hand, I have never been as proud of my community as I have been in the last two weeks. I am also proud of the response of our ward. People helping their neighbor, putting in long hours on dirty, smelly work to help out people who may have been strangers just a few days before. It brings tears to my eyes thinking of one of the men in our ward late at night mucking out the water soaked insulation from a dear sister in our ward's crawlspace. That is what it means to bear one another burden and to mourn with those who mourn. I am thinking of our good bishop who during the three days that their neighborhood was cut off from the rest of the city and from any electronic communication including cell phone, was working night and day to make sure people were safe and to save what could be saved and then took work off for the next week to work the cleanup. I am thinking of my son and the young men of our ward who had a whole week off from school and spend most of it cleaning homes. I am thinking of a isolated part of our city that literally had ten or twelve person per house for blocks and blocks helping with the stripping and clean-up of each home. Church groups, community groups, all coming together to help. Not just on one day, but day after day. After a response like this, I think I understand why Tennessee is called the volunteer state.
Sadly, many did not have flood insurance, often because they were told that either that it wasn't offered for their area or because it seemed improbable that they could ever be flooded. Ironically, we live in the FEMA flood plain and are required to have flood insurance, but our house (and new home) was spared despite having water running on all four sides of the home at one point.
It is also surreal to me because I wasn't here during the actual days of flooding, but had to watch the response of our ward begin to unfold from a far thanks to a google document that was set up by a member of the EQ presidency out of the flood zone that quickly evolved into a command center for the response to a building crisis. What was scary was when people who have been updating the google document became radio silent and could no longer be reached even by cell phone. Especially when my home became one of these. In time, it became apparent that most of our area had lost power and phone and internet, as individual portions of the neighborhood became trapped in their little islands as the flood waters covered the roads. Fortunately, no member of our ward died or was injured, although sadly a number of older couples from our area were swept away or drowned in their cars. A good many of our friends and neighbors homes are devasted. Our prayers are for them and for all our city.
Several of our friends live down this street and we had looked at buying several homes here.
Semi-trucks parks in our little town for a few days because the freeway is under water.
The day after the flood, the soccer field (which is in the background and about 20 feet below the level of the road and normally about 30 feet above the river) is completely under water, trapping many of our friends who live in the subdivision down this road Rescue crews used their boats to evacuate houses that were underwater.
The creek behind our house overflowed into the easement between our house and the neighbor's house.
Our street beginning to flood on May 2 (It got knee deep on the other end)...
and the next day, flood water gone.
The creek behind our house is now calm 3 days later.