Bits of Clay

Stories from the Life of Arlin R. Potter 5 January 2013 Foreword Arlin Potters life spanned four generations, but a nearly incomprehensible distance when measured in terms of change. He was born into a world on the very cusp of the frontier, and died nearly a century later in a world completely altered by war, technology, and social change. Arlin Potter was raised by his grandparents in a cabin on the edge of an American Indian reservation, situated at over 7000 feet in elevation in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. He worked summers as a rancher and winters as a logger, cutting mine props in the high timber. At age 12, Arlin sat guard duty of the sheep corrals, sitting on the roof of a shed with a 30-30, keeping predators at bay (including grizzly bears and wolves). In some ways, it could be argued that Arlin Potter had difficulty adapting to the changes that came in his life but he certainly did not have problems adapting to the changes in technology. Although he saw his first car when he was a teenager, at age 90 he owned and used two separate computer systems and multiple other electronic devices and software tools intended to help him be productive despite his increasing inability to see or hear. Over the many years of Arlin Potters life, he loved telling stories. Many of his children and grandchildren have heard these stories, some of them many times. This is the first compilation of these stories in one place. The publication of these stories was my fathers overarching goal over the last 18 months of his life. He often stated that his principal purpose in writing it was to bear testimony of the goodness of God and of the power of prayer. He hoped that publication of these stories would help increase peoples faith in their Savior, Jesus Christ. When he began writing his lifes history, he still had a good memory of the entire span of his life. Most of this history below, however, focuses on his younger years. As his memory deteriorated, his stories of later years became less detailed and comprehensive. By the time he began working on this history as his major project, he had difficulty remembering specifics about his family life from sometime in the early 1950s forward. He had flashes of memory, but it was not consistent. This frustrated him: In his last year, he said he wanted to write more, to write stories about his children when they were growing up, but that he simply could not remember. Beyond what is written here, there are a number of recordings that I have made over the last four years of still other stories. I havent yet had time to listen to and transcribe them, so this will not likely be the final edition of Bits of Clay. (There are also many spelling and other errors here to be corrected in time). A few recordings were made jointly with his wife, Dorothy Bennion Potter (although getting her stories was very difficult; she was normally so busy tending to others that she couldnt sit long enough to tell a story).

Many people worked on this history. My father began to work on it sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s, while in his 70s. He continued to make intermittent additions throughout the years. Once he moved to Provo, Utah in February of 2009, all of the family encouraged him to try to finish his story. Arlin was blessed with the aid of a secretary, Lauren Christensen, who did a great deal to capture and write down his recordings. A lot of his story was then carefully edited through a diligent team effort. He received critical help from Linda Lewis, a fellow congregant in his Church (see her notes on page 95). Finally, his granddaughter, Mary Alissa Potter; his daughter in law, Nancy Robertson Potter, and his grandson Jonathan Bennion Potter all participated in the final year of Arlins life in editing and correcting his work, an effort in which my father often participated. This involved many hours of reading the work to my father, hearing his corrections or additions, reconciling the sometimes conflicting accounts, and updating the results. I offer my heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped (and apologize if I left anyone out of this list!) Over the last few decades of his life, my father was involved in promoting various schemes which he felt would help keep the world from poverty; promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ; or help in some way to make the world more livable. Over that last three years of his life, however, his emphasis and interests changed more and more to family. The last year of his life, his interest in family in how they were doing, and his love for them was nearly all-consuming. His only other interest was in seeking ways to do missionary work (on either side of the veil). He was frustrated by his physical limitations in such work. Now he can serve much more fully and freely, and to his joy jointly with his beloved wife. He is no longer hobbled by a body that will not keep pace with his mind. Arlin Roberts Potter passed away on the third day of 2013. I firmly believe that when we see him next, we will hear stories about the new worlds he is experiencing, and the new adventures he is having now. And, I believe he will ask to hear more of our own stories but always with an eye to promoting faith.

Kent Potter

BITS OF CLAY Originally written by Arlin, on January 26, 1992 supplemented at later dates. (last, 5/98) TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Chapter 1: Bits of who I am and infancy Chapter 2: Bits of humor (the big, bad billy goat and things that are funny now that were not funny then) Chapter 3: A bit about lies, fear, faith, and family stories Chapter 4: A short bit of confession and the fruit cake story the real learning of school years Chapter 5: Bits about the first mountain lion Chapter 6: Bits about the Rambouillet Ram (who believed he was an invincible monarch until . . .) Chapter 7: Bits about wolves and wilds Chapter 8: Bits about Indians Chapter 9: Bits about the Baldy Hill bear trap Chapter 10: Bits about Tex, wild horse and son of the unconquerable Black Stallion Chapter 11: Bits about the Baldy Hill night adventure Chapter 12: Big boom bits Chapter 13: Bits about the robbery Chapter 14: Bits about escaping from the city and the capture of the coyotes Chapter 15: Bits about learning to swear (and learning not to) Chapter 16: Bits of home (what it is, where, and why) Chapter 17: Bits of high school, an easy way to die, and timber Chapter 18: Bits about wintering in the woods Chapter 19: Bits about a life-saving revelation in Miners' Gulch Chapter 20: Bits from Miners' Gulch to mission Chapter 21: Bits of California mission experiences Chapter 22: Bits of Worldly War II Chapter 23: Worse than death bits Chapter 24: Bits of the first invasion of Europe Chapter 25: Bits of merry military memories Chapter 26: Bits of North Italy in the 183 Signal Repair Corps Chapter 27: Bits about a lost lad in love with love Chapter 28: Bits of heredity Chapter 29: Bits of Hall-ology and getting a husband degree Chapter 30: Bits of married life in Talmage Chapter 31: Bits of endurance in insurance, and a baby girl Chapter 32: Bits of Lehi Insurance Service, inventions, and more Chapter 33: Bits of a family California adventure Chapter 34: Bits of building my dream home Chapter 35: Bits of a letter to family

Preface I look back over many decades of experience, involving activities some of which I am proud, some of which I am ashamed, and some which were really funny. I am caused to reflect on the messages I want my history to convey to my descendants (or others who may learn of my experiences). If this history is to be beneficial it must be factual, but hopefully interesting enough to read. I intend that each segment carry some benefit (either historical, inspirational, or recreational). It is my hope that this work may guide someone from making a mistake (perhaps similar to some I made), or show someone how to do something better. Most importantly, I hope it may have a spiritual impact on the reader's testimony and give them a better understanding of the real purpose of this life. At the end of some chapters I will attempt to note some thought about how the experience affected my life or how it should have. It has been said that a degree from the University of Hard Knocks proves to be very expensive, and the teachers are not always the best. I now believe that to be true. The education coming from making mistakes can sometimes be painful. Some of my education has been profitable, some has not. My second patriarchal blessing said "You will have the gift of knowledge". I have been enrolled in a number of branches of the University of HK all my life, taking many classes. At this writing I am still enrolled with no assurance of graduating in this lifetime. I have enrolled in some other schools too, but I didn't graduate from them, either. I registered for classes in three accredited universities: The University of Rome for economics, (briefly, while on furlough from military service in Italy), USAC (now Utah State), and the University of Utah. I never graduated from any (I didn't even finish high school. In fact, I didn't even finish the 10th grade). I have taken lots of classes, but I was rarely at the top in any class. However few have had more happiness and satisfaction from their schooling, or a wider range of experience. I will list a few of my experiences: I've been a rancher, pioneer, hunter, cowboy, bronco rider and horse trainer, sheep herder, farmer, irrigation expert, water master, mechanic, welder, inventor, lumberjack, electrical engineer, missionary, soldier, telephone repairman, instrument and watch repairman, student, actor, truck and auto mechanic, architect, home builder, electrician, plumber, furnace installer, salesman of all kinds of insurance in five states (I was man of the year for one insurance company), real estate salesman, notary public in two states, salesman of cemetery lots, salesman of mutual funds and securities, salesman of audio tapes, gardener, estate and tax planner, and a self-styled paralegal (called myself a CPNR meaning creative planner not registered). Finally, I spent many years working on plans to change the world with an alternative economic system. People have said that what I wanted to do was impossible. We'll see - more about that when I succeed. As an executive, I have been the founding head of more than seven companies. I have also helped set up many companies for other people as a planner. The companies I worked in as an executive produced a wide range of products, from educational audio and video tapes to a weekly advertising newspaper (most of these endeavors failed, but someone else is still operating the newspaper). I have created hundreds of different fliers and over a dozen pamphlets, some up

to 50 pages (many of these writings I eventually burned, because they didn't keep up with the fast moving times or the changes I found necessary. The only thing constant is more change). I have given hundreds of seminars, some to crowds and some to near empty rooms. Generally I feel I have been a financial failure because I have tended to live in tomorrow and assume that people will do certain things, which they usually don't. There is an old statement: " The very spelling of the word assume, ' u me', makes a you-know-what of you and me." Concerning church activity, I was five times either president or councilor in priesthood quorums, and was the teacher of nearly all classes in Sunday School or Priesthood. I was a Missionary, a building committee chairman, twice ward Sunday School superintendent, twice counselor in stake Sunday School, several times stake Sunday School board member, a bishop once, and nearly always a 100% home teacher. All the above were profitable for experience. I used lots of clay and varied designs for the pottery vessel but I felt that I failed to produce a really masterful work of art. Thanks to my loving wife my family was somewhat better than my other attempts, but I feel that I often failed there, as well. I have confidence that some of my five children and other descendants will help to improve on my artwork. I hope they will do this and hand it to their posterity, no matter what my family thinks of me and no matter what they call me, whether Dad, Grandpa, or hey, you". No matter what philosophies the reader espouses in their lifetime, there is one thing I would like them to know about me for sure: I know positively that God lives and that his church is on the earth. I know that I was created as a spirit child of God the Eternal Father of us all. I know that my oldest spirit brother has made it possible for me (if I will just follow the rules) to return to the home and fellowship with my Eternal Father and Mother. I feel sure my mortal father and mother will be there to welcome me back if I make it, but my happiness will not be complete without you also, whether you are one of my progeny or someone else who happens to read this. I have a feeling of deep love for all my spirit brothers and sisters, but especially for my progeny, those entrusted to my care. I know my Heavenly family from bits and pieces made known to me (some were positive revelations, some strong impressions. I have not been given a full blown vision by sight, but feelings are just as sure, as some illustrations will show). I know these things just as surely as I know there are catacombs in Syracuse, Sicily. I was once only able to walk for a comparatively small percentage of the 20 miles which I was told was there. I heard the echoes, smelled the smell, saw the bone bits in the carved crypts along the side. So I say I know the ancient people were there. I felt that they were the saints of Pauls day, and I felt that I walked where he had walked. I saw enough to have faith that the rest I was told is true. The unseen will possibly be forever a mystery, which doesn't bother me at all. I accept on faith the things that I do not know, believing testimonies and evidences given by those who have seen more. That which I accept on faith fits logically with what I have seen. Because of sacred experiences, I know my Heavenly family is there. I do not remember my earthly mother but I have felt her influence a number of times. I love her and appreciate her and her heritage.

Here is a challenging illustration which came to me as I lay meditating one morning and which will not leave my mind. I have seen an interesting concrete structure formed as beautiful artwork, formed by making a metal framework and covering it with carefully molded and shaped concrete. I have used concrete at times to form a foundation for a building; I have dug down and used the dirt walls for part of the forms, but then have made firm forms extending above the ground to support the heavy mud mix until it set. There were usually iron bars placed to reinforce it. In one case there was a dirt cellar wall on one side and a concrete reinforcement had to be made to support it. Iron bars were fastened in place and behind them, extending only part way up, there was a network of wire to hold the mud or Bits Of Clay. Any place where there were rods held together by wire and supporting wire mesh, mud thrown at it by a shovel would stick and stay, but the dirt wall, without a closely woven framework of wire in front of it, allowed the mud to fall in a shapeless mass and it had to be discarded. The concrete was supported in place by imbedded wires and rods. The framework of our lives is much like that. Our time is mud, and goals we set are the rods. They are tied together with wires of commitment. (Remember that word, it has been the foundation of any success I ever had.) My rods were put in place by my grandparents, teachers etc. I had to secure these in place with commitments. Then, when truth mixed with faith (mud) was thrown against it, it stuck. The ultimate shape and stability was also dependent on me. Like commitments, my goals (both short and long term, good or bad) are shaped into character. I am not through yet, and I am still wondering what the finished product will be. I am not an artist and don't expect to form a masterpiece, but I hope to be remembered as one who set some good goals and persistently tied them together with wires of commitment. I am proud to be a Potter, and trust that the vessels I help create with my bits of clay will be worthy to hold only worthwhile wares in the Lords kingdom. Chapter 1: Bits of who I am and infancy I was christened Arlin Roberts Potter. My Roberts middle name is after my Grandmother Melinda Elvina Roberts Rust. In later years in some circles, I was known as A. L. Roberts, for reasons of anonymity. Melinda Elvina, known to her husband George Brown Rust as Viny, was the only mother I really knew and my greatest early influence. My father, Alma Lewis Potter, has left a history, as did his father Amasa. They both lived in Payson Utah at the time I was born to Genevieve Rust Potter Sept 2, 1916. Pop, as I learned to call my dad in teenage years when I finally got acquainted with him, was a farmer on a small scale. Some fruit, a few cows, grain, hay etc. My mother was apparently allergic to the alfalfa and other pollens, which can be a real problem for a farmers wife. Possibly resulting from asthmatic conditions, she got pneumonia and died Dec 13 1916 when I was 3 months old. Her Mother (Viny) was with her at the time. Her parents were living in Winn (but about this time the name changed to Talmage when James E Talmage came to speak there) in

Duchesne County Utah. Mother (Viny) had come out with Alva (her second son) to see her grandson and visit relatives in Riverton. Just how they traveled the approx. 125 miles to Payson I am not sure. It may have been by stage to Thistle and train to Payson, at least she went back to Castle gate by train. I do not know details, but Willis (my brother 4 years old then) remembers his Grandpa being there also. Pop (Alma) only mentioned that "Mother" (Viny) was there for the funeral, along with Alva. Pop bought a valise to carry baby things in and Mother had bought two cases of canned milk to feed me. Mother arranged to take me home with her when she eventually went. Alva went on to Manti Alva helped Pop kill and dress pigs etc. and was out on a date late the night of Dec. 22 the night before they left. I squalled a lot so Mother didn't get much sleep before she with me and Alva caught the 8:30 AM train. Alva went to Manti to school and stay with Eliza S and Geo. S. Rust (his grandparents) and Mother to Castlegate in Carbon County where their daughter Eliza (Mrs. Glen "Reed" Seager was expecting. Eliza's son Walter was born Jan. 9th during a blinding blizzard. "Viny" stayed about a week and then she, with baby Arlin, headed up willow creek toward the top of the mountain and down Indian canyon to Duchesne (about 75 miles). How they traveled I do not know. I believe they stayed at the home of hospitable brother Lance (Lantz)? in Duchesne (where I also stayed 9 years later when I was under doctor's care for my fingers being blown off with a blasting cap). He was a real joker and gardener. Example: I commented on the size of some of his vegetables and fruit. I was standing under a grape vine, and he said Well now; you take those grapes there, by this fall, a lot of those are so big they will fill a three gallon bucket". I wouldn't believe a grape would do that, or get that big (his wife then explained that it took a lot to fill the bucket.) Viny and George then took me 16 miles north to Talmage. They stopped at Chris Sorenson's 1 mile N of Talmage and got some warm milk for a squalling baby and went another 5.5 miles to the old log cabin on the 120 acre homestead which they had built a few years earlier. When the irrigation canal was built, it supposedly was going to cover all 120, but in order to get water to the farmers below more quickly, the builders took a short cut which caused the canal to split Dads property and leave half high and dry. It was about 7,000 feet in elevation and we later jokingly claimed it had 9 months of winter and 3 months of poor sledding. Because it had hills around three sides of it covered with cedar and pinion pine, the "girls" later called it "PineReath" ranch even though it had sage brush on every open space and 5 miles due west of Mountain Home. Dad being in the Talmage bishopric (1st Counselor to Austin G Burton), caused us to go to that ward for church and to school there more than elsewhere and use it as address. I grew up and went all through grade school with the name Arlin Rust. The reason being that were some kids of Elzie Potter whom I didn't like and didn't want them to be thought related to me. (60 years later, here in Salt Lake, I met some of those brats whom I disliked so much and was amazed at what nice people they turned out to be after all.) I changed my name back to Potter as a teenager about 1931 when my brothers came to live with us and I had to somehow explain our relationship.

Chapter 2: Bits of humor (the big, bad billy goat and things that are funny now that were not funny then) I was raised with a certain bottle as constant companion until I was 3 years old. I wouldn't accept any substitute and this would cause a real problem when I followed the calves and bummer lambs up into the rabbit brush on the Indian grazing land a few hundred yards west from our cabin. My unmarried aunts, Mary, Ella, and Nora, (Eliza and Ethel were married) had charge of me and would not be able to see me as my hair was the same light yellow color as the rabbit brush tops. My aunts would call "Arlin" and I wouldn't answer. I hadn't learned that I was supposed to, so they finally got smart and called "Arlin, holler to Mama" and I would yell Mama so they would know where I was. When I lost my bottle though, the search was on for real. Without that bottle I was impossible. They finally told me the coyotes would get me if I went up into the rabbit brush on the Indian grazing land again. This threat stopped a problem for my aunts, but caused me to fear the unknown wild, the dark and more. About this time George B., (whom I always called Dad), made a deal with the Clements to get a goat. Clements lived next to us on the south, but 3 miles away. Orin Clement taught a billy goat to reluctantly pull a little wagon. Dad took the goat, harness and all. I don't know if the goat was mean to kids before we got it, but that goat soon figured out that this little tow headed joker in the wagon was the main reason it was asked to work so hard. The goat didn't bother the girls who made it pull me. If there were any joke to this matter, I was the butt of the joke--- or the goat. The goat didn't like me, and I was scared to death of it. My first sharp recollection was when I was probably about 4 years old. One evening I had followed my teenage aunts to watch them milk the cows. We went up to a brush corral, which is made of untrimmed overturned cedar and pinions pulled into a circle with some pole bars for a gate. The corral was about 300 yards south of our house and it and our house were each about 100 yards east of the line of posts, which marked the boundary of the grazing land. The grazing land was a boundary I couldn't cross, or a coyote would immediately eat me. All was well until Harwoods big red bull, in a pasture one half mile to the east, started bellowing and coming our way. We could hear it getting closer and closer. The Girls said "Arlin, run to the house so the bull won't get you". I had an insurmountable problem--- The bull coming, the billy goat at the house, the coyotes up in the grazing land. and the girls saying, go. I went about half way to the house before I sensed the gravity of my situation. I solved it by climbing up about a foot on one of the boundary fence posts and by bawling until I was rescued. I don't know why they kept that goat around so long after that. It seems as though it must have been a year later when the next memory crasher occurred. My relationship with the goat didn't improve any. We hated each other with a passion and only he could do anything about it. We had a pole coral below the canal so they wouldn't have to haul hay and grain across it. They had a footbridge about 25 feet long, for us to walk across. They decided to put the goat below the canal and put a gate on the bridge to keep him below and away from harming me. I used to play a lot around a granary that Elt and Alva had re-built of huge logs from an old saw mill bunk house. The granary was built on top of big rocks and I had to climb a couple of feet to get to the door. I was getting old enough to realize that with a gate on

the bridge, I could now get even with my big-horned arch enemy. After all, the goat was the daytime fear of my young life. I would stand on the upper side of the canal and taunt and tease him from across the ditch with obvious affect; He would shake his horns and show white flashing angry eyes. It was fun. Then came the day when the high water was gone. The water in the canal dropped from about 3 feet to about 6 inches in depth and it became much narrower. I was naive about what might happen until as I called across to him "Hey Billy, Billy, Billy -- what's your idea?" The goat shook its head only once, then showed its idea by heading for the water. As the goat put one foot carefully into the water, I saw its idea too and started to run to the open granary door, but my short legs couldn't move fast enough. As I was climbing onto the top step, I got a butt on the butt and sailed 5 feet inside. I quickly got up while the goat was backing off, leapt inside, and slammed the door in its face. I then listened to the goat march round and round the granary where he held me prisoner for two hours, until my Mother called to me and I gladly answered. The goat didn't bother any adults but they soon got rid of it. I pulled the wagon from then on. My reflections are that I had it coming and deserved at least all I got for teasing and not being considerate of another's feelings; even if it was an animal with a sad looking face, long beard, and horns. I was a problem to the goat too, and it is just not a good idea to tease anyone or anything. Chapter 3: A Bit about lies, fear, faith, and family stories About half way between our log cabin and the brush corral at the edge of the cedar ridge to the south, were the remains of a spring. I say remains because usually the spring was dry or nearly so. However, with a little digging down to the blue clay through which water couldn't penetrate and which stuck to shoes like glue, was the creation of a shallow well. Enough water was found only to occasionally supply scanty needs before the canal came and afterwards whenever the canal was dry, the spring was shaded by a big serviceberry bush and stayed cool. So most of the summertime, the spring acted as a cooler for milk, cream and such. One day the girls discovered little boy tracks in the wet clay and noticed that handfuls of the rich cream had been scooped from the top of a pan of milk. A neighbor youngster happened to be visiting at that time and a quick look at his shoes showed---you guessed it---blue clay. The girls accosted the neighbor boy about snitching cream and he flatly denied. One of the girls said, You did too do it, you have clay on your shoes! "That isn't clay- it's grease," he said. To teach a lesson she said, "Don't you know the devil will get you if you tell lies?" "I'll tell the devil it's grease," he said. I'll tell the devil it's grease, became a well understood family expression for fibbing. I suspect that the Devil enjoyed that too and was saying Do it again, and I'll eventually get you. Both a coyote and a bobcat visited the spring and milk pans at later times, but we never had a chance to find what they would say. Halfway between the cabin and the spring was the woodpile and my job was to carry in the wood for the cook stove year round, and the heater when it was

cold. Often I would forget until dark and the fear I had of the unknown animals lurking in the darkness was a real problem. Dad would say "Go on and if you see anything uglier than I am, I'll come scare it away". I felt he was anything but ugly and it wasn't what I could see that I was afraid of; it was what I couldn't see. Finally I got a better solution from my dear Mother. She said, "If you will pray to Heavenly Father for protection, He WILL PROTECT YOU or give you a warning so you can protect yourself. My faith wasn't that great, and while it was growing and until I had really proven this to be true, I got to be a pretty fast runner trying to protect myself from what I couldn't see. Later when I told someone that I could run hard, they agreed and said yes you can really run hard. They could say that truthfully, because I wasn't really fast and I didn't know the difference between fast and hard. I took it as a compliment. I guess one of the things that really converted me to prayer was when I was tempted to build a little canal to irrigate my mini farm. Dad didn't like me to waste the water that was so badly needed for crops, so he told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to waste any more. Building my little canal was so much fun though, I rationalized that if I only took just a little bit it really wouldn't hurt and Dad wouldn't notice, so I did it again. Little bits of water wash dirt banks and quickly become streams, I learned, and I couldn't stop it. When dad saw what had happened he rushed to stop it. I saw him coming and ran to the seclusion of the willow patch where I got down on my knees and told Heavenly Father that I needed protection real bad and right now. Mother had told me prayer would work and it did. After the ditch was repaired, Dad came to cut a little obedience switch from the willow patch, which he fully intended to turn into a teaching tool by application to the posterior of an apt young student who needed to learn a lesson; but when he saw me there on my knees pleading with the Lord for protection he didn't want to shake my faith, mercy overcame justice and another funny family story was born. My Aunts said it was just because I was a grandchild; they wouldn't have been so lucky. Eventually I learned that fear and faith are not compatible. If a person has faith in the Lord and justifiable faith in himself, he need have no fear of anything. Still, faith in self requires that self be doing what is right. My Lizard Soup or Lizard Oops story is another illustration of fear and faith. Sometimes we have faith in what people say without getting all the facts. For instance, I read that a lizard was not only harmless but among the cleanest of animals or reptiles. The author stated he wouldn't be afraid to put one in his mouth. If anyone else could do something, I could do it too. One of the girls who were helping clean up the ward cemetery one fine day squealed because she saw a lizard. So to impress the kids and mostly the girls, I boldly claimed, "They won't hurt you. I wouldn't be afraid to put one in my mouth". The dare was on and I had to follow through. I caught it and held it by its tail and into my mouth it went. I expected to immediately pull the lizard out, but it thought differently. The reptile could see an open hole ahead--my throatthat looked dark and inviting. As I tried to pull it out, the lizard dug its claws into my tongue. This caused me to pull harder and off came its tail.

Fortunately, I was able to get hold of the body before it got down the hole. I never offered to do that again. My advice? Don't believe all you are told without asking questions, getting facts, or applying logic. Chapter 4: A short bit of confession and the fruit cake story the real learning of school years One thing happened the year I was in the second grade, which I was not proud of, has been on my conscience for all these years. The teacher wanted us to color something we had drawn with crayons. However, she only had a few packs of crayons and so asked us to each choose one color to use and then turn it back in. We didn't have to write our names on our artwork, just put them up for exhibit. I didn't turn the crayon in; I kept it. The teacher noticed it was missing and asked who had the crayon. I didn't want to get caught so I didn't confess. After I got out at recess, I threw that crayon as far as I could; but my conscience has paid for that a thousand times. No one benefited from what I did and I lost a lot of self-respect. A hard lesson to learn is that honesty is the best policy. I think it was the next year that I stayed with my uncle Rand and Eva Rust in their one room log cabin two miles from school. My folks thought it better for me to walk two miles to school, than to ride horseback for six and one half. Of course the fact that my aunt and uncle already had five children packed into that one room house, didn't seem to make a difference. We were family. Curtains separated Rand and Eva's bed. Three boys in one bed, three girls in the other, and all got along well. We had fun together. One game we played we called Add a rhyme line. One person said, I went out to feed the pigs. The next person said, I stepped upon a jiggly twig. The next said, I fell down and broke my crown. The next said, When I got up I saw a pup, trying to lick all that slop up. The next said, I kicked him once a dirty blow, And the last said, You ought to have seen that poor pup go, then everyone laughed. At Christmas time, I went home to the ranch. I had wanted a new sled for Christmas; and since I had been thoroughly taught prayer, I decided to take the matter to the Lord. I knelt beneath a big pine tree and told Him all about the sled. He answered my prayer immediately; not with a sled, but with the sure knowledge that I was not going to get one. Into my mind came the vivid recollection that I had heard my grandparents talking about the fact that they had paid an honest tithe---$25.00 for the whole year. There was only enough money for necessities. Our Christmas tree was a beautiful pinion pine from up on our hill. Nora and Ella had decorated it beautifully with paper chains and then put some wrapped boxes on and around it for effect. They told me the boxes were all empty, but somehow I didn't want to believe them. Christmas morning, after I got my badly needed socks and mittens mother or someone had knitted, the boxes were still on the tree. I looked for something else. When I was convinced nothing was in the wrapped boxes, I started to cry. Ella had me sit on her lap, and with deep feeling and moist eyes, she told me the Christmas story. Not about Jesus birth, but about what He meant to me personally. I would have a body again after I died because of Him. I would

someday die like Aunt Eliza Reed (Sagers) had. I would probably be able, sometime in the future, to play again with my dog that had died. I had loved him so much and he loved me. Jesus had loved me so much that He made all this possible by giving his life for me. He had asked only that I give to other people, to show my love and appreciation for Him. I could feel Ella's love for me. I knew then what love is. That was the first time I understood Christmas and it stuck. The joy of Christmas is not in the receiving, but in the giving---like Jesus did. I heard but I didn't learn just then. When I went back to Rand's for school, Mother sent with me a huge piece of fruitcake. Not the kind you might buy because hers was special, and it had aged for about a month, so it was really good. I shared a piece of it with my cousin Donald Rust, and he said, Wow! We don't want to take this in the house, it will be gone in one meal. We decided to hide the cake in the straw above the stanchions along the manger where we fed and milked the cows, then we could have a piece when we did our chores and the others would never know. As we got home from school the next night Aunt Eva called, "Boys come and help me get this old sow back in her pen! I think she has gone crazy! She has torn up all the manger, the cows stanchions and all. We knew what had happened, she had gotten out and rooting for grain had dislodged our precious cake. She had to find every crumb, even if she uprooted the whole barn. Had we not been selfish, we would have gotten more cake and saved ourselves the trouble of repairing the manger. Chapter 5: Bits about the first mountain lion I was in the second grade. Nora and I rode to Talmage for school that year. Alva arranged for us to use a neighbors horse, Squaw, and Nora rode Kid (Dad's favorite horse). To help keep warm during the hour-long ride each way to school. We rode bareback, without saddles. One night as we rode along the trail through the trees about 1/4 mile from home at the south boundary of our property, I was riding Squaw in the lead, but with my head turned back to talk to Nora riding Kid a couple of rods behind. Suddenly I heard a rip, as though bark ripped off a cedar tree, a cat like snarl, and Squaw bolted. I straddled my own neck and rolled off Squaws rear end, landing on my back looking up into a cedar tree which hung over the trail. Kid snorted and tried to whirl, but Nora wouldn't let him, so he went into reverse until his rump hit a tree and he sat down still snorting and digging holes with his front feet, trying frantically to turn. Nora called, Come back quick, its a lion!" I could see something yellowish up in the tree directly over my head but I didn't stop to analyze it. I ran back past Kids head and Nora held her foot stiff so I could use it as a stirrup as I swung around behind her. She let Kid whirl and we took a long way home without a trail. As we got home, Dad was already on Squaw, coming back to see what had happened. We told him about the lion and he said, "Oh Shaw--I don't believe there are any lions around here, Arlin. You go to the house and Nora can show me where you saw it.

Later, Nora said they saw where the lion had jumped the canal and left big foot prints in the mud. It must have been in October, not everything was frozen solid. Dad tried to make Nora believe the thing we saw was Ottosens big dog. Nora said, But dogs dont climb trees, do they?" We decided that Dad thought we would be afraid to ride to school if we knew the truth. A few days later someone killed a lion, which measured eleven feet from tip to tip, about three miles from there. We were sure then what had been coming down the trail toward us, and had (as we approached) climbed up on the trunk of the tree. When we got closer, the cat tried to spring into the top branches over the trail, the same way they pounce on unsuspecting deer. The bark gave way causing it to growl---swearing in lion language. Normally they won't attack a human unless cornered or to protect their young. I never learned why he was acting like we were prey, but I still don't fear them a lot. Once later I was afraid. A mountain lion came by Rand's coral when I was there one night, as it was getting dark. Donald brought me a rifle to follow the cat in the snow and get it. Its tracks went into a small clump of trees and I walked around the trees and found no tracks leading away, so I made quick tracks back down the hill. I knew I had been within 10 feet of it and couldn't see it. Chapter 6: Bits about the Rambouillet Ram (who believed he was an invincible monarch until . . .)

First let me tell you how he got to feeling so great. Many people liked to raise orphan lambs, called "bummers". The lambs mother may have either died or she had twins and wouldn't claim the second one. Willie Davies had a yearling buck which his children had raised with his cows as a bummer, but which his children wouldn't let him kill to eat. We needed a non-related buck for our herd at mating season, so my folks traded a mutton which didn't have the kids affection for the young buck. He had big curly horns and he had never been "docked" (he had a long tail.). It was very convenient to keep him away from the sheep because after mating season, he preferred to think he was a cow. Davies didn't have any other sheep and he had always been raised with the cows. We had a huge Holstein bull with horns that could whip any other bull he had any contact with. He seemed to consider himself the monarch of the bovine world. One morning after milking was done, I was driving all our cattle up to the grazing area. They were all strung out along a trail through the sage brush one after another. The buck sheep happened to be walking slowly and sedately right in front of the big bull. The bull wanted to get to grass a bit faster and was annoyed that this little sheepish animal was blocking his path. With a quick little lurch and a horn on each side of the bucks rear end, the bull tossed the buck sheep off in to the brush at the side of the trail then stopped to see what would happen. If I could have captured the drama with a video camera, you would have seen the maddest, most indignant ram in the world turn and send a visual message to the bull from flashing white eyes (normally brown). "You just stay there, old bully, we'll see who is boss!" The bull seemed to sneer, but stood still and watched with disdain as the buck walked slowly up the trail about 25 yards and turned to

face the bull. Every one of the cattle sensed the drama about to take place and stood watching motionless. The Buck sized up the bull, shook his head, and lowered it. The bull got the message and lowered his head awaiting the charge of this little challenger. The buck ran at top speed and his lowered horns hitting the bull between the eyes with such impact, it caused the bucks rear end to fly up and over. The giant bull weighing 10 times the weight of the buck sheep shuddered and nearly went down. He knew he had met his match and lost. The Bull didn't try that again but the buck thought he now was supreme ruler of the universe. Only people were still left to be put in their place. He started one night as I had finished milking a cow in the corral. Without any warning or provocation, the buck hit me and my bucket and we both went flying. The bucket was smashed and I had to wash off the green stuff that spotted the milking shed floor. I quickly found a pitch fork to use as a weapon and taught the would-beworld-ruler that even a boy with a fork was his superior. Sometime later, mother was in the corral gathering eggs into her apron from straw nests around the edge of sheds. Again without warning, the buck hit. She was hurt, eggs were broken, and she didn't retaliate so I guess he felt he had won that round. Mother and the girls were all scared and the buck was proud. He was afraid of the men now but these people who wear skirts were something else. Dad told mother to loan him a dress and apron. She decked him out real cute, bonnet and all. He got a pitch fork and climbed into the corral. The buck started towards him, but suddenly stopped. He looked things over very carefully, turned, and ran to the far corner. . I guess he had never before seen a lady in skirts, with a mustache, carrying a pitchfork. No matter how big, or bold, all may be conquered by some means and all things are not as they first may appear.

Chapter 7: Bits about wolves and wilds Living on the last ranch of semi- civilization brings some interesting contacts with the animals which have had control of the area for a millennium. We constantly battled coyotes and occasionally someone would have a loss of livestock to a mountain lion, but these animals were usually afraid of people and stayed farther back. John T Rowley had killed all the bears in that part and we had never heard of anyone seeing a wolf. We didn't try to keep our sheep off the hay fields until water came into the canal to help make a barrier). One Spring day (I think I was probably about age 12) I looked out at the sheep grazing in our north field. I saw what I thought was a huge coyote run down among the sheep. It caught one and flipped it on its back and start eating it alive. (From the area under its hind leg where there was no wool) Either we didn't have a gun or I wasn't old enough to feel free to use one, so I called Mother's attention, grabbed a heavy willow for a club and started to run the quarter mile distance to where the animal was, hoping to drive it away. I ran and yelled as hard as possible. It continued to eat on the live sheep until I got very close. It then reluctantly left its still alive prey and loped off. I have thought since that it could be dangerous to chase a beast bigger than I was away from its meal. I told the men folk about it when they came and no one had ever heard of

such a thing before. Coyotes just didn't do that. They doctored the sheep and she later had sets of twin lambs on two successive years. A month or so later I was riding Dad's favorite horse, Kid, to bring the cattle home (including both milk cows and others). They were in a little sage-covered flat next to the bad lands of rock creek. As I got near, I thought I saw something dart down a ravine. I was sure it must have been a deer. It was too big for a coyote. My big black dog "Dutch" was very helpful in rounding up cattle, and he was doing great until he scared out a cottontail rabbit and took pursuit out into the trees past the clearing. No rabbit could outrun him. He was a very fast dog with almost human intelligence. I was sure either of two things would happen. Either he would come back with the rabbit in his mouth for me to skin it for him, or it would find a hollow log. I was shocked as I looked back at the direction he had gone and saw him running frantically toward me, being chased by the biggest canine monster I thought I had ever seen. Or could it be? Yes, it was the same one I had chased from the north field. I dug Kid in the flanks. He seemed to sense what was wanted and he started toward the thing with teeth bared. It turned and started to run the other way, so Dutch, thinking he had full support gave chase and nipped its heels as though it were a cow. It soon came to the trees where I couldn't follow fast and wolf and dog disappeared. Soon I heard an unmistakable yelp as though Dutch was now the victim. I started calling him and rode toward where I had heard the sound. Soon I heard another yelp from where I had just come, so I rode into a clearing and stopped, but called Dutch at the top of my voice. He soon appeared at a top (frenzied white eyed) speed, with tongue out and looking as though he had about had it. The wolf loped easily behind and would nip Dutch in the rear about every fifth jump, causing Dutch to yelp and try to run faster. I had broken a dry branch from a tree, which I hurled at the wolf as we met this time and though he was not anxious to turn, my club across his eyes and Kids bared teeth persuaded him to turn and lope away. Dutch went right under the horses belly and didn't follow the wolf that time. Many times after, when I was in that area, Dutch would sniff the wind and come in close to my horse. He had learned the hard way that he couldn't depend on others for support in all things. I had let him down. I carried a rifle from then on (the folks said I could after I was age 12 and proved responsible) and three times got a fleeting look or a long shot at the wolf but never did get it.

Chapter 8: Bits about Indians

I used to watch with fascination as Chief Dick Wanroads of the Ute Indians (including his family) would pass through our place on their way to fort Duchesne (40 miles away, below Roosevelt). First the chief and braves with all their head dress paraphernalia, then the squaws and papooses all riding their horses in single file. One year I went to the UBIC (Uintah Basin Industrial convention) and watched their tribal dance and much more. Dad and Mother always befriended them. In early years when our milk was made into cheese, the young braves would often come to the house hoping to get a free piece of cheese or hand out. One day when Mother had been nice to a young brave and he still kept hanging around and pestering her so she couldn't get her work done, after asking him to go several times without effect, she grabbed a broom and started toward him saying "You vamoose now or I'll hit you with this broom". He took off on the run and went down in the field where dad was irrigating, shouting "George, George come quick. Your squaw heap mad!" One day some of the Indians stopped to ask if it would be alright if they shot prairie dogs down in or pasture. Elt told them that would be fine, then asked "What do you do with the prairie dogs" One said "We eat um. You no eat Prairie dogs?? Elt said No, the Indian said "Some day Indian stay fat while white man starve, because white man no eat prairie dog." Several different times on cold winter nights, we would hear a commotion up in the trees above our house. Dad would say, Elt there is another drunk Indian up there, he must have fallen off his horse. He'll freeze if you don't go and bring him down to thaw out and sober up. Sure enough, Elt would come back with an Indian who had bought firewater from Brig Stevenson in mountain Home store and spread him out on the kitchen floor. (It was against the law to sell liquor to Indians). Mother would dig out the coffee saved for thrashing crews and make him a cup, put more wood in the stove and we would all go to bed. In the morning he would be gone. By the time they reached our place (five miles and less than one hour) they were too drunk to stay on their horse and the dangerous twist hollow trail through bad lands west from our place to Chief Wanroads (three miles west and nearly 1000 feet lower), was hard to make even in daylight when a person is sober. One day Mrs. Wanroads came with one of her sons and had him bring Dad a tanned buckskin and a big piece of venison. She said "This for George, he take care of my boys. Another Indian family farther up Rock Creek were (I felt) not quite so generous as the Wanroads I learned this from the first job I ever had away from home. A fellow came to our place and told a hard luck story about how he was herding sheep for the Indians on the other side of Rock Creek Lower Still Water, in MacFee basin. He said some of his family were ill and he needed someone to take care of the sheep for a few days and would have us paid well. I had a strong impression that he was lying or that there was something wrong, but we were taught to help those in need whenever possible.

It was decided that I would go and help him out so I readied my horse and went with him across rock creek to what we called McFee basin. He showed me the situations with the sheep that night and left. He was going to tell the Indians I needed food and they were to bring it up. Two weeks later I was still living on mutton and flour. Everything else was nearly gone when he left. I finally left the sheep and went to the Indian ranch and they said they were told all was well, that he had a substitute, and if they would pay him, he would pay me. They paid him, he left. I quit and I never did get paid. They were not generous or understanding, but I got good experience, but I should have followed the prompting of the Spirit. See chapter 6 for more about these Indians. When Indians were buried, they dug a huge grave like a cellar. They killed the Indians horse so he could ride in the happy hunting ground and put horse, bridle (and sometimes even a squaw) all in the grave with him. The grave on top of the baldy hill a mile from our house, had cedar posts covering the grave and they were covered with dirt. Apparently it had been a chief, for in the grave with him was the bones of his horse. Some of the Mountain Home school kids raided the grave and got anything which looked interesting. The Indians learned about it and were outraged. They put a rattle snake in it to keep people out. Kids persisted until there was little if any left. They used to bring things to school and show. I often wondered if their parents knew or cared. I found the Indians to be generally kind and considerate, but often ill-treated and taken advantage of by the whites. The skin color makes some feel superior, but we are all equally Gods children.

Chapter 9: Bits about the Baldy Hill bear trap Our family had a long tradition of celebrating Easter with an Easter hike. We would roll hard boiled eggs down the hill so that the rocks would crack their shells and make them easier to peel. Since it was a celebration, my aunts, who seemed like much older sisters, would color the eggs in a festive style. Our ranch, Pine Reath Ranch, was adjacent to Baldy Hill, which could be seen up to 30 miles away. Easter morning Donald, Delly, and myself started climbing up Baldy Hill with the basket of eggs. We climbed partly up Baldy Hill and rolled our eggs down an embankment. After the eggs had been effectively cracked by the rocks we ate our lunch. We continued on our hike and found the grave site of an old Indian Chief., chief One Roads. The Chiefs two favorite horses had been killed and laid on top of him so that he would have something to ride in the next life, in his happy hunting ground. We decided to travel on the old wild horse trail on the west side of Baldy hill, to see if we could find any trace of a lost gold mine. It was the gold mine where Cale Rhodes had mined the gold

that was given to Brigham Young to use for the Angel Moroni placed on top of the Salt Lake Temple. Many people had developed the hobby of searching for the mine. As we were walking under a huge pinion pine tree Lydell, or Delly, was in front. He was walking down the trail followed by Donald and then myself. I could see an old piece of canvas on the ground. Delly stepped over it but Donald stepped on it. Instantly, out of the pile of pine needles on either side of the canvas, came the huge jaws of a bear trap. The two immense jaws clamped shut on Donny's leg just below the knee. The jaws didn't close with a snap because the weight of the pine needles covering the trap caused it to close slower than normal. Fortunately Donald had on leather boots; he was the only one of us who had that luxury. I had an immediate impression to look up. When I did I saw that I was directly under a dead pine branch almost two inches in diameter. It was the only branch that was free of pine needles and pieces branching off. I had the feeling that I should jump up and grab that branch. The dry branch snapped cleanly off the tree so that it had a smooth edge. It was the only dry branch on the tree, and if it had not been dry, it would not have broken. The Lord told me which branch to break; when I looked later, I could not see another branch in that area that was like it at all. I took the branch and poked the smooth broken edge down into the jaws of the trap. This kept the jaws from closing further on Don's leg, but he was still in pain. Delly saw how the dead pine branch was holding the jaws back and found another dead branch on a different tree. He broke it off and put it in the trap on the other side of Don's leg. We stood there in shock for a few minutes trying to develop a plan to get Don's leg out. We then came up with a plan. We found some skinny branches from the buck brush that we could use to support ourselves while we stood on the springs of the trap. Delly and I started jumping on the springs while at the same time pushing down on the branches in the trap to the side of Don's leg. Finally, more than an hour later, we were able to get the jaws open far enough to pull Don's leg out of his boot. The jaws then snapped shut on his boot but his leg was out of the trap and safe. We were then able to yank his boot out with relative ease. All of our adventurous ideas about searching for gold were gone. We picked up the trap, but it was so heavy it would take two of us to carry it back, and that it wouldn't be possible. We carried it down the trail fifty feet or so and placed it into a bush off to the side of the trail. Feeling like we had enough adventure for the day, we headed home. We forgot about the experience with the bear trap for a couple months, until school started in the fall. At school we started telling the story to our friends about how we rescued Don from the bear trap. One day on the way home we were stopped by John T. Rowley, who was known throughout the country as a sheep owner and a bear killer, since he had killed, as he claimed, 87 bears in the Bear Wallow section of the mountain (one of them almost killed him, too). John Rowley said, I want to know why you are telling these lies about me. You're trying to make me pay a five-hundred dollar fine to the county for leaving bear traps set. This story about someone caught in a bear trap, who then got out, is just impossible; you can't show me that bear trap. My son weighs a hundred-and-eighty pounds, and he can't open a bear trap without the use of clamps.

There had been a county ordinance requiring all bear traps to be removed, and a five-hundred dollar fine was imposed on anyone who left one set on a public trail. Spreading word that he had left a bear trap could cause him to be subject to this fine. We were unaware of this law, although it made sense to us when we found out. John T. Rowley had gone to the trap's location and found the canvas which had been over the plate that triggered the trap, but the trap was gone, and that's why he thought it did not exist, and that we were telling a lie. He'd been unable to find it because we had had dragged the trap about fifty feet down the trail and then pushed it off to the side, since it was too heavy for us to take home. When I told him the story, explaining how we were able to get the springs to depress by jumping and using branches, he was incredulous at the ingenuity of twelve and thirteen-year-old boys being able to do what we had done. Later, when he went looking for the trap and found it where we told him it was, he had to believe our story. I felt that the root cause that we were able to rescue Don was because we followed my grandmother's instruction and said a prayer for our success and safety that day when we had our hike and Easter egg roll. All I can do is thank the Lord for giving me the impression to do something that I was told was impossible. I know that it was only through the Lord's help that we were able to get Donny out of that terrifying bear trap at all. Chapter 10: Bits about Tex, wild horse and son of the unconquerable Black Stallion Before I say more about the Baldy hill I had better tell somewhat about Tex, a key figure in the next chapter. I mentioned in the last chapter that there were hundreds of wild horses near our ranch. Of course they didn't always stay near. When our hay and grain was nice and green and the grass on the Indian lands was getting dry, it was natural for the wild horse bands to have a night in the green. Our barbed wire fences were made for ordinary animals, and these wild horses were not ordinary. Dad said that when Stewarts (some of the early Mountain Home settlers) came they had a fine well bred stallion which they let run with their own horse band, on the Indian lands for several years. Through cross beading with the Indian ponies, a breed of horses developed which looked at a fence as an athlete does a hurdle: a challenge to overcome so they could not only have easy eating but have fun running through the nice tall hay and grain. One night Elt said he was going to do something about this wild horse problem that threatened to steal our livelihood. He took a white sheet to put over his head and an empty five gallon honey can to beat for noise, and waited in the tall grain. The moon was shining and he could see the band of horses jumping the fence. He waited till they were all in, then the horses (who knew the yell of helpless humans which couldn't run fast enough to hurt them), saw and heard the most terrifying thing they had ever encountered. One of them, watching the monster, forgot the fence and instead of jumping ran into it headlong and got caught in the wire. It nearly dug a new post hole with its feet before the wires finally broke (and also broke a post) but that band never came back again.

After a few years the Indian department decided that the wild horses were eating too much grass which ranchers would be willing to pay to let their cattle and sheep eat. There would thenceforth be trespass fines for ranchers who used the Indian land without a permit. A notice was given that any unbranded horse was to be rounded up and eventually killed and feed to fish at government fish hatcheries. Our neighbors, (Bleazards) decided to beat them to the punch and started rounding up wild horses, branding and selling them for anything they could get for them. One day Dad was at their coral when they were branding a band. They were complaining that the Black stallion (believed to be descended from the Stewart stock), had jumped a coral fence (about 8' high) and gotten away again. Dad noticed a colt (still sucking its mother) which he believed was probably the son of the renegade Black and asked what they would take for the mare and colt. They offered them for a ewe and lamb, so he made the deal. They even delivered it and dad said I could have the colt, which was all he felt was valuable, because of its heredity. It wasn't much of a pet but I tried to make friends as much as I could. When it was about a year old they sold its mother and tied it to our coral fence to get used to a rope. I watched it (with amazement), jump from one side of the fence to the other. I knew then it would be a problem to break to ride. It was wild. About six months later, Donald and I got it in our horse barn and after much petting got a rope on it and a saddle. I made the mistake of putting a half hitch loop on its nose. It hung back a bit and the loop tightened on its nose and restricted its breathing. It panicked and went after us with both front feet flying. We both escaped out the feed manger, scared stiff. I got Elt to get the saddle off. He said to wait a few months and he would show me how to break Tex the easy way. The day came when Elt said we should break Tex to lead. Elt had me get some long willows, We put Tex in our Bull pen (which had a roof on it so he couldn't jump out. Elt went in there with a willow and as he approached trying to pet this snorting white eyed monster, it reared and struck at him. He hit it between the eyes with the butt of his willow. He continued kindness for good action and punishment for bad until Tex learned that how to not get hurt. Elt walked around the pen driving Tex, saying "Come here, Tex." but in that small space it appeared to Tex. that he was following his master. In one lesson Tex was broken to lead (or follow the one who told him to 'come here'.) Elt put a rope on him and handed it to me. He said "now you give the command, and he nearly ran over me. I always rewarded his obedience with morsels he liked or at least scratching under his jaws (which all horses like). Soon he would come to me from as far away as he could hear my voice - most of the time. I soon learned that he was afraid of automobiles. No roadway or lane was wide enough for both him and one of those roaring monsters. When I saw one coming, my only choices were to quickly get off, give the command "Come here, Tex" and hold this poor quivering piece of dynamite until the car passed, or if I didn't see it in time, be ready to ride as he sailed uncontrollably over the nearest barbed wire fence and any terrain not shielding sight and sound from that dreaded car, or until he felt he had run far enough. He never fell. That was not true of my heart though as he jumped washes, off ledges or skated precariously across glaring ice patches. I was the only male he would let ride but he seemed to love Nora and Ella. I won't tell

all details about how he became frightened and caused a log to break his leg requiring that he be shot. Or why I said afterward I never wanted to own another horse. And I didn't. But there are many stories yet untold about Tex. He is included in the next episode. What happened to the Black Stallion? Time after time as horse bands (which he was leading) were gotten close to the corals, he would lead any horses which would (and could) follow back to the safety of the open range. One day Jack Bleazard rode up to our ranch house and asked to borrow our biggest rifle. He said he was going to kill that Black #$*and^$ . Well he didn't hit him because he couldn't get close enough. The year after all other horses had been rounded up. Some of the ranchers saw the Black Stallion and one other of his breed on a wind-swept ridge where he could paw in the snow and get dry grass. Three of the men went up fully prepared to get him, by running him into a snow bank were finally able to rope him and after he had drug them through a few patches of buck brush and nearly torn their clothes off they brought him to civilization. They didn't know the horse breaking arts of Elt Rust however, and the Black stallion was never really conquered. I heard that he was such an outlaw and so hard to control that they gave him to the fish hatchery. There is a real lesson in the story of Tex who learned obedience to a commandment of someone who wanted to reward him for doing good and punish only when he broke the commandment. He learned that sacrificing what he wanted to do in order to keep a commandment, always brought reward. Because he finally learned to obey, he will go down in at least my history as the greatest horse I ever knew, whereas his father, who was never taught proper commandments and never learned to obey, always insisted on his own way and would not compromise or sacrifice his desires, became an unknown and good for nothing.

Chapter 11: Bits about the Baldy Hill night adventure

I was now high school age. Elton Rust was herding sheep for the same Indians for whom I herded (as I related in the chapter on Indians). Elt was up Rock Creek at Lower Still Water, about twelve miles from our ranch. We had a permit to run cattle on the Indian grazing land, and had a few head below Chief Wanroads ranch on Rock Creek. Just a short time before this I had gotten Tex broken to ride (he had been a wild horse, as explained in the last chapter). Mother asked me if I thought I could ride Tex to check on the Cattle to make sure they hadn't strayed off the permit area, and go on up and see if Elt was okay. I suspect she must have had inspiration that Elt needed help, but she didn't say that then. I loved to ride Tex and was glad for the assignment. On our intended route there would be no automobiles to trigger his deadly fear of cars, which could make him run away completely out of control. I made good time through the badlands down twist hollow trail, and finally located most of the cattle. I supposed the others were in the heavy willows. I was getting hungry and looked forward to eating sheep herders fare with Elt. I had ridden fast enough that Tex was acting a bit tired (and hungry too) when I finally found Elt's camp. He said, "Boy, am I glad to see you. All my horses have gotten loose and gone back to the Indian ranch, and I literally only have one handful of raisins left to eat. You can let Tex eat grass

here a few minutes, and then, since he is still a bit wild and also too small for us to ride double, we can hitch and tie down to the Indian ranch. I can get food and a horse there. Hitching and tying meant that we took turns riding the horse. Elt would get on Tex and gallop to a place where he could tie up, then he would start walking. Once I reached Tex, I would then get on and gallop to another hitch point where I would get off and tie him, etc. It was just getting dark as we reached the Indian Ranch, and Elt would still have to go back that night to where wed first met up. He told me where to find the starting point of the old wild horse (or Indian) trail which lead up to the top of baldy hill (The same trail on which the Bear trap had been set, so I knew the other end of the trail). By the time I had found the trail and started up the hill, the black moonless night had shut out all visibility beyond 5 feet. I had an old army saddle without a horn, so I left the knotted reins loose on Tex's neck and let him find the trail. Since he was very gaunt from lack of food and the cinch strap became very loose, as we climbed the steep hill the saddle suddenly slipped back. The cinch strap was on his flanks, which bothers any horse. It was dark, and being very tired and hungry, I didn't notice anything wrong at first. Then suddenly, Tex dropped his head between his front legs as all bucking broncos like to do, and started bucking up the hill. With his head down and not seeing where he was going, he bumped a big clump of dirt, throwing me in front of the saddle. He immediately whirled and started bucking and lunging straight down the hill. I didn't know if there were ledges there are not, so I said, "So long, Tex." I kicked my feet free of the stirrups. As I rolled off him to the side, the saddle turned and went under his belly. I went head first into a big buck brush, and end over end through three more clumps of buck brush before I stopped. I was plenty scratched but otherwise okay. As I stopped rolling I heard a few more thumps and then all was quiet. I was sure he had gone over a cliff. Carefully I crept down the hill, but there were no cliffs and no horse. I did find a stirrup and the saddle blanket, though, and then the saddle. He had kicked it loose. I was glad for the blanket as the wind was cold and I didn't have a coat. I finally found the trail and with one of my four matches I saw that Texs tracks were going back toward the Indian Ranch. The ranch was fenced in, so he would have to be outside in the tall brush somewhere, and I knew it would be impossible to find him in the dark. I walked to the Indian ranch house and could see (as I got close) that they were still up. Then their pack of dogs heard me and started barking. I saw someone come to the cabin door, so I called. Instead of answering me as I thought he would, the Indian called a command to the dogs, telling them in his own language "go get em". The dogs ran toward me, and as they approached I clapped my hands used the same command words (which I have now forgotten), as I had heard of my grandfather Amasa doing. The dogs went right on by, looking for whatever it was that they should go and get. My saddle blanket and I were gone before they came back, looking for some friendly sage brush that could offer more hospitality than the ranch. I finally got a fire started with my very last match. I pulled sage brush to keep a fire burning, but I could only sleep a few winks before the fire died and I had to revive it. I froze one side and burned the other through the long night. The next morning I could see Tex, but the white in his

eye said he was still angry at me and he wouldn't come as usual. He finally did let me catch him and after a few attempts I got on. I wanted to take my broken saddle home (poor as it was I was poorer), so I put it in the top of a big bush, then I rode by the bush and picked up the saddle. That was too much; Tex started bucking. I soon dropped the saddle but that wasn't enough. I never before had known him to buck so high or hard, and how I stayed on him bareback I still don't know. I guess with the Lords help, a person can do anything. I have been thrown from a horse hundreds of times (or fallen off), and it often results in injury; I didn't need to be injured then and there. When Tex finally stopped I found that my pockets had been emptied (I went back to the area a year later and found my pocket knife, a bit rusty but still useable). Since I couldn't persuade Tex to let me get on with a saddle I walked home, arriving just before noon to calm Mother's fears. I was a very hungry lad after a 30 hour fast, leading Tex and carrying the saddle which I was not willing to give up for the comfort and convenience of riding Tex home (as I could have done sans saddle). Chapter 12: Big boom bits The school of hard knocks has good teachers, but they administer painful and expensive lessons. Hopefully this lesson will save such costly tuition for someone else. I was expected to pretty much stay with our sheep to keep the coyotes from eating the lambs during the summer I turned (9 as I recall). The water in our canal dropped seriously after the snow run off quit. Irrigation water was scarce and the July days were hot. Any pond or puddle in an irrigation ditch was soon discovered by the sheep. I happened to find a little puddle in a deep ravine which the sheep hadn't gotten to. It looked a little bug infested but it was wet and I was thirsty. A week or so later I got very sick and Mother decided that I had typhoid fever. Two weeks of delirium and I was out and about though still a bit wobbly. Mother was sorting some old carpet rags to make a hooked rug and found a blasting cap which had fallen through a hole in a sack of blasting supplies hung in the rafters of the old granary where the goat held me prisoner years earlier. It was supposed to be safe up there and no one had ever shown them to any of us or told what they were. It was normally used to put on the end of a fuse, to explode dynamite. She thought it was an empty bullet shell and knowing that I liked to use a cartridge shell as a whistle, she gave it to me. I whistled with it a few times and then decided that the dirt" in the end of it would need to come out. I came to the house (avoiding uncle Orion who asked to see what I had). He of course would have known that what I thought was dirt was a bit of TNT which could lift 500 lbs. I don't remember why I didn't want him to see it. I got a match and tried to dig it out, then decided it might burn out better. It did. The blast knocked me from the kitchen doorway backward a few feet. I saw that I was bleeding and ran outside. Nora and Ella came out from the other room and seeing blood spurting from my neck, arms hands, and face where shell fragments had entered, Ella nearly fainted.

The copper shell of the cap had sprayed from my belt up, Even my eyelid had been hit, barely missing my eye. Ten pieces of shrapnel went deep into my arm face, neck etc. and blood was spurting from my neck. It was a bit after noon when it happened. The men folk were working in the field. They were summoned to get horses from the pasture, harness and hitch to the buggy to take me to Bishop Austin Burton's place so he could take me to Duchesne to the doctor. I remember every bump in the road. it was a painful ride because of the shrapnel in my neck. Of course Bishop Austin G Burton was willing to drop his work in the field and take me, but it all took time. When we got to Duchesne, it was after office hours and the doctor had gone to a meeting. He was found and came to his office and by gas light worked on me till after midnight. He was afraid to give an anesthetic because I was just recovering from sickness, so he numbed the fingers a little bit and Mother held my hand while he probed and pulled shrapnel from throat chin eyelids wrist and more. The doctor finally gave up on one piece, imbedded under the muscle of my upper arm. I could feel it in there for years. It finally worked down to my hand, where it is now. Oh well! I knew some good would come of it. I would never again need to trim nails on a thumb and two fingers. Also, the doctor found that two sores I had been applying salve to for weeks were impetigo. He took care of them and told me that if I hadn't had them treated by a doctor it could have taken my whole hand. I felt consoled that there must have been some good reason for the Lord to let me do such a stupid thing. I was told that I would never be able to play a musical instrument or typewriter, so I never tried for many years. I could have cared less then. After all, ranchers didn't need either of those. Later (on my mission) I decided I wanted to learn to type (hunt and peck) so I did and have typed this and a much much more. I'm sure I could have learned musical instruments too, if people had said you can, instead of you can't. Many a person with far greater handicaps has done more difficult things when the set their mind to it. Can't is the dirty word which often stops progress, and is usually just in the mind. If it is worth doing, and someone else has done it you can too and sometimes you can if no one else has ever done it. So if it's for the right purpose, "Just Do it". Chapter 13: Bits about the robbery Threshing time on the ranch was a busy time for all. For Mother, feeding the threshers was a problem. They would usually want their coffee, and as she was pouring a steaming cup to one of the men, he commented, "Last year when she fed us, Mrs. Rust said that she took the coffee from the same can she bought for us the year before. They all laughed, so she was afraid to tell them that this year, they were drinking two year old coffee. For many years the threshing machine was powered by eight horses which were driven round and round a turnstile. It took at least 10 men to operate the whole machine: two to pitch grain bundles, two to cut bands, one to bag, two to move straw, one with the horses, one to haul grain away, and one to oversee and oil the machinery.

When tractors came into use, I was amazed to see that the thresher had gadgets to take the place of half of the men. Later I ran a combine which replaced them all, including shocking, hauling and stacking the bundles. I think it was a year after I blew my fingers off that Cliff Mickelson drove up in a Model T Ford pickup. We were just finishing up threshing the grain in three big tall stacks of grain with the help of Henry Beckstead and about four other men. Cliff told Elt that he had come to sell him a car. I recall that I had asked Elt about such a thing many times, but he had always said, A car doesn't give milk, raise wool or do anything except gobble up the dollars which other things produce. Elt told Cliff, I dont have any money. Who owns those yearling steers there in the coral? "Oh theyre ours, Elt said. Well, the deal was made, car for cattle. Elt and Cliff headed off to Duchesne to change the title, (and teach Elt how to drive on the way down). Elt said he didn't have a chance to get under the wheel until about a mile before the passengers were to get out, and apparently they were very glad to escape alive after going down to Duchesne with Elt at the wheel. He was never a real mechanical genius, and I finally decided that I knew why he was a little bald on top. Whenever something went wrong he would stop doing anything else and scratch the top of his head. Part of the driving apparatus of the Model T was two pedals operated by the feet: one was low gear and the other reverse. After the handbrake is released, you are either in high, low, or scratching your head wondering what to do. With the Model T, Elt could use one hand to scratch. Anyway, somehow he made it back to where the public road ended, one mile from our home at his brother, Rands place. Elt was supposed to stop and open the gate, but for some reason the Ford didn't understand Whoa. Elt hadn't been tutored well enough on the use of the emergency brake, which you must pull up when you want a Model T to stop, so he didnt and it didn't. The gate dropped off the front of the ford part way across Rand's yard, after punching a nice hole in the radiator. Elt came the last half mile with only enough water to cause some steam to shoot out the hole in the radiator. The steam came right past the loose fitting radiator cap. I was inside the coral when I heard him coming, and started to climb the coral fence to run toward the slowly approaching car. Dad Rust was out next to the road watching this steaming monster approach. Elt was beaming from ear to ear. The steam didn't bother him, but Dad was terrified. He waved his arms and yelled at Elt, Get that danged thing of the place; it's going to blow up! His prophecy was fulfilled within the next instant as the radiator cap, already partly loosened, shot 10 feet in the air in a cloud of steam. Dad bolted for the safety of the coral fence which I was just climbing over in the opposite direction. If that had been filmed, it would have earned an Oscar. It was some time before the radiator was soldered so it only leaked two gallons per hour, and Dad finally condescended to ride in the thing. He preferred Kid, his horse.

Elt soon found that the Model T didn't have power enough to go up some hills without someone pushing, and definitely not enough to get out of some mud holes. Franklin Davies suggested that he could put a Chevrolet transmission in the drive line of the Ford, which would give lower gear ratios so nothing could stop it. He was too, too right on the latter statement. The brake system on the ford was on the drive band in front of the Chevrolet transmission, and if the transmission was in neutral, there was no brake at all. When it started down a hill in neutral, there wasn't even time for Elt to scratch his head before everyone aboard was wondering if it were safer to ride and hope, or jump and hope, or just pray. One memorable experience was at the head of Indian canyon, but the Lord saved us by providing a flat, brush-covered park just before the winding road down the canyon got steep. But here I am ahead of my story; getting to the top of Indian canyon took us over two days and lots of adventure. For a number of years after Great Grandpa George S. Rust died, his aged wife Eliza S. needed someone to stay with her in Manti. It was convenient for high school-aged youths of our family to go to stay there and attend Manti High. Mother would go and take care of her mother in-law and her own family as soon as the threshing was done on the ranch. It didnt matter that school had already started weeks earlier: crops were first. I went to grade school in Manti part of several years. We were on our way to Manti the year after Elt got the Chevrolet transmission in the Ford. We had it loaded high with mutton, flour, potatoes, clothing and bedding for the winter. Going up Indian canyon the ford got hot again, then started to knock. Elt stopped at the saw mill near the top and asked the owner (I believe his name was Hardman) if he could advise him. Hardman listened and said the ford had lost the babbitt from a crankshaft bearing and they would have to pull the oil pan. He thought he could pour another bearing but we would need to stay there that night. They worked on the car till late and thought all was well. The next morning we found that most of the load on the ford had disappeared during the night. There had been a light rain, and both car tracks and human tracks were sharp in the soft, wet ground. Hardman had a hand crank phone and called Sheriff Arza Mitchell in Duchesne. The sheriff said he would be there in forty-five minutes, which sounded like he would be flying, considering our speed on that thirty mile stretch. While waiting for the sheriff, Hardman, Elt and I walked down to the saw mill and back. A car was slowly coming up the grade as we were about to cross the street, so we waited for it to pass, on the still slightly muddy road. As it went by, Hardman looked down at its tracks and immediately started running after it calling for the driver to stop. I don't know if he could have caught it or not. He was fast and they were not able to go fast up the steep hill, but they obligingly stopped. He ran panting up and said Im afraid we'll have to hold you fellows a few minutes. (There were of them two in the car) He had recognized that one rear tire made tracks with an L tread, while the other had a diamond tread, exactly the same as the tracks of the car which had parked to get our goods.

The Sheriff soon came, and Elt came up by the car and saw his mothers shawl on the seat. After questioning the men admitted that they had taken the goods, but they had left most of our things in the Duchesne Cemetery at the mouth of the canyon to be picked up later. We eventually got back most of the things, but not in time to take them to Manti. .

Chapter 14: Bits about escaping from the city and the capture of the coyotes I was slow to get friends at school, because I was not proficient in sports of any kind. , I liked to run but when I was showing off in front of one of my aunts she said "you can sure run hard". I didn't figure out for many years that there was a difference between running hard and fast. My teacher in school (Veda Cox) was encouraging children to read library books and said she would give a prize at the end of the year to the one who would read the most. I decided I would get that prize, whatever it was. It was rumored that it would be a black faced luminous dial pocket watch. I started reading every night and read 108 books during the few months we stayed in Manti. Most of Zane Gray, Jack London and all the Burgess bedtime stories. etc. There was not a close runner up for the prize. I was disappointed when I found it was just another book, The little Lame prince, etc. I was disappointed, but I was rewarded most by the means, not the end. My rapid reading style came to a sudden end when I was asked by my Sunday School teacher "Gerald Henrie" to give a 2 minute talk in Sunday School. I was scared and tried to refuse but he said he would help me, so I accepted. He made an appointment for me to have it all prepared by the next Saturday and meet him at the chapel where he would listen as I made a practice run. There was to be no reading, I had to know it. I had it partly memorized, and he stood at the back of the chapel and coached. I'll be forever grateful to him for taking the time from a busy schedule to help a shy kid overcome his fears. I have never seen a more conscientious and dedicated teacher. As we walked home that day he asked me if I would like to earn some pin money reading to him. He was practicing shorthand to become a court reporter. In that I felt very confident and said I would. He handed me a page of court and legal jargon to read and my confidence went out the window. It wasn't at all like words Zane Gray used. I took home a long list of words to look up in the dictionary every night and practiced enunciating them. The next morning before school I would walk down to Gerald Henry's place and read for a half hour. He gave a little money but he was poor and gave me mostly trade, like a set of Elbert Hubbard's four minute Essays and other things which I cherished for years. It was a great experience which resulted from reluctantly accepting a talk in church. It was helpful to Nora also, for she worked for him the next year. From the material given to me by Gerald Henry, I learned to be cautious of what I read. The reading of Zane Grey and the like made me want to be a gunslinger, which was not what The Lord had planned for me. I recognized that the books given to me by Gerald Henry were of greater value, and encouraged me to think and to make something good out of my life. From that time, I resolved to learn something about the author of a book before I read it.

In Manti we lived in a two story white house which stood where the parking lot to the Manti Temple visitors center is now located. It was owned by the Church and was for the use of the Temple custodian and guard, in which capacity Geo. B. Rust had worked for a number of years before his death. The house was then provided free for his widow. The long beautiful steps up to the west door of the temple ended across the street and over a bit from the house. I used to play on those steps and we used to roll down the grass of temple hill. That temple has a rather favored spot in my heart. There is not a lot more I recall about those school years. One memorable day I got under the house and was doing a great favor, by burning the spider webs. It worked fine until the house caught fire. We put it out without serious damage. I was always anxious to get back "on the range". There was only one of the three years (not all consecutive) that I went to Manti school that I stayed until classes ended. Usually Mother and some other of the folks returned early, leaving one of the girls to take care of Great Grandma Rust. The traveling back from Manti each year left interesting memories. The first time we went by train to thistle and it was the first time I had tasted banana. A cigar smoker was in our coach and between cigar and possibly motion sickness, I didn't like bananas for years. Once we came back with Franklin Davies in his new car. He was a mechanic and had equipped it with an exhaust siren which he could control by a wire up through the floor board. As we got to thistle, he saw a boy kneeling at a sand pile alongside the road. Franklin said" watch this" He pulled the siren right by this poor kid and the kid veritably did a complete summer-salt, got up and ran to the house. The last year I went to Manti, I was in the 6th grade and I don't know whom I rode back to Duchesne with, but it was before school was out, probably in April ( I think I caught the mail truck in Duchesne alone, and I know I walked from Talmage post office to our Ranch 6.5 miles). The year before I had seen some coyote dens (holes) in a wash just NE of the Clement place. I was anxious to see if they had returned and the year previous. The year before, the County had paid a $5 bounty on any dead coyote brought to them, so I thought to make some money. (I didn't know that this had been discontinued because some people were raising coyotes and making a living that way). I found the den and there were fresh coyote tracks. I interpreted that they were going out and accordingly blocked the passage so they couldn't get back in. I hurried on the other 3 miles home on foot and fortunately my cousin Donald was at our place (he lived one mile from us, toward Mountain Home) I told him about how rich we could get if we took some traps back that night, so in the dark we rode horses back with some traps. The next morning we found nothing, but felt sure the old one would come to nurse the pups eventually, so left the traps another day. Still nothing. The holes were too small for our big dog Dutch to enter and went in to the bank of the was horizontally about 3 feet below the top of the ground. We had a 22 rifle but the hole curved in a few feet. We then remembered that Lidell (Delly) Clement (age between Donald and I) had a pennyfice dog. Why not cut him in on our wealth and have him send his little dog into the hole and get the

little coyotes. I went and got him and also some shovels, just in case we had to dig. The little dog went in, but immediately came right back out and wouldn't go in again. We complained at its cowardly action, being afraid of a baby coyote. We were sure the old one wasn't in there. We started digging down at the curve in the den. It is amazing how the dirt can fly when you are having fun. At that point we found it had a second curve and after poking a stick in as far as possible stared digging again. Suddenly a young coyote pup emerged and escaped into the brush. I gave Delly the gun and told him to watch down the hole to the tunnel and shoot any other which appeared. I was furiously digging when suddenly Delly made some guttural sounds "Uh!, Uh!, Uh!! its the old one. The rifle was pointed right at her head but he was too scared to shoot. He threw the rifle at me and was on his horse a few yards away within 3 seconds. The old coyote pulled back before I could get a good shot, but then we knew why the little dog came back so soon. We ended up with 3 pet coyotes which ran on a chain which slipped along a long wire in Rand Rusts current patch for two years before they all either escaped or were killed. Chickens were their delight and they loved currents. Two of them killed and ate one; one was shot for catching chickens and one escaped. A herder told about a strange coyote which seemed as interested in him as in the sheep and didn't seem to know how to kill one. What I learned from this was 1- Delly's little pennyfice dog was ridiculed and derided for not doing what we thought it should do. It couldn't tell us what it knew, and our judgment was entirely unfair. 2-I am ever amazed at what parents will tolerate for their children. Those Coyotes cost Rand plenty, but Donald (and I) wanted them so Rand tolerated them at substantial cost. Chapter 15: Bits about learning to swear (and learning not to) My schooling was generally done in bits and pieces, between when the ranch work rush was ended in the fall until it started again in the spring. I think I might have started on the first day of school a time or two, and possibly stayed to the time school quit in the spring a time or so also. I rode to Talmage for part of the second grade, and lived with Rand Rust in a one room log cabin two miles from school part of one winter. For the seventh grade, I decided to ride to Mountain Home school instead of Talmage. It was over a mile closer. I had gone to Talmage before because Dad (George B. Rust) had been in the bishopric there and we knew people better. I soon got acquainted with the Mountain Home kids, with a bit of disgust. It seemed that every other word there was swearing, and dirty stories were the in thing. I had been taught to never take the name of The Lord in vain, because that is worse than swearing, but other words were not in the same category, so they became increasingly more frequent. One day at home I called Elt Rust an inappropriate name, and he about floored me. He said, "You can't call my mother a dog and get away with it!" I told him that the guys at school regularly called each other that. He responded, "If they ever call you that, you let them know why they shouldn't".

A short time later, my friend Bill Blazzard called me that same inappropriate name in class. I jabbed him with my pen, and that just about ended our friendship. I explained to him the reasoning, and it never happened again. The next fall, for the eighth grade, I told Elt that I was going back to Talmage again. He was very disappointed and offered me twenty-five dollars if I would go to Mountain Home, as he said the shorter distance and extra hour helping with the chores would be worth it. I thought twenty-five dollars sounded like a fortune, but I was firm. I said, If I associate with that Mountain Home bunch another year, I'm afraid I'll be just like them, profanity and all. I went to Talmage for the eighth grade, but I still used minor swear words. The next year I went to high school in Duchesne for part of the year (I stayed with Alva and rode the bus eight miles). The next year was high school again (I had to repeat algebra) at Mount Emmons. I stayed with Uncle Roy Rust during the week and rode Tex home for week-ends. Uncle Roy told Elt that if I didn't get interested in sports, I would quit school. I used to skip PE class and go to woodworking class. Uncle Roy was right: when the warm days came, I went. I quit formal school without even finishing 10th grade (though Ella tried to teach me a little). That was when we started work in the Timber. When skidding logs I frequently swore at Babe (my skidding horse), and one day Elt asked me if it actually helped. I had to admit that it didn't, but I couldn't stop. It was a habit. Finally, Donald Rust (my cousin, who also worked in the timber), and I came to a solution. We would both stop swearing, and if either of us heard the other swear, we would give him a pinch on the arm. Wow! My arm was sore for a while until I was able to stop completely. Chapter 16: Bits of home (what it is, where, and why) The old log cabin at Pine Reath Ranch always seemed like home and I felt that I was a stranger anywhere else in the world. My roots were where I was raised and I couldn't seem to get rooted anywhere else. Nothing ever gave me the same feeling that I had as a youngster. I could never figure out what it was until years later when I went back and even though many things were the same, I was lost. I had an empty feeling. My roots were cut. This bothered me and caused me to reflect for years, then the answer came. Mother was not there. She was the magnetic center of my world which I had somehow associated with a place not a person. It is the love and commitment we have for those in the place which make it home. Any place can be made to be a home only when those things are properly in place. Of course I had been attracted to that home and had thought it would always be the same because it was where I first experienced that in action. Something happened when I was about age 15 which may have changed my life and I think I should let others consider why they should have commitments to commandments created and held in place by love. I loved to hunt, but I usually didn't have much time for anything other than HAY it seemed. Irrigating it to make it grow, cutting and pitching and hauling it to stacks, pitching it to cows and after squeezing out a little milk and cream from them, then pitching the stinking remainder of the hay into piles, and then eventually pitching the stinking green stuff back onto the land to start the process all over again.

After the chores were done one beautiful Sunday morning I saw a big white hare cross the field below the house. My dog looked at it yearningly, but knew he could never catch it. I knew others were getting ready for church, but I didn't really have to go, so I yielded to temptation and grabbed my gun and was just crossing the fence when Mother called to me "Arlin, where are you going, aren't you going to church?" I had some clumsy excuses which I have properly forgotten and then she said, "Well you know what I think you should do; now you make your own decision". Because of my love for her that sacrifice of what I wanted for what I really wanted more was made clear. I hustled to get ready and it was that very day that I was called to teach my first Sunday School class and I had a commitment to attend church for the next forty years. Yes love and commitment to commandments have caused me to sacrifice many things I thought really wanted to do, which I learned later would not be in line with long term goals. It has been the framework and the wires by which all good things that ever came to me have been supported. Chapter 17: Bits of High School, an easy way to die, and timber We had a drought on the ranch, and didn't raise enough feed for our livestock through the winter. During this time I trapped a few muskrats in the swamp and sold their pelts. High School, for me, was a quick interruption of what I wanted to do. My older brother Elton Potter (not Elt Rust) came out from Salt Lake just before I was of high school age. He rode the bus from Utahn to Duchesne for school while he worked for Herb Lang (whose daughter he later married). He was doing very well, and finally talked me into starting at the same school and riding the bus from Alva Rusts place eight miles south of Duchesne. I thought that, with Eltons example, I could make it, but the formula for success in learning algebra does not include start late and quit early. As usual, I started late, and so was having a difficult time understanding algebra (though I was learning a little). Meanwhile, Elt Rust, who still lived up at the Pine Reath ranch, said he was going to have to buy hay near Duchesne. He came down and arranged to buy hay from one of the farms near where Alva lived. He asked me to be ready to help him load on the last day before Christmas vacation, and then ride home with him. I looked forward to this, but was unprepared for the weather. It was a bitterly cold day, and as a student, I had not dressed as warmly as I would if I were on the ranch. I also didn't take time to eat much when I got off the bus at Alva's. Elt had four head of horses to pull the sleigh, which had a huge rack on which he hoped to load two tons of loose hay. We worked hard and fast and got it loaded just before dark, but we were over five hours (normally) from home. There were three binding poles which were the length of the load, and we put these on top of the hay with a chain and load binders holding their ends to the sleigh. This way wind wouldn't blow the hay off. It turned out that was a very good thing for another reason: we soon found that it was too cold to ride, and since the horses knew the way we could walk on the downwind side of the load to help keep from freezing. The horses also knew something else: the sleigh pulled easier on snow than it did where the wind had blown all the snow off the road, so when the rode was bare the horses took to the barrow pit where there was plenty of snow. As they left the road, however, the load tipped and rolled to its side. I was devastated, but Elt was ready. He said, Unhitch the lead team from the sleigh and

bring them around to the side. I will undo the middle binding pole, so we can put the end under one side pole and over the other as a lever. Then, with a chain on the lever end, the horses can pull the two tons of hay back upright. It worked, not just that time, but three times that night. The trip home lasted about eight hours instead of five, and the twenty-two miles seemed like forty. By the time we had crossed Blue Bench and into the cedars (Finally out of the wind-chill, which was forty degrees below zero), my stomach thought I was never going to feed it again. Elt said, I'm so hungry I could eat the north end off a south bound skunk. We got down the grub box Mother had sent with Elt. She had purposely not sliced the bread so it wouldn't dry out, and had sent a knife. The bread was frozen so solid it took an ax. We still couldn't eat it. We had no choice but to put a kettle (which Mother had fortunately provided) on the nice fire we soon had going. We filled the kettle with snow and after the water was hot, put the bread in it to thaw. After it was thawed it tasted delicious. We were hungry enough to eat shoe leather. By the time we had walked sixteen miles, I felt I had all I could take. My feet were numb with the cold. Normally I would keep them warm by stomping, but not now, I was too tired. I climbed on the back of the load and burrowed out a little nest for me to crawl into when Elt wasn't looking. I was just about asleep when he realized what I had done. He said, "Arlin, if you don't keep walking you'll freeze to death. I was sure I wouldn't. I was so comfortable and drowsy. He pulled me down onto the road again and I was amazed that I couldn't stand up. I was already stiff from the cold, and within a short time it would have been too late. He helped me stand and get moving again for that last six miles. When we got home at about three in the morning, Mother still had the kitchen stove warm, but they would let me get warm only gradually. My feet, hands, ears, etc. were white and stiff with frost. They started with cold water and within a half hour let me finally get warm and into bed. Even though I had no feeling in my toes for over twenty years, I had avoided amputation. I have been ever grateful to Elt for overriding my wants to stay in the hay and freeze to death, instead doing what he knew to be best. I decided then and on two other occasions that freezing to death would be a nice way to go. MY FIRST JOB AND CAR The Farnsworth Canal and reservoir Co. provided water for Mountain Home and Talmage. Water was the life of the community, and everyone needed more than they got. They decided to build a reservoir at Twin Pots. I was about sixteen, and of course I wanted a job, so I was hired along with a team of our horses. The pay was very low (maybe two or three dollars per day). I worked there till the job was done, and the night before it ended, Merle Donohue mentioned that he was going to sell his car. I was all ears, and when he said it was twenty-five dollars, I said, I'll buy it. Of course I knew I would be able to drive, I had jiggled the steering wheel a time or so on Elts Model T. Merles car was a 1923 Dodge cloth-top sedan without the cloth. There was no such thing as a drivers license then. They came much later, along with other plagues of society. The last night after work, Merle made arrangements to drive with me to Mountain Home. From there another

guy, who had followed behind us, would pick him up and take him five miles south to Talmage, while I would go drive home, five miles to the west. He said he would teach me to drive on the way. He pointed out a few things, then as he got out, knowing that I had never driven before, he said. "You put that in first gear until you have gone the first mile, at least to the top of that dugway. I thought, Whoopee! He's out! I'll do as I please. So I did. I really rattled over the rocks for four miles, and then the rattling did its job and the choke fell off the carburetor. I didn't know how to fix it, so I dejectedly walked home to get horses to pull it in the next day. A few days later, Eldred Allred, the water master, showed me what was wrong. Dad was against all this "modern stuff" and generally rode a horse almost wherever he went, (He rode til he was past eighty-five). I recall on one of his early rides in the car that he looked out at those sagebrush tops zipping past, and said, "You're going to fast, slow down." I made the unfortunate comment, "We are only going fifteen miles per hour." His reply: "Yes, I knew you were going too fast, slow down." I still rode a horse more miles than I did a car until I was about age nineteen. I finally turned the old Dodge into a tractor to pull a plow. When it finally broke down, I used its enormous generator as part of a wind charger to generate electricity for our home. The generator on that model was also used as a starter, although it of course also had a crank. All this mechanic work, wind charger building, etc., prefaced things to come later. This sort of work was not profitable for cash, but it was great schooling. I learned to make something out of almost any "junk" that was thrown away. Creativity is fun, as long as it is for a good and productive purpose. TIMBER My timbering experiences started before I was a teenager. We were building a tall barn roof to protect the hay, and we would have gone to Petty Mountain for white pine lumber, but Elt said he wanted red pine, which was stronger. This would support the weight of the loaded hay fork as it was pulled to the top. In the end we went up Rock creek as far as we could go with a wagon, in search of red pine wood. We had both ridden horses around the narrow, steep side hill trail one year, as we had gone up the river to go fishing in Squaw Basin. I remembered this as we went around that trail, which was carved out of a nearly vertical hill that had made Rand say, "I'd like to know how they built this road around here. We were about a hundred-and-fifty feet above where the river hit the hill, and we could almost reach out and touch the tops of tall trees growing from the waters edge. We knew there were some tall red pines about a mile beyond the end of the road. Elt walked around the trail a ways and said, "I think some coward was afraid of falling off, and has widened this thing. I am sure that I can bring the wagon around with our camp stuff on it. I just wanted to use the front running gear of the wagon to load the log butts on, so that we could drag the tips and get the

timber we needed, but he finally won. I could see that there was room for the wagon and about two inches to spare, so we did it. There was a problem, though: there was a place where dropped down to the level of the river, losing a hundred-and-fifty feet of elevation in only about three hundred feel of trail. When we came back up the trail, we would have to hit the steep part on the run, or the horses wouldnt be able to pull the load. This was fine for the front wheels, and we got a couple of partial loads of logs pulled along the trail during the first day, but then we had to take the wagon and camp stuff out. Elt was not about to waste time with carting a load that had nothing but our camp stuff in it. He was sure the horses could pull the wagon with a few long logs on it, too. I objected but he won, so I got part way up the hill to block the wheels if the horses couldn't reach the top. Elt had those mares on the dead run when they hit the hill. As they passed me they were slipping, throwing gravel, and doing their best, but then one fell and the wagon came to a stop. The wagon then started dragging them both back down the hill, rolling over the blocks I threw under the wheels. After one horse had fallen, the wagon tongue was thrown sharply to the left, and I saw the whole thing heading into the river. The end of one long log caught in the top of a tree, and the back wheels were spinning freely in the air thirty feet above the rivers edge. We had to take the wagon all apart to get it down, and it took another day. This section of trail ended up with the name Rust dugway, as we were the first to take a wagon around it. I remember that it was quite an experience for me, as a teenager, to drive four head of horses (one team in front of the other, with four lines) up the winding road out of rock creek, pulling those big loads of lumber. The lead team would have to climb the steep banks of the road on the curves, so the back wheels of the wagon would stay on the narrow road. We finally got the barn built after some hair-raising experiences. There were a few times when I froze with the fright of high climbing as I fastened on the barn rafters, but that soon passed as I learned to look up or out instead of down. There is a lesson in this: When frightened, always look up with faith. Fear and faith are not compatible and fear stops all progress. Chapter 18: Bits about wintering in the woods I quit public school for good before my second year of high school ended. I was sick of school and when I couldn't be persuaded otherwise, Ella said she would teach me at home. We started but it didn't last. I never really became interested in an education until after the opportunity had passed. We then learned "there is gold in them thar hills" in the form of mine props. Both our stake president (Les Murphy and his sons and another man who had a truck, had contracts to haul poles (or small logs) cut to specified lengths, ranging from 6 to 16 feet, to the mines in Carbon and emery county. Elt arranged for others to feed and milk the cows and he and I started cutting and hauling mine props whenever the crops didn't demand we do farming. The Bleazard boys worked at it year round. The first two years we worked on the mountain above pigeon hollow. One year at bear wallow and a year and a half up Miner's Gulch. Always sleeping in a tent whose sides were banked by

snow and learning to carefully hang wet trousers at night, with legs open so our legs would go into the frozen tubes in the morning. In the tall timber, we could only glimpse the sun occasionally but we didn't get cold because we worked too hard. We also never caught cold except when we went down to civilization for supplies. There were no germs in those primitive woods. Maybe that is why Biblical people lived so long before the time of Noah. The disease cultures hadn't developed yet. The main stories from pigeon hollow were how The Lord miraculously protected us from death time after time. Some examples: I could usually cause a tree to fall within a few inches of where I wanted it to. I boasted that I could drive a peg with the tip of a 60 foot tree. We had a permit to cut dry timber only, and there were more than 10 green for every dry, so we had to decide if and how each dry tree could fall without becoming lodged in green branches. If one lodged, then sometimes we could cause another to fall against it to break it loose and cause it to fall so we wouldn't need to pull it out with a skid horse. One day I lodged one and realized that a skid horse couldn't get to it. I hit it with another tree and it lodged too. I hit it with a third and a fourth and finally decided that I would cut the green tree that they all lodged in. (We could cut green to make roads). I started the lower notch and then realized that the position from here the upper notch would be cut, was where the trees would fall and I could be crushed, so I got under the trees and made two swings with the ax. The tree prematurely broke off with the weight. I tried to jump but for some reason couldn't move. Tree trunks brushed me on three sides. I was unharmed except some scratches. If I had moved an inch either way I should have been crushed. I thanked the Lord then and there for answering our prayers for protection. Another day I had a tree do a balance and skid over another tree. I could see it coming back at me and again I couldn't move. It went between my legs. lifted me a few feet in the air and carried me ten feet. It was fun, but an inch either way would have been tragic. We usually got one load in a day and spent the rest of the time sawing them up. We used the front bobs of a sleigh and loaded 10 to 20 of the 8 to 11 inch butts of these 50 to 70 foot long trees onto the front bobs and drug the tips. One day we got our load in early and decided to go for a second which we already had cut. We had trouble. It was a big load and it was dark before we started down the two miles from the timber to our camp located at the end of the truck road. It was very cold and I was running behind the logs to keep warm. Elt stopped the load at the top of a hill and asked me to drive. He said he would run in the road ahead of the horses so I could see where the road was. He had been having a hard time seeing it from the load and was cold. I was not accustomed to driving down that mountain and didn't know where the steep places were. Soon I was letting the horses go faster than Elt could run. He grabbed a small tree to swing off the road to let me go by. His feet slipped and he shot squarely across the roadway in front of the speeding horse holding back a heavy load. I called Whoa and reined in. The horses frantically tried to stop, breaking breast straps, etc. but in spite of all they could do, I saw the sharp runner go right where I was sure Elt's stomach was. With the broken breast strap on one horse, the sleigh swerved off the road, taking out small trees and making a new road through the deep snow till it finally stopped. I was horrified at the thought that I had cut Elt in two.

Then he got up out of the snow, A sprained ankle, and mystified at what had caught his leg and swung him alongside the runner instead of causing certain death. We could not see what could have done this, so we just gave multiple thanks to the Lord. The Lord even blessed us when we were foolhardy and didn't deserve it. During the Summer the Bleazard Boys (who worked year round) had used the front gear of their wagons and since the ends of the long logs didn't slide easily on the dirt, they made dry weather roads straight off the steep hills. They were too steep to climb but they could go down okay, it pushed their horses a little on dirt, but there were level landings below each hill which slowed them down in the summer time. After we had the crops in we joined them but started back on the old roads we had used before. After the first snows the Bleazards continued the same routes with front "bobs" of their sleighs. (They would load the butts of the 50 to 60 foot long logs and drag the rest). We called it dropping down the well, as they would really go fast. One morning Elt noted that they had come down 'our road' the night before and said, "I see it must be too fast for them to drop down the well, I think I'll do it tonight and show them up. I thought he was kidding until that night it all came back to me as he left our usual road and started for the top of "the well" at a fast trot. I yelled an unheeded warning and jumped off. I ran to the top of the hill behind the speeding sleigh. The sleigh pushed the horses as fast as they could run and their legs knocking the double tree, caused the center pin in the double tree to come loose. Then the sleigh hit a bare plot of ground where the sun had melted the snow, momentarily causing the sleigh to slow so that the horses outran the sleigh enough to pull the neck yoke off the end of the tongue. It quickly caught up with them again and would have broken their legs if Elt hadn't guided them out of the path of the speeding sleigh which now had no control whatever and going about 40 miles per hour. He turned to me standing still on top of the hill and called "Hey Arlin! Catch the horses" with no seeming concern that he was headed for disaster and the horses were stopped. Suddenly the sleigh tongue (which had been making a spray of snow in the center of the roadway, hit a rock causing the front bob of the sleigh to shoot sideways and start the sleigh to roll. As it went over the first time, Elt jumped and his forward motion carried him about 50 feet where he happened to land in soft snow instead of rocks. The sleigh rolled three times and halted, poised on one runner over the spot where Elt was struggling to get up. . Another half roll would have crushed him. I finally was able to breathe. As usual we thanked the Lord for protection. One end note, The Bleazard boys, (Mark, Chick and Jack, usually worked 7 days per week. One Sunday we noticed that they were still in camp and Elt asked them why. The replied, "Well it seems like we have so many more breakdowns than you guys have, you stay in camp on Sunday and work all the other days, we worked on Sunday and had to spend one or two days per week fixing up what we'd break on Sunday. We decided to try your way once to see if it really would work. Elt said "You might even try praying, to see if that works too." Chapter 19: Bits about a life-saving revelation in Miners' Gulch Miners gulch is a sort of pocket or basin in the south face of the mountain, dividing Rock Creek from Brown Duck basin. What looks like peaks from our ranch (and is dubbed Twin Peaks) is really the east end of a long, narrow, twelve-thousand-foot high ridge. From the trail over the top, I had counted twenty-seven lakes as we were on our way to go fishing years before. We had nearly frozen in an August storm, but wed been able to see for miles.

The gulch lies half way up the steep mountainside, about ten-thousand feet in elevation. It lies just below the peaks, and there is a nice stand of lodge pole pine there, which was ideal for mine props. One of the timber buyers had built a zig-zag road from rock creek up the steep, brushcovered slope, ending with a turnabout fifty feet below the basin floor. (He had dug the turn area in a place where it would not destroy trees. We could only cut dry trees, not green.) The trucks which hauled the logs out, and the sleigh with hay for the horses, could only go as far as the road went, so that is where we kept the horses at night. Babe was a very smart horse in some ways. She could untie knots with her teeth, let down bars, and open things like gates unless they were all well fastened. Her sister, Kit, was loyal to Babe and would stay with her without being tied. Our tent was up on the basin floor a hundred yards past the end of the road, in a beautiful spot by a stream. The stream was frozen over in the winter, but there was water available through a hole in the ice. We could only stay there until the snow got about three feet deep. We didn't have snow shoes, and couldn't get around to cut and skid after about mid-January. It was also hard for the horses to skid in deeper snow. We had a heavy snow one night, and knew the trucks wouldn't be back till spring. We planned to go out the next day and quit for the winter. Elt (Elton Rust) reminded me of this, and of what a day it would be getting out through the deep snow the next day. I was getting ready for bed, but as I was starting to pull off my boots, I had a strong impression that I should check the horses and asked Elt if he had tied Babe well. "Yes, she's okay, get in bed." Again I had the impression, and told him I thought I should check. He said, "Oh they're all right, get in bed. The next impression was very strong so I Just said, I'll be back, and went out without coat cap or laced boots to see if all was okay. There was a full moon and a light snow was falling. As I got to the top of the turnaround where the hoses were kept, I looked down expecting to see the horses, but I couldn't see them. I slid down the fifty-foot bank to find to my dismay that they were truly not there. A light snow was falling, and it looked like about fifteen minutes worth of snow had fallen in their tracks. I knew that if I wanted to catch them, I couldnt take time to go back for a coat. The snow was under two feet deep on the road, but over four feet off the road. I ran as fast as I could until I got to the top of the first of five quarter-mile long switchbacks that scalloped up the mountain. I knew if I continued behind the horses I had no chance. I left the road and waded through the waist-high snow to the edge of the steep hill, and jumped, cutting across the switchbacks. I could jump about twenty feet at a time on the steep slope, each time getting buried in the snow. When I came to the road again there were still horse tracks, meaning that the horses were still ahead of me. I jumped off the other side of the road again knowing that even if I landed on rocks, they would be cushioned with snow. At the next crossing there were still tracks. There was just one chance left. There was one more switchback before the road straightened out, and if the horses had passed that I would have missed all chance of catching them. Walking home would be risky. As I landed on the roadway that time and, I shook the snow off of myself and saw no tracks. I could say Thanks, Lord, and mean it. I had just started wading up the hill on that snow covered road

about gone about ten feet when the most surprised pair of horses I had ever seen came around the bend. One half minute more and we would have had no choice but try to walk the entire distance home. Given the depth of the snow and the fact that I had tonsillitis, I'm not sure if I could have made it. Babe had scrubbed her halter off, so with my belt on her nose to guide her we started up the long road, with me riding Babe with Kit following. It was much longer up than down, since I couldnt cut across the switchbacks by jumping up the hill as I had jumped down. The cold was fierce since I was coatless and wet with snow. I was nearly frozen. Why the spirit warned me instead of Elt, I don't know. And why I resisted and took three warnings instead of one I don't know. I do know that I paid for my slowness in listening. I have never won an argument with the prompting of the Spirit, even though I have argued with it many times to my sorrow. I hope I can learn that all people are children of God, and that he that asketh receiveth. If we ask and don't obey, we suffer. We can't expect guidance on every little thing, as even our prophets don't get that, but the Lord knows when something is important, and He knows if we are in tune. He will be there for us. I went back over that road fifty years later with my grandsons David and Ben Gowers on a deer hunt. Extensions of this same road, (extensions that didn't exist in Jan. 1937) had been created, used, and abandoned, and had trees growing in them five inches in diameter. Suddenly I felt old. Chapter 20: Bits about going from Miners' Gulch to mission Experience and adversity are what teach and strengthen those willing to accept these as blessings. The Fall of 1937 Bishop Leon Burton told Elton Rust (Elt), (which distinguished Elt Rust from Elton Potter) that he would like to have a missionary from our family. There were three of us working as partners on the "Pine Reath Ranch" who were potentially eligible. Of course we were struggling financially and had never given thought to one of us leaving for a mission, but after we talked it over, it was decided that I should be the one. Elton Potter didn't really want to, Elt did, but felt that he could help manage the place to provide support better than either Elton or me. I was never interviewed by the bishop, but Bishop. Burton apparently knew me well enough and sent my name to the Church offices. As soon as the crops were in, Elton Potter and I went to work at cutting mine props in Miners gulch again for the winter. I seem to remember that Elt was home taking care of the live stock and milking the cows. We could only work in the props until the snow got too deep, but that could be till first of Feb. We would only usually come down for supplies about once per month. With horses and sleigh it was 4 or 5 hours each way. I do not remember why we took our car up to camp that fall, but just before Christmas, there was about another six inches of new snow which fell the night before the day we had we planned to drive down for Christmas, supplies and etc. We decided to turn the horses loose and let them find their way home (as we knew they would) while we rode home that night (after a hard days work) in the car in comfort. There should be no problems. The old car was running good, and we had a good pair of tire chains. The trucks had been running up that road before the last storm, so the old snow was packed. It was so comfortable in that car with the heater on. We were both

hungry and looked forward to a nice meal Mother Rust would have prepared. Besides it was almost Christmas and there was much to talk about and look forward to. By the time it was starting to get dark we had come down off the steep winding Gulch road. About five miles past the sawmill down Rock Creek, (the only other habitation) the road quit going down and started to climb the three miles of relatively steep road out of the Rock Creek Canyon. At the first hill we spun to a stop. We immediately learned something that we had not been able to detect on the downhill road. We had lost one tire chain and now the car wouldn't go up even a little hill, much less the steep three miles ahead. We walked back looking for the chain, but soon gave up. It was bitter cold with a wind chill and moonless dark. We tried the hill again in the car with one of us pushing but to no avail. There was nothing to do but to walk the seven miles home. That three miles trudging in the snow up that hill seemed like thirty after a full days work and with an empty stomach. I wasn't feeling all that great either, as I had tonsillitis and the poison had weakened my system a bit. My legs virtually quit working and I told Elton (who was much stronger than I but not strong enough to help me much), that he had better go on. I was going to have to rest in the snow for a while. He of course wouldn't let me, as he knew I would be frozen stiff within a few minutes. He kept urging me on and even though he could have walked on home, he knew I would be frozen before he could get back, so he stayed with me to keep me walking until we were about 1 mile from home then he went on ahead and would have come back with a horse if I had not come within a little while. . He saved my life that night. (As Elt Rust had saved me from freezing before) The lesson I learned, was that there are usually no limits to what a person can do except the limits they set for themselves. When you feel you can't take another step, go on! You can do it if you will only believe you can. The alternative to belief, persistence and faith is often death, (physical or spiritual). Things have been tough many times in my life since then and it would have been much easier to quit, but I had learned one lesson. Have faith in God and GO ON. There is really nothing you can't do if God is willing for you to do it. Even though everyone says it can't be done and even though you can't see a way, if it is right you can, GO ON. You are only whipped if you quit. Within a few minutes of my finally getting to the house, Mother said here's a letter you may want to read. (they had already opened it) Its from President Grant. Yes I wanted to read it as soon as I was warm enough to hold it. I still have it. I was called to the Calif. Mission from Heber J. Grant. I was to enter the mission home Feb 17th 1938. There was much to be done before I went. I would have to have my tonsils out and get clothes somehow. Right after Christmas, Deb Bleazard (who lived in a cabin he had built on our closest neighbor, Bill Bleazard's place, a mile from our ranch) offered to take me in to SLC where I could stay with my Dad, (Alma Potter and his third wife Lydia) while I got my tonsils out. Deb had a nice car, but he didn't much like to drive at night. We left entirely too late in the day, so by the time we got to Strawberry Valley, it was both dark and a blizzard. Visibility was about 30 feet. He asked me to drive. I wasn't used to his car but I thought I could do it. (I always thought I could do about anything anyone else could. Approaching the top of a little hill, hoping I was still on the road, suddenly a car headlights appeared in front of me but to my right. I made the mistake of swerving left, he pulled right and we collided, his right fender and our right. I was not quite of the road to the left. Neither were

going very fast and no one was hurt but both cars were wrecked and we would have to have them towed in. Another car came by soon and hauled us all to a warm station where we called for a wrecker. Deb paid all the cost. (I never learned how much). I felt terrible. In SLC, Pop arranged with a doctor friend to come to their home and take out my tonsils while I lay on the kitchen table. We couldn't afford a hospital. (to this day I've never been a hospital patient even when I was born or when I had my fingers blown off). I stayed at Pop's place for about a week and then shopped for clothes etc. and went home to the Ranch. I wanted a Patriarchal blessing before I left for my mission so arranged to go to Duchesne to the home of John Moulton. I was fasting and praying that I might receive a witness of whether what he would say was true or not. My prayer was answered. Some of what he said was given by the spirit to me so that I could know what he was going to say. I could have corrected him if he had said anything else. It was a rather short blessing and seemed to be mostly pertaining to my mission. One statement he made I couldnt understand but was repeated by apostle Widtsoe when he set me apart as a missionary later. My folks told me later, that they thought I might not even live to get married. I entered the mission home (the Beehive house) on Jan 30th with the biggest group to enter at one time: 212 of us. Seven were going to California. We all had meetings there, ate at the Lion house or another cafe, and stayed in an old hotel. Our instructors were J. Wylie Sessions and Wm. E Berrett. Generally they just gave a series of lectures on the whole Gospel plan. We all had our endowments in the Temple, then had a meeting at which Apostle McKay was the principal speaker. I felt he could see right through me when I shook his hand. Heber Grant was President of the church. Pres. Grant gave each of us an autographed book containing priesthood ordinances, also a slogan "That which you persist in doing becomes easier to do. Not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that our power to do has increased". After two weeks (Feb 12th) we were ready to be set apart for our respective missions by the Quorum of the 12. Elder John Widtsoe set me and a few others apart. I heard him give different blessings to those who preceded me. None had the same form at all, then at my turn, he repeated some of the same words I had heard from the Patriarch, and it was a tremendous testimony to me that I was actually hearing promises from the Lord which were personalized to me. One promise, (You will be able to confound those who oppose you in righteousness) I was to see marvelously fulfilled. (see next chapter). The Lord truly knows the end from the beginning and He may reveal this to those who are worthy to receive it. Chapter 21: Bits of California mission experiences We received our Ministers Certificates, which gave us clergy discounts on the railroad, and we were off to Los Angeles mission headquarters. The next morning an elder came to help me pack. I told him I was already packed. He asked how many suitcases and I told him three. "Oh, that will never do. Elders can't have more than one, only sister missionaries can do that." He repacked it all into one, somehow, and had me sell the other two to a second hand store for less than a dollar. I then set out on the train for Tucson Arizona to work under District President

Grant Walker. My first companion was to be a fifty-three year old Canadian (a World War I veteran) named John Clare. We worked tracting together a few days in Tucson and were told we should open the work in Coolidge. We looked for quarters in Coolidge all day Saturday and found nothing. We couldn't even find a big card board box which wasn't occupied by someone who had come there to pick cotton, the production of which was making the Coolidge area boom. We learned there were a few members there who met in the American Legion hall. We stayed with a member that night and all went to church the next morning (a bit early, to sweep out the beer cans and cigarette butts). The one with the key could not be found, so I used my pocket knife to open the lock (which burglar type skill was immediately publicized to all the members by Elder Clare). Members from Florence also came there for church (Florence was about ten miles distant) and among them was A.J. Barnes, the warden of the State Penitentiary at Florence. He invited us to go back with him and assured us we wouldn't need to sleep in a cell. He lived inside the prison grounds and had trusted people as waiters and cooks. What a royal life we lead for a few days until we found a suitable and affordable apartment! Elder Clare had been told to tell President Walker where and how we were, so on Monday morning he sent him a telegram which said, "Came to Coolidge found no lodging, were picked up and are in Florence penitentiary. Please get us out. It was intended as a joke, but it was very costly to President Walker, whose meager personal funds paid for phone calls, etc., to learn that we were living like royal guests. For some time, Elder Clare had topped the mission honor roll for loaning the most copies of the Book of Mormon. We used a library type card system. We would loan copies of the Book of Mormon and write the name and address of any person who agreed to look at the book for one or two weeks. At this point we would check back to see if they had questions, etc. and would often extend the loan for another period. During the first thirteen weeks, I had the fortune to contact thirteen ministers or missionaries of other churches while I was alone. I learned fast under pressure, but was feeling very alone and homesick. One night I dreamed I was back in Talmage, and everyone I met, people who had always been such good friends, gave me the cold shoulder. I was so happy when I awakened and found I was away from them. I had some teeth missing in front, so even though I used to smile I was self-conscious. My grandmother (Mother) felt impressed to send me a little poem she ran across. It read, "There are men who smile in the evening/ there are men who smile in the dawn./ But the man worthwhile, is the man who can smile/ when both his front teeth are gone." That hit me hard. I knew that was the answer, I overcame my pride and started smiling, and things got better immediately. Later a dentist gave me a bridge. Elder Clare felt we could do much more by splitting up and taking different sides of the street or going around the block until we met (This is apparently how he had set such records, because he would see twice as many as most pairs of missionaries would). Then came the week when I loaned more copies of the Book of Mormon than he did, and to top it off, I chanced to call at a

house wherein he had placed a book, and she had some questions. I was answering her questions quite successfully when he came to the door. He found me there and went into a rage. He tried to have me go back to the District office and be replaced by another companion. I wouldn't go and eventually he cooled from a white heat to a cherry red. One of the contact situations was a direct fulfillment of what I had been promised by Patriarch Moulton and Elder Widtsoe: that I would be able to confound those who opposed me in righteousness. I was in a rural area, with houses far apart, when I knocked on a door and a young housewife answered. In response to my brief explanation of the blessings that are in the Book of Mormon, she invited me in. I had just filled out her name and address on the card and was about to leave, when her father came. She introduced him to me as a retired Methodist minister. He looked at the book of Mormon on the table and realized that his daughter was planning to read it, and he landed on me with all four feet, so to speak. I would not have been able to answer his scriptural barrage on my own, but my Bible suddenly became automatic, and seemed to fall open to the right scriptures to refute what he was saying. He made a genuine donkey of himself in front of his daughter, so in a rage he turned and walked out the door. I was transferred shortly after that and never knew how much of the truth his daughter accepted, but I always believed she was ready for it. I bought a small filmstrip projector and soon had appointments to show films (Before Columbus, Forgotten Empires, and The King of Kings) in homes, church gatherings, and even schools. We were getting lots of contacts, but we were moved so often that we were not able to follow them all up. They were being turned over to stake missionaries, so I feared many would be lost. We were assigned for a few weeks to work in Superior, Arizona, and stayed with an inactive couple (he was more inactive than she). They didn't have room for us to sleep except in the front room, and they had such poor bath facilities that we decided to hitchhike to Mesa to clean up. (We didn't find a place to stay, so we slept all night in the Temple at the invitation of the custodian. They have a bed there for emergencies.) While at this couples home, one night after they had gone to bed, I was looking at a new film strip showing all the general authorities of the Church. I didn't realize that the wall on which I was projecting was visible through a partly open door to the couples bedroom. Our semi-active-member host was awakened by the flickering light. The man awoke to see the bearded picture of Rufus K. Hardy, beard and all, projected lifesized on the wall. He gave a yell and jumped out of bed, thinking he was seeing the Devil incarnate. I turned the projector off and apologized, but we soon thought it best to move. I was transferred to the Northern Arizona District, which was headquartered in Prescott and directed by William Paul Buys. While awaiting an assignment, I did missionary worked in that district short time. A lady whose husband was a non-member called to have one of the missionaries dedicate the grave of a child. The mortician had a hard time accepting the fact that I was a minister, and the simple prayer of dedication was quite different from the usual pomp of flowers, dirt, and protestant ceremonies to which he was accustomed. The next day we missionaries in from the headquarters office went to help at a branch picnic and watermelon bust. I volunteered to cut melons as the two doing this were not keeping up. We were ahead within a few minutes of putting my putting my cutting style into practice, and the others

who had been cutting left it all to me. (I cut the melon in quarters, then make wedges of each of them, so all get some of the heart and some of the end.) I was sent to Jerome Arizona to work the Verde Valley area with Elder Nielsen. We lived in quarters with two Spanish-speaking Elders, and would sometimes pair up with them to tract, so that if the people who answered the door spoke English or Spanish, we were okay either way. Jerome is a mining town built on a mountainside, where you had to have a car in low gear to go up Main Street. Some houses had outdoor toilets, and I saw one privy which was a three story structure, with an entry from the levels of three houses. After we left there, the blasts from the mines underneath the town caused the Jail to slide down the hill, chasing the post-office. We soon had a number of contacts, and later had a radio program where we played Mormon Tabernacle Choir records and gave a short message on the air. One of our contacts in Cottonwood was telling us about a marvelous revival meeting. It was being held in a big tent, with a sawdust Hellfire preacher. (This kind of preacher would stand up on a podium made of planks with sawdust scattered over the top, so their footsteps wouldnt go thunkity thunk thunk.) The contact wanted us to go, but we were too busy. One night we had an appointment near there which canceled, so we went into the tent meeting late and sat near the exit. Soon people began to feel the Spirit (as they thought), and go up to be saved. I felt that Spirit also, and I remembered a quotation from the Doctrine and Covenants. This passage of scripture tells us that if we see a spirit manifest, we should pray unto the Father in the Name of Christ that He would give us the same spirit. If we receive it, it is of God; if you receive it not, it is of the Devil. I tried to pray, but it seemed all dark, and I couldn't get through to the Lord at first. When I did I felt a strong feeling of disgust. I told my companion we should get out of there, which we did, to the tune of calls from the preacher and some others that we should come back and be saved. A bit of humor I recall from Jerome, Arizona: we went into a market near our quarters, and the markets sales manager was laughing. I asked what was so funny, and he said, "That lady who just went out probably asked for a taste of every cheese we have there in the display (There were quite a few). Finally she said, "I like this one, but don't you have something older, sharper, or stronger? I had about had it, so I yelled to the supposed attendant in the back room, Hey Charlie, unchain number nine and let it walk in. She said, Oh this is all right. I'll take a pound of this, and she got out of here. I was next sent to Williams Arizona, and worked with a very tall Elder Young (people called us the long and short of Mormonism). There had been no recent missionaries in Williams, but we finally found two members. One (Art Bliss) had been a district president in North Dakota just a few years earlier, but had gotten a job as head of the power company in Williams, and had employees who drank and smoked. He had married out of the Church and he and his wife drank coffee, and so he would not give up these habits for the church activity we wanted him to accept. The other member, Dr. Massey, was a veterinarian and had a seventeen- year-old son who had never been baptized. We held meetings with his family and their friends. A friend of the same age as one of his sons attended all our meetings, but said nothing until we set a baptism date for Massey's son. Then he said, "I want to

be baptized, too". We learned that he had read the Book of Mormon and had a testimony, so we asked permission from his Catholic parents. They said it was okay because they were not really active Catholics, and didn't care that much which church he joined. Two weeks after the friends baptism (I can't remember his name and my diary has been lost or destroyed) He was coming back from Flagstaff at a high speed when his car hit a bunch of asphalt, which had been made into a big bump by the logging trucks which traveled that road. His airborne car landed upside-down and rolled, killing him instantly. His parents had many friends and were well known. They said we should conduct the funeral but where would we do it? The Catholics wouldn't let us use their chapel, but finally the Methodists let us use theirs. It was a big frame church and it filled to capacity and overflowed. People were standing outside open windows listening. Elder Young was to conduct, Dr. Massey was supposed to give the eulogy, and I was to give the talk. Dr Massey started right out on a sort of Hellfire talk, saying that if these people didn't join the Church, as this young man had, they were all going to Hell. I had to discard the talk I had prepared and told the Lord it was up to Him. I don't know what I talked about but Elder Young said it was the best he had heard. After that funeral, it seemed every door we went to would open and welcome us in. We also conducted meetings at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Soon, to our sorrow, we were moved again. Our area was to be turned over to stake missionaries who didn't live there. (The nearest stake, Flagstaff was thirty-five miles away). I hated to leave such a golden area. After a few weeks working in Wickenburg, (which was also turned to the Stake mission when we left), I was sent to Imperial Valley district where I and worked in Beaumont with District President Eldon Card. I then went to Brawley, where I spent the longest time of any place during my mission. In Brawley I had three different companions (Wright, Wheatley, and Watson). We hitchhiked to our district meetings (usually about a hundred miles away) and had a few hairraising experiences. One of our district meetings was to be held in Hemet, so we hitchhiked up to it and afterward had a chance to take a short-cut over San Jacinto Mountain back to Palm Springs. We felt sure we would be able to get a ride on to Brawley, even though we would not be on the main highway. We waited at the road fork in the hot sun (about a hundred-and-twenty degrees) for a couple of hours. We really intensified our prayers. There were very few cars. We saw an old jalopy coming with plenty of room and one man in it. We gave all the persuasion for a ride we could, but to no avail. As he went on down the road I felt prompted to say, "We'll pass him before he gets to Indio." My companion said, I hope you are a true prophet. Finally, another car was coming and I predicted, "That car will pick us up." It zoomed right on by and was jammed full of passengers. My companion said, "Many false prophets shall come in the last days." I couldn't understand why I had such positive feelings which were seemingly wrong. While I was meditating about this, gazing wistfully down an empty road, a car came up from the opposite direction. It stopped and the driver said, "Come on Elders, you can hold these Relief Society sisters on your laps." It was the same which had just passed us, and the Stake President,

by the name of Hoagland, from Los Angeles. We did pass the jalopy and both prophecies were fulfilled. Palm Springs was about eighty miles from Brawley, and while we were not assigned to work there regularly, no other missionaries were either. The high school principal there was a member of their branch presidency, and he asked us to speak in their branch. He then arranged for me to show the film strips of central and South America to their student body, but there had to be two assemblies of forty-five minutes each as the auditorium wouldn't hold them all. I had to speed up the presentation to get both films in (they were usually twenty-five minutes each). Worst of all, their PA system went out, and I had to shout so they could all hear. I could hardly squeak after ninety minutes of shouting. At times I forgot the name of one of the ruins was that I was showing. I had faith, however, that if I said the preliminaries which I knew and then opened my mouth to say the name, the correct name would come out. The Lord helped me and it went okay. Soon after that we heard that my former companion and another missionary in Arizona had a miraculous escape from death while hitchhiking. It was reported to church Authorities and it became against mission rules to hitchhike. We all used bicycles after that. I told people I wore my thumb off hitchhiking those thousands of miles. HOW REVELATION COMES. # 1- One day while tracting, I told a man that, in accordance with Moroni 10:4, he would be able to know the Book of Mormon was true. He asked me how I knew it was true and how the Lord had revealed it to me. I pondered that. I had really known it was true all my life, but I didnt know how I knew. I wanted something special. I finally decided that, since there is a promise that people can see angels if they ask in faith, I would fast and pray and get a special manifestation so I could really know it worked. Others have seen heavenly messengers, why not me? I fasted the next day, and then after my companion (Elder Wheatley) had gone to bed and was snoring, I found seclusion as best I could and asked the Lord to give me a positive manifestation of the truth of the book. I fully expected to see an angel. Instead, the Lord spoke to my spirit so clearly that I hear it yet. "You are not strong enough". Then to my mind flashed the recollection that all of the three witnesses who saw the angel left the church, and so did a majority of the eight who saw the plates. Not one of the three ever did return. Was I stronger than they? I was given to know that I would be tested, and the more I things I saw, the harder Satans buffetings would be. I didn't ask again. I remembered my struggles trying to reactivate Art Bliss in Williams, Arizona. I have since seen several times when the testing was almost too strong for me. I thank the Lord for not answering my prayers the way I wanted Him to. I now believe that I would have fallen into Satans hands as I spent three years in moral purgatory during World War II. Elder Wheatley now lives in Preston Idaho. He reminded me at our mission reunion that we had been invited to use the baptismal font of another church. The minister was really converted and used the Book of Mormon in his sermons, but didn't know how to make a living if he stopped preaching. We baptized a brother Floyd Jones in his font.

After Brawley I worked in Banning for some time. Banning Elders Deloy Leavitt and Carl Salmon were both my companions there, and we were very close to the Lord. Often we would predict what results would come from knocking on a door. #2- One particular day we were talking in a home near the edge of town, next to the canyon dividing Banning from Beaumont. We left the house and realized that we had little time and a long way to go to our next appointment. We both stopped and looked at each other as we walked out the gate, and I said, "Do you feel like I do?" He said, Yes, lets go. We turned down a dirt road away from the direction of our next appointment, and walked fast toward the bottom of the canyon. We could not see a house anywhere but felt we must go in spite of other appointments (we would arrange them somehow). As we crossed the bridge across the seasonal stream, we looked toward a house hidden in the trees some distance away. We went up the path and a lady came out on the porch. As we approached, I said, Good afternoon." She returned the greeting and said, Come in. I commented as we climbed the porch, "You must have recognized us to invite us in." She said, No, who are you?" "We are the missionaries." Missionaries from what church?" she said. "Come in. Sit down and I'll tell you why I invited you in. Last night a missionary from the Seventh Day Adventist church was here, and he had me commit that I would tell him tonight whether or not I would join his church. I prayed about it a lot last night and when I finally went to sleep, I had a dream. I saw you two boys coming up the path as you did just now, and I felt you had something for me. What is it? She (Margaret Lucy Lyle) was baptized two weeks later. I do not remember what we did about the appointment we had, we may have called them, we may have gone late, but I will always remember the strong impression which caused us to break our other appointment. I worked in Elsinore with Jack Gallarda, a convert to the church, whose wife was also a missionary in the district. Because of their recent baptism they didn't work together at first. I also worked in Hemet. In all I think I worked in about seventeen cities with about a dozen different companions. I was later transferred to San Diego area, working in Chula Vista, National City, and El Cajone. We wanted to make the honor roll for lowest expense, and for a long time lived on lemons and day old bread, which we were able to buy for two cents per pound. Someone else still beat us. I recall one day while I was talking to a lady in front of her house, her friendly male dog started sniffing around my leg, to which I paid no attention until I felt the warm wet and discovered that it apparently thought I was a fire hydrant. Of course every other dog did too until I was able to get those trousers cleaned.

One of my companions there was Grant Larsen, a greenie. The first day we went out tracting, I took the first two or three doors and then asked if he was ready. He thought he was and at the next door he thought he was all prepared. A cute teenage girl wearing a bikini answered the door and asked what he wanted. He stammered Uh, we, Uh. Elder Potter you tell her. He was not prepared for that. Elmo Davidson had not been super active in the Church, and his wife invited me to bring this greenie there for dinner. I accepted, then she told me she wanted to break him in, so I told Elder Larsen this was his meeting. Elmo told him everything bad about the Mormons and tore him apart before I stopped the show and came to his rescue. I kept a journal which was later destroyed, but bits of it fell into the hands of my wife in later years (which she enjoyed). When I asked my new bride to change my shirt collars and iron the collars on my shirts, she had already read in my journal that I had taught elder Larsen to do these very same things, and had had more experience in it than she had. Ho Hum, I flubbed that one. After serving for twenty-six months I was the first missionary to return to the New Moon Lake Stake. Suddenly, I had seven Church jobs, ranging from teaching classes, to being the first Counselor to the Stake Sunday School Superintendent, to being the Ward building committee chairman. I didn't know when to say no. I didn't have a car, but wanted to date a lovely girl named Ellen Evans. I thought she liked me too, but felt I should ask the Lord before I got too involved, so I got a second patriarchal blessing from F. Earl Case. The Lord answered my prayer and let me know during the course of the blessing, that she was not the one, so I got another guy to start dating her. Chapter 22: Bits of Worldly War II Sunday, Dec. 7th 1941, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, I was in a Stake conference meeting and someone heard it on the radio and it was announced. Someone said to me "You probably won't have to go in the military; you have two fingers and a thumb off already". I wasn't so sure then and two months later, all doubt was removed. Just before I went into the military, another upcoming draftee and I, went to the SL Temple that one last time. I was with another young man when and an older ordinance worker whom I had never seen before or since, came up to both us, probably recognizing that we were the age to be going into the military service--no one told him of this but he may have been prompted of the Spirit--and he took us aside and said, I want to give you boys a promise, that unless it is your desire to take human life, you will not be required to. Keep yourselves clean and free of sexual sin and the Lord will preserve you. At the time the promise was made in the temple I had no idea to what unit I would be assigned. In the back of my mind I sort of wanted to be in the air force or be in some daring position which I had seen in the movies, but I remembered this promise later on when I was offered a chance to change to the air corps and take pilot training and decided that if the Lord had wanted me there, He would have arranged it, so I stayed put in

the gasoline supply unit of the quartermaster corps even though I was in a company composed mostly of a clique from new York City whose morals were dragged out of the sewer. On thinking about it, I was really a little thankful when I saw that I had been assigned to a unit which was not a combat unit, but we still had to know how to fight and those tanks and trucks ahead of us don't go very far unless we were there with the right stuff and the enemy knew that too, so we were a target which couldn't shoot back very effectively. Of course, first I would have to go through a brief basic at Fort Ord, but it turned out to be very brief as they decided that since Fort Ord was overcrowded, we were shipped out to our assigned company for basic training with our Unit itself. Company C of the 205th QM Bn had already been through maneuvers in Georgia with "Pop" Patten's Hell on Wheels Second Armored Division. All ratings were taken and I knew there was small chance of ever having a higher rating than private first class. At the time (or soon after) I joined the Company, they were stationed in Fresno, California, guarding the Japanese-Americans whom the government impounded (for fear they might have allegiance with their homeland). Within the first week after my landing in the camp one of the sergeants, wanting to make me feel at home and accepted by the group, said, "Come on, Potter, we're going out tonight and get some beer and some girls and have a little fun." I made the statement, "No thanks. I don't drink, smoke, or chase the women." He said, "Hey, did you hear what Potter said? 'I don't drink, smoke, or chase the women!'" And in a few minutes it was all through the company. Later, when the company rented a sex movie in the Mess Hall and I walked out on it after seeing what it was, I reinforced the general idea, so they pretty well all knew where I stood. My upfront statement of standards was the best thing I ever did, as then the chiding and taunting would help me hold to those standards. (Much later in Sicily, which I will tell more about, some of the same guys tried to force me to have sex with an Italian girl. I hit a Noncom officer and threatened all with court Marshall, they let me go). There were several "straight guys in my company when I went in, I was the only one who came out clean. I had made a covenant with the Lord, and by my stating my standards up front, He helped me keep it by the taunts and reminders provided by comrades with different standards. I stayed as pretty much a loner for the six months that we were in Fresno. The only Excitement I had was when I went to the air base with the sick call truck and asked one of the test bomb crews if I could ride with them in their bomber up over the Nevada bombing range to see the country. They said sure but you'll have to get permission from our commander. That was Ok but he called my commanding officer to see if I was ok and I had only checked out with a Sargent to go on the sick call truck and wasn't sick. I got to go on the flight anyway) I got a sharp reprimand, but since I never asked for passes to go anywhere, and was only a private he couldn't even ground me. I got a little extra KP duty. We spent a short time in San Jose, California, guarding Japanese American citizens, inside a fenced enclosure. (I would later see their sons in N Italy) then by train across the US to Fort Dix and then Camp Kilmer both in New Jersey. While I was at Camp Kilmer, I met a number of times with a fine non LDS family who had a son in England in the service. They were a wholesome influence. so I had some social contact outside of the military, however, even though I put in for a furlough, but we moved to soon and I never had a chance to go home at all. None of my family ever saw me in uniform.

There were a few one day passes to New York City, Cony Island etc. to see Empire State Bldg and other sights and ride the roller coaster. On one leave which included Sunday and a chance to go to a ward, I met an LDS GI from the Signal Corps. He told of all the interesting things he was able to do and I decided that was for me, but after discussing it with him we both decided that my experience of making a wind charger to generate electricity for our home at the ranch was not enough know how to get a transfer to the Signal Corps. I learned about the US armed forces institute, which was a correspondence school. I enrolled and studied math, physics (including all about electricity, magnetism, telephone etc. I studied more than I sent in for credit so never graduated from it, but the information came in very handy later on, in fact it eventually was a factor in helping me change to the Signal corps, but that's a later story. I had another "leave" scheduled which was suddenly canceled at the end of September, 1942. It was back to Fort Dix again ready to kick off for overseas, we knew not where. October found us sitting inside one of the passenger liners which had been converted to a troop ship. 12 of us trying to sleep in a room built for two, and some of them smoked. The man by the port hole couldn't stand to have it open for fresh air because of the draft, so it was terribly thick with tobacco smoke and stale air. I felt I could scrape 1/4" of coating off my tongue every morning. After we had endured that, sitting still in the harbor for 10 days one morning we looked out from deck side and could see no land and no end to the troop and support ships out to sea, going we knew not where. After a few days, we were summoned on deck and told that we were to pack in our back-packs the essentials we might need during the first 48 hours, with changes of clothing to be put in our "A" bags, which hopefully would be delivered to us after 48 hours, the things not absolutely essential must go into our "B" bags, for delivery a few weeks (or a month) later. We were to make sure our old bolt action rifles were oiled and in good order. The reason being that our landing troops had hit Casablanca that morning, and we did not know whether they would be successful or not. If they were successful, we would go in on dry land. If they were not, we would go in wet and fighting, even though we were support troops, not combat equipped nor trained at all for assault and combat. You may note in the history books that the Casa Blanca invasion was the very first combat operations of US troops in world war II. That was Nov 8, 1942. We were also first on European Soil, landing in Sicily July 10th 1943. (D day in Normandy was not til June 6, 1944, 8 months later). I was in a combat zones over three years, from European beginning until after the end. The next morning (Nov 9, 1942) we got good news. The combat troops had made it and we could go in "dry". We pulled peacefully into the docks and landed in the rain, slogging 15 miles to an area where we were to pitch our one-man "Pup" tents,(which had no floors), on soggy ground, into which we often sank nearly to our knees. With the cold wind blowing off the Sahara, I chose guard duty rather than to try to sleep in that mess. My orders were, "If you see anything moving in the night, shout, 'Alle vous.' If it doesn't go, shoot." We took quarters in some commercial type buildings and started our camouflaged gas dump operations. Our greatest hazard was from bombs from the air, and any drums or cans of gasoline had to be covered by camouflage netting during all daylight hours. Our filling station operations to gas the tanks and trucks was mostly night work. Often sending trucks loaded with gas cans to deliver to the thirsty metal monsters which couldn't move without it. After we got our rainsoaked bags, and things had settled down so some of the men could consider going on a pass to

town, they found their O.D.'s (Olive Drab wool dress clothing) which had been in the finally delivered B bags were so wrinkled that they looked worse than their work "fatigues." Just before going overseas, I had my grandmother send me the gasoline-heated iron for pressing clothes which we had on the ranch prior to getting electricity. It was in my B bag. I ironed my clothes which had sat in bags for a month and the clothes of some of my buddies so that we could look sharp. The Commanding Officer saw the results and gave me a detail to press the clothes of everyone applying to go on pass. He would let them leave camp before I had pressed their clothes. I worked day and night, becoming almost asphyxiated by carbon monoxide fumes from the gasoline iron fumes in the close quarters basement room of an old building. When I had a chance to sleep, I really slept, and as they say " a bomb couldn't wake me". I never lived down the fact that when I went to mess one morning and was asked what I thought of the air raid last night. I said, "What air raid?" A bomb had dropped within 200 yards of where I was sleeping. Chapter 23: Worse than death bits I was horrified by the poverty and starvation among the Arab people. Shivering in the cold winter wind which blew off the Sierra desert (which is seven thousand feet in elevation and cold in winter), these people, (children mostly), were nearly naked. They would hover near our garbage pit each morning, ready to pounce on any morsel of food which the soldiers threw away. Sometimes there were so many children in the pit that left over coffee and scraps would be thrown all over them. Our officers finally required that they be held back from the camp. How I wished there was some way I could help them. One day an Arab came onto the base wearing some GI trousers which he said he had traded for from one of the soldiers. (The GIs would trade clothes for what they wanted, but then, the trousers could have been stolen and then altered.) One of our lieutenants told the man to take the trousers off then and there, and leave pant less. When the man objected, the officer shot near his feet and watched him dance. It made me ashamed to be associated with such a person as this heartless officer. I felt he could win the war and lose the peace by losing respect of all people. President Roosevelt came to Casablanca while we were there, well-guarded and in secrecy. At that time I thought he was okay, but I changed my mind later after the war. At Yalta he gave away the freedom we had won, and there was the fact that he actually helped bring on the war, but that's another story. As our troops kept advancing we kept on the move. I saw much of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, standing on the right (passenger) side of the seat of a six wheeled truck, with my head out of the roof and my hands on a fifty caliber machine gun. I watched the sky continually for Messerschmitts and Fokkers, but I had to make sure I recognized our P51 or P38 planes. We had to be on guard, but fortunately there were no strafing attempts. As our military life soon settled down to a routine, most of the men could hardly wait to get out and get their girlfriends. Once when I was talking to one of the sergeants about the indecencies

of such a sex life, he commented that if and when he had a boy of his own, as soon as he was old enough, he would take him out to the whore house and show him how it was done. It was standard fare to issue prophylactic rubbers when anyone went on pass, and to require frequent medical examination to see if anyone had gonorrhea or syphilis. Across North Africa, under Captain Throop, girls were not permitted to sleep with the men in the camp as they were later in Italy, but some of the officers slept outside of the camp at night, and whether they had partners we didn't know. Joseph Smith said that anyone who committed adultery would apostatize from the Church. I believe that apostasy starts with even considering such a thing in the mind. I found my mind was wandering to forbidden paths and I prayed for help and forgiveness, but having permitted such thoughts to enter my mind, I seemed to pray to a lead ceiling. I knew I would have to pray more and read my scriptures to keep straight. Many a stalwart Latter-Day Saint found themselves seriously tempted by being thrown into close proximity with those who made sex the principle thing talked about and practiced whenever possible. One stalwart Lutheran and a lukewarm Latter-Day Saint whom I knew well, both failed. I was made to realize that The Lord knew my limitations and was protecting me from things beyond what He knew I could bear, as long as I put forth reasonable effort to keep the three Cs. They are: Know the Commandments, Make a Commitment and Carry on. THE OFF HOURS, MINUTES AND WATCHES. There were more interesting things for me to do than chase girls. The French-Arab natives liked to trade, and a common thing they had to sell were watches, toward which our guys were suckers. Many of the watches either didn't work or soon quit working, so I wrote to my uncle Alma Peterson in Manti and asked him to send me some watch repair equipment: springs, crystals, oil, etc. He sent me a fine kit and supply, and would not accept pay. I soon had a reputation for being able to repair watches, which gave me some added profits but less spare time. Sometimes we were well away from civilization. On one occasion two platoons of our company were on detail too far away from the main group for anyone to get to any church service. Our Lieutenant in charge solved the problem by saying, We are not going to go anywhere for church. You are going to be required to all go to church service right in our own camp, and Parson Potter here is going to conduct it. I did, and among the booing and cat-calls from the men (predominantly Jews or Catholics), that was the hardest talk and prayer I ever gave. There was no music of any kind, and it was not one of my best performances. It was made harder because they were forced to attend. It reinforced the principle of agency. The war moved fast across North Africa, and we operated base supply stations, and had less contact with front line troops. Since we were then well behind combat lines and enemy bomb threat was minimal, the commanding officer gave an okay for Dave Herndon and myself to set up an electric light for the mess tent. It was driven by a generator and an old Renault engine we came by, connected with available telephone cable from a signal corps unit. My being involved with this made the

commanding officer think I could do anything in the electrical field, and it was the basis for better things later on in Sicily. Another thing of import happened while we were away out, right after a crippled B29 bomber of ours was looking for an emergency landing at ten p.m. In the dark the plane nearly hit our mess tent full of our guys playing cards by dim lantern light. Our guard signaled it to avoid the tent area by frantically waving a flashlight. It safely landed in a marsh nearby, and the crew came out with guns ready. They were certainly happy to find that we were friendly troops. By the next July, we had moved victoriously all across North Africa and were baking on a parched area a few miles south of Bizerte. There were big cracks in the clay ground from which huge eighteen-inch long green lizards could come up. I learned this just at daybreak one morning, as something caused me to wake up. There he was looking me in the eye, about three inches from my nose. That distance changed abruptly, for in that moment I made a hasty, pant less exit. All of the Germans had been kicked out of North Africa, leaving lots behind. We had great fun in our spare time using up the abandoned ammunition and old hand grenades. There were also pistols that had been left by the Germans, which they had confiscated from the natives. I made a little money converting beautiful old revolvers (which usually shot about thirty-eight to forty caliber bullets), to shoot our 45 caliber ammo. Most of them worked fine. Only one blew the barrel off as the new proud owner held it, but he was not hurt and he let me keep the five bucks he paid for it, because I had warned him I didn't think it would take the bigger bullet. One GI (Charlie by name) found a German automatic rifle with a big box of ammo. He sat on the railroad track near the camp and aimed at a hill and pulled the trigger. It started firing and wouldn't stop. It kicked him over backwards and as he lay on his back firing wildly into the air until all the big wooden box of bullets were gone and his shoulder was black and blue, all the camp dove for cover. We all learned a lesson: If you don't know how to stop it, don't start it. That was one place where there were no girls available for the men, (for which I was thankful). We were preparing to invade Sicily. We water-proofed all the trucks and jeeps by bringing the exhaust and intake manifolds up at least six feet high so they could be driven off from the LSTs into water six feet deep, as they did not expect to have any docks available for their invasion into Sicily. Chapter 24: Bits of the first invasion of Europe July 4th, 1943 General George Patton was scheduled to make a review of my platoon at 8:00 a.m., and we were asked to put on our heavy wool "O.D.'s" for a formal military presentation. We stood in the hot sun until after 10:00 o'clock when he finally showed up in a jeep with a nurse on each arm and stood up dressed in thin khaki clothes, gave a one-minute presentation on how we were going to be the first American troops on European soil (Sicily), and we were going in to "kill, kill, and be killed," a highly un- motivating speech. One of my buddies said, "And I know right where I'd like to start killing!" July 9th we were in a 500-year old olive orchard in Bizerte.

Captain Throop wasn't well and I helped him dig a fox hole in the hard clay. When it was done I was dog tired and decided to sleep by the roots of a big tree instead of digging my own. About the time I got to sleep I was awakened by battle noise. I was surprised at how fast and easy I could dig a fox hole in that hard clay then, when I was scared. I learned another lesson in preparedness. I lay there watching one of the most spectacular fire work displays I ever saw in my life as the tracers from about 100 ships waiting in the harbor for invasion early the next morning tried to destroy a few enemy bombers that had somehow learned that we were there. The invasion at Licata on July 10th was quick and successful, and by July 11th, we were camped at Licata a small town at the south west part of Sicily, It didn't even have landing docks. We worked nights unloading drums of gasoline from ducks (land sea vehicles) which picked up their loads from freighter ships off shore. The Ships would lower a net load of about ten fifty gal. drums onto a duck alongside and it would head for shore so another duck could load. Ships must unload and be gone before dawn. We unloaded the ducks and camouflaged the piles of drums and cans and dug trenches around each pile to minimize detection, so if one were hit, the trenches would prevent spread. I was only a PFC (Private First Class), but I was in charge of a platoon of African-Americans who were a lot of fun. There were enough Sergeants and so forth; I didn't know why PFC Potter was asked to supervise this platoon. Perhaps it was because they thought I could handle it, or perhaps they were trying to get even with me for standing up for my beliefs. One night we were waiting in a tent for the next duck, when one of the men in my platoon interrupted his storytelling to cock one ear to the sky. He went out like a gust of wind and some of the other men were right behind him. I stepped out to see where they were all going, as I still hadn't heard the washboard sound of the Messerschmitt airplane which he had apparently heard. I was just in time to see a body shoot up out of the nearest foxhole. One of the African-American men had landed on top of another who was already in the foxhole (with his legs doubled up for just such an emergency). The first one said, "I's in here! I's in here!" and launched the intruder three feet in the air, arms and legs flailing. Sicily was soon under our control with no enemy within its shores. My night work changed to monotonous guard duty at night, with days off and extra time. One boring day I went over to the airport our forces had established nearby and asked if they had any flights going anywhere. I was told they had a C-47 going back to Africa to pick up some things and I would be very welcome to go along to help load. What we loaded was a lot of old benches and junk, much of which I considered as worthless, but the plane was loaded right up to the hilt and I was on top of the junk inside the plane, in such a position I would never get out if we crashed. The plane labored down the runway and would have ended up in the sand and the brush at the end had it not been for a little bump that caused it to be airborne. It flew struggling a few feet over the sand until we got over the water, where it stayed just above the spray of the waves until we reached Licata. It had required full throttle to even stay airborne. When he cut his throttle just

a little at the air strip, we landed with a thud, gave a few wild bounces and finally came to a thankful, safe halt. I have often wondered how many tons above his limit he was carrying. With all enemies out of Sicily, there was little to guard against and we guards became a little lackadaisical. Some of my buddies started the practice of getting up when the guard sergeant called them for their night shift (two hours on and four hours off) and then going back to bed. I didn't think it was such a good idea until they had been successful for quite some time and so one night I tried it, and wouldn't you know! Some dogs started barking near the captain's tent and the sergeant and the CO came to investigate why the guard hadn't taken care of the problem. They found me just emerging from the tent. Knowing I would be due for a court martial, I was sick at heart and accordingly claimed to be sick the next morning. I proved the point by using internal and external applications of GI soap (under my arm pits) so I had a very nice fever when I went on sick call the next morning, the doctor was very impressed and puzzled to see me frothing at the mouth. I learned that even if the other guy does get away with things that are against regulations, it pays make a commitment to do your duty and do it. The memory of feeling that I had to tell that lie will hang over me forever. From Licata, at the southern part of Sicily, we went north across the island to Palermo which is a beautiful old city at the foot of Mt. Aetna, a 10,800 foot snowcapped peak at the N. coast of Sicily. With its steep terraced, gardened slopes leading down to the warm blue Mediterranean, it is a truly beautiful sight. We stayed there for one year. For a while things were rather slow and there was time for sight-seeing. I took a three day pass. I wanted to go to Syracuse at the S E part of Sicily. It was the ancient cradle of Christendom. It was under control of the British who were of course our allies. I went to the airport to see if I could find a ride. My ticket to adventure was faith and prayer and a feeling that I would somehow be able to go and find a way back, but I knew not how. A British pilot of a small two seat plane said I could ride with him to Catania, which is the other point of the triangle which Sicily forms. It too was under British control and I thought I might get a ride on to Syracuse. Catania too had plenty of sights to see of its' own, such as the old lion pits where the Christians were fed to the lions and more. My pilot friend said his plane would get hot above about 8,000 feet and he couldn't even think of flying over the 10,800 foot Mt Aetna. I enjoyed the view of the steep slopes of Aetna immensely. They were terraced from just below the snow to the blue Mediterranean. Finally when we had passed the highest part of the mountains, he said "I understand that there is a pass through here to Catania. This must be it". We headed up a narrow canyon which looked like it may have a pass at the top. The plane started getting hot and laboring and dropping to near stall speed at the steep climb. The canyon walls got closer and closer until I could see we couldn't possibly turn. The pilot sounded worried and I would have been worried but I had prayed that morning and hadn't been warned not to go, so I thought we'd get through somehow. Just as he said I may have to see if I can turn this thing around. (Which I was sure he couldn't) I yelled "There's a break in the trees

!" As we went over the pass at the top of the canyon, I was sure I could have reached down and picked some pine needles from a tree top. At Catania I learned that a convoy of lorries (trucks) were going to Syracuse the next night, which gave me a day to act as tourist and pretend I was a scared Christian causing echoes in the lion caves as I was running down the path in front of them in full view of a hillside amphitheater of seats built by Nero's Roman lords. The next night riding blackout in a convoy with about 30 feet between each lorry, all going like a bat out of Hades. I developed a new admiration for British drivers skill. At Syracuse there was more to see than I had ever imagined. The twenty or so miles of catacombs in the limestone, where Paul, Peter and other Christians taught, listened and hid from those who would feed them to the lions. I was waned to not leave the guide, as people lost in the labyrinth are hard to find. The niches in the walls have the bits of bone of the faithful of 2000 years ago. There was the old fort built from limestone quarried by prisoners of war before Roman times. Caverns 70 feet underground where they mined limestone blocks and hoisted it up a shaft leaving pillars to support the ground overhead. A ten acre prison so that ten men could guard a thousand. Finally back to Palermo hitch hiking in an American plane and back to duty. During the slow period in Palermo, when I was able to see the gold and glitter of the Catholic churches and monasteries and the squalor of the poor who did whatever they could to get money to have the priests pray their departed relatives out of purgatory. I also saw one of the famous old opera houses, opera and all. It was during this time that I was asked by Sgt. John Pascucci to rig an electrical shock device so that some of the other G.I.'s wouldn't come and use the solar-heated shower water which he had set up, (Pipes on the roof) before he got to it. I rigged a light globe which I knew could not carry amperage enough to cause fatal damage in series with the shower so that when they turned on the water, they would get a jolt. It was the talk of the camp when the first culprit tried it and froze (couldn't let go) to the water handle and couldn't let go and stood there yelling and had to be rescued in the nude. That took care of it very well for a time. A similar "shock rig" sent a little male dog that came visiting the company female mascot down the trail yipping, with its tail between its legs, so that I and my rigged devices were quite famous and popular for a time. Then one night my feeling of popularity back fired and turned to absolute disgust,(could I say hatred), when Sergeant Pascucci sent for me to come to his quarters, supposedly to do some electrical repair. As I entered, the door was quickly shut and locked behind me and I found myself in the presence of about a dozen G.I.'s and a nearly nude girl. They were all going to insist that I have sex relations with the girl then and there, either willingly or by force. Corporal Alfano became very insistent and aggressive and I hit him and pushed the girl away, causing her to fall. One of the sergeants said something about "court martial" for hitting a superior, but I threatened them with court martial, which I did not follow up as I should have done. Seeing that I would not cooperate with them, they finally let me escape.

There was a great need for blood plasma for men hurt in battle. Some of the men had had malaria, but since I had not, I was asked to donate each two weeks. Some of the others in our company always wanted to go when I went, because our reward for giving blood was a shot of whiskey and I didn't drink. I was not building blood fast enough to keep up with the two week schedule and I always did have very low blood pressure., Finally when I went in, they stuck both arms and ended up with a half pint. Harry Pariseau (a corporal who went with me to give blood and get "our two drinks", was just a little guy. The two shots after giving blood, put him out like a light immediately. I had to carry him to the truck. After that his nick name was "two shots and mine was half pint".

JUST DO IT Soon after this came my proudest month of the war. Our company was given the assignment to unload two ocean tankers of gasoline per week, running it into 5 gallon cans (one million of them) in preparation for invasion of the Italian mainland. This would require the hiring of local Italian help to work around the clock. At night the whistle devices on the shut off filling nozzles, which indicated when the can was full, were ineffective because with several whistles going at the same time, the Italian workers couldn't tell which were their own, and they were actually standing in up to an inch of gasoline which had spilled. Captain Throop asked me to rig up lights over all seven of the filling points (called "dumps") to which they had pipe lines from the ships. He said there was less danger from bombs than from fire. I told him that this would be impossible because we had only one generator and the local power system was 160 to 180 volts and our 120 light bulbs would last only about 45 minutes before burning out and Local globes were not available. Knowing what I had done before, he said, "Well, do something; just do it!" I didnt know for sure what I could do, but I had a positive feeling about it so I said yes sir. I always prayed that I would be guided through the day and whenever I had a positive feeling' I knew that I could do it. I then recalled that in the correspondence study material I had mailed to me each week, that I had seen something about "salt water Rheostats. and I was sure I could make something work if I could get the material to experiment with. There was no precedent to tell anyone why I needed the materials (A voltmeter, a substantial quantity of insulation tape, bronze welding rods, electric wiring, two cases of light globes etc.). And I needed it "now" as I had to do it fast. Why would a soldier from a gasoline supply company need this material? I knew I would need some clout to get all the materials do what I felt I had to do and get the materials I needed. Sometimes officers wore shirts without insignia. That was the answers. I put on a new shirt on which I had not had time to sew the stripes or marking, and went down to the navy ships in the harbor. I didn't salute any one, so they supposed I was an officer. . I told the supply sergeant what I wanted. He said, "Yes, sir," and sharply saluted, giving me what I wanted. They did the same thing in the ordnance department when I asked for welding rods which the Navy didn't have. With this combination, I proceeded to make salt water rheostats. (Insulating

the rods from each other and putting them in a 5 gallon can of water, with only a wee pinch of salt, so that the water conducted the current from one rod to the other) I made this system work for the six filling areas on local power, but it took a lot of maintenance. I worked all night every night. The rods would corrode. In the dark I couldn't be sure how much water was left in the can or what voltage was being produced without using the voltmeter. The water evaporated at different rates making the voltage drop, and all the cans and all the lights had to be checked a couple of times per night. The water got warm (or hot) and evaporated. and with 7 dump total to maintain. I was busy. All worked well until I broke my volt meter and could no longer be sure I maintained the correct voltage. I tried using a frosted light globe and noting the size of the aura on the 120 volts put out by the one generator we had, and comparing it with the aura put out by what I was testing, After I had looked at that bright light, I couldn't see anything for five minutes and I knew that wouldn't do as I didn't have those minutes to spare, I couldn't get it all done and there had to be a better way. I knew that it required ampere through the heart or brain area to prove fatal and that it was impossible to be killed by current flowing from a fingertip to the first knuckle. It may hurt a bit but it had to be done. I reasoned that if I was careful always to stand on insulated material such as a dry block of wood, (kept dry under my rain coat), that I could put my finger into a light socket and test the feel of the voltage between the tip of my finger and the first joint. I became quite proficient at being able to judge by feel, whether the voltage was low, high or just right. Many a GI thought I was absolutely crazy when they saw me sticking my finger into light sockets. The captain had said, "Just do it", it has to be done. so I did it. And our company did their job under the time allotted. For our accomplishments , our company later received a meritorious citation. Much later, as we went on up through Italy, the moral conditions seemed to be getting worse instead of better, All I ever heard through the day was stories of "sexcapades" and at night they would bring girls into camp. (Usually without knowledge of the commanding officer. I determined to get out of this rotten company before I too became a casualty to moral transgression as some of my "stalwart" friends had done. When I learned that Captain Throop (who seemed to have some morals) was being made a major and leaving our unit, I asked permission to talk with him. He asked what I wanted and . I told him that I wanted him to do something for me--to help me get out of this rotten outfit. He said, "You know, the only way you can transfer is to go into the Paratroops," (not the Signal Corps as I requested.) I told him that I felt that I had been instrumental in helping him get his oak leaf clusters, to which he agreed I reminded him that when he had a job for me to do, he had said, "Just do it!" Could he do this for me now? He accepted the challenge. He got all my qualifications and within two weeks, I was out of the semi combat Unit, into a Signal repair company a non-combat repair unit. This was somewhat of a miracle, and as far as I know, the only case where a low ranking person with no disability, was transferred from a semi combat to a Non-Combat Unit in a war zone for any reason, to say nothing of (just because they wanted to). For this I have ever been thankful to our Heavenly Father for I believe the Lord was hearing and answering my prayers. The lesson I learned was, if it's right , there must be some

way it can be done. If I am right. I can do it, for one man AND THE LORD, is the majority in all situations.

Chapter 25: Bits of merry military memories A couple of other experiences I had before I left the 205th Quarter Master Battalion will be of interest to you, and I enjoy telling them. Our trek from Sicily to the mainland of Italy was interesting. We traveled by truck convoy along the slopes of Mt Etna to the strait of Messina, where we had to descend down a long series of sharp switchbacks in the road. Our trucks couldn't make these turns without backing up. We soon learned that, at each switchback, there were thieves stationed with knives ready, and they would slash the canvas at the back of the trucks while they were turning. They would take out a few bags and jump off as the truck started forward again. We soon posted guards at each point. Up at Naples, the most overcrowded city of Europe, I was able to go through the remains of the old city of Pompeii, buried by lava flows from Vesuvius. I was amazed at the advanced designs of their plumbing systems over two thousand years ago. We went on hundreds of miles to the North. We were camped in a wooded area, and I was caused to marvel at the intelligence of some of the New York greenies who became officers. However we managed to win the war, it was not because of them. First we heard on our communications network that a ninety- mile-per-hour hurricane was coming our way. My Lieutenant gave orders that all trucks should be chained to tall trees (I wondered how they would get them out from under the trees which blew down). Fortunately, the wind missed us. The next excitement was when a brush fire started across the ridge from our camp. The Lieutenant gave orders for all to get their fire extinguishers out of the trucks and go to fight the fire. I said to two other westerners "Do what with what? Where are the shovels and axes? You know better than to follow that kind of stupid order, lets do what we know how to do. They agreed that we should just do it, and we went prepared. I happened to see the Lieutenant as he came charging down the hill toward the flames, taking his shirt off, with no tools to do anything, as though his bold presence would do it. A burst of flame singed the hair on his chest and he made a speedy withdrawal. When he figured out what was going on, he told the other greenies (who had followed his orders and were armed with truck fire extinguishers) to go back and get their shovels and axes, but by then we three westerners had the fire out. The war wasn't won by that green kind of soldier, and thank goodness there were lots of others who had the ability to just do it. I believe that continually feeling electrical voltage (as I discussed earlier) permitted me to become somewhat immune to electric shock. One day some of our men were trying to start an air compressor motor without success. I asked one if there was any spark in the spark plug. He said, "How can you tell?" I reached down and pulled the plug wire off, and told him to crank it. It had

been raining, and my feet were wet, and of course the shock I received went through the metal crank to him. He let out a yell and threw his arm in the air. After learning that it didn't seem to hurt me and that I was willing to do it again, he said, Lets get the motor sergeant down here. I want to get him good. He called the sergeant and told him to try starting the motor, as hed had no luck. The sergeant came, with the knows all look. He gave one crank and scorched the trees with his swearing as his arm jerked up from the sixteenthousand volt shock. He looked around and saw me holding the spark plug wire. "Didn't you feel that?" he said. I calmly indicated that I had. After swearing a little more, he said, I'll bet you five dollars you can't do that to a jeep. I knew a jeep put out twenty-thousand volts, but such minimal amperage that it could do no harm. I told him that, for five dollars, I would kill the motor on any jeep with my bare hands. The crowd watched with unbelief at first and then with amazement as I bellied up to the idling jeep and dabbed the fingers of both hands onto all four plugs at once. The jeep chugged down, and when I thought it was stopped and I lifted off, it started up again. I did it the second time, but this time all the way. I enjoyed my fame and the five bucks. Another instance was more serious. We were stringing a line from a four-hundred-and-forty volt generator through the trees. I wanted to make a splice, and I called to the guy helping me to cut off the power from the generator. He flipped the wrong switch. I heard the motor idle back, but, to make sure my line was clear, I struck the wires together. It was getting dark, and I must have hit the insulation instead of the bare wire. I then cut into the hot wire with pliers in one hand, holding the other section of line in the other hand. I froze with four-hundred-and-forty volts going from arm to arm (right through the heart area, which is normally fatal if the shock lasts long enough to burn or damage the heart muscle). I was still conscious at this point and, I was prompted to kick back with my legs, (the only muscles not frozen) so that I could fall and free myself (electric shock stops all nerve and muscle action in the areas affected). I was only ten or twelve feet from the ground, and the fall did no serious damage. The Lord had helped me make that kick. The flash of electricity brought several men running. I soon came to, and was not seriously hurt by the shock. The only injuries I sustained were some quarter-inch deep burns in one hand (which still shows the scars). I believe the shock would have been fatal to one not immunized to such a point against high voltage. They called me Flash from then on in that company. When my electrical misadventure occurred, it was early morning in Salt Lake, where my Dad lived. In his next letter he told of a dream he had at that time. He woke himself and his wife, Lydia, by shouting Arlin, jump, jump! Chapter 26: Bits of North Italy in the 183 Signal Repair Corps The signal repair company The Lord had helped me to join, was set up in a huge condominium unit at Piombino (meaning lead ville) a few miles So. of Pizza.( famous for its leaning tower).

For a time I repaired telephones etc. Then when they learned of my watch repair prowess, I was assigned to supervise two German prisoners of war in instrument calibration I learned to love them very dearly and they reciprocated by giving me a clock out of a German Tank when we parted. One day the captain brought the Generals expensive watch in and asked if I was "sure I could repair it" I said "I think I can. He said Can you do it?" I shook it and decided it just needed cleaning and said " Yes I can". Both he and I were very relieved when the cleaned, working watch was return to the General. I made a mistake then, . (I disregarded the feeling that I should have asked for a promotion in rank, just then but I was timid and still a bit new. later rank promotions were frozen, so I remained a PFC.) Later a few of us were schooled in repairing highly technical top secret code sending and receiving equipment, which we couldn't discuss with any one. Chaplain Eldin Ricks (Later the author of several reference works and teacher at BYU) used to pick me up frequently, with permission from CO, and take me with him to visit other troop encampments. He would ask me to give him a talk on some subject. He never used one of my talks while I was with him, but he thanked me for ideas it gave him. One of the trips was a secret run, (no one was supposed to know they were there) among a group of hot shot Japanese mountain troops, who were sent in to do (and they did) what a black regiment of twice their size had not been able to do. They stopped the advance of the Germans in N. Italy. Some of their parents were among those I had guarded back in Fresno. There were a lot of LDS among these service men and they had strong testimonies. I was deeply impressed, that they held no ill feelings against those who held their parents in "prison" but were willing to risk their lives to promote freedom. These are the kind of people who can both win a war and win the peace. They "Just do it" We had a small service mans group in a nearby town of which I was made group leader and conducted services each week. I heard about a servicemen's conference which was to be held at Foggia on the Adriatic Sea, across Italy from Rome. I applied for and got my only furlough for two weeks and hitchhiked a ride (by air) to Rome, then to Foggia and back to Rome, where I was not only able to see the sights like a tourist but also registered as a student at the U of Rome for a week, with an English speaking instructor. (That is why I can brag that I have been a student in three universities and never got a degree). I got a hotel room so I could take my first hot bath in over 2 years. I saw all the sights in and under Rome. (including the catacombs which I didn't like nearly as well as those at Syracuse Sicily). Later on, I also got passes to go to Florence and other north Italy cities and of course climbed the leaning tower of Pizza. When Franklin D Roosevelt died, I was in the 183rd at Piombino. The Lieutenant over my platoon knew that I buddied with (chaplain) lieutenant Eldin Ricks, so he had reported this to the Captain. The Lieutenant told me the CO wanted to talk to me. I went to captain Harvey's office and he said in his stuttering manner, that our company was going to have a memorial service for Pres. Roosevelt and he wanted me to give a memorial prayer for the occasion. I suppose he thought I was most qualified because the Chaplin picked me up so often. He offered me the day off to prepare it, of course I told him I didn't need time to prepare to talk to my God, but enjoyed the time off anyway. I gave a typical Mormon prayer, but not too long.

Afterward many of the men asked me what prayer book I had used to find such a prayer. Finally the war was over in Europe. It ended a week or so before I was supposed to have been promoted from PFC to T3 (Tec.Sgt) in line with the job I was doing. Ratings were frozen after VE day. I also had a chance to associate with my old company and find that by a little manipulating of the records I could be one of the early ones to be sent home. I decided to go that route, not realizing then what a higher rank on leaving the service could mean later. As a result I left the service as a lowly PFC. I have kicked myself many times for my rush to get out. I would have had a chance to go on leave to Switzerland etc. But I wanted to get home and did it, even though I had an impression not too. We were to ride on a freighter converted to troop ship and were told that we would have it "so nice". Nice??? , Humbug! Sleeping on the deck awash from the tail of a Florida hurricane. That was a terrifying experience. I and others were nearly washed overboard as mountainous waves crashed down on the deck, soaking our sleeping bags. I was to sea sick to eat. Going through the chow line one morning to see if there was anything which looked palatable to drink. (Of course I passed by the coffee, which everyone else drank). I saw what I thought was plums in lots of juice, I asked the guy for just the juice, He said "Really!" I took a taste and saw why he was amazed, it was bitter and salty olive juice. When we got to Newport News Va. port, the Seamen brought out tons of quart containers of frozen milk (in cartons which they were supposed to have given us en route, but didn't). One of my buddies introduced me to its availability. ( Stacks of containers thawing in the sun until it would be dumped). I was just finishing a quart and wondering if I could handle another whole one, when my buddy said "Oooh that stuffs good, I drank six pints of it. I said "pints, are there some pints here too. He said isn't that a pint?" I really enjoyed real milk after more than 3 years overseas, but not six quarts.

Back at Fort Douglas to muster out, we were asked to listen to the recruiter for the Army reserve. About a dozen of us were in the room to hear his speech. He then asked for a general show of hands of those who wanted to join the reserve. Many of them indicated that they would. Then he got specific and started with me. I said, Definitely not, I've had enough of that" trash and other adjectives! Every man in the room then declined to join. They were a follow the leader group. The Red Cross interviewed me to see if there were any injuries. I told him of a couple of minor back injuries caused by drums falling on me and a little damage to hearing from the 50 caliber guns etc. He wrote it all down and the first thing I knew, I was told that I would get 10% of my Private First Class pay as disability pay and they would pay my tuition into school to help me train for a different job. (If I had followed promptings in Italy I could have gotten 10% of tech sat pay instead of PFC.) This tidbit of pay continued for about 5 years. While at San Jose I was called into San Francisco office and tested and they said there was not enough residual damage for any payment, but it had helped a great deal up to that time. I had gotten my school tuition paid and had found the most precious thing, a wife, but that is covered in the next chapter. I also got a hearing aid later that I havent used much to this time. So this ended my military career and connections. It was a war of intense patriotism and great sacrifice

by all at home. America became noted for being able to quickly turn its "plowshares into swords" and the whole Nation showed that when there is something which needs doing, there are millions who when motivated enough, can use common (or uncommon) sense and "Just do it". I have a feeling of pride in what I (with the Lords help) was able to do. . Chapter 27: Bits about a lost lad in love with love After getting out of the Military, I felt no attraction for Talmage winter weather and much attraction for finding a wife. I was quite sure that the girl I would marry would not come from the Uintah basin. The only young lady who still lived out there that I had been interested in (Ellen Evans) had been the principle reason for me to get a second Patriarchal Blessing before I went in the service. The Lord had told me through Patriarch F. Earl Case that I should seek, and I was given to know (much to my disappointment at that time) that Ellen was not the one I should be seeking (although I still think she was and probably is a wonderful person). There was another girl who had lived in the Basin and who had been writing to me in the army. Blanche Swasey had moved to Mount Pleasant, so I went to Tallmadge, got our ranch partnerships four-year-old dodge car, and headed to Manti. I spent most of my time in Mount Pleasant, however. I bought a ring from Alma Petersen, and Blanche and I were soon engaged to be married. At thanksgiving time we went to Provo to look for schooling, a home, etc. A real estate man, showing us a home and referring to Blanche, said something about, "Your mother might have different ideas." Blanche, who was years older than I (and without much make up that day), was deeply offended. She was a returned missionary and wanted very much to get married. I was willing to make some concessions and was willing to overlook age difference and a gossiping tongue, so finally I went to Bishop Claude McDonald for a recommend to get married in the temple twelve days later. He started the paperwork and questions and then said, "What is the girls name?" I had a revelation at that instant that she was not the one. I said, " Uh, oh, uh. Do I have to marry her? He replied, "I hope not, or maybe you can't have a recommend". I explained my feelings and got the recommend anyway, which he said could be used for other purposes than marriage. I knew it would never be used for marriage to her. The next day I got a phone call from Blanche wanting to postpone the wedding. I happily agreed and let her know that I had more or less changed my mind. I headed for the Utah State Agricultural College in Logan and registered for twenty-two hours of credit to start winter quarter. My classes were on things that I thought would help me on the Ranch: welding, machine work, etc. I bluffed my way into surveying (which required math that I had not taken) on the basis of the logarithm course I took by correspondence in the Army. I had quit the tenth grade before we got all the way through algebra, and it was not adequate. It was not until into the next quarter, however, after I had added mechanical drawing, that Prof. Eldon Stock called me into his office and said, "Potter, I can't figure you out. You signed up for twentytwo hours of college credit, with some of them being tough courses like mine, then spend most of your time studying hall-ology (a.k.a. meeting girls). I think you should cut some of those classes and start with two you take from me (mechanical drawing and surveying)."

I did. I wasn't about to stop my hall-ology, as I was having too much fun. I went out with seventy different girls that year, and became semi-engaged twice more. With each of them I was saved from moral transgression only because of my previous commitments and the help of the Lord. When I was talking to my aunt Mary Petersen, she said, "Arlin, the Lord surely must love you the way He keeps you from making serious mistakes." I got my ring back from Blanche and later traded it back to Alma as part payment on the real thing. I was secretary of the Delta Phi Fraternity (For returned missionaries). John A Widtsoe was our Grand Master, and he came to speak at one of our functions. As part of his talk, he said, You brethren are all acquainted with that song, Accustomed to her smile, accustomed to her face, and there are all too many of you who go out with girls not suited for you until you get accustomed to them. Then you get married without having a sound and suitable basis. None of you who know how to communicate with the Holy Spirit have any right to go out with any girl more than five times unless you have found that they have the qualifications which you determine are necessary, according to a list which every one of you should make, to be the type of person you really want. I made a list, but it was both good and bad. It helped me drop some girls who didn't qualify, but it almost made me drop the right one because I judged some things about her without enough evidence and facts (more about that later). From that time on, all of us Delta Phi members started counting the number of dates that any of our group made with any girl. I had an old Terraplane (1937 model), and I and three other students (Richard Peaden (my roommate who later married Dorothy's sister, Joyce) Steve Heine and Clyde Stimson) had board and room at a home in northern Logan about three miles from school. Clyde and Richard rode with me to school and back each day. The old Terraplane looked okay but it had a flattened crankshaft, so every twice in a while I would take the oil pan off and tighten the bearings (I did this so often that I felt I needed to put a zipper on it). I did this for about a year until finally, when returning to Logan early one morning from a visit to relatives in Talmage and Salt Lake, I could hear a bearing knocking extra loud. Since I was out of oil and it was too early to buy any, I stopped at a station where they drained oil. I put in a couple quarts of thick, used oil that the station had drained, and started on to Logan to get to an eight o'clock exam in veterinary science. Suddenly there was a bang and clank in the motor, and as I looked back to see who was coming so I could stop, I saw a connecting rod and the remains of one piston bouncing on the pavement. Instead of stopping, I floor-boarded it to keep it going on the remaining cylinders, and drove the vibrating monster on to Logan take the exam. I fixed it and drove it for a while and all of us had fond memories of adventures with it. I'll mention a couple: I had gotten an old Model T ford coil, which puts out a string of twenty-thousand volt sparks continually when it is given power. The sparks would jump three-quarters of an inch, and could set a piece of paper on fire. I put the coil under the front seat with its ground wire connected to a conducting floor mat. There were output wires under the front passengers seat cover. A little foot button would activate it.

As we drove in from northern Logan, we often passed those who were walking to school. Richard and Clyde didn't have to urge me much to give them a lift, and I mean that literally. When I said, I guess you appreciate a lift on a cold morning, and they answered, "I sure do", I hit the button and they had an unexpected lift in the seat of their pants, which caused them to hit the roof. Clyde and Richard switched the wires once so that I got the lift. That was funny even to me. Two days before the quarter ended, another memorable thing happened. I was coming home from a date about midnight. I always got a good run on a hill just below our rooming house and was still going fast at the top. There, in the middle of the narrow road, was a huge pile of tin cans which roommates Clyde and Steve had put there as a trap. The cans were unavoidable, and as I went through them they caused such a horrendous clatter that lights in all nearby houses came on. They naturally supposed there had been the worst collision of record. The next night Clyde came home late from a date and expected retribution. Of course I wouldn't want to disappoint him on that, so Richard had helped me wire the stairs, his bedroom, and more. I brought in the motel T coil and put it and my car battery in a closet with me at the control. When he saw that the outside door was open a bit, Clyde correctly supposed a pan of water was on top, so he pushed it open with an umbrella to avoid getting wet. However, as he started up the stairs and took hold of the rail (topped with a wire that had twenty-thousand volts running through it), he let out a yowl. He yowled again as he took hold of the doorknob and yowled again when he went to turn on the light (we had done a GOOD job). He said, "You cotton pickers, I'll get you!" He was bigger than either of us, so we had taken into account a need for protection and had wired the side of the bed we slept in, so that if anyone leaned against it, they got a shock. Richard was on the far side against the wall. I was unprotected in the closet and feared he would trace the buzzing noise of the coil, but he didnt. He reached over to get Richard, and got the voltage in his legs against the bed. He said, "Okay, I give up. Please turn it off, I'll promise to not bother you again". I emerged from the closet feeling very victorious. I used that coil later at the request of one of my Delta Phi associates (Jed Stringham) who was a Boy Scout leader and wanted to teach scouts about electricity. They met in a basement room with a concrete floor, so I ran a wire along the benches on which they sat. When he asked them to all stand and pledge allegiance to the flag, I pushed the button. Jed and I enjoyed guessing which of those scouts would take the championship in high jumping. We decided it would be those who hadnt been touching the wire and sat wondering what was happing to everyone else until they put their legs down. Then they found out with a twenty-thousand volt jolt. We then explained how to (and how not to) handle high voltage and explained that the twenty-thousand volts could not do harm because it didn't have amperage enough to burn the heart or brain. We also explained that the seventy-five to four hundred amperes of an arc welder can melt steel, but the high amperage is only pushed through a low resistance material by about forty-five volts, which is not enough EMF (electromotive force) to penetrate into the higher resistance human body. And as I said before, it requires half of an ampere to pass through heart or brain (normally) to be fatal. The lesson was very effective. Chapter 28: Bits of heredity

I guess some of my rambling romantic life came naturally from my father. According to his history, Pop had lots of girlfriends. He was engaged three times to be married but in at least one case when he was engaged to Maude Chapman and he called it off because he had promised to stay and take care of his foster mother Milly Grigg and was not ready to quit playing around. Apparently Maude still loved him because she went to BYU got a teaching certificate, never married and was teaching school in Idaho when she died with some rare disease. She left instructions that Alma Potter was to take care of her burial. Years later, after he was married, he had a dream that she should be sealed to him. Genevieve stood proxy for this to be done. Oops I ran ahead of my story a bit. Finally at about age 27 he began to feel he had played long enough. In May 1907 he had a strong feeling that he should go south to the Manti temple. It was closed for a week so he and his stepmother Millie Grigg went on to central Utah. He played his accordion, and met many pretty girls but none were his dream girl. May 13th back at Manti he went for an endowment session, he was attracted to a 17-year-old girl in the women section. She was his dream girl even though nine years younger. She turned out to be Genevieve Rust who was taking care of her grandmother there in Manti. They wrote for two months then she told him to find someone else. He was broken hearted. After three months he decided to fast and pray for three days to see if she would come back. It worked. He got a card from her, and they were married the 13th of Oct. two years later. Many years Later, Francis Lyman in Boulder accused Pop of having stolen his girl. He then had the answer as to why she quit him for three months but not why she came back. Could it be that The Lord and Pops prayers had something to do with that. For some of his very faith promoting stories, like "The log, the dog and God" read his journal. Hundreds of his descendants bless him now for his faithfulness. Chapter 29: Bits of hall-ology and getting a husband degree In Winter Quarter, Jan 1947, I decided that I wanted to be able to build my own house someday. I signed up to take building construction and cabinet making. On the first day of woodworking class (which was mostly individual project work), I was standing by Jed Stringham when the new secretary for our instructor, Professor Joe Coulam, came into his office. Jed said, "Look out, Potter, here comes another redhead." I looked and had the immediate strong impression, If you ask that girl for a date, you'll ask her to marry you. I said aloud, "Oh, no." She did have pretty, long hair, but I wasn't attracted by her long neck. I couldn't get her off my mind though, and finally, about a week later, I asked Professor Coulam what his secretarys name was. He said, "You know, I'm embarrassed to say but I don't know her last name. I'll find out and let you know. Her first name is Dorothy. A few days later Coulam was with most of the class in the back end of the shop when his secretary, Dorothy, came back with a message for him. He looked at her, then at me, and then said to her, "Miss Bennion, this young man was asking about you. Mr. Potter, this is Miss Bennion." I looked for some trap door to fall through as the other guys all held their snickers. I was stuck.

I learned from later casual conversations with her that she had been editor of the Y Magazine at BYU (The only freshman editor ever.) I needed someone to type and edit a story type paper I was writing for a class, so hired her to type it and edit it. I got an A. I think our first date was to a masquerade dance. I had an old tuxedo and went as a dandy, and she dressed as a farm girl with big freckles. We had a fantastic time. We both immensely enjoyed that first date; the whole thing was very different. I never could dance well or learn dance steps, but I had fun trying at least. After the dance we went for a cheeseburger, and while I was in getting the order, some drunk who didn't want to be picked up by the police and put in the drunk tank opened her door and slid in beside her. He said he would get out if we would just drive him out beyond the streets where the police would see him. We did; it seemed to be the easiest way to get him out. Then we started eating our cheeseburgers. Have you ever tried eating a stringy cheeseburger with one hand (with the other hand on the steering wheel) when your arm is short and the cheese won't break? Dorothy nearly died laughing at me as I kept saying (through my teeth with my mouth full of cheese),"cleep it, cleep it!" I was trying to find an end to something that seemed endless, and she wouldn't clip it. A few days after my first date with Dorothy, I got the message that my grandfather (Dad), George B. Rust, had died. The funeral in Manti would be the next Monday. Dorothy said she would like a chance to get down to visit her folks in Salt Lake, so that was in effect our next date. This date proved that, if you want to be a hit with your date, you should think outside the box and do something different. That way they can't compare you with the other dates they have had. That night I was introduced to her family, and her brother David said, "Oh, you are the guy with the ranch in Idaho." I corrected him and told him it was eastern Utah, but I felt complimented that they had heard about me already. She was embarrassed, as the guy she had told them about was actually someone else, but I didn't catch on. I stayed with Pop in Salt Lake that night and told him I had met my wife to be. I went on to Manti and was asked to speak at Dads funeral. Afterward, three of my aunts said they wanted me to speak at their funeral. (I did at one, and conditions prevented the other two). I went out with Dorothy three more times and enjoyed them all. I had a problem however; I couldn't determine that she had one or two important points on my list. I loved to dance with her and wanted to go with her to a dance that was coming up. That would be date number five, and I wasn't yet sure about her. She suggested she would like to see a particular show. I made the blooper of the age by saying that I was sort of saving her fifth date for the coming dance. (I don't know why I didn't remember what I had told my Dad. I had known when I talked to him that she was the right one). Dorothy weaseled out of me the five what Elder Widtsoe had said about five dates and the list, and then and there I almost lost the chance to have a fifth date with her. I finally found that she did qualify for everything on my list, and I was ready to beg. We became engaged shortly thereafter, and we both quit school at the end of spring quarter to get ready for our wedding: June eighteenth, 1946. (Editors note: Dorothy Bennion Potter passed away on September 28th, 2011. She and Arlin Roberts Potter were happily married for sixty-five years in this life, and await a joyous reunion in the life to come).

Chapter 30: Bits of Married life in Talmage To help prepare for our up-coming wedding, I had tried to make some improvements to our old two-room log cabin a mile south-east of the church house and post office. I had put in automatic electric pump to pump water from the well and made a crude drain (which soon plugged because of my stupid engineering). I hadn't shaved for a week or so and when I arrived at the door of the Bennion residence in holiday and Nettie (Dorothy's mother) answered the door and told Dorothy I was there, she came flying. She saw this bearded bum with a Geo. Albert goatee, and took three steps back real fast. I thought she would faint. She was a bit hesitant about giving me a kiss. It goes without saying; I shaved that night, but went to sleep in the bathtub in the one bathroom in the house and they all needed to use it before going to bed. Since Netty was quite reluctant to call for about an hour, I had a good nap that night, but it made everyone else be sleepy in the temple. We went to be sealed the next morning, then to a wedding breakfast. Nettie cleaned my 42 dodge car up nice and as we started south on our honey moon that night, I tried to spit out the window and splat. That widow hadn't been cleaned in months and I didn't know it was up. It was amazing that Dorothy would continue with such a hobo, but she has made it past even worse than that and is still going strong. We went to Provo that first night to the Roberts Hotel, then south for a few days. Stayed with Nora, went through Manti temple, also the St George, then scenic southern Utah area, including going to Fish Lake before the roads were all open and got stuck for an hour or so. We camped there one night. I was needed back at the ranch so promised we would continue the honey moon into the Uintah Primitive area later that summer, which we did after the first crop of hay was up. We took two horses in a truck (with no brakes) to Moon Lake, and then rode them to the head of Lake Fork River. It rained and Dorothy got sick and could eat nothing but fish. I caught lots of them, and finally my fears that I would have to send her out by helicopter ended. She got better and we went back to the ranch drudgery. An early breaking in experience for Dorothy was when she walked past a bunch of sheep in the wintertime, carrying a bucket with eggs she had gathered. The sheep supposed that anyone with a bucket, had grain in it to feed them. (Which we did in the wintertime and they would follow us anywhere at any speed) they started following her and so she started to run to the house, but before she could shut the door, the kitchen dining room was full of sheep who didn't want to leave without being fed. In August of that year, our Stake Pres. Wm. N. Brotherson (about age 36) had come down in the field where I was irrigating and told me that I had been called to be a bishop, and wanted to know who I would select as councilors to be announced in the upcoming ward conference. Two names came to my mind, which I realized later would have overcome long-standing traditions and problems. Glen Allred was somewhat active and while his family was all good members, his grandfather had only come to church on ward conference days for years for the sole purpose to vote against the bishop by whom he felt he had been wronged.

The 2nd councilor (Gail Anderson) was also from a semi active family. The other point was that was the first time since the founding of the ward that a Burton had not been in the bishopric. Now with no burtons in as bishop and descendants in the bishopric, both families became active. Both counselors later became bishop after I left and Burtons acted as counselors, but when we went in, we changed nearly all officers in the ward. Elton Rust, Elton Potter and myself had been in a partnership for a number of years and got along very well together. We had 1440 acres of land, a combine harvester, caterpillar tractor and a big wheel tractor, and much other equipment, but there was debt on much of it. Within one year we all got married. Arva (Eltons wife) didn't seem to like partnerships and so we decided to split. I didn't want the debt, so I took my share of the land, water, the welder and a few tools and decided to build my own equipment. I bought a dodge four wheel drive military "command car" to pull a disk plow etc. and put a winch on it, to lift a push rake which I built and which I used to gather and haul hay. The push rake was a monstrous thing and even though I carried it higher than any car when I was on public roads, it nearly scared a few of the good people to death when the saw it coming towards them at night by car light. The next year after I was made bishop, we had a drought and very poor crops. Dorothy got a job for the County Clerk, (Porter Merrill) in Duchesne and kept us alive. We started to excavate for a new home on property we owned on the state road where we would not be snowed in or stuck in the mud. The house we lived in first was not on property transferred to me in our split up and we had moved from it to a house we rented closer to our own land. I applied for a government loan to get us going, but when it was turned down, we decided that with poor prospects for a job for me during the winter in that area, and no income, we had better move to Salt Lake, so after nearly a year and a half, I resigned as bishop rather than go on church welfare. We rented a house near her folks in Salt Lake and I went to an employment agency and was going to apply with them. While I was waiting to be interviewed I heard a man say he didn't want a mechanic job they had offered him for some reason, so I followed him outside and asked him what and where it was. He told me, so I went there and applied for the job and ended up as a "journeyman truck mechanic" rebuilding engines for PIE (Pacific Intermountain Express diesel trucks). The job only lasted a short time however, (paying for the tools I had to buy) as PIE were moving their shops to Denver and I didn't want to move, so I found another job repairing bakery equipment. The problem was, I had never even seen bakery equipment before and they had no manuals which I could study to learn what I was doing, so Christmas eve I was laid off. During the holidays, we got acquainted with Milton Oman who had relatives in Carbon County, near Price and Wellington. They wanted someone to share crop for them and would furnish land water and equipment including a big new tractor and gas to run it and even a team of horses (if I wanted) for half the proceeds. I decided that sounded fine so set out for an old shack near the mainline railroad tracks at the end of a rough muddy road, a couple miles from Wellington. I didn't realize it was by the tracks the first night I got there. It was already dark and I took my bed roll in, swept away mouse dirt, and lay on the floor. I was tired and slept well for a while, but then started dreaming I was bound down on hard rail ties and a train was coming. As it rounded the curve below the cabin it blew its whistle. My dream was entirely too real. I threw the covers off and fled as the train rumbled by about 100 feet from the cabin. I worked early and late, plowed and planted a lot of wheat. I got the seed on a loan basis to be paid back in the fall. We

were told we could have all the water we wanted direct from the Price River. That sounded like we couldn't lose. I cleaned out the old ditch but found all ditches were in bad shape and water didn't go where I thought it would. I planted a small garden, and had Dorothy move down there. She was sick and pregnant and had a terrible time with dead mouse smell in the house and so many mosquitos outside they had to stand in a line to bite a person. Then it rained. One of those gully washers and the price river was rolling mud and uprooted trees. The diversion dam which let us take water from the river, was washed out and before we could get it back in, much of our crop was burned. Then after a partial irrigation, another gully washer worse than the first came and we saw it was a lost battle. Dorothy had been deathly ill and expected to lose our first baby, but had a miraculous healing because of mailing her name to the temple. We lived on beets and corn mostly from the garden and by year end had cleared .75 cents per day for our seasons work. I chanced to meet Aggie Aylett, whom I had met in Italy while in the military service, and he persuaded me I should sell life and health insurance. They were just opening up the state of Idaho for this new company and it sounded quite intriguing, so we decided to move to Blackfoot to an apartment as Kesler Motel. Chapter 31: Bits of endurance in insurance, and a baby girl You may have heard the ditty, There is no one with endurance like the man who sells insurance, he is everybodys best friend. My lead policy was a twelve-dollar-per-year cancer and dread disease policy. This policy covered the whole family, but while it didn't cost much I didn't make much either. I also sold life and hospital insurance. I worked hard to make a pittance. In one case I had a man sign a hospital policy (which included an accidental death benefit), and was supposed to pick up the money that weekend. I went to his funeral instead. The five-hundreddollar accidental death benefit included in that policy was all the family had, so I didn't have the heart to collect on what I had advanced. John Hill was my district manager, and he went out with me to help me sell sometimes. One day he took me out to Challis to prospect for clients, and we were quite late getting back to our motel in Blackfoot. Dorothy thought I was staying in Challis overnight, so she had gone to bed. I didn't want to wake her, as she was pregnant and having a miserable time. Knowing that it was possible to get in the bathroom window, I went around to the back and started crawling in. She heard me go around to the back and wasnt sure who it was, so she was ready with a broomstick, the only defense the terrified gal had. Fortunately I spoke when she made some noise to let me know she was there, or I would have had it good with that broomstick. I was afraid to depend on our old car to get to the hospital in Idaho Falls for the delivery of the baby, so I borrowed a car from a dealer, and later bought it. It was a Nash ambassador which had reclining seats. She didn't do any reclining though, and neither did I. Finally after waiting and driving in the city park all day, the baby girl was born in the evening. I called the Bennions in Salt Lake City and told them they had a granddaughter named Gwenna. We soon moved to a basement apartment owned by Howard and Modine Clark.

A few months later I happened to win a drawing for a permit to hunt elk in the Salmon River game preserve. It sounded exciting, so we decided to farm Gwenna out to Wilford Hunter and his wife, who also sold insurance for the company I worked for in Idaho Falls. We set out the end of September to be in the reserve and start the hunt on October first. We had new, snow-treaded tires on the car, and it didn't worry us that we woke up to four inches of snow on our tent. We quickly broke camp and were the first car on the narrow mountain road high above the Salmon River. We soon saw elk tracks crossing the road, leading down into a bunch of trees a quarter mile below the road. I parked and followed the tracks easily in the snow. I had always considered myself a good shot, but I had a Japanese army rifle which I had got cheap. The previous owner said it was chambered to take American shells and was okay. I had not fired it until then, and it was a stroke of luck that I hit the elk at all as the bullets seemed to come out every way but straight. I paralyzed the elk with a bullet in the back and killed it with an axe. It took us all day to dress the thing and carry it piece by piece up that steep hill. That night we started to go down to a campground and found that a car had slid of the road. Its occupants were helpless in the snow and not prepared for cold weather. We saved their lives. We intended to camp with a group we found, but we didn't know them and wanted privacy, so we went off by ourselves. I had just got a fire going and someone else needed help who had slid off the road. I left Dorothy (with no tent set up and not enough wood) and went to help them. She was very frightened when she ran out of wood (that was only one of many times when she suffered because I tried to help someone else). The next morning there was eighteen inches of new snow, and after bucking the snow to the top of the first mountain, where we looked across a vast wilderness of peak after peak, we decided that we could not risk trying to go back the way we had come in. Our gas tank was below half full, and it was too far to a gas station in that direction through the deep snow. We went back to our group and set out to see if we could get a deer. I was tracking what I thought was some deer, but it turned out to be some female moose, and a bull moose came to the rescue of his herd. He deliberated for a while as to whether or not to charge me from about forty feet away, as I stood there with my finger on the trigger. Finally I yelled and jumped and he decided to turn and dash off through the trees. What a beautiful sight he made with his antlers knocking snow from the trees. Next to an elephant, it was the biggest and most magnificent animal I had ever seen. We had to turn what we thought would be a five-hundred-mile round trip into twelve-hundred miles. We drove around by Boise and thence back to Idaho Falls to get our charming daughter. We heard that Utah was enacting a law to require everyone to have auto Insurance in 1950, so we decided to quit Idaho and, since we liked the rural atmosphere, decided to move to Lehi. With a bank loan we were able to buy an old one bedroom adobe house for four thousand dollars. It had a flowing well and was situated on Fifth West, close to Main Street.

Chapter 32: Bits of Lehi Insurance Service, inventions, and more I was disappointed with Idaho get rich quick promises which caused us to go up there. I was tired of trying to sell life and health insurance anyway. I felt this new law would be an opportunity to get ahead. I made a deal with Jess Monson in Pleasant grove to work partly under his agency and contracted to buy an old adobe home once owned by Porter Rockwell. The house in Lehi was at 37 South 5th West two houses south of main street, but because of a turn in the road west toward Saratoga, The big neon clock (saying Lehi Insurance Service) could be seen by all coming toward Lehi from the West. A little washroom at the side of the house was converted to an office. We started to be principally in the auto and fire Insurance business. (Plus raising a family). Jane Jolene and Kent were all born as we lived in Lehi. Dorothy was very ill with all of them. Sometimes she was confined to bed and needed help. With the office outside, I couldn't tend the children and work. Couldn't afford to hire help. I called both the. Ward and Stake relief society presidents and asked if anyone could be found that would work for low pay (hoping for no pay) I was too proud to ask and they didn't offer. We don't have the fondest memories of Lehi, because we struggled so financially and even though we were very much in need of help (Dorothy was bed ridden much of the time) the relief society or other members would not help on any basis. We were quite disappointed in their attitude. The big clock sign out front didn't bring people in I had to "go get 'em) It was apparently not even seen by a drunk car driving poacher one night as he was returning home with a deer in the trunk of his car. He didn't make the turn in the road, and hitting the ditch in front of our house caused his car to flip upside down, and gas ruined our lawn. Neighbors awoke us by calling through our bedroom window, giving us quite a shocking awakening. The sheriff took the poached deer from his trunk and took him to jail. I worked for Azer Southwick, irrigating part time, and suddenly had the inspiration to invent an automatic irrigation head gate, which I patented and thought it would make me rich. It would have been a money maker a few years earlier, the expense of development was unfounded though, because I was behind the times. Sprinkler irrigation was coming in and irrigation as I knew it was going out, I was 30 years too late. I certainly wished I had that gate back on the ranch at Talmage though, as I used to set the alarm for three or four hours sleep so I could change the water and then never hear the alarm. I had it turn on lights, but that didn't wake me. Only turning on a motor which pulled the bed covers off did the trick. The automatic irrigation head gate I designed was controlled by an alarm clock and worked very well, but too late. In Lehi I worked in the church as Deacon advisor. I used to threaten them that if they didn't come, we would have the meeting at their home. One boy didn't believe us until 8 fellow deacons piled out of my car and got him out of bed. He was the only one of the bunch who later, didn't go on a mission. We were really struggling financially in Lehi, where Jane, Jolene and Kent were all born. The second year, I didn't know what to do to pay the bills. Dorothy said" if you would just quit this insurance rat race and get a job for $400 per month we could survive". I considered that but then heard that the Timpanogos School District was asking for bids on insurance for all buildings, buses etc., I got bid sheets and set out to win. I know the Lord helped

me find the lowest cost companies and present it properly, because my quote was thousands below competition and I was able to bring in little Bear River Mutual as one of the companies by doing some super selling. One competitive agent had a heart attack when he learned he had lost. The $2,000 commission saved us. It also caused me to be invited into the county insurance agents assn. and I was able through the Assn. to get a company to issue a discount policy for nonsmokers. (This helped me land a job later in California). Dorothy used to stay up all night sometimes because of Gwenna's allergy and breathing problems brought on by cold weather. It was nerve wracking to hear Gwenna fighting for breath. When Kent came along and had the same problem, we knew we would have to sell our business and our home for what we could get out of it and go to a warmer climate but our precious children were worth it. Dorothy said she wanted to find a warmer climate. We started selling out. Walter Seager bought our home, Jess Monson bought our ins. agency, partly paying for it with a pickup truck. I resolved to put a metal van type body on the truck, intending to become an electrical contractor in Calif. Chapter 33: Bits of a family California adventure I wanted to quit insurance. We explored San Bernardino and Phoenix in search of new opportunities and new home, and then heard that the Bay Area was the place. We didn't know exactly where we wanted to go, but we headed west like the forty-niners. There may not be gold there, but it doesn't freeze at night. I loaded lots of heavy junk into that truck (even some heavy equipment for the irrigation head-gate. Overloading the truck in this way caused repeated tire blow-outs. I later took the irrigation equipment to the dump). We had two other old cars, one of which didn't run well, so we decided to tow one behind the truck. We were ignorant about California freeways and roads, and we both made goofs (me more than Dorothy). I still don't know how I got through a major Sacramento intersection on a red light without a wreck, except by the Lords blessings. We had intended to stop at Walnut Creek, but we felt lead to continue on to San Jose, where we rented a house on the north side of town. It was about this time that I had a memorable church calling. In San Jose I was asked if I would like to teach a tough Sunday School class. I said, That's what I specialize in. When I went to this class the next Sunday morning, I was surprised to find that it was all boys of the early teen-aged variety. One of the boys started the introduction to the class by saying, Okay, we have a new teacher here, again. The last one lasted two weeks; let's see if we can get rid of this one in one week. That was my challenge, so I met it by saying, You won't get rid of me until I want to go. Most of you live within walking distance of here, and it is easy to send you home unless you would prefer to go and have a chat with the bishop. They didn't believe that I would do that, but within a few minutes one of them was on his way home. Of course, I was very careful to make note of what I had done, and went to their homes afterward and had a talk with their mother or father to make sure that what I was doing was in agreement with their long-term objectives. I stayed in that class for one year, and was very pleased to hear that all of the boys except one went on missions at a later date.

At the LDS Ward there I leaned that it was impossible for me to work as a contractor, but they offered to help us by hiring me to work with another member who was wiring the new chapel. The building was almost completed. After a time I saw an ad for an experienced insurance person to work for Cal Farm insurance Company. I applied for the job and got it. I worked for them for about three months, and after traveling up and down California, I decided I wanted to stay in San Jose. Cal Farm would require me to move if I continued working with them, so I quit. I planned then to start my own agency, so I went to California Casualty home office in San Francisco and met with Carl Brown, the company president. He said they didn't work through outside agents, but offered me a chance to work for them. I refused, but he kept asking questions. I told him that I had won the School District bid, and that I was then invited into the county agents association, of which I became an officer. I told him of our getting one company to offer a special non-smoker rate on home insurance. Carl Brown then begged me to work for them, but I still held back. He took my address and later sent two letters, finally offering a guaranteed five-hundred dollars per month, plus some commission. He said they would also issue a non-smoker home insurance discount. I couldn't resist, and worked for them for twelve years. That guaranteed salary gave us the financial backing to buy the home at 2231 Camden Avenue in San Jose. We lived there until we moved to Los Gatos, where I later had an insurance office of my own. A year after building in Los Gatos, I quit California Casualty because they started insisting that I sell a savings type of life insurance (which I didn't believe in). They also refused to let me have a secretary to help handle my work load, which required much overtime with no extra pay. I was almost never home. I am now at a point in my history where my children will remember, and I will try to make more comments about my recollections of this period later. I hope to discuss Big Basin, a father and son outing with Kent, a hair brush in a sleeping bag, slipping on Slide Rock, Monterey, and much more. Chapter 34: Bits of building my dream home One other thing I alone know all about it the building of my dream home. Playing architect, surveyor, builder etc. When I went to Utah State Ag. College and took building construction, surveying etc. I didn't know if or when I would use it. Our Camden house was too small and the street too busy, so when I was able to buy over acre in Monte Sereno, I was excited about finally planning and building our own home. Dell Stanley (with whom I worked as a councilor in the Stake High priest Quorum), was a building contractor and offered to let me use his name to build it myself. I set up a Bank account under S and P construction Co. Got limited financing and started work on the home I designed. I was very proud that I remembered enough surveying to be able to determine the height of the sewer line at the point I would have to connect my sewer line at. when the nearest place I could measure depth was 1/4 mile away and since I was building so much below street level, there was a serious question whether I could use the sewer . I borrowed Dell Stanleys transit and surveyed it and it worked out to the inch. I had in practice, finally passed one of the courses Dr. Stock had me drop out of at the USAC.

I hired college students who were studying building to help do the framing. I also hired a member of the church who had some brain damage in an accident. He caused a real problem by not following instructions exactly. In nailing down some beams, one was on a knot and it bent his nail, so he moved it over three inches. it caused our stairway and floor tiling to all be crooked. Little things cause bad results. I did all plumbing, wiring, cabinet work etc. It was a split level and had many features which were unique, such as several pullout tables which came out of the wall in the utility room. (they were overhead in the storage room when pushed in) There were rolling can shelves which could be loaded from the storage cellar. Forty-three drawers in the kitchen with roller bearings and A Kitchen cabinet door opening direct to the garbage container, Sliding doors dividing the family room into a separate library when wanted.( later I had 35 people there for a meeting) A three car garage, with a grease and repair pit. AND MUCH MORE. Then it happened! I quit Calif. Casualty by mutual agreement because of disagreements. I went on my own but without enough income to pay the bills, we were forced to sell our dream home. We got enough out of it to pay off current debt and make a deposit on a home on Hillpark Ave. in San Jose. We kept the first home on Camden Ave. Until a later date. Both homes were sold at prices nearly one tenth what they would have brought if we had kept them a few years, but we needed it then and couldn't know. Some of the rental problems at Camden Ave. Were because I didnt listen to the promptings of the spirit. We rented to people who not only didn't pay, but caused thousands in damage. Later I used the Camden home as an insurance office after we moved the Family to Utah. As I said before, since this brings us up to past the time when our children remember, They may want to add memories of being stepped on when I was lost inside a zipped up black tent at midnight in big basin when the raccoons were into our stuff outside, or when we were all kicked out of our beds by the ranger because we were not at a regular camp site, at an overcrowded camp ground, or spending Christmas at a cabin in the Sierra snow, or hiking the Sierra and camping in the rain, or any of many episodes, I will stop here for now. and reserve the remainder, plus a few things I forgot to tell for Volume II. unless I feel inspired to write more. I will include here some letters I have written to the family which also have some incidents reported earlier tin this book. Chapter 35: Bits of a letter to family Tor the "Potter family" DEC. 1, 1991 (Sunday) After a relatively mild fall, December bustled in showing his muscles. Snow, with temperatures between eight and twenty-eight degrees. I have started a fire in the dungeon (my basement office), and decided to write some of what I have been meditating about: how the Lord has blessed me, and the nature of some of the flashes of inspiration I have received over the years. I have thought back over things which you may already have read in this journal. Repetition won't hurt, and there may be other thoughts. At Stake Conference today, our Stake President was changed. Two councilors stepped up a notch. The councilor who has been our home teacher is now the Stake President (Alonzo A. Hinckley). Elder Dunn, our visiting authority, repeated over and over, "I Know that God lives". I guess I was started in my musings by this, thinking how I know that God Lives.

Truly, there is not even a faint doubt, but what are the evidences? I think back to how I used to ask the Lord where the cows or sheep were which I needed to find. There were miles of unfenced grazing land above our ranch. I hoped to tune in enough to know for sure which direction to ride (sometimes I did). Every step in the wrong direction would have to be retraced before dark fell. Life is still that way. I have just heard Elder Russell M. Nelson recount the story of the Brother of Jared, who went to the Lord with his problem. It was dark in those barges, and they couldn't use fire or windows. The Lord had him study it out in his own mind and finally come back with an unheard-of suggestion: stones made to glow. The Lord (who can do anything) honored his request. Man must first study an issue out in his own mind, then ask the Lord. My problem in starting by asking about where the cows were, without study, was that I had often not checked tracks closely enough to see which were made today and which yesterday. If I couldn't tell, that was when I should have asked for guidance. Like as not, I would be able to discern that a mouse track was on top of one cow tracks, and I knew that mice are out only at night, hence these tracks were from yesterday. I remember praying that I would receive a sled for Christmas. The thoughts that flooded into my child mind were that that I would not get a sled, because we couldnt afford it. My granddad (George B. Rust) had said he was paying a full tithing for the year. It would amount to twenty-five dollars, paid partly in wheat. Sleds cost money which didn't exist. I felt comforted and happy with the Lords answer to my prayer. This was probably my first realization that happiness comes from thoughts, and not from things. As someone whos seen the difference between light and darkness, I sometimes wonder why I still make so many mistakes. I have finally decided that I have had a tendency to let my tongue get ahead of my discernment of truth and error. Sometimes, after hearing myself say things when my mouth was in gear but my brain and spirit guidance system were not turned on yet, I would receive revelation that the things I was saying were wrong. I have not always had the courage to back down from pursuing things that were revealed to me to be wrong. That tendency cost my family about three thousand dollars when I rented the Camden Avenue house to the wrong family, against the prompting of the Spirit. I tried to back down after I told him he could rent it, but he held me to my initial statement, which I realized I should not have made. Very often Ive had thoughts which I recognized as inspiration toward a goal which I knew to be right, and which I felt I needed help to achieve. I, however, was always looking for a quick fix. A shortcut. I have learned that the philosophy, the end justifies the means, does not work. I learned this the hard way. Experience is a great teacher, but it's costly. It taught me a lesson when I bought a punch card computer system at Camden Avenue. It taught me a lesson when I let a partner in with me on my project. It taught me a lesson when I went into the printing and advertising business in Salt Lake. It taught me a lesson when I borrowed six thousand dollars from Elton Potter to get involved in the National Barter. I not only lost the money, but also a years time. I

finally realized that I had made a commitment to the Lord to do what He wanted me to do, in whatever way he wanted it me to do it, no matter how long it took or what it cost. I finally realized that patience and faith go together. I realized that if I am sure enough of what the Lord wants, I can step out into the darkness alone, relying only on faith, and then I can really begin making progress. I still can't do it all the time. It takes time to get an education and to become prepared to succeed. One wise man was asked, "What are the secrets of your success? He replied,"Good judgment." But, said the other, how do you get good judgment? He replied, By using poor judgement." I have failed a few thousand times when I used poor judgment. Maybe now, after fifty years of mostly failing, I have a basic education that will lay the groundwork for success. I have come to recognize that some (or most) of the problems of mankind were from our thought factories (minds) processing poor quality materials. Garbage goes into the mind and garbage comes out. The worlds knowledge seems to double every few years, and the Devil is in control of the principal means of education. There must be a better way. At the present rate, the Devil will win. A simple means of continued education must be found. I started a non-profit organization in California (Educational Planning Association). With a push and a shove from a partner of mine, this organization was working in three states before it was even ready to go. My family rebelled at the diet of audio tapes that I tried to force down their throats. Tapes have their place, but it cost me about forty-thousand dollars for a market test, in which I found out that audio tapes were not the whole answer. At first I was very resistant to the idea expressed by some Birchers and other right-wingers that there was really one single Secret Combination which was out to get world control. I hadn't read and understood the scriptures enough to realize that they were right (as I now know after years of research and much personal experience, as well as talking to those who had first-hand experience with the Secret Combination). I never did join any patriotic group then, but checked out what they said. I finally concluded two things: 1- That I could not be free from the Secret Combination alone. 2- That no one had a plan for fighting the Secret Combination that would work. Many people were saying what was wrong, but they didnt know what could be done about it. I decided to change that. It seemed that whenever I explained what my objectives were, I was told that they could not or would not work. That wasn't what the Lord told me however, so I kept going. My goals kept growing and becoming more inclusive. Not until recently did I realize that you really can't use rotten timber with termites to build a structure that will last, and you really cant put new wine in old bottles. It must be either all new or all as old as the constitution, but still must be in good condition. I have said hundreds of times that the Lord would not let any part of a plan succeed until the whole plan was right.

Hundreds of seminars, dozens of pamphlets, brochures etc. have all proven one thing: the perfect plan is not ready yet. If this plan succeeds,(which it will,) it will not be because of my knowledge and ability, but in spite of me. The plan will include a means of securing investments without fear of their being shattered by inflation (this sort of inflation could force investors to spend all of the proceeds of their investments on one meal). The plan would include paying off existing mortgages and reducing payments, avoiding the mark of the beast, eliminating unemployment, and more. I have made sixteen videos about the plan and five booklets. Always people have said, "I don't understand it". It was just too complicated. It seemed that when I would get stuck with a problem, The Lord would let me struggle with it for a long, long time, then He would say, "Here dummy, this is the way you solve that". and it would all seem so simple and I would wonder how I ever missed it. It is really wonderful though, how the Lord helps each of us, in ways which he knows are for our good, "if we let Him. I know that my problems are not caused by the Lord, but theyre brought on when I get confused about where messages that I receive are coming from, or when I fail to ask the Lord in the first place. A few years ago, as I was coming back from taking John Jenkins to Heber, I was pondering on a problem that I had. Dorothy wanted me to get a full-time job and do this only on the side. Because of inspiration which had come to me very powerfully three times before, I felt that what I was doing was top priority, and lived on the expectation that it would soon start producing an income. I wondered if I should follow Dorothys advice, as the fruits of my labors seemed to never arrive. I was following a mirage. I decided that I would go up in the oak brush and pray until I got an answer. After forty-five minutes, I was still unsure whether I should quit or if my long prayers and pleading for success would be answered. The next morning, Saturday, I went to the Temple to see if the answer would come. I didn't have a companion for the prayer circle, but when they asked for another man, I got up there. The prayer was pretty much as usual until near the end, when he paused and said, "There is someone in the temple today who has a weighty problem. In fact, they are in this session. Your prayers will be answered. At that instant I felt two very strong electric shocks go through my hand. I knew that was my answer. I would go on, no matter how long it took. I went back to my seat and thoughts poured through my mind about how my plan should be changed so that it could succeed. I needed stop seeking for wealth, seeking instead to help people use what they have to get what they need. For a time, I called my organization the EAS (Economic Alliance for Security) but finally went back to the name HBE (which was given me in the Temple). Soon after my experience in the Temple, I changed both name and nature of the company, and I formed a list of basic requirements which the plan needed. The HBE (Home Business Exchange) needed to be founded on partnership, and it needed to be a model in cooperation, not competition. It couldn't be like

the United Order; that plan must be based on love, but then, love develops from friendly, cooperative association. A plan built on partnership just might be a stepping stone to the United Order. People needed to enter some kind of economic alliance which would be the glue which would bind all units of the exchange together. I knew that the plan should not be controlled by any one person or group. It needed to be controlled by the people, who, I felt, could make it work successfully if they had the right understanding. If the organization had been under one leader and based on people, rather than principles, I felt that it would either fail or be killed by the powers who control the counterfeit system of money. Hundreds of people have said the plan could never succeed, but I felt sure that it would eventually, either in my lifetime or after it. There must have been some purpose in my doing this, or I would not have had the feelings I had. My goals could only be accomplished with the right plan, but with the Lords Help, I knew that I might just be able to Just Do it. Mathew Cowley once said, "I said to The Man of the Year, give me a light that I may walk safely into the unknown. He replied, step out into the darkness and put your hand in the hand of God. It is better than a light, and safer than the known way. I cant count how many times I have tried this statement and proven it true. Many times I have gone as far as it seemed possible to go, and though all seemed hopeless, suddenly some way would open so that I could keep going. I often didn't tell my loving wife, as she did not see things the way I did, and urged me many times not to waste my life on a dream. I have hung on because I didn't dare quit. I felt that I had been commanded of the Lord to go on and do it. Like Nephi of old, I didn't know how, but I knew that it must happen. At times it seemed very discouraging, and it seemed that it would be so much easier to quit. Of course I had much urging to do just that. I am going to end this chapter of this book at this point, with a full intention to continue my record. There is so much to tell about the times our children remember, of Big Basin Redwoods Park, of beaches, hikes to the mountains, Christmas in a cabin, leaving our dream home, of Hill Park, Reno, and finally Wander Lane in Salt Lake City. There is so much to tell about Alaska, where I went in July of 1975, coming back in December of that year with my loving wife, who came up to help for about a month. There were many faith-promoting experiences over the ensuing years. I was not discouraged with my project, even though I had many failures. Each time I got up and dusted myself off after I (or my expectations) was knocked flat, I learned something. I had made a commitment, and would not be dissuaded. If my life ends before I succeed, I want the memory of me to be associated with commitments, and with persistence in what I believe to be right. I also want to be remembered as one who had a sincere desire to help the downtrodden and oppressed, to help them escape and triumph over oppressors if possible.