New Blog

For those who follow my blog, I have started a new blog which is about my past memories. It can be accessed from the link on this page or at http://dennisphotographandmemories.blogspot.com.

Sunday Talk

I had to give a talk this past Sunday. The following is the text of my talk.

The date was November 28^th, 1942. Our nation was at war yet life still went on. Robert Horrigan and Henry Fitzgerald, both privates in the Army, were home on leave in Boston, MA. They, along with 12 of their friends, decided to spend the evening out together celebrating their homecoming. They went to a nightclub located in Boston known as the Cocoanut Grove. The main entrance to the club was through a revolving door, an ingenious device invented in Germany back in 1881, which allowed the door to always be open yet always closed. November can be quite cold in Boston and a revolving door was the perfect device to allow people to come in while keeping the cold air outside. Because it was wartime, most of the windows to the club had been boarded over in order to prevent light from escaping into the streets in the event of an air raid. Inside, the club was decorated in an island motif with highly combustible materials making up palm trees and other island decorations. The club was designed to hold about 500 people but there were a lot of people out celebrating that night, including a couple who had just been married earlier that day. There were about 1000 people in the club that night, twice its allowed capacity. As Robert and Henry were celebrating with their friends, a couple in another part of the club wanted a little privacy and unscrewed the light bulb above their table. An underage waiter was told to go put the light bulb back in. The waiter went to the table and because it was dark, he lit a match to see the socket. While putting in the light bulb, one of the palm trees caught fire from the match. At first, people in the room did not react other than to find amusement in the waiter’s frantic attempt to extinguish the fire with a seltzer bottle. Soon, however, realizing that the fire was growing, panic ensued and the crowd began to rush towards the exits. Some of the exits were locked to prevent patrons from skipping out and not paying their tab. Others had doors that swung inward against the flow of traffic. The crowd pressed against the doors making it impossible to get the inward swinging doors open. Meanwhile, at the front exit, the crowd tried to go through both sides of the revolving doors which quickly caused it to jam. The fire spread rapidly and the smoke built up even faster. It was so quick that some people never even had a chance to leave their tables before succumbing to the smoke. Within 15 minutes, the fire was over but the toll of human life was staggering. Of Robert and Henry’s group of fourteen, only Robert managed to escape with his life. 479 other people, including the newlywed couple and popular western movie star, Buck Jones, also succumbed to the smoke and flames that evening.

As a result of that terrible tragedy, officials took steps to learn from the mistakes that were made. One of the most notable steps taken is evident every time you see a revolving door on a building. You will notice that there is always a regular set of doors off to the side of the revolving doors and sometimes on both sides. Not readily evident is that the individual panels of the revolving door will collapse when enough pressure is applied so that people will be able to exit on both sides of the pivotal point of the door. Today, because of the lessons learned in this fire and some others, we have a set of fire codes that have evolved over the years which help to prevent similar incidents. Only when someone fails to learn these lessons from the past, do we see disasters such as happened in February of 2003 in Rhode Island at the Station Night Club where again highly combustible decorations this time mixed with illegal fireworks and along with inadequate exiting caused a fire which resulted in the loss of 100 lives.

In last April’s Conference, Elder Ballard said “When you are willing to listen and learn, some of life’s most meaningful teachings come from those who have gone before you. They have walked where you are walking and have experienced many of the things you are experiencing. If you listen and respond to their counsel, they can help guide you toward choices that will be for your benefit and blessing and steer you away from decisions that can destroy you. As you look to your parents and others who have gone before you, you will find examples of faith, commitment, hard work, dedication, and sacrifice that you should strive to duplicate.”

In order to learn from the past, Elder Ballard insinuates that first we must be willing to listen and to learn. When King Lamoni’s father, the king over all the Lamanites, met Ammon, he wanted nothing to do with Ammon other than to have him killed because he was a Nephite despite the fact that his son was defending him. His mind was closed and he would hear nothing. One thing led to another and in defense of King Lamoni, Ammon wounded his father. When the King saw that Ammon did not want to kill him but that he had great love for his son, he changed his attitude. He opened his ears, mind and heart to hear what Ammon had to say. Eventually this led to his conversion and the conversion of many of his people to the gospel. We, like King Lamoni’s Father, sometimes, need a little prodding in order to have a willingness to listen and learn. Hopefully we don’t need to get into a sword fight in order to do so.

Once we’ve opened our hearts to learning, Elder Ballard suggests that some of the most meaningful teaching can come from those who have gone before us. Who are those who have gone before us?

I remember, as a youngster in High School, that I learned a valuable lesson from my father. I actually found out that he was a pretty smart guy. I had just bought my first car. It was a 1957 Ford Ranchero. I had plunked down my entire life savings for this car. At the time, this was a whopping $300. My pride and joy had a manual shift which I had never driven before up to this point in my life. I was anxious to get out and drive my car and my father was going to teach me to drive it. However, I had bought the car late one evening and Dad was going out on a business trip early the next morning. He told me to just park the car for a couple of days and then we’d get busy learning to drive it when he got back. He told me that these older vehicles were a little tricky and I could do some damage to it if I didn’t know what I was doing. Well, Dad went on his trip the next morning and I, being the wise teenager that I was, decided he didn’t know what he was talking about. Suffice it to say that before Dad got to where ever it was that he was going, I had stripped the gears on my car and had learned an expensive, but unnecessary lesson that my Dad was actually smarter than I. From then on, I decided that perhaps I should learn from him. He has been a great example to me in my life. I have been able to learn from him not only things of the temporal world but also from the spiritual side. Even today, I still learn from him. Here in the next few months, I will be learning some woodworking skills from him as I complete a project that involves my recent Wood Badge experience.

Over the years, I have found that I can learn from many who have gone before me including ancestors, historical figures, teachers, church leaders, ancient prophets and even those of my own generation who have had experiences in life that I hadn’t. Imagine a world where we had to duplicate the efforts of everyone else prior to being able to accomplish something instead of listening to those who had already tried and failed or succeeded. Fortunately, we do not live in such a world but instead we build upon the successes and failures of others in order to move forward. Every new missionary who goes out in the field benefits from the experience and wisdom of a senior companion. The new missionary does not have to try and figure out what parts of a city have been recently tracted. He does not have to figure out where to find necessary services such as laundry facilities. He is helped along until the knowledge and experiences of his guiding senior companion has been transferred to him.

One of the great teaching tools from the past is the scriptures. We have been immensely blessed to have had wise men record their experiences in ancient times. The value of these experiences is that we have a record that spans a large amount of time and we are able to see patterns that develop and re-occur. Elder Ballard explains, “Time and again we see the cycle of righteousness followed by … prosperity, followed by material comforts, followed by greed, followed by pride, followed by wickedness and a collapse of morality until the people brought calamities upon themselves sufficient to stir them up to humility, repentance, and change.”

In my relatively short lifetime, I have been witness to this cycle or at least a large part of it. As I read the Book of Mormon, it is eerily haunting to see the similarities of the Nephites to our own situation today. The world was a very different place in the middle of last century when I was born. On the whole, we were a more righteous nation. We were industrious and prosperous. People worked hard to live the American dream. Religion was a normal part of life for most people. Since that time, however, we have seen greed take over. It used to be trying to keep up with the Joneses and now it is stay ahead of the Joneses at any cost. (No offense, Mark and Jackie.) We have become a very prideful people. Morality has gone out the window. It used to be that you dreamed of finding a mate, getting married, starting a family and building a life together. Now for a large portion of the populace, marriage and children are just inconveniences that interfere with lifestyles or tie you down. For those who do get married, divorce is no longer for good reason but it is a convenience. What we find is that we are pretty close to the end of that cycle of righteousness and if we are willing to listen and learn from the past, we can take steps in our personal lives to avoid the calamities which surely await us. Even though the events of the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament took place thousands of years ago and even though on the surface life seemed to be vastly different than ours today, we can still see that the teachings and examples found in these ancient books are still relevant today. Mormon lived during the time of calamities and even though he took steps in his personal life to be more righteous, he could not entirely avoid those calamities. However, he was comforted and shepherded by the Lord during those trials. We too can take comfort in the Lord as trials come upon us but only if we are willing to learn and to make changes in our lives.

While at Wood Badge training this past couple of weeks, I was given a tool to help in this personal learning process. Of course, the secret, as usual, is that you still have to be willing to listen, to learn, and to follow. As Elder Ballard put it “Our Heavenly Father loves all of His children, and He wants them all to have the blessings of the gospel in their lives. Spiritual light is not lost because God turns His back on His children. Rather, spiritual darkness results when His children turn their collective backs on Him.” The tool we were given was called “Start, Stop, Continue.” It is just a simple self-evaluation wherein you ask yourself “What am I not doing that I need to start doing? What am I doing that I need to stop doing? What am I doing that I need to continue doing?” This is something we can all do both individually and as families. This is an excellent opportunity for children to be able to learn from their parents and sometimes for parents to be able to learn from their children.

Our Heavenly Father wants us to succeed in this life. He wants us to avoid the mistakes of the past and He wants us to profit from the successes of the past. Elder Ballard quoted the famous saying from George Santayana “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” He goes on further to say “There are great lessons to be learned from the past, and you ought to learn them so that you don’t exhaust your spiritual strength repeating past mistakes and bad choices.” We have been blessed to be born during a time when there are so many resources right at our fingertips where we can learn from the past. We have libraries full of history books and biographies. We all have access to the stories and teachings of the scriptures. We have tools that allow us to search the scriptures in minute detail so that we can find and learn from a myriad of different historical experiences.

I like what Elder Ballard says and I quote: “You don’t have to spend time as a Laman or a Lemuel in order to know that it’s much better to be a Nephi or a Jacob. You don’t have to follow the path of Cain or Gadianton in order to realize that “wickedness never was happiness” And you don’t have to allow your community to become like Sodom or Gomorrah in order to understand that it isn’t a good place to raise a family.” We need to learn from their past mistakes and not repeat them. We also, sometime, need to take action in order to change circumstances around us which are leading us to disaster. In this life, we metaphorically live in a forest that surrounds us. We cannot see our future or our end destination due to the trees all around us. However, we can have a pretty good sense of where we are headed simply by taking advantage of Scriptures; by reading them; and by learning from them. We can predict what will happen when certain attitudes and actions come into play. The scriptures; those sacred experiences that took place millennia ago, are a roadmap to guide us through the forest so that we will end up where it is that we want to go when we emerge from the forest’s edge.

Learning from the lessons from the past needs to be an active part of our lives. Elder Ballard counsels us “Of course, it’s not enough to learn these lessons as a matter of history and culture. Learning the names and dates and sequence of events from the printed page won’t help you very much unless the meaning and the message are written in your hearts. Nourished by testimony and watered with faith, the lessons of the past can take root in your hearts and become a vibrant part of who you are.”

It is my sincere desire that each of us will study the past and that we will internalize the lessons from it. I pray that we may take those lessons and write a personal code of conduct upon our hearts; one that will guide you around the obstacles of life. I hope that the next time you see a revolving door with the regular doors to either side of it that you will remember that there are lessons to be learned from the past and that we don’t have to repeat the mistakes of the past over and over again.

This is my humble prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Delaware 2009

Rehoboth Beach

Well, I've been told that I need to update my blog with our recent trip to Delaware to visit Dustin and Tavin so here it is.

We left on Tuesday June 16th from Salt Lake and flew into Washington DC National Airport. If you have never flown into this airport, you have probably never experienced an E ticket ride. There are a lot of twists and turns to get in there in order to avoid the monuments and residential areas. Also, the skies were unsettled over the eastern U.S. and the ride was quite bumpy coming down. We made it alright and got a car then drove out to Dustin's house in Dover.


Dustin was at work so we got Tavin from the Babysitter. He was ecstatic to see us. We brought this little guitar out for him and he immediately picked it up, held it like a guitar, and began dancing all over the house with it. The babysitter said something about Guitar Hero being his favorite video game. Tavin looked good and healthy and he is still a lot of fun. Dustin lives on base and has pretty nice housing.

Tavin has a new dog. His name is Miller and he is a Pomeranian. Very hyper btw.

The weather was pretty wet and rainy for most of the time we were there but we did find breaks in the weather to do a few things. We drove down to one of the beaches and just wandered around for a little bit. I found a dead horseshoe crab on the beach. This is the underside of it and it looks like something has already "cleaned" out the "edible" parts inside of it.

Tavin has his own car for getting around. It actually runs on batteries and has a real radio in it. Miller seemed to enjoy the ride too.



The next day was a little clearer and we drove down to the souther part of the state to Rehoboth beach. We spent some time watching Tavin make sand castles then we went up to the boardwalk and found an amusement park (Funland) and let Tavin ride a bunch of rides. He loved it.

While we were there, they had an air show at Dover AFB where Dustin works. For a couple of days before, we had all kinds of airplanes practicing all around us and right over the house a few times. Included in that were the Thunderbirds. Once when they went right over, Tavin squinted his eyes, plugged his ears and was saying "Noisy, noisy!" He didn't like that too much when it was that close and that loud.

On Saturday, Kellie and I went to the air show but we didn't get to stay long because of the weather. We saw some of the planes (C-5 behind me) and saw some demo flying. The next day we were at church but when we got home, we got more of the air show. We saw the Thunderbirds performing from Dusty's back porch. I was happy and satisfied.

Monday, we headed back home. We stopped in DC for a little bit. We were headed for Arlington but I took the wrong turn and ended up on the Mall so we parked and visited the Capitol and the botanical gardens for about 2 hours then headed over to the airport. Again, I took a wrong turn but this time it turned out to be a right turn and we got there. Unfortunately with all the unsettled weather back east, we were delayed, delayed, delayed. Storms in Atlanta delayed our takeoff from DC and of course that just backlogged all the flights. Anyway, we finally got home at two in the morning and I was at work only a few hours later. We had a good trip and it was good to see both Dustin and Tavin at their home. Lucky for me, I am headed back over there in about a week and a half for some business. I'll get to run back out there for a day on my way home.

Fun with Isaac

My grandson, Isaac, wanted me to play Legos with him and this is what I created. Of course, he recognized Sponge-Bob-Square-Pants right off the bat. Smart kid despite the model I made. I didn't have any brown legos so he ended up with blue pants. Sponge-Bob-Blue-Pants.

Spring Break

Well, a few days off from work is always refreshing. We headed down to Green River to spend a couple of days this week. Actually, we just used Green River as a base camp because, honestly, there isn't a whole lot in Green River. As a matter of fact, I'd almost consider it to be a ghost town in the making. However, we stayed at what I'd consider to be the one bright spot in the whole town, the Best Western River Terrace. Daniele, Kellie and I went and we had reserved a standard room. When I got there, I asked if they had a family suite and they said yes. I asked how much more would they want for it and we bartered it down to about $25 a day more than just for a standard room. It's always nice to have a little extra room. We had a balcony overlooking the river to go along with it.

Tuesday, we drove right past Green River and went to Arches National Park for the afternoon.

This photo is for Casey. She has taught me well how to pose for photos. Navajo Arch


I actually got Kellie to smile for a photo.

Daniele wishing I'd hurry up with the photo. This was Landscape Arch

The next day we were off to Goblin Valley. Here is Kellie standing on a Goblin in the Valley. It was a bit cold and very windy that day but I suppose I can't complain because Casey told us that it was snowing back home. Always look for the bright side!

Just Kellie having fun on the Goblins.

Me inside a cave with Daniele looking up towards the cave.

On Thursday, we checked out of our hotel and headed down to Canyonlands National Park. This was the first time I had been to this park and the views were absolutely stunning.

Daniele and I both decided to pose in front of Mesa Arch which overlooks one of the canyons 600 feet below carved out by Mother Nature over millions of years.

Daniele and Kellie posing in front of one of the geological formations in the park.

Six to seven hundred years ago, Anasazi Indians built these storage houses in a protected alcove for their grains.



Daniele poses at the first overlook to Upheaval Dome. One theory is that it was caused by salt deposits beneath the ground that flowed into the area and pushed the ground up. A more recent theory involves a meteor strike. Who knows?

After spending a few hours in the park, hiking and exploring, it was back in the car and back to the house where we found all to be well.

The Polar Express

Kellie and I have been busy this past week hauling people to the North Pole and back on the Polar Express. Our neighbor, Mike Anderson, has this train and every Christmas he has the Polar Express which takes a journey through several yards with visits to all the lights, the North Pole (where the kids get to see Santa) then through a series of large posters depicting the life of Christ. I was fortunate engough to be able to help out this year and I got to drive one of the trains. (There are two of them that are constantly running during the event). I was kind of scared at first because not only did I have to drive the train but I had to run the music that goes with it. So... let's see.... I ran out of gas, once; I derailed, once; the music died on me several times; but all in all I guess I did pretty well. It was fun to meet so many people and see the reactions they had to the whole experience. I think I look rather dashing in my engineers outfit, by the way...

Kellie's job was to be my safety. She would keep an eye out on the passengers to make sure that they didn't lose things or drag things like scarves that could get caught in the wheels. Also she would make sure they weren't bouncing around too much which could cause a derailment. And... if we did derail, she would let me know so that I could stop the train. She was also responsible to call in to the North Pole to let them know when we were a minute out from them.

Last night was the last night and Mike was sick so I was glad to be able to help out. This is a large undertaking for him and I, as well as many others, are really grateful to the Anderson family for giving so much to all of us so it was good to be able to give a little back by helping. Oh, and I've got to admit, it was fun, too!

Paris!

Well, all good things must come to an end. The day arrived that we finally had to say goodbye to everyone and head back to our mundane normal lives. Of course it is always good to get back to that which you are familiar with. My own bed, for example, felt really good. It is, however, a little lonely around the house since there is only the three of us left there. We've been home for a day and a half and we are still putting things away from the trip, doing laundry, and just getting back into our normal routine. Before flying home, we did get the chance to spend a day in Paris. So sit back and enjoy the final few days of our trip to France.

One final picture with the family at the train station as we take our leave and head for Paris. Everybody was crying because it'll probably be another three to four years before we see each other again. Daniele's dad was doing most of the crying and her mom was telling him to stop it because it was making her cry.

Thank goodness we had first class seats on the train rides. It did make the trip a little nicer. It takes about five hours to get from Bergerac to Paris with one train transfer at Libourne. Now one of the things that really irks me about the train station in Libourne is that to get from one platform to the other, you have to go under the tracks which means you have to go downstairs, through a tunnel, then back up the stairs. No problem... unless you are loaded down with a bunch of baggage. I had a rough time with ours because one of them was really heavy. I managed to get everything over to the other platform then I helped some lady who was pushing a baby in a stroller, dragging another along and loaded down with a bag that was heavier than mine. I think she was somewhat surprised that someone would stop to help her.

We stayed at the Campanile Hotel at Roissy en France which is just on the other side of the freeway from the airport. The rate was pretty good but the room was really small. But for 45 Euros per night, what's to complain about...

... except Kellie had to sleep standing up in this closet. Not really! There was a pull out bed underneath our bed but when it was pulled out, there wasn't much room to get around at all in the room. Fortunately, all we did was sleep there. Paris was the object of our visit. Not the hotel room. The hotel had a free shuttle back and forth to the airport where the train station was located so we got an all day pass for each of us to take the RER and the Metro all over Paris.

Paris! I love this city! What more can I say?

First stop for the day was Sacre Coeur. Actually it was about the jillionth stop because we got off the RER at the North Train station and decided to walk over to Sacre Coeur. Of course there are a jillion shops in between so we had to check out all the stores. I did find a bag for 4 euros which I needed because one of our bags had a big hole in it. The bag has some cheesy looking dice on the outside like we went to Las Vegas instead of Paris but for 4 euros, what should I expect? Sacre Coeur sits on top of a hill in Paris. It is a basilica built in the late 1800s early 1900s. The architecture is beautiful and the view from on top of the hill is spectacular. More about Sacre Coeur.

Next to Sacre Coeur on the hill is the Montmartre neighborhood, a popular hangout for artists. We took a stroll through there then...

...got an ice cream cone for Kellie. She has gotten a taste for pistachio ice cream.

Afterwards it was back down the hill and we did some more shopping. This time we got some food for lunch. Nothing like some french bread, fresh tomatoes and sausage. Somehow, however, after this stop, I ended up with a big box of flan mix that I had to pack around for the rest of the day. My arms were getting pretty sore by the end of the day.

To the subway station for our next stop. Of course, the subway station closest to the big religious landmark on the hill is Pigalle which is basically the red-light district of Paris.

Subways are so much fun. Actually, it is quite an efficient way to get around Paris. Generally you are no more than 500 meters from a subway station anywhere in the city.
Paris Metro

Next stop: The Eiffel Tower. What is a trip to Paris without going to one of the most famous landmarks in the world? Kellie was a little too fast on the shutter so you don't get to see us kissing. Too bad. We spent a little time here just relaxing and enjoying the view. It is mid-August and it is full tourist season so with the mile long lines to go up the tower, we just decided to enjoy it from the ground.

After consulting the Metro map then having my Metro ticket eaten by machine, (we had to wait for someone to come to the station to retrieve it.. they said they had been having trouble with that machine doing that) our final destination for the day...

Notre Dame Cathedral. This building truly has some of the most amazing architecture in the world with it's flying buttresses and all. We tried to find Quasimodo but I think he had gone on vacation with all the other Parisians. Again, with the tourist season, there was a huge line just to go inside and look around so we passed on it. Besides, I've been in there a few times already.

So we rested up in the park behind the Cathedral and fed the pigeons. The one in front of Kellie was pretty brave and would eat right out of your hand. After this, it was back to the hotel and we packed up and headed home the next morning.

Brantome

Yesterday, we had another excursion. This time we went to see some friends up in the Angouleme area. Along the way we stopped in Brantome which is known as the Venice of France since the city is built on an island in the middle of a river. Of course the whole thing was another two hour drive but we managed to survive. When we got to Brantome, it was market day and they were set up along the main street which is already pretty narrow. We got there just as some of the marketeers were packing up so to add to the congestion, there were trucks parked also. We managed to get stuck for a while because the traffic in both directions couldn't get past each other until we jockeyed a few cars around. The truck driver was real obnoxious and everyone let him know about it. But we finally made it and Brantome is a pretty town.

One of the ancient gates to the city is behind me. There used to be two but the other one is long gone. A lot of rock quarrying was done around this town which left a lot of excavated caves. No problem, they just added fronts to them and built houses and stores right in the caves along the street. You can see one of the to my left (right side of the picture.)

Me with a local street musician playing the accordion. One thing I've noticed over the years is that the French look less and less like French people. The world is just becoming one big blend. This guy, however, still retains a French/European look. He played some pretty snappy music with his squeeze box.

Another view of the stores built into the side of the rocks which have been excavated.

Looking across the river into the island city.

Sitting by the river eating lunch. French bread, ham, cheese... mmmmm

Brantome seen from above

More about

Brantôme

After Brantome, we headed on up the road towards Angouleme. We went to visit the parents of Daniele's best friend when she was growing up, the Demolombes. Unfortunately the father was not there because he had gone into the hospital earlier for some heart arrhythmias. We were fortunate enough, however to have their oldest daughter, Marie-France, there who was visiting from Tahiti where she lives. This was a great visit because this is truly one of the families in France that I love. They were really kind to me when I was a missionary some 34 years ago. The Angouleme area was where I really felt at home after having been over here for a year and a half.

Daniele, Marie-France and Jacqueline

The gang (except for me who is taking the picture) out for a stroll through the neighborhood. (l-r: Robert, Jeannine, Jacqueline, Bernadette, Denis the son of the Demolombe's son, Marie-France, and Daniele)

The time was too short there. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Angouleme and the good people that I know there. The train always passes through there on our way to Daniele's family and I'm always glued to the window of the train, as we go through, wishing I had time to get off and just wander for a while. Of course, this is where I also met my future wife so it is a double special place for me.

More about

Angoulême