2023/13. LOOKING BACK DAYS

When she was 64 years old, just at the point when she could sit down and look back a bit on a life well lived, take a sip of coffee, then look forward to a whole beautiful future, Dave’s mom was killed in a car accident. That tragedy changed all of us. I sorrow that she did not really get that chance to look back, and we did not get the chance to tell her how much she means to us and how well she did what she did. 

Being aware of how fortunate we are to have lived this long and to have the chance to look back is one of the blessings of the sudden loss of Helen Connors. We cherish all our moments a little more.

We all get (if we will take them) little looking back days; the first day of kindergarten when a parent realizes their baby is no longer a baby, graduation days, weddings and of course funerals. I consider all of these grounding days, times when we stop and center ourselves. We spend most of our time looking ahead. This is needful. It keeps us alive, and in motion. The occasional pause to look back can be powerful. We would benefit from more spirit-driven looking backs. 

Yesterday was a looking back day.

David’s courtroom was filled beyond capacity, with overflow in Judge Edwards’ courtroom, to honor him as he steps down from the bench. He has spent the last 15 years serving the people of Utah as a state district court judge. Judge David M. Connors, 2^nd District Court. He hears everything from marriage to murder, and all of the in-betweens.

For the next week I’d like to spend my Lent Writing days visiting various aspects of the events of yesterday, because putting all of it in words is overwhelming for one sitting. I'll begin by looking back to the first few months of his judgeship and see how far we have come by the end of the week.

One of the first cases Dave had to hear was a very public and tragic murder case. A small boy had been tortured, murdered, dismembered and buried by his stepfather and mother. David was assigned to be the first judge to hear the horrific details of the case and decide whether to bind-over the stepfather and assign bail. I attended the hearing. 

The following Sunday I was sitting in a circle in the bishops office at our church. I was serving as Young Women’s President, and this was our weekly meeting with leaders of the various organizations in our ward. We began our meetings with prayer, but first we discussed who among our congregation might need our most purposeful prayers in their behalf. Then we joined together in prayer. We had our collection of names, and rose to kneel, when Paul Rees, another leader on our team, asked if we could add one more name. The bishop said “of course.” Paul then said, “I feel like we need to pray for Dave Connors.” 

I turned to Paul and said, “What’s wrong with Dave?”

“Nothing physical, I don’t think” Paul said. “It’s just that he has to hear such terrible things and make such weighty decisions. I can’t even imagine.”

Paul was right. David did need the Lord’s help, not only that week, but every subsequent week. He needed his higher power to help him make appropriate decisions in applying the law, but also in not wounding his spirit as he dipped himself into such dirty waters.

Today I stand as a witness that Judge Connors has been resilient, even-tempered, applied sound judgement and retained his good nature in spite of having to deal with the worst of human behavior. He found his sweet spot professionally. His wisdom, personality and intelligence are well suited for judgeship and I am so grateful he has been able to serve.

Here's a copy of the invitation that went out to announce his retirement as well as a copy of the brief bio on the back of the program.

2023/12. GEAR

Short on time, I resorted to an online random word generator to trigger todays writing. The word I got was GEAR.

You can tell an awful lot about a person without talking to them, or hearing about them. If it’s a person with any sort of passion you will be able to read them by the gear they drag along with them. For instance, waiting in line at the airport, you happen to be stuck in the eternal zig zag feeding into the stack of x-ray machines at TSA. The person three spots ahead of you is pulling a reinforced Gore-Tex bag with a familiar embroidered emblem sewn into the corner. His shoes are super high end hiking boots, broken in but not ragged. His shorts say Patagonia and his backpack cost him a good multi-hundred chunk of change, unless it was given to him by the company, which looks to be a real possibility. He wears an orange nano-puff jacket and his tightly woven hat bears a logo with four letters, the vowel of which carries an umlaut over top.

I’ve never met the guy before and am likely never going to meet him unless he sits beside me on the plane, but I venture to guess I could tell you a bit about him: Where he spends his free time, where he shops, even what kind of socks he’s wearing under this lightweight trouser legs.

People who peek into the back of Dave’s car can guess something about him, too. They’ll see a set of golf clubs, a hand pulled titanium golf cart, a pair of white golf shoes… all evidence of what he might do after work or on weekends. Not all the time, but its surely a part of who he is.

His fishing rod is custom. If someone asks him what kind of pole he has, he knows they are in the realm of amateur and can refer them to me to exchange fish tales. 

People who walk past our open garage, and trust me, there are a lot of them, can see by the shelves stacked by the garage door that there’s a need for sound amplification in our lives. The shelves are loaded with speakers, mixers, mic stands, speaker stands. Bulging black bags filled with cords and mics. Folded guitar stands, metal music stands… the gear my roadie and I have lugged around for decades. There’s a heavy-duty folding cart for lugging the heavy stuff. There’s a big set of Ramsa speakers and a 16 channel Mackie board, a medium set of Ramsas, and the small Samson set. We know exactly what to load into the back of the van depending on the show and the size of the venue. Anyone can tell by the quality of the gear that this isn’t Karaoke gear. But we are also not going to have the quality that Robinette Sound gives us for our big shows. We know when what we have isn’t good enough, and thank goodness we know who has not only the gear but the talent to use it when we need it.

People who swim in certain waters can tell a good bit about others who swim with them just by the nature of the gear they have. I’ll get a nod when guitarists ask what kind of guitar I have and I answer, “Well, I have a few. My best ones are Martin, Collings and Taylor and my current favorite, a custom Stika.” If you know, you know. If you don’t, it frankly doesn’t matter.

Yes, indeed, one can presume a lot just by looking at someone’s gear. On the other hand, I’ve seen some pretty masterful art emerge from inferior tools. The touch of a master’s hand trumps the gear. And then there are the people who stack the gear in their favor, but the talent just isn’t there to take full advantage of it.

Those kind of divine experiences, when you see someone pull of some pretty dope bike moves on his kid’s teeny bike, or a musician makes a cheap guitar vibrate and sing, or an iPhone produces some remarkable photos…  when crayons produce incredible art…those experiences are a reminder that gear can say a lot, but talent says more.

2023/11. ON BEING ALIVE

When I was small, specifically five-years old, I remember going through the small field in back of our house on Grace Street in Whitehall PA, all the way back to the rock YMCA building. There was, as part of that property, a small orchard of dwarf apple trees, their low hanging arms freshly covered with thick pale apple blossoms. Their fragrance was intoxicating. I found myself drawn there by the scent, and once arrived, enfolded by the texture and the color, the way sunlight dappled through the flowery tentacles. I inhaled the whole aesthetic. What child would not crave such a warm Springtime embrace? I inhaled until I almost hyperventilated. Perhaps it was this fragrant overdose that sent me to a sort of put-of-body experience, the climax of which found me grabbing my own arm with the opposing hand and in a spark of simultaneous revelation call out; “I’m ALIVE!” 

It was so profound that I can revisit it in a complete whole-body memory experience even now, six decades later. I think I may have slipped the bonds of Heaven with a tiny cell of my premortal life still glowing. Perhaps a teeny tiny particle of memory slid into my earthly baggage to keep the wonder of this human existence glowing inside.

Yesterday I spent a little quiet time, pre-Sunday afternoon nap, pondering the fact that I am right now having my human experience. I feel a melancholy sadness at the way I got sucked into being so critical of how I’ve worn my flesh, or how it has responded to my spirit’s perceived needs and allowed myself to dwell in largeness all my adult life. I’ve felt a ridiculous desire to make apologies for something that should offend no one. I know that now. But sadly, I have existed in this flesh with a goodly measure of shame rather than delight. Seriously! What a tragedy. I should have been floating on the lake all these years in a swimsuit rather than covering up. 

This is all water under my bridges. I am here today, still alive, still generally well and of a relatively sound mind. I have had 65 years on this earth, all of them in this body, and I want to acknowledge before God and all who will hear that I am grateful for every inch of flesh, every cell, each deepening wrinkle and sagging sack of skin. Even pain is a reminder that I am right now, at this very moment, living the dream of each pre-mortal spirit.

My Sarah Love, born on my 22nd birthday.

Every March 5^th I say a special prayer of thanks for the woman who nurtured me from conception until the day she died. I celebrate the wonderous magic that both my mother and I gave birth to daughters on the fifth of March and the nineteenth of November. Don’t you think there is something super-mortal about that? 

And now, to top off all that magic, I am also acquiring the looks of my mom. We didn’t look that much alike all my life, but now that she’s gone, I’m starting to morph into the image her. Lucky me!

Me. Painted by my friend Tom Plummer.

Mom. Red is best!

We Parrish’s tend to be large folk. Inside and out. I’ll take that inheritance.

God, Himself, is full of largess.

2023/10. FAMILY TRIALS (the best kind)

A PHOTOGRAPHIC TALE.

The Honorable David M Connors will be retiring from his judicial seat this month. This pivotal life moment has been in the distant future for so long that I think we became complacent. Now we are stunned by the speed at which it seems to be hurling at us. Knowing we would not have access to his courtroom after he steps down from the bench, I had a  flash of inspiration, aka ridiculous idea, that we should hold a mock trial in his courtroom with all our grandkids. It would give Dave a chance to show what he has been doing for the last 15 years, and at the same time teach our family about how the judicial system works. 

In a matter of days we went from "wouldn't it be fun" to "well, that was awesome!"

When you decide to do something ridiculous I've found it is sometimes most effective to just go ahead and send out the invitation and take it from there. 

So, that's what I did:

Each participant was summoned to court.

Then I started hearing the voice of Freddie Mercury throbbing in my head..."Pressure, pushing' down on me, Pressing' down on you...."

We had less than a week to make a plan. Since Friday night was Timo's performance of Dvoraks New World Symphony, we decided to replace our traditional monthly First Friday grandkids activity with a First Saturday event with no sleep over (which in hindsight was a good idea because as soon we were done last night I collapsed in bed.)

What we did Friday: Lyceum Youth Symphony
That's Timo at the Timpanis on the left.

Now, let's create a mock trial!

"I'm a writer." I told myself, "I'll just write a script." I told myself.  

"In your spare time?" Myself told me.

Google came through again, taking me to a website where teachers sell to other teachers things they've already created. It's a great concept, one I've been trying to sell to fellow church leaders the last number of years. That's where I found the script for a young peoples' mock trial.

THE STATE vs. WOLFIE T. BADD

Each kid got a copy of the Readers Theater
with their parts highlighted. 

With a little doctoring of the script we had enough parts for all the kids to play the major roles. 

Costumes around the jury table.

Gumpa gives his robes and his seat to his granddaughter
then teaches us a little about the blessed processes of the judiciary.

Sophie plays Woflie with ATTITUDE!
Joe plays Porky E. Pig, her attorney

Calvin and Walter were Bailiffs.
When Cal decided to be a juror (in the back) Johnny
traded him roles. Auntie Kate got to join us
from New York via WebEx. Yay!
(It looks to me like that little Bailiff is handcuffing himself.)

Lil Red (Gracie) and Granny (Beth)
have to stand on their tippy toes to reach the podium.

Apparently the Bailiffs found something amusing.
And it looks like Auntie Kate did, too.

Wolfie gets a little carried away as a witness.

Judge Ruby Connors, looking an awful lot like
 the court Bailiff, isn't taking any gruff

Ms. Vi O. Lett makes her case for the State.
(Quincey)

Meanwhile the witnesses are goofing off in the gallery.

Sarah played the part of the court illustrator

When Timo had to work late and couldn't get there in time,
Libby took the part of Wood S Mann. She nailed it.

Wolfie's cousin, Alex T Wolf, doesn't help Wolfie's case.
(Parker had an awesome wolfish growl)

The woodsman tries to befriend a wolf.
Court photographer, Annie, in the background.

Granny (Beth) hobbles from the witness stand.

Attorney Daffy E Dill (Anna)
tries to get to the bottom of things.

.

Prosecuting attorneys.
(Anna & Quincey)

Capable and trustworthy court clerks
Jonah and Tessa

...with official Clerk badges.

Granny has a hard time being serious (Beth)
I don't blame her, she is wearing
my mom's old house robe and my shower cap,.

Porky E Pig giving his closing statement.

Wolfie tells his side of the story (Sophie)

Lil Red was a most excellent witness.
(Gracie)

Keeping order in the court. We only had to change the first
name on the judge's name plate.
(Ruby)

The grown-ups are the jury.

Wolfie is escorted from court
while the jury deliberates in the jury room

Bailiff Walter announces
that the jury has reached a verdict.

In the end the attorney for the defendant prevailed and Wolfie T. Bad was found innocent on account of him already being friends with Granny AND Lil Red. The whole fairy tale was just a practical joke Granny and Wolfie conjured up to play on Lil Red. 

Wolfie and Alex celebrate the not guilty verdict!

Two generations of Bailiffs
(John and Walt)

All's well that ends well.

Pizza in the jury room, for which I took no photos, and a tour of Gumpa's chambers:

Gumpa's chambers haven't looked so tidy
since the day he took the bench 15 years ago.

The boys loved looking at old photos in Gumpa's chambers.
This one is of Great Grandpa Connors, Gumpa and
Johnny when he played ball for Davis High.

As I said, I collapsed when I got home, mostly because I had stayed up till 5 AM that day getting everything ready. This kind of stuff has been my mode of operation my whole life. But I'm afraid my poor old bones are rebelling. No matter, because the memory was worth all of it!