On the rock our fathers planted

Sometimes when I tell people I work at the Church History Library, they ask me if I get access to special records. Well, not exactly. Most of the things I see are open to the public or are online. When I refer to old issues of the Deseret News, I look at the PDFs on the Utah Digital Newspapers website. Rarely I've had to look at microfilms. (If you've ever used a microfilm reader, you know how frustrating that is. I would say they should invent a better one, but they're becoming obsolete anyway.)

However, for the project that I've been working on for a long time (since August, and seriously since December), one of the Deseret News issues I looked at had a very messy scan, both online and on microfilm. That meant my boss wanted me to look at the original! Normally they would be hesitant to lend it out, but since my boss is the managing director and Assistant Church Historian, they do what he wants.

I got to look at a bound volume that contained many original copies of the Deseret News between 1851 and 1855. Some of the pages are badly torn, so I had to be careful. Some people asked me if I had to wear gloves. The answer is no; I think gloves would make me not feel the paper and make it more likely to tear. The senior sister missionary I've been working with pointed out to me some of the papers from 1854, saying, "Look, they used a different type of paper." Indeed, the paper was softer and had a bluish tint. Luckily, I knew enough about the history of the Deseret News that I knew what was going on. They had to make their own paper, so they asked for everyone to donate their old rags to make paper. I was able to see blue fibers mixed in the paper. I had actually been hoping I would be able to see this rag paper, and since all those years were together, I did!

This week I ran for one hour and eight minutes, the longest I've ever run continuously, except for the brief moment I got a drink at a park drinking fountain. Oh, and the time the lady following dogs in her car stopped me. Three small dogs were running loose, so she called out to me from her car, "If they come up to you, grab them." Well, I reached down to grab one, but as I did so, my fear of dogs kicked in, and I thought, "This dog doesn't know me, and if I try to catch it, it might bite me!" So I petted it and tried to gain its trust, but it and the other two dogs ran off again. I felt bad, but I'm not a dogcatcher. It was really random.

Then this weekend, my family went down to visit my dad's family. We had a baby shower to go to in Cedar City in Iron County. Then we had a farewell to go to in Delta in Millard County. When we passed through Fillmore, we stopped at the Fillmore City Cemetery. My grandparents are buried there, and my parents will be, but there are some other ancestors and notable people there.

 This is the tombstone of Reuben McBride, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, who knew Joseph Smith. Many of these old tombstones are broken, but I think this is the original--especially since they didn't spell "Reuben" in the conventional way.

 This is the tombstone of Alexander Melville, my great-great-great-grandfather, a Scottish pioneer from whom we got our last name. Unfortunately, I don't know as much about him as I should.

This is not an original tombstone, and it is not an ancestor, but I was excited to see it because I know the story. Lieutenant John W. Gunnison worked for the United States Topographical Engineers, and he had come with Howard Stansbury when he made his survey of the Great Salt Lake around 1850. In 1853, Gunnison returned through Utah to find a better route to California. Unfortunately, his team was traveling through Utah at the time of the Walker War, when there were lots of tensions between whites and Native Americans. Some California-bound emigrants had killed some Piute Indians. The various tribes in Utah had a strong sense of retaliation, so if Americans killed one of their people, they had to kill Americans. The Indians distinguished between the Mormons and other Americans. Since Gunnison and his crew were Americans, the Indians killed Gunnison and a few others. In 1854, Edward Steptoe and a large group of rough soldiers came to Utah in part to seek justice against the Indians who massacred Gunnison. The Mormons generally were sympathetic to those Indians, so the government thought they were anti-patriotic. Some of Steptoe's men seduced a bunch of Mormon women and took them to California with them. (A lot of this was not relevant to Gunnison, but it's interesting how things build on each other.)

This is obviously not an original tombstone, since the pioneers used sandstone and marble, not granite. But this is Amasa Mason Lyman, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, who is mentioned twice in the Doctrine and Covenants. He did a lot for the Church as an Apostle, including overseeing the Saints in San Bernardino, California, with his fellow Apostle Charles C. Rich. He later left the Church and became a Godbeite.

All this interest in my ancestors comes primarily from my job, but it just happens to converge with my Church calling, as today I was sustained as one of my stake's family history directors. I knew it would happen soon. I wasn't at church today, but my former Provo roommate, Bryton, texted me and told me he heard my name announced at the ward he attended in Centerville! My job makes me more conscious of family history.

Things that annoyed me this week

It's not like it was a bad week, but there were a few things that annoyed me this week.

At work, I've been assisting with a book that's being published by Oxford University Press, and I've been reviewing the edits of a copy editor they hired. I don't think she works for Oxford, but she's been doing the copy editing. I Googled her to see if she was a student intern or something, but she's been editing for decades. Which means she should be much better at it. Some of the edits were good. Most of them were unnecessary. And some of them were just plain wrong. For example, she changed "Joseph Smith's family and their neighbors" to "Joseph Smith's family and its neighbors." Really? Its? I get that "family" is singular, but still. Shouldn't your ear (and your brain) tell you that notional agreement is better than grammatical agreement? Also, I think she thinks you shouldn't split an infinitive. And of all prescriptive rules, that one is the dumbest and most illogical. There were lots of other problems, but you'd probably be bored with all the editing-ese.

(Not being much of a reader, I think the next time someone asks me what my favorite book is, I'll say Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, because it tells me why all those so-called rules are dumb.)

I was also really annoyed with Google this week. They try to help me find things by guessing what I'm thinking, but it's not helpful. I had to do some research on Gibraltar, the British colony on the south of Spain, but many of the search hits included this message: "Missing: Gibraltar." For rills? I can force it by putting the word in quotes, but if I didn't want to include hits about Gibraltar, I wouldn't have put it in the search terms. So frustrating.

It was very rainy. I love rain, although it made me miss out on trail running. But I was really disappointed it didn't snow. I haven't seen it snow in May since 2011, although I know it has snowed in other years. I just haven't personally seen it in four years. I hope it snows this month.

Sometimes people misunderstand what I did scholastically or what I do professionally. My major was English language, the sister department to linguistics. People often think I was an English major. I'm NOT an English major. English majors are people who don't know what to study, or are nerds who love Jane Austen and Doctor Who. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not me. It's gotten better since I decided to say "English linguistics" instead of "English language," but people still don't get it and ask me questions I've heard millions of times. No, I don't want to be a teacher. No, I don't read a lot. (English language is to English as geology is to geography. Which is another thing people confuse, but not as much.)

Another thing that happens is that when I tell people I work for the Church History Department, they think I work for the Family History Department. They used to be the same department, but they're not anymore.

Speaking of geology, I was extremely frustrated to hear a news report that some Utah parents are mad that the state wants to teach evolution and global warming in schools. I mean, I graduated from BYU, the most religious and perhaps most conservative college in the state, and it was there that I learned the factually based science behind those theories. How did the science behind climate change become politically charged? And why is evolution regarded as fundamentally contradictory to religion? And even if it were (which it isn't), why should you forbid something just because it's not what you believe?

Our cat, who is nearly thirteen years old (in human years), likes to bring us dead mice. This proves that she is a useful animal, because it's better to have a dead mouse outside your door than a mouse, dead or alive, in your house. In the past, these mice have been simply dead. Recently, however, they have been horribly mutilated. Today I had to throw a mouse's head away. Its internal organs were left on the step, and I didn't know what to do with them, so I left them there. The flies should take care of it. Gross.

My mom's family came over for Mother's Day, and my cousin Joe told me I had a worm on my neck. I thought he was joking or maybe telling me I needed to shave my neck. So I rubbed my neck in response to what I thought was a joke. Then he told me it was on my hand. And indeed, there was a little inch worm on me!

A worrisome adventure

In the past year, I have discovered the joys of running on trails. I have a few trails that are tried and true, but in the last couple of weeks, I've started to branch out a little bit and explore places where I haven't been before.

I had an experience with a new trail this week that really had me worried.

On Earth Day, I explored part of this trail, so this week I thought I would see where it went. It's a trail that starts just south of the Wild Rose Loop, and parts of it can get very steep. I didn't run the whole time, because running up steep hills is hard, and running down steep hills is potentially dangerous. Anyway, I decided I would make it to the top of one of the peaks.

Once I got to the top, it was beautiful. I got to see sides of the mountains that I never see. I even saw some cliffs (probably sandstone or limestone) in the foothills above Salt Lake, and to the north I saw limestone cliffs in the mountains. (I looked on the Utah Geological Survey's website and learned that the conglomerate outcroppings I see regularly are probably from the Miocene Epoch, between 23 and 5 million years ago.) Even though I was close to the city, I felt like I was out in nature. I even saw some deer in their natural habitat instead of in my yard. The trail was obviously used by motorized vehicles, but it was a little rough.

It was so lovely, in fact, that I didn't want to stop. I thought, "Back in December, I went on another trail that seemed to go for a while, and I bet that this trail meets up with that one. I'll go until I get there, because that will take me right back where I need to be."

I have since looked on Google Earth. I was correct that that trail meets up with the trail I was on. However, I was way off in guessing where it met up, or in thinking I would recognize it. In fact, by the time I thought the trails might meet, I might have already passed the intersection.

Nevertheless, I kept expecting to meet up where I needed to be. I kept thinking, "If I turn around now, it will take me longer to get back than if I keep going." I thought that many times, and each time I thought that, I could have safely turned around and saved time.

But I kept on going. And I was getting a little worried--it was getting dark, I thought my parents would worry, I was thirsty with no water. There were more paranoid thoughts, like how I might sprain my ankle or how a mountain lion might be lurking in the trees. There were no people around, although there were plenty of dog footprints in the muddy portions of the trail. (There were also lots of deer tracks and some curious three-toed footprints that Google's not helping me identify. I can identify rocks, but not plants and animals.)

At one point, I thought I was a little closer to civilization, because I found some signs telling people to keep out because they were revegetation areas, and I even found a "No Parking" sign lying on the ground. That sign really puzzles me, because it wasn't in an area where you would have to worry about people parking, and it seemed a ways off for a vandal to deposit a sign. But even when I got to this point, I was still a ways off. I had to climb up, and then down, what was probably the steepest portion of the trail, covered with loose rocks. I came down it pretty slowly.

After I had been on the trail more than an hour, I finally made it to pavement. There was a little building that perhaps had restrooms. It had a drinking fountain, but unfortunately it didn't work. Once I made it to the road, I knew I would be safe, but I was still far from the park where my car was parked. Eventually, I ended up where the first counselor in my YSA bishopric lives, so I knocked on the door. His wife answered at the same time that he got out of the truck of our second counselor. I asked for some water, so they gave me some. Then he offered me a ride back to my car, and I accepted. I wasn't too far, but it would still be another ten or fifteen minutes of running, and it was dark, and the sidewalk along that road is inconsistent.

I've mapped out my route on Google Earth, and I went about six and a half miles.

Although I was worried for a large portion of the time, I don't entirely regret the experience. I learned a few things, like not to guess where trails go and not to go exploring late at night. What's most satisfying is that I learned where the trail goes. I've been wanting to just explore where these places go, and I was able to do that. I just wish I'd had more daylight, water, and a phone.

Yesterday when I went running, I got a drink from the park drinking fountain, and the drinking fountain didn't shut off! When I got done on the trails nearly forty minutes later, the fountain was still going, so when I got home, I called NSL City parks and left a message. I feel bad. It wasn't my fault it got stuck, of course, but I'm the one that was using it when it got stuck. And water is very valuable, especially in Utah, especially this year.

A shout-out to my blog readers

In honor of the fourth anniversary of this blog, I'm going to list all the people I know, or have strong reason to believe, have read this blog (or my other one).

If you're not on this list, it's possible I forgot you; but a more likely explanation is that I have no indication of you ever reading my blog.

Ann (and Rick) Melville
Susanne (and Allie) Melville
David and Ya-ping Melville
David and Eula Ebbert
Sue Thompson
Jesse and Lisa Thompson
Joe Thompson
Peter Thompson
Quin Thompson
Tammy Finch
Shane Ebbert
April Barton
Peggy Thornton
Teresa Perry
Terri Baldwin
Rosemary Mead
Dave Finklea
David Christensen
Wayne Christensen
Caleb Christensen
Debbie Pope
Hillary Ulmer Haws
Christina Naegle Bennion
Tarra Call Stott
Kenneth Adair
Sara Snell (I don't remember her maiden name, which is weird because she unfriended me as soon as she got married)
Laura Tait Thornock
Hannah Russell
Kristen Jensen
Carissa Friedman
Hanna Dunn Burgener
Kat Sanchez-Navarro Peterson
Krista Roy (married with a new name)
Michelle Sutterfield
Bryton Beesley
Cameron Haas
Megan Ward
Shayli Simmons Cottman
Andee Gempeler DeVore
Westin Leavitt
Morgan Crockett
Steven Farrell
Nathan Garlock
Dave Taylor
Cory Jensen
Colby Johnson
Nicholas Major
Derek Warren
Jesse Bramall
Derrick Keddington
Jacob Moench
Amy Gifford
Nash Gifford
Max Cook
Brittany Schwartz
Shane Gibbs
Emily Edwards
Peter Moosman
Michelle Moosman
Destani Mata

Earth Day and Arbor Day

There are only eight holidays that I formally celebrate (for now), but that doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge that other, lesser holidays exist. This week we had two very similar holidays, Earth Day and Arbor Day.

Arbor Day is an older holiday and is a state holiday in Nebraska. Basically, I really only know about Arbor Day because of It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown. Yes, that's a real thing. Earth Day is a much newer holiday and has hippie origins. We don't hear as much about Arbor Day as we do about Earth Day, so I suppose Earth Day is taking over. Which is kind of understandable, since trees are part of the Earth. I'm moderately tree-hugger, so I have no objections to Earth Day.

Anyway, I had enjoyable "celebrations" on each of these days.

Everyone was excited about Google's animal quiz (I'm a pangolin), but personally I found their Pony Express game much more entertaining (but maybe that's because I'd just been reading about the Pony Express a few days before).

Anyway, I went trail running on the Wild Rose and Chukar Loops, and then I went exploring on another nearby trail that has some very steep places. It was an overcast evening and perfect. There were lots of wildflowers. The internet tells me the most prominent, yellow ones are balsamroot, but I also saw pink, purple, white, and red wildflowers. On top of one hill, I saw a hawk flying in the distance, and I even had a medium-sized bird swoop down in front of me. 

Then on Thursday, I was doing research for work and came across North Canyon. Now, there are multiple places in Utah named North Canyon, including one in Bountiful, but I didn't know what one they were talking about. However, after digging through things, I determined that they probably were talking about the one in Bountiful. That excited me, because I knew right where it is and have been near it on many occasions, even though I'd never been there. I decided that I needed to visit it, since I just came across it, and Friday would be a perfect day to do so, since it was Arbor Day.

I worked some last Saturday, so I didn't need to work all day Friday, and I was excited to go to North Canyon. Unfortunately, it was rainy. Usually when it's wet and rainy, I don't run, especially not on trails. But I had to go on Friday, since I had just discovered North Canyon in my work, and Arbor Day only comes once a year. So when the rain let up at my house, I got in my car and drove to North Canyon Park, where I expected to begin my run. But it was raining pretty hard then, and I didn't want to get out. So then I decided that I would drive to the trailhead, since I knew it was still a distance from the park.

I'm glad I did, because it was a bigger distance than I had expected. But when I got to that trailhead, it was still raining hard. So I sat in my car for a while, hoping the rain would let up.

And eventually it did! Everything was still wet and muddy, but at least it wasn't raining on me. My usual trails are more desert-y, but this one looked, smelled, and sounded like camping. There was actually a very rough dirt road that went up for a mile and a half or so before it reached the real trail. But I wouldn't want to drive on that road, and I think it would be basically impassable for anything but 4-wheel-drive. I had to watch out for enormous puddles. When I got to the real trail, there was a sign saying it was open to hikers, cyclists, and motorbikes between May 1 and November 1. I was surprised it said it was open so late in the spring, but it makes sense, because my research said that there was still fifteen feet of snow in the canyon in June 1853, and I saw a few large patches of snow. It would be a hard trail on a bike or motorbike; there was one place with a tree lying at an angle across the trail, and only Evil Knievel would be able to get across it on a bike. There were lots of bridges over various bodies of water. I saw aspens, coniferous trees, a squirrel, and deer. (Deer are not special. They are all over our neighborhood.) I was sad last fall that I didn't get to see any yellow aspens, so I may have to return to North Canyon in October.

I don't take a phone or a camera when I go running, so you get no pictures. Sorry. But you probably wouldn't care anyway. 

Don't Do Drugs, and other stories

On Wednesday (Income Tax Day, also the day I got my tax return) I got a call from 1-800-830-8574. I didn't answer it, but I got the tail end of a message about my bank account and debit card. I thought, "Yeah right, it's probably some scam." But I checked my bank account anyway--and I'm glad I did, because the phone call was not a scam. According to my bank account, I spent $45 three times at a Walmart in Elk City, Oklahoma. Fortunately, card services suspected that I did no such thing and alerted me to the fraudulent activity. I'm getting a new debit card and hopefully everything will be straightened out.

There's no way for me to know, but I suspect that the thief was using the money to feed a drug addiction. And when my bike was stolen in Provo in 2010? Probably for drugs. I would suspect that most thefts are motivated by, or at least connected to, drugs. Nearly everyone has had stuff stolen from them at some point, and I bet they're usually connected to drugs.

Illegal drugs such as meth, cocaine, and heroin are, in my honest belief, one of the biggest (if not the biggest) banes of our society. We must do what we can to get rid of the problem. I understand that there are problems with severely punishing addicts, because then they become stigmatized and it becomes harder for them to get help and turn their lives around. So perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on those unfortunate souls who abuse drugs. However, producing and manufacturing drugs (and by "drugs," I mean illegal drugs) is an endeavor that should not be tolerated at all. Drugs kill people, destroy families, ruin buildings, lead to poverty and ignorance, make people make unwise decisions, and cause crime. I don't think there's a penalty too harsh for those who make drugs.

Anyway, I was going to make this an entire rant about drugs, but I decided I'd rather stick to happy, frivolous thoughts.

On Monday night, my stake did a musical performance about Joseph Smith in our regional center. I was amazed that someone thought it was an appropriate place to take her dog, even a well-behaved dog.

When I went running on the Wild Rose Loop yesterday, there were lots of big yellow wildflowers, something like a cross between sunflowers and daisies. (I'm not a botanist.)

When I was a little kid, probably no older than 3, I remember hearing a bird call and thinking it said "Big Bird!" (I was a Sesame Street watcher.) I always wondered what kind of bird it was. This week I learned it was a chickadee. The mystery is finally solved!

We had our stake conference today, and there was a guy who seemed a little awkward sitting near us. His awkwardness was confirmed when he said to one of our members, "So, are you from China or Japan?" (She's actually half Korean.) For a period of time when I was thirteen, I used to watch King of the Hill (I watch cleaner things as an adult than I did as a kid), and there was one episode where Hank asked his Laotian neighbor, "So, are you Chinese or Japanese?" It was TV come to life.

I went to home teach some guys in my ward, Lant, Nik, and Luke. When Nik let us in, he said he was keeping the door open because it's a nice day; I said something about bugs getting in. Pretty soon, a bird flew in! It did a typical bird thing by flying into the windows, so we worried about it. Lant wanted to cover up the window above the door to discourage it from flying there, so he put a blanket on a broom and put it at the window to discourage it from going there. That ended up being the solution, but not in the intended way: the bird perched on the blanket, so he was able to lower it down to the level of the door, at which point it flew away.

Last night I had a dream that Taylor Swift was at an intimate work meeting. She now is on the list of celebrities I've dreamed about, joining the ranks of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Neon Trees, Kelly Clarkson, Mitt and Ann Romney, Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Vito Scotti, One Direction, and Justin Bieber.

The middle of spring

I continue to enjoy my research for work. This week I learned that not only is Utah the place where the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, it's also the place where the first transcontinental telegraph was completed in 1861. Being immersed in 1850s Utah history has taken its toll on me: Last night I literally wrote "18" as the beginning of the year in my journal. I was going to write "1850," but as soon as I wrote "18" I realized that that's not even close to the correct year.

On Wednesday I filled out my taxes because I'm an adult now. And of course I had to listen to Jan Terri's "I.R.S."

On Thursday I went to tutoring, as I usually do. I often don't know what to do when I help them with math, but I caught on easily to the math this week. And a sixth-grader there told me he had been waiting for me to help him, which was both flattering and surprising, since I'm not the best at math there. I was happy also that a kid was doing homework about the rock cycle, but unfortunately he didn't need any help.

On Friday night, I wanted to see how close I could get to Ensign Peak on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. I had looked on Google Earth and some of the trails went way out of the way, so I thought I would go along the main road/trail and see if there was a shortcut. Well, I went as far as I cared to go, and I was beneath Ensign Peak and saw no way up. I'll have to try a different way. But it was a nice little jaunt, and there were some cute pink wildflowers along the way.

Back in 2010 or 2011, I tried running on that trail, but I didn't like it because it was too steep. But today, the hill that was so hard for me then is one of the easier hills. I began really running on hills in the fall of 2013, and now I feel like I can go anywhere I want, instead of being restricted to less steep places. (There are still some really steep places I avoid.)

One time I looked at what I thought was an outcrop along that trail, but it looked like cement, which disappointed me. However, recently I discovered an outcrop of conglomerate rock along the Chukar Loop trail, which means that what I had seen before was probably not cement but an outcropping of conglomerate. It's nice to know what the bedrock of the area is.

Since I do so much trail running, I thought I should get out my bike again, which I haven't ridden since July. It's going to take some time to get up my biking skills and stamina again. It's no wonder I never learned to ride as a kid--I either have to ride on hills, which can be either hard or dangerous, or else I have to transport the bike, which is a hassle.

My YSA ward has a special group for us who are "25+." On one hand, I think it's a brilliant idea--we may all be young single adults, but realistically we can't really date the nineteen-year-olds. (There's a guy in our ward who seems autistic or something, and he created an awkward situation when he tactlessly told a new seventeen-year-old that she shouldn't be in our ward.) On the other hand, it does make me feel a little bit like we're on our way to eternal singlehood.

Anyway, we went down to Thanksgiving Point for their tulip festival. It was lovely, but I can't help thinking, "Why would I pay $15 to see lovely gardens when I can see lovely gardens on Temple Square (or elsewhere) for free?" They had an artificial waterfall, and artificial waterfalls are nothing compared to real waterfalls. We were amused by the names of some of the tulips, such as "Victoria's Secret" and "Teletubby."

(Speaking of Teletubbies, I used to watch that show when I was nine, when I was much older than the intended demographic. I think that it probably stems from the same reason I like Jan Terri videos and 1960s sitcoms today--I just like ridiculous things.)

It was lovely weather this week, and I got to see snow in April, although I hope we get a better snowstorm this month. But I've been thinking about weather and its importance. When I look at the news, the weather is probably the most important thing, because it affects what I'm going to do in the next few days. But years, and even months, from now, the weather today probably affects my life less than anything else. When I read historical documents that talk about the weather, I really don't care too much.