Live Long*, Learn a Little, Laugh a Lot
By Porter Griffiths
Live Long*, Learn a Little, Laugh a LotFeb 22, 2020
Pining for the Boy Scouts
Pine: A species of evergreen tree. Wood: cellular material for building things. Derby: A style of hat, also a race, as in the Kentucky Derby. Combined, Pine, Wood, Derby is a Cub Scout activity wherein boys watch their fathers race cars they (5%) and their fathers (95%) have built. Many things can be made from wood, including arguments, high blood pressure, and peptic ulcers.
Learning how to not dance
"Watch this," Mr. Olson beamed. He opened the wide little wooden door of the new table top record player. He slipped in one fo the 33 1/3 rpm long playing records which were just appearing on the market. Music poured from the box, but not for long. Mr. Olson stopped the record, opened the door, and slid the record out to show us again how it worked. School had not yet taken up, and he soon had a gathering of teachers and a few students admiring the handsome mahogany box.
School of hard rocks (and puncture weeds)
Our school was named after Chief Peteetneet, leader of a Native American tribe who roamed the valley before the white settlers crowded them out. The teachers didn't tell us much about the chief, or how having his name on our old school would inspire our educational efforts. He made at least one contribution. We learned to spell a very long word very early in our academic careers. It was like spelling Mississippi in which you just keep tossing in "i's" and "ss's" until it looks about right. With Peteetneet you just keep adding "e's," and an occasional "t" until it seems long enough.
My mother taught me
I smoked my first cigarette when I was 5 years old. It wasn't easy. It was wet from the rain. It took about half a box of matches that Max Reese snitched from their kitchen to keep it going. We found the pack of cigarettes in a train coal car across the street from our house. I don't know if the nicotine from the tobacco or the sulfur from the matches was worse for my lungs.
There is a war on
You wouldn't believe what it takes to fight a war. Besides guns, tanks, ships, and airplanes, it takes cowboy boots, candy bars, baseball bats, fathers, ground up nuts, and handkerchiefs, lots of handkerchiefs.
I want to do that someday
The experience burned itself into my brain, and kept echoing through my youthful years, "I want to do that someday."
Traveling Light
My brother on the front fender gripped the small sailing ship medallion on the hood that signified we were driving a Plymouth. The breeze began to blow his hair as we moved a bit faster into the darkness; black night penetrated feebly by the wavering beam of a flashlight and the receding headlights of the car in front of us.
My Father's Footsteps
If some is good, more is better—or not, my father taught me.
Beware of Old Swede
"In addition to our world-class playground, we had Saturday movies which included rustlers, fistfights, gunslingers and the ever-present danger of growing up."
The World's Greatest Playground
"She was a woman of adventure from the big town, Salt Lake City. She visited several times a day, and she had a backyard any imaginative child would die for (and almost did as our parents sometimes warned us)."
Being Born and Childhood Home
"Dad did the heavy lifting, Mom did the labor and my first view of the world was looking down at the parking lot passing before my eyes."
Hereditary Health Conditions
"I began to whimper. Gordon looked back and consoled me. "Shut up." I shut up."
The Wride Side
"The Wrides, my mother's family, were considerably better off than the Hiatt's, making Ferron's project of courting Gladys a bit of an uphill climb."
The Golden Voice Wins the Gold
"With his athletic, social, and economic, life such a struggle, fortunately, my father could do one thing well. He could sing."
Dad as Abraham Lincoln
"My father called it his "Abraham Lincoln suit." It came even complete with button shoes."
My grandfather's hectic home
"My father grew up in an unhappy family bordering on dysfunctional as he described it."
The High Gate
A history of the Hiatt family name.
My Efforts to Live Long*
My efforts to live long*
*in perspective
Preface
The Triple Double L philosophy explained.
Purpose of this Book
THIS BOOK COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE!!!