MY HILLS IN PICTURES

HILLS

This is something that I wrote as part of Cori Conners "Word of the Day" exercises inspired from the "Random Word Generator" http://watchout4snakes.com/creativitytools/RandomWord/RandomWordPlus.aspx I don't think I would have written this without the inspiration the word gave me but it turned out to be an important story to me.

WORD OF THE DAY – HILLS -- March 2009


The Farmington hills called to me from the beginning. I was a strong energetic 31-year-old in 1978 when we moved into Somerset. I had three small children and a husband who taught me that exercise is important. Now 31 years later, leaving from a different house, I am still walking the same hills—not with the same energy and strength but with a continuing love for all the paths and parts we have explored over the years.


I have loved those hills with a heaven’s view of the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island. As the seasons change, the breathtaking view is always new with different cloud patterns and colors as the dappled morning light illuminates the valley. I once had a calendar with a Cezanne painting of rooftops from a hillside. I often think of that painting when I look down on the houses from my hillside vantagepoint. I understand why Cezanne painted rooftops.


In the Spring when I begin a new season of walking I enjoy the Ocur Mountains, fresh with morning sunlight and winter snow; looking like a giant white dragon laying across the horizon. The Great Salt Lake always reflects the mood of the day (when it has water). These are mostly desert hills with sagebrush, and a few scrub oak but in the spring the purple lupine and yellow Wode weed bloom in abundance. Wode is not natural to the area but was carried here by pioneer settlers who wanted its yellow flowers to use for fabric dyes. Now it is a prolific curse to farmers. There is even a bounty on it for those who would like to work on eradicating it. The waves of yellow are so beautiful across the hills that it is hard for me to dislike it when it blooms. I’m always thrilled when I find a little clump of sego lilies along the trail. Unfortunately, the new mega-houses have taken over the hills and most of the lilies. All the hillside building has been hard for me to accept. Growth is inevitable (and I suppose I am part of it) but as long as I can still find a trail I will adjust.


Late summer is always my favorite time because the sunflowers cover the hills and line the path with their cheery bright faces encouraging me on. Every day of early fall is a new feast of color as the hillside foliage burns with ever changing hues. Then, there is a second round of glory as fall moves to the valley and weaves around the houses in jaunty reds and yellows.


These hills have come to be my wilderness temple. I would never go "plugged in" during my walking time because then God could not talk to me and He has, many times, but mostly I talk to Him. I know why Jesus went to the hills to walk and pray. When I leave the house in the morning I feel like I have opened the door into an alternate dimension. A dimension where God can reach me, where ideas flow and memories flood, and I am free of worldly distractions.


Your mind will go to wonderful places if you let it while walking. Oh, I have cried plenty in those hills—a very soul wrenching cathartic cry at times, at others just a sad whimper. At some point the spirit comforts me and hope is restored. On occasion I have printed out words to songs or scriptures I want to memorize and poked them in my pocket for reference. Now if my spirit needs direction I can belt out the words of my entire musical or scripture repitore...every verse out loud. You can’t do that walking the city streets. Some of my songs are: Where Can I Turn For Peace, The Light Divine, I Stand All Amazed, Where Love Is There God is Also, I Know My Savior Lives and others. My most treasured memorized scripture is Isaiah 53. Every verse of that chapter is stamped in my heart and I try to say it over every day sometime, if not on the walk then at night as I am going to sleep.

Parts I love:
"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows..."
"...the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."
"...and who shall declare his generation."
"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth..."
"...when thou shalt make his soul and offering for sin, he shall see his seed..."
"...by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many;..."


I know Christ better because I know Isaiah 53.


Mike has walked with me when he can for the past several years. In the beginning he was a runner and we rarely went together but as the infirmities of age have slowed us down we now hobble along as best we can. Conversing together in this dimension is different than talking at home. We are freer; more honest; less distracted and funnier. I miss Mike now when he doesn’t go and Sammy, the dog that walked with me for 15 years.


On days when I walk alone now I always thank God over and over that I can still come to my Temple in the hills because there are mornings when my feet hurt or my knees are flared and I can’t go or at least not far. The day will come and it may not be far hence, when I will never walk those hills again. It will be a sad day, but until then I will continue to go when I can. I will worship and seek the spirit till the end and fill my soul with the goodness of my hills for the time when I will only see them from a window or heaven.

PEANUT BUTTER FINGERS

A friend sleuthed this recipe from the school lunch cooks years ago. It has always been a favorite of my peanut butter loving children and everyone at girls camp or cub scouts. It makes enough to feed the entire school, almost, but they freeze nicely so make the entire batch and freeze or take them to the neighbors. I like to cut them into finger size pieces about 1 1/2 inch wide by 3-4 inches long

Cream: 1 ½ c. Butter
1 C. White sugar
1 ¼ C. Brown sugar
2 Eggs
1T. Vanilla
1 ½ C. Peanut butter

Add:
1 ½ Tsp. Soda

3 C. Flour
3 C. Oats

Spread in 2 large greased cookie sheets. Bake 350 for only 10
Minutes. Cool and spread with peanut butter and then with
chocolate frosting.

CORI CONNERS - WORDS

Cori Connors finished her 40 days of Lent writing today. (See my blogger friends) Every day I have looked forward to her "words." She has taught me and inspired me. Today she explained her "Object Writing" process which she has done for many years. Now I understand why she can write so freely. She has been willing to make the personal sacrifices to practice. Everything improves with practice. I can do that too. The following is Cori's Easter story from yesterday. I think it is profound. The spirit is speaking through her as I believe it will through all of our writing if we go forward and write.

COIN - Cori Conners

He could not give them back. Though he tried, once his mind let go of it, the coins just fell to the ground, rolling into the corner, some of them. One made its way down the steps of the temple and landed at the feet of a beggar boy. Still, they belonged to him; thirty silver coins, their imprint being burnt into his hands, the ridges of shekels pressed against the fleshy pads under his thumbs.

"I have accused an innocent man", he tried to tell them, but they had already set the millstone to turning and the grain was already caught in the crushing. No turning back such a stone. And so he turned away from the temple and hanged himself.My shoulders sink down closer to my heart thinking of Judas. Heavy, heavy sins no thinking soul would commit. I convince myself of this, that he was ill, that he could not have known the seriousness of what he was doing, and once the reality of it hit him, his gut turned to fire and he could no longer breathe with the heat. My devotion to the Master should confidently curse him for what he did. Instead the sinner in me wants to embrace him and weep. I would take the coins from him and change the course of history, freeing the prisoner, and in so doing I would curse the whole of mankind. It is a good thing the Powers did not care. A good thing because I need Jesus. I need him to lay himself on the scale against my heavy weight. I need him to oversee the large canvas being painted by every breathing soul, from yesterday until the last tomorrow. I need his understanding of justice. I need his blessed mercy. I need his footsteps to walk in.

A few years back, on a frigid winter night I rolled from my bed and buried my head in my pillow, worn out from lack of sleep, confused at the depression that had fused itself to my body and frozen the synapse healthy people don't even know is happening in their brains. Quivering in the stillness of that night, I begged God to hear me.

"Are you there?" I whispered into the pillow. "If you are there, do you know what I am feeling? And if you do, why do you let it continue?"

These are the pleadings of a child, like Sophie when she sat in her mama's lap realizing the doctor was about to stick a sharp needle into her leg, confused as to why any caring person would do such a thing.

I do not hear angels, I am sorry to say. I do not hear words whispered in personal revelation from my good sister angels. I wish I did. It would alleviate a lot of mistakes for sure. And I do not have a burning in the bosom either. But that night I heard something. What I heard there, at the side of my bed, was a replaying of a Sunday School lesson from years before. Steve Geary was teaching. I remembered him asking the question: "What does Firstborn mean?" Answers rose from the class...the firstborn son of God the Father; the first born son of the virgin Mary. These we all knew. Why would these thoughts come to me at the side of my bed on a January night?

Then, quietly, I heard my own voice answer. Firstborn; it means my own sins, my mistakes and weaknesses, as well as the suffering I may not have called upon myself: these all were experienced in actuality before I ever felt them. They were first born by Him, there in the Garden, when his brothers had fallen asleep in their vigil. Born in that place of crushing, where blood spilt from open pores, where throbbing pain turned to constancy, and where the greatest burden had to have been the loneliness he felt at bearing it alone. Knowing my own personal struggle was completely familiar to someone else made the bearing of it less solitary. That someone knew exactly how I felt was comforting, like we are suddenly excited when someone from our home state is at the large conference in New Jersey. The sharing of familiar things endears others to us. I knew someone knew exactly how I felt, and it made me breathe deeper knowing I was not so alone in this. All this aside from the actual mathematics of payment, of ransoming, of covering the wage for opening the door back home. This was Jesus. This is Jesus.

There is the imprint of a coin burnt into my palm, one I used to sell him to the suffering. I would shake the scars off if I could. Instead, I imagine him lifting my hand in his, him opening my fingers to expose the sin, then laying his own wounded hand atop mine. I feel his goodness rush through me. Sweet, steady breath of heaven, filling my lungs and invigorating my mind.I cannot give it back, my coin. I cannot say how I know this: but I believe he is OK with that. I am a debtor. He is grace.

GERMAN BOY AND PRESIDENT MONSONS CONFERENCE TALK

A few years ago my book club read a book called "German Boy." (It should have been on my list of favorite books.) I couldn't help thinking of this boys experiences as President Monson told the following story in the Sunday morning session. It is hard to complain when I see how hard it has been for some. Can I bear such a testimony in my ease?

Thomas S. Monson - In about March 1946, less than a year after the end of the war, Ezra Taft Benson, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, accompanied by Frederick W. Babbel, was assigned a special postwar tour of Europe for the express purpose of meeting with the Saints, assessing their needs, and providing assistance to them.

Elder Benson and Brother Babbel later recounted, from a testimony they heard, the experience of a Church member who found herself in an area no longer controlled by the government under which she had resided.

She and her husband had lived an idyllic life in East Prussia. Then had come the second great world war within their lifetimes. Her beloved young husband was killed during the final days of the frightful battles in their homeland, leaving her alone to care for their four children.

The occupying forces determined that the Germans in East Prussia must go to Western Germany to seek a new home. The woman was German, and so it was necessary for her to go. The journey was over a thousand miles (1,600 km), and she had no way to accomplish it but on foot. She was allowed to take only such bare necessities as she could load into her small wooden-wheeled wagon. Besides her children and these meager possessions, she took with her a strong faith in God and in the gospel as revealed to the latter-day prophet Joseph Smith.

She and the children began the journey in late summer. Having neither food nor money among her few possessions, she was forced to gather a daily subsistence from the fields and forests along the way. She was constantly faced with dangers from panic-stricken refugees and plundering troops.

As the days turned into weeks and the weeks to months, the temperatures dropped below freezing. Each day, she stumbled over the frozen ground, her smallest child—a baby—in her arms. Her three other children struggled along behind her, with the oldest—seven years old—pulling the tiny wooden wagon containing their belongings. Ragged and torn burlap was wrapped around their feet, providing the only protection for them, since their shoes had long since disintegrated. Their thin, tattered jackets covered their thin, tattered clothing, providing their only protection against the cold.

Soon the snows came, and the days and nights became a nightmare. In the evenings she and the children would try to find some kind of shelter—a barn or a shed—and would huddle together for warmth, with a few thin blankets from the wagon on top of them. She constantly struggled to force from her mind overwhelming fears that they would perish before reaching their destination.

And then one morning the unthinkable happened. As she awakened, she felt a chill in her heart. The tiny form of her three-year-old daughter was cold and still, and she realized that death had claimed the child. Though overwhelmed with grief, she knew that she must take the other children and travel on. First, however, she used the only implement she had—a tablespoon—to dig a grave in the frozen ground for her tiny, precious child.

Death, however, was to be her companion again and again on the journey. Her seven-year-old son died, either from starvation or from freezing or both. Again her only shovel was the tablespoon, and again she dug hour after hour to lay his mortal remains gently into the earth. Next, her five-year-old son died, and again she used her tablespoon as a shovel.

Her despair was all consuming. She had only her tiny baby daughter left, and the poor thing was failing. Finally, as she was reaching the end of her journey, the baby died in her arms. The spoon was gone now, so hour after hour she dug a grave in the frozen earth with her bare fingers. Her grief became unbearable. How could she possibly be kneeling in the snow at the graveside of her last child? She had lost her husband and all her children. She had given up her earthly goods, her home, and even her homeland.

In this moment of overwhelming sorrow and complete bewilderment, she felt her heart would literally break. In despair she contemplated how she might end her own life, as so many of her fellow countrymen were doing. How easy it would be to jump off a nearby bridge, she thought, or to throw herself in front of an oncoming train.

And then, as these thoughts assailed her, something within her said, "Get down on your knees and pray." She ignored the prompting until she could resist it no longer. She knelt and prayed more fervently than she had in her entire life: "Dear Heavenly Father, I do not know how I can go on. I have nothing left—except my faith in Thee. I feel, Father, amidst the desolation of my soul, an overwhelming gratitude for the atoning sacrifice of Thy Son, Jesus Christ. I cannot express adequately my love for Him. I know that because He suffered and died, I shall live again with my family; that because He broke the chains of death, I shall see my children again and will have the joy of raising them. Though I do not at this moment wish to live, I will do so, that we may be reunited as a family and return—together—to Thee."

When she finally reached her destination of Karlsruhe, Germany, she was emaciated. Brother Babbel said that her face was a purple-gray, her eyes red and swollen, her joints protruding. She was literally in the advanced stages of starvation. In a Church meeting shortly thereafter, she bore a glorious testimony, stating that of all the ailing people in her saddened land, she was one of the happiest because she knew that God lived, that Jesus is the Christ, and that He died and was resurrected so that we might live again. She testified that she knew if she continued faithful and true to the end, she would be reunited with those she had lost and would be saved in the celestial kingdom of God.

From the holy scriptures we read, "Behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, they who have believed in [Him], they who have endured the crosses of the world, . . . they shall inherit the kingdom of God, . . . and their joy shall be full forever."

From personal conversations and Frederick W. Babbel, On Wings of Faith (1972), 40–42

LIFE ISN'T FAIR

The Saturday night before Henry B. Eyring was made an apostle we were in Park City staying over with some friends. Maybe I am a prophetess because I told everyone that I felt confident that he would be the next apostle. (OK, I made a good guess) I had listened to him give talks over the years at BYU devotionals and he always spoke to my soul. His tenderness is always evident. His ideas inspire me to try harder. This conference he talked about trials. I like talks about trials. I think we all do when they are someone's other than our own. I relate very well to your trials, I just haven't learned that in order to grow I must deal with my own and endure with grace. This is my favorite quote on adversity and I think it is what brother Eyring was talking about:

Boyd K. Packer: "Some are tested by poor health, some by a body that is deformed or homely. Others tested by handsome and healthy bodies; some by the passion of youth; others by the erosions of old age. Some suffer disappointment in marriage, family problems; others live in poverty and obscurity. Some (perhaps this is the hardest test) find ease and luxury. All are part of the test, and there is more equality in this testing than sometimes we suspect." (Ensign, Nov. 1980)

Henry B. Eyring - With all the differences in our lives, we have at least one challenge in common. We all must deal with adversity. There may be periods, sometimes long ones, when our lives seem to flow with little difficulty. But it is in the nature of our being human that comfort gives way to distress, periods of good health come to an end, and misfortunes arrive. Particularly when the comfortable times have gone on for a while, the arrival of suffering or the loss of material security can bring fear and sometimes even anger.


The anger comes at least in part from a feeling that what is happening is unfair. The good health and the serene sense of being secure can become to seem deserved and natural. When they vanish, a feeling of injustice can come. Even a brave man I knew wept and cried out in his physical suffering to those who ministered to him: “I have always tried to be good. How could this happen?”

That aching for an answer to “How could this happen?” becomes even more painful when those struggling include those we love. And it is especially hard for us to accept when those afflicted seem to us to be blameless. Then the distress can shake faith in the reality of a loving and all-powerful God. Some of us have seen such doubt come to infect a whole generation of people in times of war or famine. Such doubt can grow and spread until some may turn away from God, whom they charge with being indifferent or cruel. And if unchecked, those feelings can lead to loss of faith that there is a God at all.

NEVER ALONE

This week I heard journalist Christophor Hitchins on a talk show take questions about his best selling book, "God is Not Great, How Religion Poisions Everything." He said he had been on numerous pannels since writing the book debating a wide variety of religious people and no one has ever been able to answer the question of : "What can you do as a religious person that I cannot do as a non-believer." President Holland answered the question in April Conference beautifully. I believe there is a time in everyone's life When they will need God and His strength. " Surely he hath born our greif and carried our sorrow." (Isaiah 53) Some sorrows have no mortal relief. C. Hitchins cannont access the power of God to get comfort like a believer can.

Jeffery R. Holland - Brothers and sisters, one of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. His solitary journey brought great company for our little version of that path—the merciful care of our Father in Heaven, the unfailing companionship of this Beloved Son, the consummate gift of the Holy Ghost, angels in heaven, family members on both sides of the veil, prophets and apostles, teachers, leaders, friends. All of these and more have been given as companions for our mortal journey because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His gospel. Trumpeted from the summit of Calvary is the truth that we will never be left alone nor unaided, even if sometimes we may feel that we are. Truly the Redeemer of us all said, “I will not leave you comfortless. [My Father and] I will come to you [and abide with you].”

PLANTING THE SEED

This parable from the Book of Mormon has always been one of my favorite concepts in the scriptures . If obedience is the first law of heaven then patience has to be the second. When I think about the rod of iron going to the tree of life in Lehi's dream it apears to be a significant distance. Growing a tree of faith to the point of producing a good crop of preservable fruit takes a lot of years. I am still working but I can say that I am finally nourishing the seed consistently. I want to be better than I am. This scripture always gives me comfort: D&C 137:9 - For I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts. This concept is also in Alma 41:3 with a little more detail. It is not where we are but what direction we are going in nourishing the seed. We just have to pick ourselves up and keep trying.

Dieter A. Uctdorf from Sunday Morning: Too often we approach the gospel like a farmer who places a seed in the ground in the morning and expects corn on the cob by the afternoon. When Alma compared the word of God to a seed, he explained that the seed grows into a fruit-bearing tree gradually, as a result of our “faith, and [our] diligence, and patience, and long-suffering.” It's true that some blessings come right away—soon after we plant the seed in our hearts, it begins to swell and sprout and grow, and by this we know that the seed is good. From the very moment we set foot upon the pathway of discipleship, seen and unseen blessings from God begin to attend us.

But we cannot receive the fullness of those blessings if we “neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment.”

Knowing that the seed is good is not enough. We must “nourish it with great care, that it may get root.” Only then can we partake of the fruit that is “sweet above all that is sweet, and pure above all that is pure” and “feast upon this fruit even until [we] are filled, that [we] hunger not, neither shall [we] thirst.”

TEMPLE WORSHIP

When my mother died I made a commitment to pray more, read my scriptures more and go to the temple more as a bargin with God to relieve my mother of her suffering from a brain tumor. This December my mother will have been gone 20 years. It is hard to believe it has been that long. Life is indeed short. In 2 years I will be as old as she was when she died. It seemed too young then and with the perspective of my present age I know she had a lot of things she still wanted to do. So many times I have needed her but the gift she gave me in her dying was the commitments I made which have changed my life and increased my spirituality beyond measure. I am not sure if I was going to the temple every week in the beginning but for at least 17 years I have gone weekly like elder Scott except I have a few years up on him. Committing to a day and time makes all the difference. I go on Friday afternoon. When I plan my week if I know Friday is out I will plan another day. I feel so blessed to have the freedom to go when I want and to have a temple so close. I am 35 minutes from leaving the house to a session. The blessings have been more than the effort.

Richard G. Scott: “Fourteen years ago I decided to attend the temple and complete an ordinance at least once a week. When I am traveling I make up the missed visits, in order to achieve that objective. I have kept that resolve and it has changed my life profoundly. I strive to participate in all the different ordinances available in the temple.

“I encourage you to establish your own goal of how frequently you will avail yourself of the ordinances offered in our operating temples. What is there that is more important than attending and participating in the ordinances of the temple? What activity could have a greater impact and provide more joy and profound happiness for a couple than worshipping in the temple together?” (April 2009 Conference)

COVETING

I once read that coveting has elements in all sin and it is true when you think about it. You covet someones wife and commit adultery. You covet someones belongings and steal. You covet your time and don't keep the Sabbath day holy or take time to honor your parents, neighbors or God. You covet whatever causes you to lie or murder. Of course worshiping man made idols instead of God is about coveting the material world.


Robert D. Hales said the following in Conference on Saturday morning. It may be the most important thing said this Conference in light of our present economic situation. His talk is a classic.


Being provident providers, we keep that most basic commandment, “Thou shalt not covet” (Exodus 20:17). Our world is fraught with feelings of entitlement. Some of us feel embarrassed, ashamed, less worthwhile, if our family does not have everything the neighbors have. As a result, we go into debt to buy things we can't afford—and things we do not really need. Whenever we do this, we become poor temporally and spiritually. We give away some of our precious, priceless agency and put ourselves in self-imposed servitude. Money we could have used to care for ourselves and others must now be used to pay our debts. What remains is often only enough to meet our most basic physical needs. Living at the subsistence level, we become depressed, our self-worth is affected, and our relationships with family, friends, neighbors, and the Lord are weakened. We do not have the time, energy, or interest to seek spiritual things.

HAPPINESS OURSIDE OURSELVES

General Conference always makes me feel happier and more hopeful. It makes me want to try harder to be a disciple of Christ--to be more loving. For the next few days I want to share some of the concepts that touched me from conference.

Quote from April 2009 Conference talk by Dallin H. Oaks
"The moment you have a self at all there is a possibility of putting yourself first—wanting to be the center—wanting to be God in fact. That was the sin of satan: and that was the sin he taught the human race. Some people think the fall of man had something to do with sex, but that is a mistake...What satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like God—could set up their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God.

"And out of that hopeless attempt has come...the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy." ( C.S. Lewis)

THE PASSENGERS

My good friend Carol Fischer called me yesterday to tell me the following experience. I started to write it for her but didn't have enough of the details to complete it so we ended up writing it together. Larry is behind and Carol and Johnny are in the cart in the picture here.

They came to church in a yellow taxicab. Maybe that should have been the first clue that they were not your everyday Mormon couple visiting our Seaside Ward. My husband Larry thought they might need a ride back to their hotel and asked if I would take them.

Oh, why not I decided. Larry told me that they were from Utah originally, but had lived in D.C the past four years, working for the IRS. And now they were here visiting the Monterey Peninsula.

When we got into the car it was a little embarrassing. The passenger seat was covered with sand where the dog had been sitting after a visit to the beach. Quickly, I tried to brush it off the best I could while trying to push the dog's water bowl under the back seat. The couple had on very nice clothes and my car was definitely not user-friendly on this day. I tried to start the engine, but my hand problem was making it difficult, and so the man reached over the ashtray (that still held my "Obama for President" button), and started the mini-van. I noticed he had monograms on his shirt cuffs.

It is funny the things I wouldn’t have noticed if I would have been alone. The dog had slobbered on the window and you could see track marks on the pane. Then there was the smell. I had forgotten that Johnny, my handicapped son, had thrown some garbage bags in the back of the car on one of his garbage runs. He gets a real kick out of throwing sacks in your car, anyone’s car, unaware. But it was not a good time to discover smelly garbage in my car when I was giving two nicely dressed strangers a ride to their hotel.

They asked me many questions; but I had a lot of questions as well. I was very curious about what he did for the IRS in Washington D.C. Instead, we talked about Johnny, my teaching, my naturopathic Dr. in Farmington Utah, his son who was going on a mission to Taiwan, their daughter who was going into special education etc. But what I wanted to know was what the gentleman did at our nation's capitol.

Finally I jumped in and said, "Well, what about you, my husband said you worked for the IRS?" "Well, not the IRS," replied the man "I worked on health related issues". I continued to pump. "So, what company did you work for?" Sheepishly, he replied and I have to admit I was surprised at his answer – he worked for President Bush. " Oh, what was your job description there?" I probed. He replied, "Secretary of Health". There was a moment of silence. I was speechless, almost. I managed to say, "wow!"

My passenger continued to reveal his business now that he was outed. He was here in Monterey, at the invitation of Leon Panetta, to be a guest speaker about health care reform. The other member of the panel was Tom Dashcle.

Now the circumstance of the untidy car was becoming increasingly more embarrassing. And I was sure that he could see that I was not a big fan of Bush (when he reached his arm over my Obama badge). Oh, well.

We arrived at the Monterey Plaza, on the historic Steinbeck Cannery Row—one of the nicest hotels in Monterey. They thanked me graciously and got out. I didn’t remember the name that they gave me, and so I hurried home and googled the information. My esteemed passenger was no less than Mike Leavitt, the former governor of Utah (for 11 years) and George W. Bush's Cabinet member for 4 years. Mormondom has no bounds for connecting.

They arrived in a yellow taxi, and I suspect that they wished that they had departed in a yellow taxi, but maybe not. All is well.