Ancient Writings

Despite all the encouragement of parents and past Primary Teachers, I have always been a lousy journal keeper. There are a few exceptions where, in small flashes of self-mastery, I documented my life as I saw it. Thanks to my mom's vigilant protection of artifacts from our past, I now have in my possession one small blue spiral notebook whose fading cover reads "Mitch. My Journal." It is written in my obviously recently-acquired, curly, and somewhat clumsy 3rd grade cursive. Most likely an assignment from a Primary Teacher, my historic scrawlings began on Sunday, April 20, 1980 and ended on Thursday, May 1, 1980. What a tragedy that there are only 12 pages, but it gives a funny glimpse into nearly 2 weeks of my life at age nine. Here is a sampling of three of those days...

PAGE 1: Report on Church


PAGE 2: Yardwork for our neighbor, a widow:

PAGE 11: Being saved from the clutches of "nomonya":

Apparently the miracles of modern medicine in 1980 were sufficient to cure me of my painful pneumonia. Dr. Katz, I owe you yet again. Funny enough, I actually had lunch with Dr. Katz earlier today. I wish I would have remembered this page beforehand and shown it to him.

An even earlier notebook of my writings was preserved by miraculous intervention. In 1990, during my freshman year at the University of Utah, some friends and I decided to drive a 4x4 along the abandoned railroad grade from Promontory to the ghost town of Kelton, Utah. My family and I used to spend every summer in Kelton on my Grandpa Fehlman's ranch. I hadn't been there since he retired and sold the place about 13 years earlier but the old white wooden house where we lived was still standing despite the roof having collapsed in certain places. While wandering through the abandoned house, I came across a light blue spiral notebook in the bottom drawer of an old dresser. It contained stories and drawings of princesses and horses by my older sister, Blythe, but one precious ripped page contained the following priceless interchange between me (age 6 at the time) and my older brother, Shawn (age 8):
Translations of 6 year old Mitch's phonetic spelling:
"yor" - your
"Sekrut" - secret
"Miyr" -'mirer (short for admirer)
"MorGrrt" - Margaret (Margaret Finch)
"MaLssae" - Melissa

I guess it proves that, even at age 6, language is power. Shawn's ranting rebuttal and the fact that we tried to scratch out each other's cutting sentences are the proof. I wish I could remember who Jamie Hart and Pam were that made them worthy of his backlash!