The Truth!

This past week, our Stake Clerk, Pat Fraley, suffered a brain aneurysm and passed away. Everyone knew that Pat was not in good health. He was a big man that probably had high blood pressure and to some extent, hardening of the arteries. But yet he died of something that could happen to any of us and is not always related to being out of shape and overweight.

For those not familiar with what an aneurysm is, it is when a blood vessel bursts. They can happen anywhere in your body, but can be fatal if they happen in the brain. My Father’s mother died from this, as did a third grade teacher at my elementary school. Aneurysms are a fairly common thing that can end one’s life.

It just goes to show that our time on this planet can end at any time. Pat’s business, after many years of struggle and toil, was beginning to take off. His last child got married a couple of years ago, and he had a happy relationship with his wife. From what I know of him, he was a good man, who did the best he knew how, and helped people as a bishop, and employer.

I have thought about how I might punch my ticket. While working at the glass plant, there were a few times each day where I could have been killed. Each and every day I prayed for safety and was blessed with it. But what is stopping me from having an aneurysm, or be struck by lightening? The answer is nothing.

Oh, it is true that you can eat right, exercise daily, abstain from drugs and alcohol, and still get hit by a semi going down the interstate negating your efforts to live longer in seconds. You could go to a Mongolian grill and, without your knowledge, eat some bad mushrooms and die.

Death is a certainty. We can do our best to put it off, but nevertheless, each and all of us will one day end up toes up. So with that in mind, quit wasting time on things that matter least and spend your time on those things that matter most.

Ever since Hurricane Katrina people have been a bit on edge since it ripped through the Gulf Coast a month ago causing millions of dollars of damage and leaving so many without homes, jobs, and even in some cases taking their lives. In the future, those that live in areas that frequently experience these violent storms will hopefully heed the warnings given by state and local government officials when it comes to evacuating; and hopefully Federal, state, and local officials will do more to help those affected by natural disasters.

With that aside I will now go on to criticize those that live in the metro Atlanta area.

For the first thirteen years of my life, I resided in Portland Oregon. This city is well known for being clean and beautiful and over all a good place to live. Portland, and the Pacific Northwest in general, is known for rain, a lot of rain. Literally this city has more cloudy days then not during the course of a year.

Portland also can be harsh during the wintertime with multiple inches of snow in a twenty-four hour period. I remember one winter we had a foot of snowfall over a few days. The interesting thing is that no one freaked out about it. People went to work, the roads were plowed, and in a few days the children went back to school. Life went on.

In ’93 we moved to Atlanta where I have lived on and off for the past 12 years. The longest period being from ’93-’97, since ‘97 I have never been home for more then six months at one time.

During those four years form 1993 to 1997 I worked at a number of part-time jobs. One was at a grocery store. I worked there for a couple of years and noticed some things that were very interesting. If there was even the remotest possibility that snow would fall, the store turned into a madhouse.

People would buy gallons of milk, loaves of bread, and all sorts of odd things such as beer and cigarettes. The point being, people freaked out.

I have watched the Mad Max films and have come to a conclusion. Those people who survived that fictional apocalypse because they did not freak out. They remained calm and figured things out, and most of all did not panic. They formed roaving gangs seeking to steal gasoline in order to power their vehicles.

I guess another thing that helped the people in Oregon was the fact that they smoke a lot of weed in the Northwest. There was an earthquake that did not faze anyone.

Oh well, I guess until I can move elsewhere, I will have to deal with people who freak out when a snow flake hits the ground in the ATL.

Scroll, BYU Idaho’s student newspaper, has failed to produce any opinion pieces that are worth commenting on. I am disappointed; greatly disappointed that normalcy has penetrated that cold and dreary wasteland of southeastern Idaho. Over the past few months, contributors have been expressing opinions about things that matter and in some cases I agree with what they have to say.

During the time that I spent in Idaho, there was never a shortage of absurd articles that just made you say,” They cannot be serious.” The sad thing is that in many cases the people contributing were dead serious about what they had expressed in their writing.

But then again, commenting on Scroll was like, as one writer whose name I cannot recall at this time, like hunting dairy cows with a scope and high-powered rifle. While it was fun, there was not much of a challenge in it.

Some articles were just so ludicrous putting the stationary cow’s head in the crosshairs was not challenge. All that was left was to pull the trigger.

Now I have to come up with things to comment on instead of commenting on the comment of others. Oh well, in the end it should be fun.