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I thought things were back on track and we were OK, but the marriage was broken beyond repair. I am not going to go into details about the breakup in this blog. I think my kids need to know my feelings about this (Karen can write her own feelings, if she desires), but I do not want the world to know these details. When I publish this memoir as a book, I’ll include a chapter about the breakup, but not until then. And that will be for family, only.

I think David was the first one we told. Maybe Katy and Kristy knew first, I’m not sure. But we told him on his birthday, Aug 28, 1994 because that was the first opportunity we had when he was at the house. He was really upset about that and I’m not sure he ever completely forgave us for spoiling his birthday. We told Matt and Kim by phone which really sucked. That’s no way for kids to find out their parents are breaking up.

As you all know, I moved out about October of 1994 and got an apartment in Rochester. I was still working at IBM, fortunately. We sold the house sometime that winter and Karen moved to Orem with the only 2 kids who were still at home, Kristy and Katy.

David was living in an apartment in Winona, Kim had moved west to go to school and Matt was at BYU working on his degree. As I said, I moved into an apartment in Rochester and settled in. When Karen moved, four of my five kids were in Utah, so I decided it was time for me move out there too. I called Matt and asked him to send me the Sunday classifieds from the Salt Lake newspaper every week. So, about Friday of each week, I would get this package of newspaper from him. I studied the want ads for job offerings. I looked for anything that I thought I was qualified to do.

A company called HAI (Human Affairs International) called me and said they would like to interview me over the phone. They wanted someone who knew the AS/400 computer for a new project they starting and I had been working on it for the past 10 years or so. I had a phone interview with the boss and then a second one with a technical guy. He asked me all kinds of technical questions (to see if I really knew the AS/400). I guess I passed because they offered me a job.

Dad

Karen sent me this story of something that happened to Kristy when she was little. I can really see her doing this:

There’s a cute story about Kristy taking a nap in her bedroom when a fly came into her room. It probably buzzes by her ear and annoys or even frightens her. So she leaves her room, closes the door, stuffs the crack under the door with various things like a blanket, pillow, clothing so the fly can’t come out. Then she lays down in front of the door to continue her nap. Of course, I confront her, asking why she’s laying outside her room instead of on her bed in her bedroom and she tells me what happened. I may even have a photo of her laying in front of the door in the hallway! She was probably 4 or 5 years old when this happened.

Dad

Sometime in 1992 or 93, my mother decided that she couldn’t live alone any longer. She talked to my brother Martin and ended up moving to Maine to live with him. I was sad because I knew my mom was dying and now she was almost 1500 miles away, so I knew I wouldn’t see her very often. Somehow, between the time she moved out there and the time she died, we did get to Maine. She was living in a assisted living home and spent almost all of her time in bed. She was in good spirits and glad to see us, but it was hard.

When she first moved to Maine, she lived with Martin and his wife Sue. Things were fine until they came home from work one day to find her laying on the floor. She had fallen and couldn’t get up. (Just like the commercial everybody makes fun of). She had been laying there for several hours without any way of telling anyone of her plight. Martin decided that Mom shouldn’t be on her own anymore and checked her into the assisted living center.

In October of 1993, I got a call from Martin. He said, in effect “If you want to see your mother alive again, you’d better get here as soon as you can.” I was in a panic. I didn’t have any money. I called the airlines (didn’t have internet quite yet) and tried to get a hardship flight to Maine. Those are cheaper because getting a flight on a moments notice can really be expensive. It took me a while to convince someone that this was a hardship case but just as I was about to buy the ticket, Martin called again and said “Don’t bother, she’s gone.” So, the last time I saw my mother alive was when we visited Maine.

Martin took care of everything. Mom was to be buried in Bellevue, Michigan, next to Floyd who had died in the 60’s. Martin had gotten insurance that paid for flying her body back to Michigan to be buried. So, instead of flying to Maine, we all got in the car and drove to Michigan for the funeral. It’s been 15 years since she left us and I still miss her. She and I had a special Mother/son bond that few people have. I am looking forward greatly to seeing her again on the other side.

Dad

In 1993, IBM was falling apart. Sales were down and they were starting to re-access their “no-layoffs” policy. People were leaving and I realized that my job was in jeopardy. I had 27 years with the company which put me just over the line to something they called “bridge to retirement”. Retirement for IBM was 30 years of employment. You had to have 27 years in order to bridge. Bridging meant that they would give you a years salary and then when you hit 30 years, you could retire just like you had actually worked those last three years.

It seemed like I had no choice. I couldn’t take a chance on being laid-off which IBM was doing a lot of in those days. I was eligible for the bridge and so, reluctantly, I retired from IBM. But, here I am, I’m 52 years old. That’s pretty young to retire. We had a years pay in the bank, so I felt like we could afford to train into something new. I decided to try to fulfill a life-long dream of mine to be a teacher. I had always wanted to be a teacher. Thought I would be a good one. I loved math and I thought I could teach it to high school kids. So, I enrolled at Winona State and started taking classes.

I’m not sure Karen ever really approved of this move. Unfortunately, we weren’t talking much in those days and I don’t know what she would have rather me do, but I did go to school for a year. The problem was, the money only lasted for a year. I didn’t work during that year, so no new money was coming in. As the year got closer and closer to an end and I realized I needed at least another year to finish my degree, I realized we were in trouble. I loved going to school. I loved learning math and I really wanted to finish, but there was no way to do that and put food on the table. So after one year at Winona State, I dropped out.

The next few months were some of the most difficult of my life. Maybe of Karen’s, too. Like I said, we weren’t talking much. I joined a temp agency and spent the most horrible three nights of my life stocking food at the local Barlow’s grocery store. I drove taxi for 10 days. In that 10 day period, I earned a grand total of $120. That’s $12 a night for a 10 hour shift. Obviously, I had to do better than that.

Then, my salvation came. I got a call from a contractor company that provided a help desk for IBM. They needed people who knew IBM products and could talk to users about the computers and the software that runs them. So, I went back to work at IBM, this time as a contractor.

Dad

I asked Karen for things she remembered about me and Katy and me and Kristy. Here is a story about Kate. I’m not sure, but I think it was her 13th birthday. (turns out it was her 15th birthday – see Katy’s comment) She had a friend in the ward that she hung out with, so on my way home from work, I stopped and picked up the friend (Sheila Romreil). Katy was curious when I brought home her friend but she had no idea of what was coming.

About 5 or 5:30, this limo pulled up in our drive way. I told Katy, this was her ride to Young Women’s that night. She was really excited. I had hired the limo for one hour. It took her all around Rochester and stopped at the home of other friends she had and, I think, picked up some other kids. The limo gave them all a ride to Young Women’s. I think this was one of Katy’s more memorable birthday presents. I think we have pictures of it somewhere, but I haven’t seen them in a long time.

Unfortunately, I only had the limo for the trip in to Young Women’s. I still had to go pick her up since I had the car for just one hour. Still it was a great evening. Kate, if you can add anything to this story, I’d appreciate it.

Dad

OK, it’s time to embarass Matt if I can. A day I’ll never forget was the day Matt told me he was going to go on a mission. Hopefully, someday, Matt will write his own story and fill in the details, but I remember sitting in the chapel of the Rochester Ward. We were listening to a young man (don’t remember who) who had just returned from his mission. During the talk, Matt, who was sitting next to me, leaned over and told me he thought he would go on a mission. I was stunned and didn’t know what to say. I croaked out a “When?” and he said as soon as he could. What I wanted to do was jump up and cheer, but I kept my cool and we started to work on his leaving. As you all know, he spent two years in the Vancouver, British Columbia Mission. I was very proud to have a son on a mission. I was proud that he himself decided to go, because it wasn’t a sure thing.

What was amazing about the mission is he really didn’t have much money saved for it. We were always broke as a family and I worried that we wouldn’t be able to pay for it. I think it ran just over $300 a month. I would deliver a check to the bishop each month and somehow, that money got to Matt to support him. We always made that payment. I don’t think we were ever late with it. The money was always there and nothing else really suffered because of it. When he returned home, you’d think we could now have an extra $300 to pay down bills or something, but nothing really changed. We were broke before the mission, we were broke during the mission, except that we paid one extra check and we were broke after the mission. Strange isn’t it. They say the Lord provides when you have a worthy cause and I guess that is true.

Matt got back from his mission, he was much the same, but a lot different. He had turned into a man, didn’t listen to heavy metal music anymore (at least for awhile) and had a testimony of the gospel. I think (and I hope he agrees) that going on a mission was a deciding point in his life. After that he wanted to go into a field where he could help people and that is what he did. We all know where that has taken him.

I hope he knows just how proud we all are of him.

Dad

One of the highlights of my life in the eighties (and, I think, the rest of the family) was getting cable in Eyota. This was the early eighties and we heard a rumor that cable was coming to Eyota. Boy, were we excited. I determined that the minute they hooked it up in town, we were going to sign up. There was no question about that. I expecially wanted to see MTV. MTV was great in those days. They actually played music, not like today. I was a little disappointed when the cable was first turned on and MTV was not a part of the lineup right away.

We had to wait a couple weeks for the cable company to get that channel programmed. But eventually it came on. I’m pretty sure Karen was not as excited as I was, but I’ve always been a TV watcher and being a music fan, MTV was just about the best that life had to offer. Later, of course, when Mike and I became friends, we spent many a weekend sitting in the basement watching the videos on MTV. Those are still some of my happiest days I can remember.

Another memory I have of Eyota was the picnics we would sometimes have at IBM park. IBM had this area that was just called “the park” and it has picnic tables and places to run around. Every summer, IBM would put on a party for the employees. They would usually have a band come in and play. We could eat and go around and play the games that they set up. It was really cool.

Some of the great times were when Karen would bring the kids into town right after I got off work. I would drive over to the park and meet them at a particular time. We would eat supper on one of the picnic tables and the kids would run around and have fun in the play area. Those were good times.

Dad

I’ll never forget getting my first computer. I didn’t start in the real early days, even though I’d been working for IBM for years and had seen every flavor of computer that had been invented in the early years. I remember the first computer game that I ever played. I think it was part of a system called the 1100 and it was at Brigham Young in the engineering lab. We would sneak into the lab after hours and play this game. Esentially, this is what you did. You were in change of a cannon. You could make the cannon point at different angles and you could vary how much gun powder you used. So, you would type in a angle, then set the gunpowder (and maybe adjust the wind speed – I don’t remember all the details). This you entered a “Fire” command and the cannon would fire and a cannon ball would fly across the screen and, hopefully, hit a target. If it missed, you could try again.

This was even before Pong came along and I remember thinking this was about the greatest thing I had ever seen. Look what we have today. Even the games of the eighties seem primative and simple compared to what we have now.

But, my first computer that I owned was, of course, an IBM. They got into the personal computer market in the early eighties and as soon as I could afford, I bought one at an employee discount. It had a small green screen with absolutely no graphics. In the beginning, I don’t think we even had Windows, just DOS. It had, I think 256 Meg of storage and two diskette drives to enter data into the machine. We thought we’d died and gone to heaven. We were able to talk to the world through a phone line, so when the computer was on-line, no one could use the phone. We talked by sending messages to something called bulletin boards. If you were lucky, someone would write you back.

The internet didn’t exist in those days. Yet, we thought it was great. I remember David and I joined a game club and traded games that played on the computer as well as on the Atari game system. He also had an early computer that he got somewhere (a Commodore, I think) and he traded games for that, too. David still downloads games almost every day. Nothing really changes.

Some people have had the vision to see where the computing inductry was going and took advantage of that and are millionaires, today. I was always just happy with what I had and never really looked to the future, too bad.

Dad