Now seems like an appropriate time to go back in time and take a look at Meghan and Chad. Meghan will be home from her mission in Canada next Thursday. Lance and Candy are hoping they can clear their calendars and be at the airport to greet her. Yeah right! Let's just say that they have rented a trailer and are already camped at the airport parking lot.
Chad arrives in Provo the following week for his entrance into the MTC before heading to Hamburg. Jeff and Pam are coping with his leaving with Lamaze. We expect them to both exhale anyday now.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Meet My Starter Wife
Not many of you know that before I married Penee, I had a starter wife. It was Penee's younger sister, Heloise Hendrix. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am posting some video of Heloise.
As they say today, she was hot! I have included some video of her when we were first married. I also included some shots of Heloise's starter husband, Randall, dancing cheek to cheek with Heloise. It looks like he was a real jerk. While Heloise was a nice starter wife, I'm sure glad I finally ended up with her sister Penee. I think she is a keeper.
Here are Randall and Heloise at Their Wedding!
As they say today, she was hot! I have included some video of her when we were first married. I also included some shots of Heloise's starter husband, Randall, dancing cheek to cheek with Heloise. It looks like he was a real jerk. While Heloise was a nice starter wife, I'm sure glad I finally ended up with her sister Penee. I think she is a keeper.
Here are Randall and Heloise at Their Wedding!
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Howard and "Howardisms"
A few months back, Jeff was collecting some of Howard's sayings and "Howardisms".
Keith Mortensen got wind of the endeavor and asked if he could contribute and participate. Here is what Keith, Robert and Bevan Mortensen submitted to me.
Howardisms and Howard Stories
It is a great honor for me (us) to be able to contribute to your efforts to chronicle the “Howardisms” that continue to circulate amongst us on a daily basis. The Howard stories are also legendary and I find myself re-telling them on an almost daily basis. My close associates are all very familiar with Howard even though they have never met him. My roommates at BYU years ago used to ask me to tell them Howard stories all the time. Here are some stories and some Howardisms that I remember:
Whenever Howard was injured or had a cut, as it would start to get better he would refer to it as “healin’ up and hairin’ over.”
When he had a cold or something like that he referred to it as “the creepin’ crud.”
Growing up poor, Howard told me that his dad would say “when you ain’t got nothin’ there’s always plenty left over.”
When we would check a bunch of cattle quickly, Howard would sometimes say “we went through those cattle like a dose of salts through a midget.”
When we would saddle up and head out to check some cattle he would say “well, let’s go scrutinize ‘em.”
When he roped a calf he would say “I’m gonna dob it on him.”
When it was lunch time and we would pull out our sack lunches, Howard seemed to always have a “boileed egg” at least that is how he always pronounced boiled.
We would have cattle get out of their pens from time to time, especially the calves, so we would have to round them up and put them back in their pen. Whenever we had some loose, Howard would say “we’ve got ‘em trapped between two oceans.”
He referred to a woman with a big butt one time as a “two axe-handle woman.” When I asked him what that meant, he told me it meant you would need two axe handles to measure across her rear end.
When a cowboy had trouble making it to work on time he would ask him if he had trouble “getting the mattress off your back.”
One time Howard had to go pick up Jeff (I’m pretty sure it was Jeff) from a stake dance held at the Blythe building and he reported that he saw Beanie Clements there. Beanie and his family had moved from Blythe several years before. He told me Beanie was sure a dancer. I said “he could really dance, huh?” and Howard replied “yeah, Beanie had everything movin’ but his bowels and I wasn’t so sure about them…”
My Aunt Darlene had a garage sale one time when they lived over by the church and a lady showed up with her cat in her arms. Well, Taylor and Darlene had a pit bull at the time named “Tippy” (tough dog, wuss name picked out by Taylor’s young children). Anyway, Tippy saw the lady and particularly the cat and of course trotted over to see it. The cat got scared and jumped out of the lady’s arms and tried to make a run for it. Tippy caught the cat and killed it immediately, right there in front of all the folks at the garage sale. Anyway, I reported this to Howard and his response was “it’s just as well, that cat probably wasn’t gonna buy anything anyway…”
In speaking of somebody that was clueless, Howard would say the guy “didn’t know if his rear end was punched or drilled.”
Or another way he used to say it was “that guy couldn’t find his rear end with a pair of hay hooks.”
Howard told me one time that you could go 50 miles in any direction from Blythe… and be better off.
I talked to Howard once about golfing. He told me golfing was “a good way to screw up a nice walk.”
Howard used to quote Andy Bryce (Gary, Boyce and Dick’s father and a lifelong rancher) who used to say “it takes a heckuva horse to throw me…it just don’t take him very long.”
Howard told me once that he had been in a rodeo and rode a bronc. I asked him how he had done and he told me “I was lookin’ good, sittin’ up on that horse makin’ a heckuva ride on him…and then some fool opened the gate!”
He referred to his spurs as his “gut hooks.” He referred to his whip as his “Shalaylee”. (I know that’s not spelled right but you know what I’m talking about. It’s the Irish thing)
If a calf was sick and had his head hanging down, Howard would refer to him as the one with the “Tom Dooley look.”
One of the common illnesses young cattle would have was diarrhea. That was referred to as “the thin dirties.”
If a calf was really sick and looked like he was going to die, Howard would say “we better light a candle and say a prayer.”
Howard used to tell about a feedlot in the Imperial Valley where all the cowboys wore tennis shoes. When somebody asked one of the cowboys why he didn’t wear boots he replied “we don’t want anyone to think we’re truckers.”
One of the cowboys at the feedlot that was a friend of Howard’s and was a really good and decent man was Cecil Mills. Now nobody had accused Howard of being really tall but Cecil was shorter than Howard so he liked to tease him about it. One time he told Cecil “if I were you I would sue the city.” When Cecil asked him why, Howard replied “for building the sidewalks too close to your rear end…”
Speaking of short, one time Howard was telling me that he had worked for a time behind a mule team that pulled a scraper (if I remember correctly) when he was a young man. I had never heard that before even though I had worked with Howard for several years by that time. When I told him I hadn’t heard that before he told me “oh yeah, why do you think I’m so short…sniffin’ mule farts all that time stunted my growth!”
Robert tells the story of coming back to the feedlot for the first time when he was home from college once and he was growing a beard. Robert can grow a pretty good beard and of course it was pretty red. Howard saw him and told him “Robert, it sure is good to see you. You sure make me homesick.” Robert wasn’t sure what that meant and didn’t pay much attention to it. Over a period of several hours, Robert crossed paths with Howard as they checked cattle. Every time Howard would see Robert he would say “Robert, you sure make me homesick.” After saying that several times, Robert finally asked him “Howard, I don’t understand; why do I make you so homesick?” Howard told him “Robert, when I was a boy growing up in Franklin, Arizona we were real poor but we had billy goat named Pierre. He was a white billy goat. He was a proud billy goat and we really loved him. Like most billy goats, Pierre used to pee on his whiskers and it turned them red, just like yours. You sure make me homesick Robert.” What is really interesting about this story is that Robert went home that night and shaved the beard completely off. Robert would never have done that if our dad had asked him to shave but Howard could, just by telling him about Pierre. I tell every young man I know that starts growing a beard or a goatee that story.
My dad tells a story that Howard told him years ago about a contemporary of Howard’s named Gene Odell (O’Dell ?) who grew up with Howard in Franklin. If you have never heard of Gene, he went on to play professional basketball “back in the day” and so was quite an athlete as I am sure Howard was as a young man. Coincidentally, I met Brother Odell in Roswell a few years ago at church. He has since passed away. Brother Odell had been quite successful professionally and I believe was fairly wealthy. Anyway, Howard told my dad once that Gene was quite a trader. He loved to trade and was very good at it. When my dad asked him how good a trader he was, Howard told him “why, when we were kids, Gene went to school one time with some marbles in his pocket and came home later that evening leading a milk cow, her calf and two goats…”
There was an elderly black gentleman in Ripley that had worked for your dad years earlier and was, as Howard put it, one of the few people on welfare in Ripley that deserved it. Apparently he was a good man and had been a good worker. His name was Choice Morris. Howard ran into Choice there at Benefields in Ripley one time after Thanksgiving. He asked Choice if he had enjoyed a big Thanksgiving meal. Choice told him that for Thanksgiving all he had eaten was a can of “jack mackerel”. Howard knew that I liked to hunt ducks and geese and asked me if I would donate some to the cause for Choice. I told him of course and I got 2 or 3 ducks from the freezer for him. Howard waited until a day or two before Christmas because he said Choice probably didn’t have a refrigerator or a freezer and so that would give him some time to thaw them. When he gave them to Choice, he was surprised that they were frozen. Howard told him “it was a really cold day and those birds were way up there when my friend shot them.” A couple of weeks later Howard bumped into Choice again and he asked him if he liked the ducks. He really went on about how good they were but he told Howard “I went plumb overboard on those ducks. I dumplinized some of them and I dressinized the rest of ‘em. They was just too rich for me!”
Another time when Robert was with Howard at Benefields, a little Hispanic kid rode up on his bicycle and said to Howard, “hey mister, loan me a dime!” Howard told him “sure!” As he pulls the dime out of his pocket, he asks the kid “what do you have for collateral?” Of course the kid wants to know what that is so Howard tells him “well, here’s how it works…I give you the dime and you give me something in return like say that bike your riding. And I put your bike in the back of my truck. Next time I see you, you give me my dime back and I give you your bike.” The kid got on his bike and rode off as fast as he could.
Howard told me one time about the guy that was dieing and he requested of his two buddies that they bury him in a Cadillac. Later, as they were lowering the Cadillac and the body into the grave the one friend says to the other as they admired that Cadillac…”man, that’s what I call livin’.”
Another time he told me about a hugely obese Texan that his friends called “Big Tex”. Well, Big Tex died and his friends got together to figure out how to bury him because there was no way he was fitting in a regular casket. One of the friends missed the meeting and later asked a guy who was there what they had decided. “Are we getting a piano box to bury him in?” “No, we came up with a better idea…we just gave Big Tex an enema and buried him in a shoebox.”
There was a guy who lived in Ripley, his name escapes me, who I think had bought the Benefields store. He was kind of goofy guy and would bring calves to the feedlot to fatten up. He actually would bring them in his car sometimes. It seems like he could get a couple of them in the back seat (it was a big car) at a time and over a period of time he had assembled about 50 head of cattle. They were all different sizes but Howard and I got to scheming about buying this guy’s string of cattle, hopefully at a decent price because this guy was not too sophisticated about the cattle business, or so we thought. Howard approached him one day about buying them and he told Howard that no, he was going to take them to the Phoenix auction because he had heard it was “hot”. Howard replied “so the Phoenix auction is pretty hot, huh?” and the guy replied “Howard, that market is hotter than a three nutted tomcat!” Howard and I both had to agree that it must have been pretty hot.
Howard was telling once about H.B. and his wife. This was after my mission and I hadn’t seen H.B. for awhile. Howard told me that since H.B. was a little older when he got married he wanted to start his family right away and commented that H.B. and Penny had their first child “nine months after the lights went out.”
Howard told me once when he was living in Orem about having to go see his Dr. and get his prostate checked. The Dr. told him to “drop his pants and bend over.” According to Howard he turned around to see the Dr. putting his gloves on and he told him “Doc, if it’s all the same to you, you don’t mind takin’ that class ring off first, do you?”
Howard told me once about the old boy that took his dog to the movies. He bought a ticket for both of them. The guy working the ticket booth (this must have been at the Hub Theater!) thought that was real funny so he tipped off the manager. Well the manager thought that was funny as well so he thought he would find the guy and give him a hard time. So he finds the guy about halfway through the movie and sure enough the dog is sitting in the seat next to him watching the movie. The manager says to him “Hey buddy, how does your dog like the movie?” The guy responds, “oh he likes it OK, but he liked the book better.”
Howard used to tell about a fellow from the state or the county that was visiting Cibola and Louie Bishop invited him to have lunch. They served some meat to the guy and he really liked it. He commented how good it was and asked Louie what kind of meat it was. Louie told him “burro meat.” The guy laughed and thought Louie was kidding him but according to Howard, he was dead serious and used to shoot wild burros, back in the day when they weren’t protected, and sure enough eat them. I can’t remember but it seems like Howard told me Louie fixed some for him once and it was good but I could be wrong.
One time I was working in the calf lot with Howard and we had a bunch of calves at the chute to be doctored. While we were giving them their shots, we noticed Black Mama was “bagged up” pretty good. It was around lunch time and she had a colt and we really needed to get her back to let her colt nurse. Anyway, Howard and I were talking about the subject and I asked him what horse milk tasted like. He told he it was pretty good and that I should try some. He got a Dixie cup out for me so I went over and milked out about half a cup and drank it. It was pretty good and I recall it was sweet. That was my first and last experience with horse milk.
THE SERIOUS STUFF
Robert and I collaborated on a lot of the stories and Howardisms over the last couple of weeks. He asked me to be the scribe so as the dutiful younger brother I told him I would.
I think your family knows how much we loved Howard. We spent a great deal of our youth with Howard. We loved to be around Howard and he had the ability to make work enjoyable. Without a doubt, Robert and I spent more time around Howard (at least during the summers) than we did any other adult, including our parents. We have lamented from time to time that we don’t have a “Howard” to help raise our boys. Having a farm or a feedlot wouldn’t hurt either. Our dad credits Howard with raising us. I think he’s absolutely right, we just hope that we can indeed always be a “credit” to Howard’s legacy. Here are some examples of the things we learned:
I think first and foremost the thing I admired about Howard is his constant cheerfulness and good humor. This in the face of all the setbacks and tragedies in Howard’s life. To witness the death of his brothers/business partners, the business reversal in Cibola, to have his beloved wife suffer through health issues and of course all of Howard’s own health issues along with the serious “horse wrecks” he had and yet Howard never once had a bitter word for anyone or anything. Occasionally when it was cold (well, at least for Blythe) he would tell me the pin in his hip would hurt him. And that was the extent of it. I know Howard had to be hurting all those years and sitting on a horse surely wasn’t the most comfortable thing for a man of his age and physical challenges. He never lost his faith nor his testimony. Howard is a tremendous example for all of us of a man who, in spite of the “hand life dealt him”, just put his head down and kept moving forward. It took me a lot of years to figure this out because he didn’t talk about it much. He was surely a great example of one who “endured to the end.”
Howard taught me the dignity of honest work. I made a negative comment once about another employee who worked on the hay drag at the feed mill. He was probably in his 20s and it seemed like it was a real low end job for a guy his age. Howard kindly pointed out that ANY honest job is a good job and we should never put down somebody that is working at an honest job. Lesson learned!
You could always count on Howard. For several years during the school year, Howard would pick me up each Saturday morning and we would ride to work together. He liked to listen to Garner Ted Armstrong on the radio. The time he picked me up would vary depending on the time of year since we based our starting time at work on what time the sun was coming up. Never once did Howard forget to pick me up and I always knew that he would be on time. I did my very best to make sure he never had to wait on me.
Howard was kind to everyone. He was no “respecter of persons.”
Howard made others around him better people. We had a guy at the feedlot who used filthy language. Through Howard’s example and Howard working with the guy, over a period of time the guy found substitute words to use and you could actually have a conversation with the guy without him using bad language.
He was a hard worker. Howard never cut corners to do things the easy way. He did things the right way and always stayed until the job was completely finished.
We had some cowboys at the feedlot that had the attitude that if you couldn’t do the job horseback, they weren’t going to do it. Howard was a tremendous example as a manager; there was no job that he wouldn’t do if it needed to be done, including washing water troughs, shoveling spoiled feed from the troughs after it had rained, putting a shoe on a horse and so on. He lead by example and I was always grateful for that and would try to pitch in and do my part.
Robert mentioned Howard’s ability with horses. He was gentle to the horses and was never rough on them. He always had the best horses at the feedlot yet never bragged about it or ever mentioned that “my horse is better than yours” or anything like that. I should mention that because of his age and his physical condition (pin in his hip) he was careful when he broke a colt. He would usually start them out with some “road work”. He installed a trailer ball on the top back corner of the truck bed on the passenger side so he could tie the colt’s halter rope to it. He would saddle the colt up and then take him/her for a jog behind the truck for several miles. He would then make sure they got the sorriest hay available with no grain so they weren’t getting a lot of energy out of their food. After a couple of weeks of the road work and the low energy rations, the horse would be worn out and ready to learn. They had no energy for mischief but rather would be ready to learn and not cause any trouble. There is some real wisdom with this and my dad found he could apply it to his boys, i.e. hard work would keep his sons from having the energy to get into mischief. Robert mentioned that Howard rode mares most of the time, not because he necessarily preferred them but because that’s what he had. Interestingly, some of the other cowboys would snicker about Howard’s mounts because “real cowboys know you don’t ride mares.” Of course their horses were always inferior to Howard’s horses. Howard didn’t much care what any “real cowboy” thought about his horses. There was Poopsie, Masher, Black Mama and a couple of geldings, Billy (he had green eyes like a billy goat), Red and Hodgie Bob. Poopsie and Black Mama were half sisters and Masher was Black Mama’s colt. The mares in particular were exceptional along with Red. It was always a treat to ride a horse Howard had trained. They had exceptional skills as cutting horses and really as all around horses. You could tell that they loved to work cattle. Robert and I loved to rope off of Black Mama because she was fast and besides just being a great horse, she was big enough to turn any steer you roped. I always wanted to take her swimming because Howard used to tell me that when they cut the new river through his property in Cibola, he had cattle on both sides of the river. He told me he would lead Black Mama behind his boat to the other side and then jump her out and go check on his cattle. He used to comment that she was a good swimmer. Masher got her name because she stepped on Howard’s foot one time. I think she was one of Howard’s all time favorites.
Robert has horses today and does a lot of team roping and credits Howard with teaching him about horses. He mentions that there are so many parallels to working with horses and working with people. Robert has the opportunity to speak in church a lot and uses his horse background and the things he learned from Howard in his sermons on a continual basis.
My dad tells of an experience a few years before Howard died. My dad was living there in Orem and had occasion to go with Bob Kellogg to look at some cattle down in the Richfield area. They invited Howard to go with them. Howard wasn’t very mobile at the time and I think was using a walker or maybe a cane to get around. Every stop they made of course was a chore for Howard to get in and out of the car. They were very solicitous of Howard’s well-being and comfort and made quite a fuss over him. Finally, Howard smiled at them and told them “boys, I want you to remember that I was there with you in the pre-existence when we shouted for joy to come here.” The message was clear; he had willingly volunteered for this mortal existence that was becoming more of a challenge for him all the time. He didn’t complain but rather endured and did so with a cheerful outlook. I know that it has already been mentioned but when Robert and I used to come up to Utah, we always made it a point to go see Howard. Upon seeing Howard we would always ask him how he was doing to which the standard reply was “well, I don’t have anything a good resurrection can’t cure…” He always did so with a smile on his face. That was always a gut-wrencher for us to see our dear friend in such a disabled state.
Several years ago, after Howard’s death and before we had a temple in Albuquerque, I had the opportunity to be in the Mesa temple. Without getting in to any details, I will just say I entered an area where there was a man standing there. As I looked at the man, for a split second I thought it was Howard, he looked so similar although he was bigger than Howard. It turned out it was Howard’s brother Charles (I believe that was his name). I shed a few tears as I recall. I’m sure Charles wondered what my problem was. I believe I will see Howard again someday and when I do, I will shed some more tears. I look forward to it.
I remember reading something H.B. wrote about your parents. He quoted the first chapter of Nephi and said something along the lines of “Like Nephi, I have been born of goodly parents…” Indeed you all have been born of goodly parents. I know that all of Howard and Ethel’s children understand that and appreciate it and that the older grandchildren probably do as well. But for those grandkids and great grandkids that perhaps have never known Howard we want you to know that we think he was the greatest and we are so grateful for him and all he did for us. We hope what we have written can help you appreciate the great heritage of work and faith Howard has left for each of you. And for us non family members too.
I know this is long and I hope it wasn’t too long but we just wanted to share some things with you that you may not have heard before. Again, we want you to know how much we loved Howard.
Best wishes,
Keith Mortensen
Robert Mortensen
Bevan Mortensen
Keith Mortensen got wind of the endeavor and asked if he could contribute and participate. Here is what Keith, Robert and Bevan Mortensen submitted to me.
Howardisms and Howard Stories
It is a great honor for me (us) to be able to contribute to your efforts to chronicle the “Howardisms” that continue to circulate amongst us on a daily basis. The Howard stories are also legendary and I find myself re-telling them on an almost daily basis. My close associates are all very familiar with Howard even though they have never met him. My roommates at BYU years ago used to ask me to tell them Howard stories all the time. Here are some stories and some Howardisms that I remember:
Whenever Howard was injured or had a cut, as it would start to get better he would refer to it as “healin’ up and hairin’ over.”
When he had a cold or something like that he referred to it as “the creepin’ crud.”
Growing up poor, Howard told me that his dad would say “when you ain’t got nothin’ there’s always plenty left over.”
When we would check a bunch of cattle quickly, Howard would sometimes say “we went through those cattle like a dose of salts through a midget.”
When we would saddle up and head out to check some cattle he would say “well, let’s go scrutinize ‘em.”
When he roped a calf he would say “I’m gonna dob it on him.”
When it was lunch time and we would pull out our sack lunches, Howard seemed to always have a “boileed egg” at least that is how he always pronounced boiled.
We would have cattle get out of their pens from time to time, especially the calves, so we would have to round them up and put them back in their pen. Whenever we had some loose, Howard would say “we’ve got ‘em trapped between two oceans.”
He referred to a woman with a big butt one time as a “two axe-handle woman.” When I asked him what that meant, he told me it meant you would need two axe handles to measure across her rear end.
When a cowboy had trouble making it to work on time he would ask him if he had trouble “getting the mattress off your back.”
One time Howard had to go pick up Jeff (I’m pretty sure it was Jeff) from a stake dance held at the Blythe building and he reported that he saw Beanie Clements there. Beanie and his family had moved from Blythe several years before. He told me Beanie was sure a dancer. I said “he could really dance, huh?” and Howard replied “yeah, Beanie had everything movin’ but his bowels and I wasn’t so sure about them…”
My Aunt Darlene had a garage sale one time when they lived over by the church and a lady showed up with her cat in her arms. Well, Taylor and Darlene had a pit bull at the time named “Tippy” (tough dog, wuss name picked out by Taylor’s young children). Anyway, Tippy saw the lady and particularly the cat and of course trotted over to see it. The cat got scared and jumped out of the lady’s arms and tried to make a run for it. Tippy caught the cat and killed it immediately, right there in front of all the folks at the garage sale. Anyway, I reported this to Howard and his response was “it’s just as well, that cat probably wasn’t gonna buy anything anyway…”
In speaking of somebody that was clueless, Howard would say the guy “didn’t know if his rear end was punched or drilled.”
Or another way he used to say it was “that guy couldn’t find his rear end with a pair of hay hooks.”
Howard told me one time that you could go 50 miles in any direction from Blythe… and be better off.
I talked to Howard once about golfing. He told me golfing was “a good way to screw up a nice walk.”
Howard used to quote Andy Bryce (Gary, Boyce and Dick’s father and a lifelong rancher) who used to say “it takes a heckuva horse to throw me…it just don’t take him very long.”
Howard told me once that he had been in a rodeo and rode a bronc. I asked him how he had done and he told me “I was lookin’ good, sittin’ up on that horse makin’ a heckuva ride on him…and then some fool opened the gate!”
He referred to his spurs as his “gut hooks.” He referred to his whip as his “Shalaylee”. (I know that’s not spelled right but you know what I’m talking about. It’s the Irish thing)
If a calf was sick and had his head hanging down, Howard would refer to him as the one with the “Tom Dooley look.”
One of the common illnesses young cattle would have was diarrhea. That was referred to as “the thin dirties.”
If a calf was really sick and looked like he was going to die, Howard would say “we better light a candle and say a prayer.”
Howard used to tell about a feedlot in the Imperial Valley where all the cowboys wore tennis shoes. When somebody asked one of the cowboys why he didn’t wear boots he replied “we don’t want anyone to think we’re truckers.”
One of the cowboys at the feedlot that was a friend of Howard’s and was a really good and decent man was Cecil Mills. Now nobody had accused Howard of being really tall but Cecil was shorter than Howard so he liked to tease him about it. One time he told Cecil “if I were you I would sue the city.” When Cecil asked him why, Howard replied “for building the sidewalks too close to your rear end…”
Speaking of short, one time Howard was telling me that he had worked for a time behind a mule team that pulled a scraper (if I remember correctly) when he was a young man. I had never heard that before even though I had worked with Howard for several years by that time. When I told him I hadn’t heard that before he told me “oh yeah, why do you think I’m so short…sniffin’ mule farts all that time stunted my growth!”
Robert tells the story of coming back to the feedlot for the first time when he was home from college once and he was growing a beard. Robert can grow a pretty good beard and of course it was pretty red. Howard saw him and told him “Robert, it sure is good to see you. You sure make me homesick.” Robert wasn’t sure what that meant and didn’t pay much attention to it. Over a period of several hours, Robert crossed paths with Howard as they checked cattle. Every time Howard would see Robert he would say “Robert, you sure make me homesick.” After saying that several times, Robert finally asked him “Howard, I don’t understand; why do I make you so homesick?” Howard told him “Robert, when I was a boy growing up in Franklin, Arizona we were real poor but we had billy goat named Pierre. He was a white billy goat. He was a proud billy goat and we really loved him. Like most billy goats, Pierre used to pee on his whiskers and it turned them red, just like yours. You sure make me homesick Robert.” What is really interesting about this story is that Robert went home that night and shaved the beard completely off. Robert would never have done that if our dad had asked him to shave but Howard could, just by telling him about Pierre. I tell every young man I know that starts growing a beard or a goatee that story.
My dad tells a story that Howard told him years ago about a contemporary of Howard’s named Gene Odell (O’Dell ?) who grew up with Howard in Franklin. If you have never heard of Gene, he went on to play professional basketball “back in the day” and so was quite an athlete as I am sure Howard was as a young man. Coincidentally, I met Brother Odell in Roswell a few years ago at church. He has since passed away. Brother Odell had been quite successful professionally and I believe was fairly wealthy. Anyway, Howard told my dad once that Gene was quite a trader. He loved to trade and was very good at it. When my dad asked him how good a trader he was, Howard told him “why, when we were kids, Gene went to school one time with some marbles in his pocket and came home later that evening leading a milk cow, her calf and two goats…”
There was an elderly black gentleman in Ripley that had worked for your dad years earlier and was, as Howard put it, one of the few people on welfare in Ripley that deserved it. Apparently he was a good man and had been a good worker. His name was Choice Morris. Howard ran into Choice there at Benefields in Ripley one time after Thanksgiving. He asked Choice if he had enjoyed a big Thanksgiving meal. Choice told him that for Thanksgiving all he had eaten was a can of “jack mackerel”. Howard knew that I liked to hunt ducks and geese and asked me if I would donate some to the cause for Choice. I told him of course and I got 2 or 3 ducks from the freezer for him. Howard waited until a day or two before Christmas because he said Choice probably didn’t have a refrigerator or a freezer and so that would give him some time to thaw them. When he gave them to Choice, he was surprised that they were frozen. Howard told him “it was a really cold day and those birds were way up there when my friend shot them.” A couple of weeks later Howard bumped into Choice again and he asked him if he liked the ducks. He really went on about how good they were but he told Howard “I went plumb overboard on those ducks. I dumplinized some of them and I dressinized the rest of ‘em. They was just too rich for me!”
Another time when Robert was with Howard at Benefields, a little Hispanic kid rode up on his bicycle and said to Howard, “hey mister, loan me a dime!” Howard told him “sure!” As he pulls the dime out of his pocket, he asks the kid “what do you have for collateral?” Of course the kid wants to know what that is so Howard tells him “well, here’s how it works…I give you the dime and you give me something in return like say that bike your riding. And I put your bike in the back of my truck. Next time I see you, you give me my dime back and I give you your bike.” The kid got on his bike and rode off as fast as he could.
Howard told me one time about the guy that was dieing and he requested of his two buddies that they bury him in a Cadillac. Later, as they were lowering the Cadillac and the body into the grave the one friend says to the other as they admired that Cadillac…”man, that’s what I call livin’.”
Another time he told me about a hugely obese Texan that his friends called “Big Tex”. Well, Big Tex died and his friends got together to figure out how to bury him because there was no way he was fitting in a regular casket. One of the friends missed the meeting and later asked a guy who was there what they had decided. “Are we getting a piano box to bury him in?” “No, we came up with a better idea…we just gave Big Tex an enema and buried him in a shoebox.”
There was a guy who lived in Ripley, his name escapes me, who I think had bought the Benefields store. He was kind of goofy guy and would bring calves to the feedlot to fatten up. He actually would bring them in his car sometimes. It seems like he could get a couple of them in the back seat (it was a big car) at a time and over a period of time he had assembled about 50 head of cattle. They were all different sizes but Howard and I got to scheming about buying this guy’s string of cattle, hopefully at a decent price because this guy was not too sophisticated about the cattle business, or so we thought. Howard approached him one day about buying them and he told Howard that no, he was going to take them to the Phoenix auction because he had heard it was “hot”. Howard replied “so the Phoenix auction is pretty hot, huh?” and the guy replied “Howard, that market is hotter than a three nutted tomcat!” Howard and I both had to agree that it must have been pretty hot.
Howard was telling once about H.B. and his wife. This was after my mission and I hadn’t seen H.B. for awhile. Howard told me that since H.B. was a little older when he got married he wanted to start his family right away and commented that H.B. and Penny had their first child “nine months after the lights went out.”
Howard told me once when he was living in Orem about having to go see his Dr. and get his prostate checked. The Dr. told him to “drop his pants and bend over.” According to Howard he turned around to see the Dr. putting his gloves on and he told him “Doc, if it’s all the same to you, you don’t mind takin’ that class ring off first, do you?”
Howard told me once about the old boy that took his dog to the movies. He bought a ticket for both of them. The guy working the ticket booth (this must have been at the Hub Theater!) thought that was real funny so he tipped off the manager. Well the manager thought that was funny as well so he thought he would find the guy and give him a hard time. So he finds the guy about halfway through the movie and sure enough the dog is sitting in the seat next to him watching the movie. The manager says to him “Hey buddy, how does your dog like the movie?” The guy responds, “oh he likes it OK, but he liked the book better.”
Howard used to tell about a fellow from the state or the county that was visiting Cibola and Louie Bishop invited him to have lunch. They served some meat to the guy and he really liked it. He commented how good it was and asked Louie what kind of meat it was. Louie told him “burro meat.” The guy laughed and thought Louie was kidding him but according to Howard, he was dead serious and used to shoot wild burros, back in the day when they weren’t protected, and sure enough eat them. I can’t remember but it seems like Howard told me Louie fixed some for him once and it was good but I could be wrong.
One time I was working in the calf lot with Howard and we had a bunch of calves at the chute to be doctored. While we were giving them their shots, we noticed Black Mama was “bagged up” pretty good. It was around lunch time and she had a colt and we really needed to get her back to let her colt nurse. Anyway, Howard and I were talking about the subject and I asked him what horse milk tasted like. He told he it was pretty good and that I should try some. He got a Dixie cup out for me so I went over and milked out about half a cup and drank it. It was pretty good and I recall it was sweet. That was my first and last experience with horse milk.
THE SERIOUS STUFF
Robert and I collaborated on a lot of the stories and Howardisms over the last couple of weeks. He asked me to be the scribe so as the dutiful younger brother I told him I would.
I think your family knows how much we loved Howard. We spent a great deal of our youth with Howard. We loved to be around Howard and he had the ability to make work enjoyable. Without a doubt, Robert and I spent more time around Howard (at least during the summers) than we did any other adult, including our parents. We have lamented from time to time that we don’t have a “Howard” to help raise our boys. Having a farm or a feedlot wouldn’t hurt either. Our dad credits Howard with raising us. I think he’s absolutely right, we just hope that we can indeed always be a “credit” to Howard’s legacy. Here are some examples of the things we learned:
I think first and foremost the thing I admired about Howard is his constant cheerfulness and good humor. This in the face of all the setbacks and tragedies in Howard’s life. To witness the death of his brothers/business partners, the business reversal in Cibola, to have his beloved wife suffer through health issues and of course all of Howard’s own health issues along with the serious “horse wrecks” he had and yet Howard never once had a bitter word for anyone or anything. Occasionally when it was cold (well, at least for Blythe) he would tell me the pin in his hip would hurt him. And that was the extent of it. I know Howard had to be hurting all those years and sitting on a horse surely wasn’t the most comfortable thing for a man of his age and physical challenges. He never lost his faith nor his testimony. Howard is a tremendous example for all of us of a man who, in spite of the “hand life dealt him”, just put his head down and kept moving forward. It took me a lot of years to figure this out because he didn’t talk about it much. He was surely a great example of one who “endured to the end.”
Howard taught me the dignity of honest work. I made a negative comment once about another employee who worked on the hay drag at the feed mill. He was probably in his 20s and it seemed like it was a real low end job for a guy his age. Howard kindly pointed out that ANY honest job is a good job and we should never put down somebody that is working at an honest job. Lesson learned!
You could always count on Howard. For several years during the school year, Howard would pick me up each Saturday morning and we would ride to work together. He liked to listen to Garner Ted Armstrong on the radio. The time he picked me up would vary depending on the time of year since we based our starting time at work on what time the sun was coming up. Never once did Howard forget to pick me up and I always knew that he would be on time. I did my very best to make sure he never had to wait on me.
Howard was kind to everyone. He was no “respecter of persons.”
Howard made others around him better people. We had a guy at the feedlot who used filthy language. Through Howard’s example and Howard working with the guy, over a period of time the guy found substitute words to use and you could actually have a conversation with the guy without him using bad language.
He was a hard worker. Howard never cut corners to do things the easy way. He did things the right way and always stayed until the job was completely finished.
We had some cowboys at the feedlot that had the attitude that if you couldn’t do the job horseback, they weren’t going to do it. Howard was a tremendous example as a manager; there was no job that he wouldn’t do if it needed to be done, including washing water troughs, shoveling spoiled feed from the troughs after it had rained, putting a shoe on a horse and so on. He lead by example and I was always grateful for that and would try to pitch in and do my part.
Robert mentioned Howard’s ability with horses. He was gentle to the horses and was never rough on them. He always had the best horses at the feedlot yet never bragged about it or ever mentioned that “my horse is better than yours” or anything like that. I should mention that because of his age and his physical condition (pin in his hip) he was careful when he broke a colt. He would usually start them out with some “road work”. He installed a trailer ball on the top back corner of the truck bed on the passenger side so he could tie the colt’s halter rope to it. He would saddle the colt up and then take him/her for a jog behind the truck for several miles. He would then make sure they got the sorriest hay available with no grain so they weren’t getting a lot of energy out of their food. After a couple of weeks of the road work and the low energy rations, the horse would be worn out and ready to learn. They had no energy for mischief but rather would be ready to learn and not cause any trouble. There is some real wisdom with this and my dad found he could apply it to his boys, i.e. hard work would keep his sons from having the energy to get into mischief. Robert mentioned that Howard rode mares most of the time, not because he necessarily preferred them but because that’s what he had. Interestingly, some of the other cowboys would snicker about Howard’s mounts because “real cowboys know you don’t ride mares.” Of course their horses were always inferior to Howard’s horses. Howard didn’t much care what any “real cowboy” thought about his horses. There was Poopsie, Masher, Black Mama and a couple of geldings, Billy (he had green eyes like a billy goat), Red and Hodgie Bob. Poopsie and Black Mama were half sisters and Masher was Black Mama’s colt. The mares in particular were exceptional along with Red. It was always a treat to ride a horse Howard had trained. They had exceptional skills as cutting horses and really as all around horses. You could tell that they loved to work cattle. Robert and I loved to rope off of Black Mama because she was fast and besides just being a great horse, she was big enough to turn any steer you roped. I always wanted to take her swimming because Howard used to tell me that when they cut the new river through his property in Cibola, he had cattle on both sides of the river. He told me he would lead Black Mama behind his boat to the other side and then jump her out and go check on his cattle. He used to comment that she was a good swimmer. Masher got her name because she stepped on Howard’s foot one time. I think she was one of Howard’s all time favorites.
Robert has horses today and does a lot of team roping and credits Howard with teaching him about horses. He mentions that there are so many parallels to working with horses and working with people. Robert has the opportunity to speak in church a lot and uses his horse background and the things he learned from Howard in his sermons on a continual basis.
My dad tells of an experience a few years before Howard died. My dad was living there in Orem and had occasion to go with Bob Kellogg to look at some cattle down in the Richfield area. They invited Howard to go with them. Howard wasn’t very mobile at the time and I think was using a walker or maybe a cane to get around. Every stop they made of course was a chore for Howard to get in and out of the car. They were very solicitous of Howard’s well-being and comfort and made quite a fuss over him. Finally, Howard smiled at them and told them “boys, I want you to remember that I was there with you in the pre-existence when we shouted for joy to come here.” The message was clear; he had willingly volunteered for this mortal existence that was becoming more of a challenge for him all the time. He didn’t complain but rather endured and did so with a cheerful outlook. I know that it has already been mentioned but when Robert and I used to come up to Utah, we always made it a point to go see Howard. Upon seeing Howard we would always ask him how he was doing to which the standard reply was “well, I don’t have anything a good resurrection can’t cure…” He always did so with a smile on his face. That was always a gut-wrencher for us to see our dear friend in such a disabled state.
Several years ago, after Howard’s death and before we had a temple in Albuquerque, I had the opportunity to be in the Mesa temple. Without getting in to any details, I will just say I entered an area where there was a man standing there. As I looked at the man, for a split second I thought it was Howard, he looked so similar although he was bigger than Howard. It turned out it was Howard’s brother Charles (I believe that was his name). I shed a few tears as I recall. I’m sure Charles wondered what my problem was. I believe I will see Howard again someday and when I do, I will shed some more tears. I look forward to it.
I remember reading something H.B. wrote about your parents. He quoted the first chapter of Nephi and said something along the lines of “Like Nephi, I have been born of goodly parents…” Indeed you all have been born of goodly parents. I know that all of Howard and Ethel’s children understand that and appreciate it and that the older grandchildren probably do as well. But for those grandkids and great grandkids that perhaps have never known Howard we want you to know that we think he was the greatest and we are so grateful for him and all he did for us. We hope what we have written can help you appreciate the great heritage of work and faith Howard has left for each of you. And for us non family members too.
I know this is long and I hope it wasn’t too long but we just wanted to share some things with you that you may not have heard before. Again, we want you to know how much we loved Howard.
Best wishes,
Keith Mortensen
Robert Mortensen
Bevan Mortensen
Get Notified
If you want an e-mail notification when this site is updated with new videos, use the new Blogarithm icon on the right side of this blog. Just sign up with your email address and it will notify you when something new has been posted.
For those less technologically savvy, you can still just call me and ask if there have been any updates. For those who are still offended by something I said or did and are not currently speaking to me, you don't have to call, but can keep checking back on the site. If you see something you haven't seen before, the site has been updated.
For those less technologically savvy, you can still just call me and ask if there have been any updates. For those who are still offended by something I said or did and are not currently speaking to me, you don't have to call, but can keep checking back on the site. If you see something you haven't seen before, the site has been updated.
I'm The Most Normal Guy I Know!
How did I turn out so normal? After watching these old videos, it is obvious that this was no Ozzie and Harriet family. Then again, maybe it was a blessing. Who wants to go through life with a Ricky Nelson hairdo?
The Seven Cities of Cibola
The younger Arnetts won't see anything special about this video, but when you know the history of how Grandpa Howard carved this ranch out of a bonafide wilderness and acknowledge the sweat, work and good times he had with his family at Cibola, it still brings tears to my eyes.
The canal is what Howard dug by himself and where we swam. I was even baptized there.
The canal ran from the head gate at the Colorado River about three miles to the pump from where he irrigated approximately 1000 acres.
There are still BLM administrators that marvel that he was able to get the water in the canal to run uphill from the river to the pump. See Jeff for the details. He is the Cibola historian and has done a great job of chronicling the Arnett history there.
This Guy Started It All
You can thank this guy, Grandpa Thomas William Arnett, for who you are. Without him, most of you wouldn't be members of the Church and wouldn't be married to whom you are or marry whom you eventually will. He was the first Arnett to be baptized after he married Annie Gale in Bisbee, Arizona. He came out of Texas while Annie Gale came out of Utah after her family joined the Church in Australia and then migrated to Zion. The Gale family story and the Arnett stories really are very, very interesting. You should ask your parents about them.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Let Them Speak
We have had some feedback wondering why we don't drop the music so we can hear what they are saying on the movie. Here is a little historical lesson for those of you born after 1970. When these movies were shot, there was no sound available with the 8mm format. Since then there have been many technological advances like toothpaste, deodorant and electric showers (only in Northern Ireland).
I Have No Comment...
We are having trouble with allowing comments to the different posts, other than the first we did. This post is a test to see if we resolved the issue.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
You'll Find Your A.S.S. In Your Genes
Let's start with Howard and Ethel. That would be your father and mother for some and your grandfather and grandmother for most.