A Christmas to Remember Every Christmas

It was one month past our first wedding anniversary and Christmas morning.  As struggling college students, we had spent our year together literally banking on the saying, “Two can live as cheaply as one,” and now that we had a new, one month old baby, we were hoping to stretch that to three.  While I was growing up my mom always used to say, “We’re so poor, we can’t pay attention.” Starting my own little family, we were that poor too.

Most couples had gone home for the holidays, or at least to relatives nearby, but being from Alaska, we made a Christmas for our little family in our apartment.  Having little to give others, we decided to give our Christmas dinner away to the only young couple we knew of who was poorer than we were. However, making this delivery anonymously was going to require planning, luck, and athleticism.  Their apartment was in a building where the front door opened into a long hallway. 

With my wife waiting outside in the getaway car, I carefully set the box of food in front of their door, knocked very loudly, then shot down the hall in a flat out run.  As I reached the stairs at the end of the hall, I heard their door open.  I knew my only chance to not be seen was to leap the entire flight of stairs, so I did a weird jump — crouched over so as to be as low as I could be as I took to the air.

I almost made it.

My right foot hit the last step and I rolled my ankle and crashed in a heap on the landing below the stairs.  I popped up and hopped at hyper speed for the outside door, crossed the icy sidewalk and dove into the car and my wife sped off for home.

I hobbled up the stairs to our apartment thinking to myself, “It is amazing how good you can feel with a severely sprained ankle.”

We could hear the telephone ringing as we unlocked the door.  It was this couple.  “Rats!” I thought.  “He saw me!“

“Merry Christmas, Tom,” he said.

My wife looked at me as if to ask, “Who is it?” I pantomimed that it was this couple.  She gasped.

“Are you enjoying your Christmas dinner?” he asked.

“Why would he ask that?” I thought to myself.

We were so busted, but I tried to play it cool. “Actually, we haven’t had dinner yet,” I said.

“That’s what I thought,” he replied.

My wife whispered to me, “Do they know?” I nodded yes.

“Guess what?” He continued.  “Someone just left a whole Christmas dinner at our door, all cooked up, turkey and everything!”

“Really?” I said, wiping the sweat from my palms.

“Yeah, that’s why we’re calling you.  You guys are the only couple we know of that is poorer than we are, so we were wondering if you wanted to come over and have dinner with us.”

As we entered their apartment bearing the apple pie we held back for ourselves and still unsure if they suspected us, he asked me, “Tom, what happened to your leg?!”

“I cut myself shaving,” I joked.

That was exactly 20 years ago this Christmas.  I don’t remember many of the Christmas gifts I’ve received since then, but I know I will never forget what we gave that Christmas day, and how it felt.

Putting Another Blog on the Fire

It started simply enough.

Pittmans.net was supposed to be our family website, a place for sharing photos, disseminating news and keeping in touch with our loved ones around the world.

Blog907 (.com and .net) was for sharing comments on current events, particularly those of interest to those who live in area code 907: Alaskans.

Then life happened and we found ourselves in area code 801 (Utah) instead!

So, as of today, Blog907.net and Blog907.com have been put out to pasture, and their articles and comments have been migrated to TWO NEW BLOGS.

Blog801 (.com and .net) will continue from this point on and feature commentary on current events of local, national or global interest, including politics, news, sports, music and modern culture.

Journal.Pittmans.net will chronicle the adventures (yeah, I know I’m stretching it there) of the Pittman family.

So this post is the demarcation point. Everything before this post was Blog907; everything after this post is Blog801.

Nicky’s bear!

What would you do if you were walking around in your house and you came face to face with a bear? I can tell you what Nicky would do, because it just happened to her!

We had just arrived home from bringing our puppy to the vet when I got a call informing me Emily needed to be picked up. As the family got out of the car, I walked over to another car and drove back into town to get Em. While driving, my mobile phone rang and I began speaking to Nicky. Suddenly she gasped. The sound of her gasp sparked instant alarm inside me.

I asked what was wrong but Nicky didn’t answer. Then she blurted, “Oh! OH! Oh my GOODNESS!” I kept asking her if she was alright, but she didn’t say anything. Then she muttered, “Bear.”

“Did she just say ‘bear?’” I puzzled.

“Bear. Oh my goodness, there is a bear — a bear in our garage! Kids! There is a bear in our garage!”

While talking with me on the telephone, Nicky opened the door from the utility room to the garage, and found herself eye to eye with an Alaskan black bear! She was so close to it, she could have reached out and stroked it, and she would have hit it with the door had the bear not jumped back when the door started to open. The two of them stared at each other for a moment, then Nicky went back into the utility room.

“What do I do?!” Nicky asked.

I told her to have the kids get their cameras and wait at the window for the bear to come out. I didn’t say what I thought was obvious … like, “And don’t let them go outdoors.” I guess I should have though. Some of the boys climbed out on to the roof of the house to see the bear and take photos. After a few minutes they figured they missed the bear and gave up. When 10 minutes or so had passed, Nicky went into the garage again, supposing the bear had long since left. Once again, Nicky unexpectedly found herself face to face with a bear. The bear looked up from eating our puppy’s dog food (from the bag) and stared at Nicky.

When the bear finally left, Nicky and Tommy went out to the car to get the puppy out of the kennel. Nicky banged pans together to scare off the bear if it was still close. The dog is usually quite keen to leave the kennel, but they couldn’t coax the dog out of the kennel. Then they looked up our driveway and saw the bear. The bear saw them too and went at them. They grabbed the dog and ran for the front door where Sam was standing with the door open, and promptly shut it behind them.

Gemma was sitting on the couch taking photos of the bear when the bear went onto our porch and pressed its face against our window, about 8 inches from Gemma’s face, leaving snot on the glass. The kids got some great photos and Josh camcorded it, but he accidentally put the camcorder in night vision mode and left it on, so most of the tape is in green and white. Nicky called 911, and I called a nearby neighbor who is a police officer, and he got there first and shot the bear with special cartridges that have bean bags in them. The bear looked annoyed and walked away. We have seen the bear back around our house in the the days since.

While the whole thing ended up to be a fun adventure, it was actually quite dangerous. This is what is known as a “nuisance bear.” It isn’t properly afraid of people. Had the bear bumped the glass harder, it could have broken through and harmed the family.

While I am tempted to turn this story into a life lesson here in this blog, I think I’ll just leave it at this for awhile, and thank my Father in Heaven that my wife has such a great head on her shoulders.

Stopping the Bull

The great philosopher, Anonymous, once said, “Thinking that life should treat you fairly because you are a good person is like thinking a bull shouldn’t charge you because you are a vegetarian.”

Someday I may blog on the lies of liars and the incredible incompetence of those who should have protected our family from them, but probably not. Obviously life is not fair, and apparently it is not even meant to be.

If this life was about fairness, no child would ever be harmed, and all ice cream would be calorie-free.

However, one good thing about injustice is that it forces you to take directions with your life you otherwise would not have chosen, even if God wants you to. Take, for example, Joseph of the Old Testament. If it wasn’t for the cruelty of Joseph’s own family, Joseph would never have gone to Egypt to prepare for an impending famine that would have surely annihilated the children of Israel.

Joseph may not have appreciated the injustices he suffered as he suffered them, but in the end he saw the astonishing love and wisdom of God’s will. Thanks to those very injustices, and Joseph’s great attitude and faith, Joseph found himself in a position to save his family.

As we were online booking flights to Indiana to look at houses, we received a couple of childish, mean-spirited emails. As a policy I keep others innocent to how some people treat me, in the supremely naive hope that keeping above pettiness may one day pave a path to better relations. So without disclosing specifics, what the emails said in essence is that these people currently have no desire to live any gospel principle which might result in things getting better between us, and in children living happier lives.

Conversely, Nicky and I are all about helping our children have happier lives, so we prayed and felt inspired to book flights to Utah instead. You know what? Our family learned that Utah is a surprisingly superb place to holiday.

Then we realized that relocating to Provo or Orem might be a shrewd move. Nicky and I are the parents of 7 children, including 6 teenagers. We have a daughter there at the university now, and we will have two more children going to school there after this coming school year. In fact, the Provo / Orem area is where all of our children want to go to school.

With all of our children headed to the same area, and perhaps someday some grandchildren as well, moving makes sense. And in a fervent companionship prayer, Nicky and I learned that our Heavenly Father agrees.

So, less than 7 days after sitting down to book flights to Indiana to look at houses, we purchased a house in south Orem, Utah. Below is a photo album of the new house in Utah. Click “Play” or the gold colored arrows to view photos of the house.

Life isn’t fair, even for good people, and even vegetarians get charged by bulls… but try not to let yourself worry too much about it.

“Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good, if ye walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith ye have covenanted one with another.” (D&C 90: 24).

Joseph explained to his brothers how life works for those who keep their attitudes well and place their faith in Christ:

“But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” (Genesis 50:20)

Is Terre Haute the place to go?

I am considering moving my family to Terre Haute, Indiana so I’m doing research. Look what Wikipedia says about Terre Haute, Indiana:

• Comedian Steve Martin calls Terre Haute, “the most nowhere place in America” and “the armpit of America”. In his movie, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, actor and writer Steve Martin has the town destroyed by Nazis using cheese mold.

• In 1955, Terre Haute was labeled Sin City by the monthly magazine, Stag. Although Terre Haute has had different nicknames (“The Crossroads of America,” for one), “Sin City” seemed to be its most popular moniker for several decades.

• The city also developed a reputation for being “wide open”, with gambling and a well-developed “Red Light District” only recently cleaned up.

• Terre Haute is notorious in and around the Midwest for its distinct bad odor which is the result of local industry (specifically a paper plant and a poorly located sewage treatment facility).

• Businessman Kevin Burke was elected the city’s mayor in 2003 and vowed to make cleaning up the city’s smell — and image – one of his administration’s top priorities.

• During the second decade of the 20th Century, Terre Haute was rocked by political scandal and that reputation persisted for several decades.

• As the coal mines were spent, and the importance of the railroads declined, the town is now labeled a “bad labor town”.

• It was recently called “A Model of Stagnation” by The Indianapolis Star.

• The city is known to have one of the highest per-capita number of restaurants in the nation. Most of these are chains, however. [For example, Anchorage which has a population of 277,000, has 36 fast food places according to Superpages.com. The 60,000 people of Terre Haute have 53 fast food places, including 6 McDonald's, 6 Burger Kings, 6 Subways, 4 Arby's, 4 Dairy Queens, 4 Long John Silvers, 4 Wendy's, 3 Taco Bells, 3 Hardees. The 53 fast food places does not include places like Applebees, IHOP, Dennys, etc. which they also have plenty of.]

• Terre Haute is the location of a large Federal prison which is the location of the United States Government’s Death Row. Timothy McVeigh was put to death at Terre Haute in 2001 for carrying out the Oklahoma City Bombing.

• A local hotel brags that it is a place where Al Capone used to stay.

I’m sure all that is accurate, but what it was, and what it is, isn’t necessarily what it can be.

I have been visiting with good members of the church in Terre Haute, some of whom have lived there most of their lives, and I am honestly excited about the prospect of moving there — more so than Nicky is at the moment!

“But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.” (Doctrine and Covenants 9:8)

These next days will be (pardon the oxymoron) filled with fasting, and we certainly will be “studying it out” in our minds. But above all, we will be asking Father if it be right.

The important thing is how would living there affect and shape our family?

And after that, how would living there shape and affect the youth and others of Terre Haute with whom we would associate? Can we be a force for good there? Or would it be like throwing a white glove in the mud in an attempt to get the mud “glovey”?

I have the faith that we will be guided in the best thing to do for our family; this is too important a decision, and children are too precious in His sight for it to be otherwise.

Heavenly Daughter, Are You Really There?

Saturday, May 6, 2006. Today my eldest daughter became someone else’s girl.

I knew this day would come. Over the years I would sometimes think about this day, usually as I watched other people marry off their daughters. But for the most part, I tried not to think about it. I didn’t want to think about it. How could I? I used to miss her when I left the house to play basketball with the guys for a few hours, how much would I miss her when she leaves to play house with a guy forever?

No matter how hard I tried not to think about this day though, still, today was nothing like I ever thought it would be.

Of the countless memories I share with this precious person, tonight one stands out.

Jessica, Tommy, Caleb and I were pushing a shopping cart through Costco in Anchorage when we came upon a former coworker. This person had deliberately harmed me in a very serious way with false accusations, but when I saw her, I had honestly forgotten that momentarily. I approached this former coworker with a warm, friendly greeting. The woman was clearly shocked then apprehensive, and that is when I remembered what she had done to me.

Our conversation was nice but brief, and when the woman was out of earshot, the kids asked me who she was. When I told them, I saw three different reactions on the faces of my three children.

Caleb looked surprised and then slightly scared, and looked at the woman as if to make sure she were moving away from us.

Tommy’s look was one of unrestrained admiration and he said, “Wow! I can’t believe you were nice to her!”

Jessica though, she looked mad at me. “I can’t believe you, dad!” she said, “I could never forgive someone who did that to me.”

I said that I hope she was wrong about that.

I have always tried to teach my children the importance of forgiveness, both by word and by example. However, I’m pretty sure my children have no idea how hard that has been at times for me. Maybe because, so far, I have been successful at forgiving others, they think it is always an easy thing for me. I wish that were true.

Many are the nights where rest never came, where all the injustice of my life erupted like lava inside me and flowed from my eyes and down my face for hours, only to subside then erupt again. Of the trials we face in life, few are as lonely as being falsely accused. Everyone smugly rushes to believe that “where there is smoke, there is fire,” even when we all know that just “friction” can produce smoke as well.

But you have to forgive those who wrong you, and those who judge you for your supposed sins.

“Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin.

“I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.

“And ye ought to say in your hearts—let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds.” (D&C 64:8-11.)

A lot gets said about the importance of unconditional love in relationships. Not enough gets said about unconditional forgiveness. Then again, what is unconditional love, if it isn’t forgiveness?

As Latter-day Saints, we need to remember that the atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ, doesn’t just wash us from our sins, it washes those who have wronged us from their sins as well.

On this, her wedding day, I think back to some of the hard learned lessons I have learned about marriage and wonder if there is anything more important I could have taught my daughter than forgiveness, and I wonder if she has grown enough now to never tell herself she couldn’t forgive someone.

In an imperfect world, it is just a matter of time before imperfect people behave imperfectly. Without forgiveness, you cannot keep a relationship alive and healthy. And without a true and complete humility, you cannot truly and completely forgive.

Anyway, as my mind keeps chasing sleep from me tonight, I guess I find myself fixing potholes on Memory Lane. Was I a good enough dad? Even as she becomes someone else’s girl, I want my baby girl back.

Today is one of the happiest days of my life, even if I don’t know it yet.

I love you, Jessica Rose Johnson.