The day of David

(I was about to call this post "David Day" meaning a day that was for David -- but then we know a person with the name David Day, so that was weird. So "The Day of David" instead.)

Before leaving to visit David and his family, Josie and Rachel needed to say goodbye to their hosts for Sunday night, Lavon and Dennis.

Lavon sent me this picture of the two of our girls with two of her granddaughters, Miley and Sadie Adams, daughters of her daughter Heather, who has been a close friend/cousin to Nancy during their growing-up years. Miley is wearing the hat, beside Josie, and Sadie is beside Rachel.

While they were enroute to Airdrie, to visit David, their “check engine” light came on. That is no fun!!

The first picture I received from Josie was this cute picture of Rachel holding her little baby cousin Chloe! Aren’t they so cute!?

Then I had to wait for more photos!! It is hard living vicariously through others—so much waiting! But it was worth the wait. David sent lots of photos.

Josie has a turn holding Chloe:

     

Millie got in on the action:

 They went out for lunch somewhere. Millie was the photographer for this photo of David sandwiched between Rachel and Josie. I am impressed with Millie's mad skills clicking the button on the phone! Pretty great for a girl who is almost five!

These ice cream enjoying photos of Ethan are adorable!! Well, he is adorable, and these are good photos of his adorableness!

Then David led the girls to a Canadian Tire, so they could check out the reason for the “check engine” light to come on. I was a bit annoyed because Josie messaged me that some Andrew said to take it there, where the diagnosis was going to cost $287! Which I knew would happen because my check engine light in the KIA used to come on all the time—if I went over a bump, if I got gas and the gas cap was a tiny bit not tight enough—and I knew not to go to Canadian tire. I told Josie “If the check engine light is flashing, then it is a problem. If it is a steady light, it isn’t.” (Because Google told me that.) And she responded, “It’s not flashing, but Andrew is her dad so we are doing what he said.” OHHHH!!! THAT Andrew!! Oh, silly me.

However, they at least knew what was wrong—“We learned that the car is running cool. Like something is not right so it’s running more coolant. So it will need something replaced but we are fine. And also both brake lights were out.”  That is good to know—they could get a ticket for not having working brake lights. So it was good to get that fixed.

And as for David, he took his children back home, where they immediately set up the Hot Wheels track that was David’s when he was small! Which I fortunately FOUND so it could get taken on the trip!

They hooked it up to a newer Hot Wheels set:

I am so glad they all got to be together! If only for awhile, getting together is so good. 

Three Provinces

 When Josie and Rachel started planning their (extended) Labour Day weekend trip to Alberta, they looked at maps, of course, and noticed that Grassy Lake is pretty close to Saskatchewan, and that Banff, a place Rachel particularly wanted to go, was very close to British Columbia, so they decided to make it their goal to at least set foot in all three of the western provinces. And they achieved their goal!

I already talked about their Friday on the farm, but I did not say that Josie got to drive the combine! Rachel did not--they each rode along with different farm drivers, and Byron let Josie drive, while Craig did not suggest such a thing to Rachel. (While Rachel is probably a more experienced driver than Josie is--driving to Athens from Peach Tree Corners in freeway traffic a couple of times a week for several years--Josie did spend part of a summer working on the farm, and they would throw her the keys to the truck and tell her to run and do this or that, and so Byron had that experience with Josie, while this was Rachel's first time on the farm since she was 11 years old.)

Saturday, they drove to Medicine Hat, and then on to Saskatchewan--since I was stalking them on "Find my" I think they got close to Maple Creek, so they went a few miles into Saskatchewan, but it is mostly just prairie, scenery wise there, and then they turned around and went back to Elkwater Lake which is in Alberta, but in a BC/Sask shared provincial park, Cyprus Hills Interprovincial Park.  It is beautiful there--a green oasis that arises out of the prairie with trees in abundance. 

One year we drove there, Bruce and I with Patrick, Josie and Rosie, and we entered Saskatchewan through the park road, which was pretty terrible, and in fact it is recommended by the park that you not drive that way, so I passed that recommendation on to Josie and Rachel. I know we took "Welcome to Saskatchewan" pictures then, but can I find them? A-ha! July of 2017! They are in that post. Our welcome sign was old and wooden on that off-road trail we drove through.

For Josie and Rachel, it was the official Trans Canada Highway welcome to Saskatchewan sign:

Josie sent me this picture, and I asked "was the sky alive?" so she sent me some sky pictures.

Beautiful!! Here are some more pictures, to prove the point that Rachel was also there:

Notice all those stickers on the sign top right above Rachel's head? Why would people do that? Like, is it YOUR sign to put stickers on? No, it is not. (Remember this picture for later!)

And Josie sent me one photo from Elkwater, the lake in Cyprus Hills Interprovincial Park.

So, that was their Saturday visiting Saskatchewan day, for us all to live vicariously by looking at the photos.

Sunday morning, they grabbed a photo opportunity with their kind hosts and cousins, the Eric and Jocelyn Torrie Family. They had set a timer, so everybody was not totally ready, but hey, they are all there, present and accounted for.

I thought they got a bit of a late start on Sunday morning, since they wanted to get to Banff! But it was not my trip, so I have no say in the matter!

Josie sent the family High River pictures, so clearly they spent a bit of time there. First, the Happy Face Barn!

The lakes, but I don't know if this picture is of Emerson or Sunshine:

And the house of our children's growing up years in High River, 908 16th Street. It was a good house. Probably my second favorite, because the house we live in now is my favorite. 

Looks like it was a bit rainy--Josie said it was more a mist than a rain.

And then they were on their way to Banff. And Josie drove all the way from Grassy Lake to Lake Louise. (So I said, from Colleen Louise (since she is usually in Grassy Lake, though not this year since she is in Cebu) to Lake Louise, courtesy of Josie Louise!)

And here they are at Lake Louise!

Isn't this a lovely picture of Josie and Rachel enjoying their mountain surroundings?

So, remember the stickers on the top corner of the "Welcome to Saskatchewan" sign? Well...the "Welcome to British Columbia" sign takes stickering to a whole new level.

It is so sticker-covered, you can't even read the sign!! Rachel is NOT impressed...

But sometimes you just have to laugh at the absurdity of things!

And goal reached! Made it to the third of three provinces--and they just had to drive back to Okotoks a few hours away, where they were spending the night with Lavon, our cousin.

Monday to Friday

 What has happened this week? Quite a lot!

I will start with my dream on the night of Sunday to Monday...on Saturday, I had done a lot of work in the house (and yard) and was looking while cleaning downstairs for David's old Hotwheels Loop-de-loop from the late eighties. Our children have had a lot of fun with it, and also grandchildren, and now David's car/truck-obsessed son is almost three, and David thought it would be fun to have his Hotwheels set for Ethan. AND I COULD NOT FIND IT!! I asked Nancy, Patrick, and Josie when they had last seen it, or if I had even maybe given it to Nancy, which I did not think I would do because it was David's...and their last memory of it was in the other house. I knew that it was in a laminating film box that I got when I worked in the IMC when we lived in High River, when the box it came in was too broken to continue using. Anyways, since the girls were leaving to Canada on Wednesday, I needed to find it!! I was praying about it, and then I dreamed I found it!! Hurray! Dream me was so happy. I just needed to get a ladder and shimmy across the attic floor...

Then I woke up. I dreamed a house I had never seen before. No attic like that in this house!! Sigh. Not helpful. So I ordered a 1970s Hotwheels Loop thing online in hopes it would get here in time if I did not find David's set. (It arrived today, Saturday September 5.)

On Monday Sabrina, the new music cataloguing specialist, had her first day working at the library, and I was assigned to go to lunch with her in Janice's place, since Janice was away attending her uncle's funeral in Tennessee. Nick, who is Sabrina's assigned mentor, and Jeremy, who is the assistant university librarian over IT and Metadata (cataloguing, basically) also came along.

Monday evening I found David's Hotwheels set!! Hurray!! Now I will have an extra Hotwheels set which I can give to him another time! (The one I ordered did not come with a clamp, but you can still buy those separately, so I did. It works together beautifully, and is fully compatible with his 1980s set!)

On Tuesday, one of the viola students, Mason, (who also works for Janice as a student cataloguer with his desk beside Rachel's) emailed me to ask about finding the two viola sonatas by a British composer named Leonard Fowles. We don't have anything by him in our library, and since reference to his viola compositions are in a document called "British Viola Repertoire" by Valerie Dart, I recommended he contact her (giving him her email address--she lives in Australia) or perhaps Tully Potter (a rather famous music historian who consults for The Strad, among other things he does) whose email address I already shared with Mason in the past. But then I thought, maybe I can do some searching and see if I can find a British library that might have these in their archival holdings (there are no holdings in WorldCat, so maybe they are unpublished?) to suggest to him.

That resulted in me sending this email to Jeremy, the AUL referenced above, because he is trying to train us all on AI:

"Hi Jeremy,

 Just sharing this because it is so interesting…and disconcerting…

I do not think that we have the Leonard Fowles papers in our library, but in trying to help a patron find where these might be, I saw that the AI overview supplied by Google says:

 “The original music manuscripts and papers of the English violist, organist, and composer Leonard Nowell Fowles (1870–1939) are located at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. [1]

Specifically, they are preserved within the Primrose International Viola Archive (PIVA), which is housed in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections library inside the Harold B. Lee Library on the BYU campus. [1]

Collection Details

• Core Materials: The collection features his unpublished musical scores, which include important late-Victorian British string works such as his Viola Sonata No. 1 in G minor (1894) and Viola Sonata No. 2 (1896). [1]
• Provenance: Fowles' un-archived personal materials were gathered after his death from papers preserved by his contemporary, the prominent English violist Alfred Gibson, before ultimately being acquired by the university's specialized archive. [, 2]”

 I was just flabbergasted by this!! A great example of AI getting it wrong!!!

 The only reason I can find that makes any sense at all for this complete fabrication on the part of AI is that we have the list called “British Viola Repertoire” which was compiled by (a friend of mine) Valerie Dart in our collection, and Fowles is listed in that document. Which someone uploaded on the internet, too, but I don’t know how that would connect back to BYU Library?

 If you search in scholar search for his name, you get only false hits. If you search for his name in parentheses, you get no hits. We have NOTHING by this composer. So, Google’s AI is way off base."

He responded:  "Wow! That’s a crazy hallucination. I’m wondering if Google’s AI was making assumptions and false connections since the search was coming from a BYU IP address, BYU owns PIVA, and the long PDF that they referenced has Fowles and PIVA within the same document (even though they are many pages apart). It’s so hard when we lose all control of how data is used, interpreted, and displayed by these AI agents!"

Weirdly, when I tried asking the question again in a Google search (though I may have worded it slightly differently) the AI overview said there is no archive that holds Leonard N. Fowles materials. 

The Misinformation Age we are in.

Wednesday was the day Josie and Rachel left on their road trip. I had gotten Canadian cash, specifically ordered ahead of time because that is the way the banks here roll, and then I FORGOT TO GIVE IT TO THEM!! AARGH!!!

However, the important thing was, they made it safely to my niece Elizabeth's home in Rexburg, Idaho, where they were going to visit with her and spend the night. They left earlier in the afternoon specifically so they would have time for a good visit in the evening, because on Thursday Bridget, E's daughter, had an early morning dance practice (at 6:30 AM) and then Elizabeth had a choral practice starting at 9:00 AM, so Josie and Rachel planned to get up with Bridget and get an early start themselves on Thursday.

I told Josie to send me lots of pictures so I could live vicariously through her. She sent me two pictures from Elizabeth's house:

Thursday Actually, I spent both Wednesday and Thursday occasionally tracking on the "Find My" app to see where the girls were on their journey. I happened to look (on Wednesday) just as they were correctly taking the right lane to take them to Pocatello, instead of not noticing that and heading for Boise. I have made that mistake a time or two!! So I was happy to see their little blip heading in the right direction!

Also On Thursday, twice random students greeted me brightly and asked my name and where I was headed. Weird. A young man in the morning when I was headed to the library (and so was he) and a young lady in the afternoon when I was headed home (and so was she). 

Friday was Joe Everett's funeral, which so many library full time people attended that I don't think there were very many of us in the library! The students were running the library, which honestly they are well-equipped to do, and they do it every night from 5-11:45 and all day Saturday, so we were probably not even missed. It should be noted that also our university president and our academic vice-president attended the funeral and stayed for the whole thing, and it was fully 1.5 hours.

Adam, the linguistics librarian, drove his van and Janice and I and Bob and his daughter Rachel all rode with him. The funeral was very sad and very joyful, both. 

The speakers were Joe's younger brother Chad and his (Joe's) six children. They all shared wonderful memories of Joe. Joe was a true nerd, so the theme of the funeral was sort of "the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take"--a quote from Gandalf the White in LOTR. 

There was a lot of music. The Mapleton Chorale, of which Joe has been a member for many years, sang Baba Yetu. ("Baba Yetu", the hit theme to Civilization IV - composed by Christopher Tin and featured on the double Grammy-winning album 'Calling All Dawns'. First video game piece to ever win a Grammy award, for "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)". Performed by the Grammy-winning Soweto Gospel Choir with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Ron Ragin (ronragin.com) sings the solo.) During Joe's lifetime, he had been the soloist for this song when the Mapleton Choir performed it, but he was just listening for this performance, and another guy got to sing the solo. (Babu Yetu is a setting of The Lord's Prayer translated into Swahili, fyi.)

The family--several of Joe's children plus others--sang "Into the West" also from LOTR. Guitar and clarinet and voices. It was lovely. In The Lord of the Rings, "going into the West" means crossing the Great Sea to Valinor (also called the Undying Lands or Aman), the sacred realm where the gods (the Valar) and immortal beings dwell. Unsurprisingly given what a great vocalist Joe was, so were his children. 

This talented family also performed a nonet of "Come thou fount of every blessing" on strings -- one cello, and violins and violas. Nine guys, including one of Joe's brothers-in-law and sons and nephews. 

Joe had been born in Germany (his dad was in the military) and then returned to Germany as a young man. His three siblings all attended American school, but he had a goal to learn German, so he attended German school and insisted that his teacher NOT speak to him in English so that he had a fully immersive experience. And then he served a mission to Russia, so he became tri-lingual. 

Joe kept a diary for most of his life, and his children have been reading his diaries. Several of them read his diary for the year that they were born, and quoted from it. One of them quoted this, which was also printed on the funeral program--this was from a time in life when Joe and his sweet wife Judith were very concerned about a contemplated move: "...no purpose or plan that we make for ourselves would be greater than the plans that He (God) has laid for us. Thus, we should take joy in this, and let befall us whatever may befall us, knowing that if we love God, then whatever will befall us will be for our good."

There was much of acceptance and hope and faith and testimony about the funeral, and not doubt and despair. Still, I worry about Joe's sweet wife Judith--he only worked at BYU for 8 years before his wholly unexpected death. I hope she will be okay financially. I mean, if you quit after 8 years, you don't get retirement benefits. IDK what happens if you die too soon! We at the library gathered enough money to buy flowers and have enough leftover for a $550.00 gift card. I hope that will help.

Our car pool companions Adam and Bob had both been very concerned about it being past 12:30 when the funeral was over, past lunch time. We three women traveling with them assured them they could stop to eat, we were okay to stop or go, whatever! We stopped at a little cafe in Springville, Ginger's Garden Cafe, and I tried the apple-beet salad, and it was lovely. (I beyond tried it--I ate the whole thing!)

Josie called me from Alberta, a bit upset that there were too many kittens on the farm that were destined to die, and she could not rescue them!! And she sent me some lovely Alberta sunset pictures:

And some pictures of Colleen's grandsons playing:

I will end with sharing the soundtrack (if you click on this link) from TetherGeist, which is a video game, "combat-free, high-difficulty 2D precision platformer developed by O. and Co. Games and Out of Space Games." This game is by Joe's daughter Rachel (art), her husband Noah, and Jordan Ottesen (music). It was just released in May on Switch and Steam. (I did not learn this at the funeral. I learned this from his daughter's Facebook page which I stalked because I knew she was an artist and I wanted to learn more about it!) 

Books and Brent and Me

 It isn't the last day of the month yet, but I have finished nine books this month, and do not think I will finish another one before tomorrow, and I have time to write today, so I am going to go ahead and do my "Books Read" post for the month of August 2026.

However, first, for your viewing pleasure, a book cart that I came across in the library on Friday, at the fourth floor sorting shelves:

I had to go back to my office and get my phone so I could take a picture of it to send to Josie! Because her library director thinks just book carts are tacky, and he doesn't like them to be seen (like, they are standard in libraries!! does he ever go to any libraries? Seriously!) and I just wonder how he would react to this one!!

This one is honestly pretty tacky! I am not sure that my own library director would be happy about the state of this cart! This is the only cart like this in our library (that I have seen--we have hundreds of book carts) and I do not think that anybody except a shelver named Lali is decorating their carts quite this much.

Our stacks manager lets her student employees claim a cart, usually just with a sign that says something like "this cart belongs to Lali L; do not take" or words to that effect, so that when they come on shift there will be a cart for them to use. The rest of the carts are up for grabs. I personally go down to the west end of level four to borrow a cart on the regular, and always try not to take a personalized one, although I have been known to borrow one quickly if a personalized cart is the only one there. So, I get why they do it.  But Lali L. has taken personalization to a whole new level!!

Maybe my nine books (that I have read this month) would enjoy a ride on such a dazzling book cart!

1. The midnight library (2020) by Matt Haig was our book club chosen book for the month of August, so I read it first this month to be sure to finish it by the middle of the month. However, it was really good, so I read it quickly. The book, to quote Wikipedia is a  "speculative novel...about a woman who finds a mystical library between life and death to explore alternate versions of her life." It was a lovely read, and I recommend it. (The copy I read had a broken back, which I did not discover right away, but made it difficult to read in the middle--I finished it quickly and reported the problem at the library so the poor book could be fixed! But it was a sign that it had been used many times in its short life.)

2. Games Untold (2024) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes explored the Hawthornes as the other Inheritance Games novels do, but this one is short stories (and long stories, honestly)--eight in total. My favorites were the ones about Avery's mother and her relationship with Toby, and Avery's sister Libby and her relationship with the oldest Hawthorne brother, Nash. I like the story format, and these filled in bits and pieces about the characters in the books, so I enjoyed it.

3. Max in the land of lies: a tale of World War II (2025) by Adam Gidwitz, the sequel to the Max book I read last month. Max parachutes into Germany and begins his mission--the one assigned by his spy master in the UK, to gain entrance to the Funkhaus in Berlin, and the self-appointed mission to find his parents. Lots of suspense and intrigue in this well-written book.

4. The queen of poisons (2024) by Robert Thorogood--the title doesn't refer to a person, but to a plant, aconite, otherwise known as wolfsbane or monkhood, that was used to commit the murder that the team of Judith, Becks, Suzie and Tanika must solve. Aconite is fast-acting and lethal, hence is the queen to the king of poisons, arsenic. Another good mystery by Thorogood.

5. The last of August (2017) by Brittany Cavallaro--aargh. This book made me begin to dislike all of the Holmes family, most of whom I met in the first book in this series that I read last month. If this had been a movie, I would not have been able to sit down and watch it--my family knows what this means: I would have been up and down and in and out because too much too much for me--and I would have hated the ending. And I did hate the ending of the book, and I am not going to read any of the other books in this series. This one was too much for me.

6. Montgomery Bonbon: Murder at the Museuam (2023) by Alasdair Beckett-King takes the unlikely premise that a ten year old girl (Bonnie Montgomery) can fool people into thinking she is an old-man detective (Montgomery Bonbon) and thus solve mysterlies. A fun read with unlikely characters, written of course for younger readers. But this older reader still likes to read books written for younger readers.

7. Magic can't save us: Eighteen Tales of Likely Failure (2025) by Josh Denslow. I was staffing the fifth floor reference desk, and picked up this book from one of their book display shelves, and found it interesting enough to finish. My friend Lynn would approve of the title--she dislikes fantasy for this very reason: Magic can't save us! Not in real life. Each of the 18 stories introduces a magical creature or happening -- mermaid, poltergeist, harpies, dragon, unicorn, centaur, etc.--into already difficult situations. The Amazon blurb reads, "In these eighteen tales of likely failure, when a magical creature shows up, you know things are only going to get worse from there." Yup.

8. Ten little herrings (2015) by L.C. Tyler--second book in the Elsie and Ethelred series of which I read the first one last month. This book was super confusing to me. By the end I wasn't even sure if Elsie was really Elsie or if she was someone else, and same with Ethelred, which I thought was who they were. What? Since I have to interlibrary loan these titles, since our library doesn't have them, I am going to save the library money and not read more. 

9. The girls trip (2026) by Ally Condie was very good! Three friends, whose friendship was formed in a virtual book group during COVID, meet in real life for the first time. The reader is not completely in on the whys and wherefores: these are slowly revealed. For awhile nobody is sure about anything, and their friendship with each other and their outside relationships are sorely tested until you finally find out whodunnit! Recommend.

That was the books part of this post. Now on to the Brent part of the post. My cousin Brent, that is. (Link to his obituary.) I wanted to grab his picture from the obituary to put here, but on my new laptop, I don't know how to do it! You will have to go to the link to see how handsome young Brent was, since the picture at the link is of him young. Here he is old, with his wife LaPreal.

I was so happy to be able to virtually attend my cousin Brent's funeral via Zoom yesterday morning. (I notice from my brother's blog that he was also in attendance, but they didn't have it set up so that you could "see" who was there.) I appreciated the opportunity to get to know Brent better, even though it is too late in this life for me to sit down and have a good chat with him.

Brent is much older than me--he was born in 1940, so was 86 years old at the time of his passing. I have a memory of him visiting our family before he left to serve a mission, but that would have been 1959, and I doubt that I can really remember then because I was not yet two, so I think what I really have a memory of is a photo that was taken on that occasion--but I don't have that photo, so I can't prove it. 

And I have a memory of going with my parents to Brent's wedding reception when he and LaPreal got married. I was so excited to go to that reception, not because of Brent and LaPreal, honestly, but because my cousin Penny (or Pamela), Brent's younger sister, had had a baby boy and I wanted to see the baby. Well, Penny and LaDell, her husband were there, but no baby. So I asked Penny if she didn't bring the baby with her, and then she teared up and told me and my mom that the baby had died. Which we did not know!!

Two asides: 1. tell people things!! Then they don't ask hard questions, and you don't have to provide sad or awkward answers, in public places. If people know things, they can even help you to be more comfortable with hard things. 2. LaPreal. LaDell. I know. What are the odds of two such unusual La names popping up through marriage in the same family?

So--Brent's funeral. I learned so much about him!! What an awesome and amazing guy he was!! He was super quiet, like his father my Uncle Royal, but under that quiet was strength and dignity and kindness and testimony of Jesus Christ our Savior. I will just tell one story from the funeral because I want to remember it.

When Brent finished university, he got his first job as a teacher of speech and dramatic arts at the Ririe, Idaho High School. (That Brent was a thespian was also a surprise to me--but actually many quiet people shine on the stage, where they don't have to show off themselves, but someone else: a character.) All was going well until there was a discipline problem with a student, and that student told a lie in order to save himself. He said that Brent stabbed him with a pencil. It was his word against Brent's, and his father was a powerful man in the community, so he used his power, and Brent was fired from his teaching position. (Brent was lucky--if that had happened NOW-ish, it would have gone to court, and he could have ended up with legal charges too. Besides getting fired.)

Brent was, of course, devastated. It is a terrible thing to be falsely accused and unable to clear yourself of the accusations. He went into the wilderness to pray and had his own Enos experience which gave him the courage to go on, because he knew that the Lord is real and that he was seen and loved by the Lord. And go on Brent did, always providing for his family, mostly as a builder, but he never again was a teacher. 

But that is not the end of the story. One of his sons--I think maybe Bruce? (my brother tells me it was Kevin) the last speaker, but Brent has six sons, and I am not sure who is who. Anyways, this son (Kevin) had moved to Arizona from Idaho, and one day at a stake meeting at church, he met another man (older than he was) and they got talking, and realized they had both grown up in the same part of Idaho. It came out that the other man was born and raised in Ririe, so Brent's son said, "Oh! I lived in Ririe for awhile when I was about four years old. My dad was a teacher there." And...well, they had introduced themselves to each other, and so the Ririe man knew that Brent's son was a Hancock, and there weren't many Hancocks in Ririe, so...soon the other man left and that was the end of the conversation.

Well, this son of Brent began to notice that at stake meetings, this Ririe man was always avoiding him--like, it began to seem obvious, because if they were headed towards each other down a hall, this man would veer off somewhere, like every time. But one day, after about a year of avoidance, the Ririe man confronted Brent's son, and said, "I need to talk to you. I know who your father was. And I was the kid who got him fired." He admitted to Brent's son that as a young man trying to save his own skin from deserved discipline, he lied. He knew his dad had power in the community against which a young teacher could not stand. And now, as a grown man, this man was full of remorse for the wrong that he had done to Mr. Hancock. 

Ririe is a Mormon town. So the repercussions for Brent weren't felt just at the professional level, but also within the church community. There were hard feelings against him for his perceived attack with a pencil on a young man. Like, this was a big, life-changing ordeal for Brent in all areas of his life--work, home, church, community. Naturally, Brent moved his family--they moved to Idaho Falls. 

How wonderful for Brent and his family that they got to hear the end of that story! To know that the student who had lied admitted, at least to Brent's son, that it had been a lie! Nothing could change the difficulty that Brent endured because of the lie, and Brent had overcome that terrible event to the extent possible. But to have admission and asking for forgiveness happen--what a blessing!

So. I wanted to remember that story from Brent's life. There were other stories about his quiet goodness. I just grew in my admiration for and appreciation of my cousin Brent! Better late than never!!

One last thing!! The ME part! I have forgotten to post about my latest scholarly publication. I wrote in July 2024 about my first meeting with the editors of Scholarly Editing for the micro-edition I was working on of ballet teacher Jo Anna Kneeland's work. Well, it was finally published on July 24 this year. This link takes you to the list of issues: https://scholarlyediting.org/issues/ of which the 2026-07-24 issue is at the top, but it won't always be. Click on that and it takes you to the contents page of the issue. Mine is the third, The Amazing Kneeland Methodology. When you click on the title, it takes you here, which is my introductory essay about the edition. To get to the edition itself, you need to click on the words The Amazing Kneeland Methodology in the box above my essay, labeled Edition Contents. Or click here. That link is what Jo Anna Kneeland wrote, and which me and three editors and two copy editors edited. That was a lot of work!! Fully two years!! It was so hard to get permission, because Jo Anna's only son, although he is ten years younger than me, has residual damage from a stroke and has aphasia, so if I would send him an email, by the next day he forgot. It was "Fifty First Dates" only with trying to obtain permission to publish! (If you have not seen that movie, do! It is so good!)

Beginnings and Endings

 We are reaching the ending of August, which means the beginning of September is coming! And the last week of August on campus is the week of University Conference.

Monday we had the general session, which I walked to with Janice and Colette and Rachel. The speaker was Gerrit Gong, who I have posted about before. I really like him and the things he has to say. Then, the faculty session I sat with Nicole Becca, and Janice then found us and we sat together. And then I had to wait around for the session for department chairs (we were in the Music Building for both of those meetings) where I sat with Becca. That session was just a Q and A. Seems like it is always the same people with the Qs! (And of course, the same people with the As--the president and various vice presidents.)

People come to campus at this time of year, bringing their kids to school, or having a last week of holidays. This can mean visitors for me, and this happened for me on Tuesday!

A man and two of his children came--he looked vaguely familiar, and turned out to be the husband of one of our students, Megan, who worked for us a long time ago. Like 25 years ago to maybe 20 years ago. So that was fun. Megan did not come with them because she just had her ninth baby three weeks ago! His name is Gideon, and his older brother Elijah, the one who came with his dad, is maybe 21 years old. Since they are a half Japanese family who have lived in Japan, I introduced them to Tim, in the office next door, who is the Asian Studies Librarian, and who might be a good contact for Elijah, who is majoring in Japanese. The dad (I think his name is Micah--but I never really knew him super well, so I don't want to write that in stone) showed me a picture of their entire family including the new baby, and I wish I had asked him to send it to me. But I didn't. And I didn't ask to take a picture with them because none of them are actually Megan!

Megan was also good friends with my nephew Craig--they worked together in Book Repair. 

In the afternoon of Tuesday, along came John...

That reminded me of a song:

and then along came John tall thin John
Slow walking John
(Deep voice)
Slow talking John along came long lean lanky, John

Those lyrics remind me of our former student, because he is a long lean lanky John! Only--all these years I thought it was John, but it is actually Jones!! How did I not hear that?

So John came and we had a wonderful visit, and then I took him to visit Elizabeth, because I knew that she would be sad to miss seeing him! She has been very supportive of his work on the musicals he has written with Lauren Laws, who she also knows. They took their musical Barbara (and Kenneth) to the Fringe Festival in Ireland two years ago, and it has had an off-off-Broadway run, and they are gearing up for an off-Broadway run. Elizabeth was so excited to see John!

We walked into the LAO where her office is, and the people in the office said, "I think Elizabeth is busy this afternoon..." I kept walking and said, "Oh, I think she will make an exception for John..."

And she popped right out of her office as soon as she saw him and gave him a big hug. Then she called her next appointment (happened to be Kellie, my department assistant) and asked for ten minutes. We probably took fifteen, including me asking one of the students to take our picture together.

John is off to West Virginia to be an innkeeper for a minute. While he works on music. So lovely to see him!

Wednesday was our Library Conference day. It was held up South Fork of Provo Canyon, which is where my dad's family is literally from, but at a place called Trefoil Ranch, which probably was not called that in my dad's day. Kellie and I just drove up for the awards ceremony and the lunch. (Both Tim and Robert from our department received faculty awards. I knew about Tim's because I nominated him, but I didn't know about Robert's, which was based on his cataloguing, and I am only his chair when he wears his Subject Liaison hat.) Then we came back to work.

And today was Thursday, and when I got to work this morning, I opened my email and read: 

"Dear Library Colleagues,

I’m writing to share some very sad news with you. Yesterday afternoon, Joe Everett passed away unexpectedly. He had been paddleboarding at Deer Creek Reservoir with our colleagues Quinn Galbraith and Trevan Hatch, and while sitting on the beach he seems to have had a heart attack or pulmonary embolism. He died quickly and peacefully. Quinn was able to bring Joe’s car and belongings to his home and visit with and minister to Joe’s wife Judith and their teenage son.

I’m in contact with campus administration, who will be coordinating with the Missionary Department (Joe was family history librarian, so worked with a bunch of senior missionaries) and the Commissioner’s office to handle some of the administrative details that will need attention, and Elizabeth and Lety and I will be working together to manage internal matters."

Having fun after the library conference has been a "thing" for many years. For a long time, there were a lot of golfers, and people would go to the golf course after. This year, these three librarians decided to go to Deer Creek Resevoir to go paddleboarding. This is what happened:

All three were in the water, and then after, Joe stayed on the shore while the other two went out again. They were close enough that they were in actual conversation with Joe (probably shouting a bit, because they were also out a ways in the water), when he slumped over suddenly. They quickly made their way to shore, and Quinn, who has substantial first aid training, got to work on Joe. 

Miraculously, there was also a group of police and EMT at the lake on a training exercise, eight of them, so they ran over and took over. They worked on Joe, but to no effect--whatever the medical event was, it was a very quick thing. 

Having those EMTs there was good for Quinn's morale, because he doesn't have to feel like he "didn't do enough"--because even eight professionals could not save Joe. 

But it was Quinn's sad duty to drive Joe's vehicle and take his belongings back home to his wife and son, and stay to give some comfort.

I will miss Joe--I worked with him over the music microfilm, because all of the micro formats have to be in the Family History Library where the readers are. My colleague Tim, my next door office neighbor, has not had a lot of experience with death, and it hit him hard. He and Joe had been working a lot on Asian genealogy projects. And Joe was about 52, while Tim is 55. Close in age. It is very sobering.

Some of my earliest memories are about death and funerals--my Aunt Zilpha, my grandpa, attending funerals in Taber with my parents while my siblings were in school and I was still at home. So I guess I am a bit used to it. But--it is still sad and hard. They cancelled all meetings today in the library and held a little support group (serving the food that was meant to be served at meetings that were cancelled) and that was nice of them. 

Joe was a fun guy. He sang with a choir--I think the Mapleton Chorale, maybe. He built a Hobbit House in his backyard for his children. Clearly he was sporty, too. Joe will be missed. A lot. 

Oh--and also my cousin Brent died on August 21, and I found out on Sunday, the 23rd. Another ending or beginning depending on perspective. 

August 22, 2026

Another hot week. Last week I thought "Hurray! Things are cooling off a few degrees." But no. Still very hot, low 100s, and one morning it was 79F when I got up at 6 AM. So not fall weather. Definitely still summer weather.

This week, one of my librarian friends (Rachel) arranged for a "Ladies of Research and Learning" lunch at the Cannon Center. It was actually really fun. We are going to do it again in a few months.

Heather, Marinda, Tonya, Cassandra, Jamie then across the table to Paulee, Bethany, Toni, Maggie. Then go back to me then Jennifer and Cindy, then at the back right Teresa, new science girl whose first name I forget, but Margetts is her last name, Meg; then the last row of standers are Betsy, Rachel and Suzanne.

In other news, Rachel (my granddaughter, not my friend Rachel) got her first haircut of her life that was not done by her mother. Instead, another mother of six children, Janice, also well-experienced in the art of the haircut, cut Rachel's hair. Yes, Rachel's boss cut her hair. This is what happens when your boss is a family friend!

Ready, set...

Go! Janice forgot to bring her hairclips down to the kitchen, so she enlisted Rachel to hold the hair of the layer that would have been in a clip. 

I did not take a picture at the end of the haircut, though. But trust me, it looks great. The same as it was, only shorter.

Weekly Recap

Well, apparently autumn really is in the air!! We had a terrific rain storm last night, and cooler weather all day today, and it looks like it will be a cooler night!! I am very thankful about this!!

And I got my new computer, and look at me, I am on my blog! Everything seems to be working just fine--my fears were unnecessary, apparently.

Josie and I took Miriam and her luggage to the airport on Tuesday. Josie insisted (probably correctly!) that she was the only one who could wrangle those heavy bags of Miriam's. Rachel stayed behind to meet up with her Arabic 102 class and get in some more studying before the final exam on Wednesday morning.

We took pictures before leaving for the airport:

I thought they looked way too happy! So this was the next pose. I mean, they are not going to see each other for at least 20 months! 

Then Josie took a picture with me in it:

And I took a picture with Josie in it. (I took a couple, but caught Rachel with her eyes closed every time. Sorry!)

It was fun to have Miriam in our home for a few weeks!

I wondered if maybe Rachel might go to her room and cry a little bit after we left with Miriam (I would have!!) but she assures me that she did not. She can be very stoic.

Then, on Thursday, it was time for me to say goodbye to my research assistant, Megan, who is off to Indiana University for three years, where she is accepted into a double master's program--musicology and library science. She has been a really great student to work with, and she will be missed on the fourth floor of the library!

Megan gave me a very sweet little card, pink because she knows I like pink! (Navy blue envelope.)

That was very sweet of Megan! Here is another picture of us just to finish off the post.