Angels Game

House Guest

I remember one time when we lived in Riverside that we had a guy spend a few days at our house.  The missionaries were teaching him the discussions and helping him get is life on track.  Dad wanted to help out so he offered to let him stay at our house for a few days.  I don't think the kids were ever told anything else about why he was staying with us.  We were just told that he had a hard life, and that he needed a place to stay for a few days. 

This man was trying to quit smoking.  We didn't see him smoke, but we could tell that he did by the way he smelled.  I don't remember the man's name, but he had really long brown hair and maybe some facial hair.  I remember that he brought very little with him besides some old clothes and his guitar.  He stayed back in one of the bedrooms at the back of the house that was sometimes an office. 

We thought it was fun to have a stranger stay with us.  Especially a stranger that was so different from our normal house guests.  We would talk to him a lot and ask him a lot of questions.  We thought he was so interesting.  I think he enjoyed spending time at our house and I'm pretty sure he wasn't too annoyed by all of our questions.  I don't remember seeing this man again, so I'm not sure what happened to him.  From this experience I learned that we should help the missionaries even when it isn't convenient for us, and that we should love and take care of others even if they are very different from us.  

Helping Tanner Sleep

Tanner was not a very good sleeper as a baby.  Some nights he would go to sleep only if you were driving him around in the car.  When Dad would take Tanner out for a drive to put him to sleep at night, he would bring me along to spend time with me.  I always had a lot of fun getting this alone time with Dad, and enjoyed feeling like I was helping to take care of my little brother.  We would play this game where he would have me close my eyes while he was driving.  Every few minutes he would have me guess where we were.  I got pretty good at directions doing this because I had to pay such close attention and memorize all of the streets by our house.

Thumb Tack

It's funny that Spencer just posted about a few memories from Dad, because Heidi just barely sent me a message reminding me of one my few memories of Dad that she remembers me telling her.  It's probably because it was Father's Day.

Anyway, I remember one day I was being particularly obnoxious and I kept singing "Give Said the Little Stream." I was at the kitchen table singing this while Dad was working on grading homework. He asked me politely to stop singing and I kept on singing.  He asked me again and I continued to obnoxiously sing. The third time he yelled at me.  I, being a particularly sensitive child, cried and ran to my room.  Not too long after, Dad came to my room to apologize for yelling at me.  I must not have had a tidy room (shocker, right?) and there was a tack on the floor.  He stepped on the tack, and left the room yelling about it, instead of finishing his apology.

After reading Spencer's posts about Dad always taking advantage of teaching moments, I realize that's probably why he was in there.  I think Dad also wanted to make sure that I knew that he still loved me.

Punishment

When we got in trouble, which wasn't uncommon, Dad would send us to our rooms.  After we had spent some time in our rooms calming down, he would tell us we could come out.  He would always hold us in his lap, say how much he loved us and that he was sorry that he had to punish us.  These were some of the times that I most felt how much he loved me.  I knew that he really felt bad about punishing me, and that he did it for my own good.  This sequence happened every time I got in trouble with one exception.  I don't know why he didn't come get me this one time.  He probably got busy with something around the house.  I remember sitting in my room waiting for him to come say he loved me and to comfort me, but he never came.  I kept waiting and waiting and was crushed when he didn't come.  Him not coming was worse than the original punishment.  I hesitate to share this experience because I worry that it casts a bad light on Dad when my intent is completely the opposite.  I share this experience to show that I came to expect constant love and words of comfort from Dad because that is what he nearly always provided.

Wrestling

Dad wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty when playing with us kids.  He really loved to wrestle with us.  He would often take us all on at once which we thought was a lot of fun.  Because he had only one arm, he would use legs quite a bit when wrestling all of us.  He would wrap his legs around one or two of us so we couldn't move at all.  We would all just be rolling all over the place.  I remember one time in particular that the boys were having so much fun wrestling that even Ashleigh wanted to join in.

Violence at Chino High School

Dad taught at Chino High School which was kind of a rougher part of town.  Dad coached tennis during most of his time there.  I remember one day after work, he showed me a tennis ball that had been sliced almost completely in half.  One of his players had hit the ball over the fence into the street.  Apparently, somebody had picked it up, pulled a knife out of their pants and sliced through the ball before throwing the ball back over the fence.  I remember being slightly afraid for Dad's safety after this.  I could imagine some thugs just hanging out on the street right by where Dad was coaching all afternoon, and this kind of scared me.

I remember one other time there was a big fight at his school.  A lot of people got involved in the fight and there was a big group watching.  Dad and another teacher who was a pretty big guy stepped in to break it up.  This sounds weird, but I remember somebody was trying to use a large stapler as a weapon.  I think the other teacher got roughed up a little bit, but Dad didn't get too hurt.

Teaching Moments

I remember that Dad always took any chance he had to teach us.  He would try to teach us during moments we would be teachable, and would often refer to experiences from his own life to teach us.  When a teaching moment would arise, he would pull us aside individually.  He always spoke in such a quiet and calm voice that I would just sit there and listen to him quietly.  One time my siblings and I must have not been getting along when he pulled me aside.  He told me about his best friend growing up who was named Pat.  They were really good friends and did a lot of things together.  However, sometimes they would argue.  Dad had only one arm, but it was really strong because he used it for everything.  Because of this if they were actually to fight, Dad would have really hurt Pat.  One time when they were arguing, Dad realized that things were escalating and knew that he had to be the one to stop it.  He stopped the fight and made Pat leave.  He was glad that things had stopped before anything regrettable had happened.  He used this to teach me that sometimes even best friends get in fights, but they are still friends afterwards.  He taught me that even in the heat of the moment, sometimes you have to be the bigger person and take control of a situation to make sure that nothing regrettable happens.  I heard him tell this story a couple of times so I must have been a slow learner.  He had a couple of other stories he would tell about his friend, Pat.