"Newly Boy's" Personal Page including Things That Push My Buttons....
In case you are wondering about the above image, drop me a note and I will be happy tell you the story.
Mud is thicker than water.....you can't get blood out of a turnip. This is a special corner of my world where thoughts, keepsakes, and mental treasures are brought to the surface from my past, or from forgotten places by short bursts of light. Many of the items are lonesome things; some are excursions that took place late at night while sane folks slept and ended up as PDFs; a few are of photos that became image illustrations before my hands began to shake; if you find anything on this website that moves you please share your feelings by leaving a comment here. As you can see, my mud room is not the primary entrance to My Family History Library, but rather a side or backyard door that all visitors and guests are invited to use, without undue expectation of what you will find. If you do find anything of value please shed a little ESP; and if you do not like your discovery here I pray you are right handed, like Rowdy Pete. |
The above image of Peter you see here came to me by virtue of a gift from my cousin Bobbie Foster Railsback Chaffin whose mother Helen was the last living of my grandfather Newel K. Young's nineteen children. Originally, Newel K.'s daughters, June, Vernessa, Myrl, and Rae and their respective spouses presented the cited book as a gift to their New Testament scholar father over 70 years ago. By some unknown miracle the book escaped grandpa's blast furnace, which members of his second wife Geneva'a family say was used to cremate all his records and books -- as he slowly lost his mind to dementia.
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I love my cousin Bobbie for so generously sharing her lifelong collection of memorabilia of Grandfather Newel K. Young's families and for giving me at least three treasured books that belonged to him. For her I quote but one tiny fragment from a book which she gave to me: "He knew the ebbing sap within the furrowed bark -- but how He reached the sap with His fingers I do not know. He knew the sound steel underneath the rust -- but how He freed the sword and made it shine no man can tell." (Kahlil Gibran, page 17).
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FIRST ---- some musings...........
When I Was Born
For over seventy years I have been laughed at by my older siblings about my claim to have remembered the event of my birth. I have not made a hard argument about it because it seems so nonsensical for anyone not to believe that someone would not be aware of the single most eventful happening in their entire life. And there was so much excitement and surprise present in the room that the static just bounced like tiny balls off the ceiling and walls. This much can be verified by any serious researcher willing to challenge the case. The hands that received me were soft and warm and definitely female. I remember my mother sighing and softly uttering "at last, at last, it is the last."
The next serious conversation that caught my attention was a contest of great concern to me. I heard Dr. Nelsen say, "it is time to fill in the birth certificate." And then she followed, "Lets see.... his name is Marley Oxnard Reynolds, right?" Mother's head raised from her pillow in a start and me and my little bundle of soft pink blanky nearly fell from her arms. The swaddling blanket was pink because the family was hoping for another girl. They already had one boy and heaven knows he had already proved to be more than enough.
In the excitement of nearly going off the bed I heard mother's exclaimed reply to the Dr. "Why, why why noooo she crooned, her name was going to be Castina Maria Louisa -- after her two grandmothers, but I guess since she's a boy we'll name him Robert Newel, spelled with one "L" after his two grandfathers." Dr. Nelsen relenting said, "Ok then, but it's kind of sad. His family won't know which to call him -- Bobby boy, or Newly boy." At that I just puckered up and let out a huge cry.
For over seventy years I have been laughed at by my older siblings about my claim to have remembered the event of my birth. I have not made a hard argument about it because it seems so nonsensical for anyone not to believe that someone would not be aware of the single most eventful happening in their entire life. And there was so much excitement and surprise present in the room that the static just bounced like tiny balls off the ceiling and walls. This much can be verified by any serious researcher willing to challenge the case. The hands that received me were soft and warm and definitely female. I remember my mother sighing and softly uttering "at last, at last, it is the last."
The next serious conversation that caught my attention was a contest of great concern to me. I heard Dr. Nelsen say, "it is time to fill in the birth certificate." And then she followed, "Lets see.... his name is Marley Oxnard Reynolds, right?" Mother's head raised from her pillow in a start and me and my little bundle of soft pink blanky nearly fell from her arms. The swaddling blanket was pink because the family was hoping for another girl. They already had one boy and heaven knows he had already proved to be more than enough.
In the excitement of nearly going off the bed I heard mother's exclaimed reply to the Dr. "Why, why why noooo she crooned, her name was going to be Castina Maria Louisa -- after her two grandmothers, but I guess since she's a boy we'll name him Robert Newel, spelled with one "L" after his two grandfathers." Dr. Nelsen relenting said, "Ok then, but it's kind of sad. His family won't know which to call him -- Bobby boy, or Newly boy." At that I just puckered up and let out a huge cry.
Everyone Has a Past............
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This one, above, sure is. Just consider for a moment how the environment changed from 1959 to 2011. But that little change is a "drop in the bucket" compared to the peaceful setting that exists there today in contrast with when my blood ancestors were there in the 1830s with an extermination bounty placed on their heads by Missouri Governor, Lilburn Boggs. Our family's history at Far West was poignant and epoch and a must for every descendant to ponder with serious consideration of what it should mean to who they are.
Who Are We?
What is the significance of our genetic or ethnic origins? How would my life and who I am be different if I had been born the son of Australian aborigines or a descendant of African-American slaves? Are we really and truly born equal or does it just feel good to say that? Since the founding of America in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries the white race has been predominant here. As ethnic groups with different skin colors outnumber whites in the coming years, will our descendants have the courage to successfully adapt? The teaching that every born human is a child of the same God can be the saving doctrine of earthly mankind if all would believe it! In the spirit world there are no color differences or language barriers! And what of my beloved mountains? Are they really going to be flat and made of glass? As for me, if there are no dogs or tablesaws it will not be heaven!
Childhood Memories that stick....
Gatherums
Deeply imbedded in my childhood cortex is the home of Jim and Effie Gatherum who created a fascinating oasis just across the street in the pioneer town of Holladay where I grew up. On just a couple of acres there was everything imaginable for a youngster to make lifelong memories. There were two or three chicken coops where daily fresh eggs were gathered for market; where old hens met their waterloo when their necks were laid on the chopping block and dealt with using a wide bladed hatchet. There was the old cow barn with a hay loft complete with hoist and pulley to swing from, and on the side a hog pen. Every fall a strong image was made when the pig butcher showed up with his old truck equipped with winch and hot water boiler for scalding the losing hog. The raspberry patch provided a tasty harvest, but green apples from the orchard were hard to beat, especially when rubbed on a hunk of salt broken from a larger block. On Memorial Day Effie's peonies were picked and put in galvanized tubs full of water and stood at the side of road for sell to folks on their way to the cemetery.
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In Effie's kitchen stood a wonderful coal stove and her oyster soup was second to none. I will never forget how old Jim called me "Swede" because of my little ears, but of all the wonderful memories created at Gatherums none can beat the mental images that were formed when we would holler, "Here's a rat, Cub," and that old chow dog with the bent tail would come on the dead run. My memories at Gatherums run deep -- like the summer evening on their front lawn when the whole neighborhood gathered to listen to the Joe Lewis--Jersey Joe Walcott fight; or when I learned how to deal with losing my best marbles to their son Jimmy in that ring drawn in the dirt in the back yard; or best yet, when I beat up Bobby Bentley who was a year older than me on Gatherum's front lawn by pounding his head into the grass. He always treated me with respect after that! So here I present a page where I can unload all kinds of stuff, like cover images to my CD projects that no one ever asks me for; like one pagers that I created with about the same amount of pleasure as eating green apples; like images of favorite dogs, memories of hogs, and an item or two that remind me of Effie's peonies and her famous peachcots. Go there and see..........
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Home
The red soil of southern Utah got in my blood....
Priceless hours of my youth were spent in San Juan County, Utah. Great-grandfather John R. Young and many of our kin are buried in the red soils of this awesome country. The Abajo Mountains served once as a meaningful learning ground for a budding biologist, back when the air was always clean and large herds of mule deer were the norm.
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Thinking of those days, I remember the strong attraction and lure of mysterious places most of all; before the trespass of too many white men, before the hay day of the uranium boom and the exploitation of all things natural for the tourist dollar, and most of all, before we suffered the elitist attitude of environmental activists and bureaucrats who believe they alone are called to be the saviors of this great land.
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Until I was over fifty I thought I would never die!
One Very Important Life Lesson
When I turned 45 I found myself surrounded with horses and barns, tools and welding material, old sporting goods, magazines and personal mementos, wardrobes of clothes I had been saving for “times of war,” too many vehicles, and lots of warn-out furniture. I sat down and reread Henry David Thoreau's “Walden's Pond.” Soon afterwards I made a major decision to rid myself of many old habits, old friends, and all but essential material possessions. In a relatively short time I got rid of nearly everything I had spent four and one-half decades collecting, except of course my family. What followed in the next three or four years was the FREEEST period of my life.
That free time gave me clarity to decide what my most important values were and to set some measurable objectives on what to accomplish during my remaining years. It also taught me some valuable rules on what to keep and what to throw away as each day passes. In the thirty-five years since, I have come to realize that these rules are not always easy to follow –- things continue to collect as the mass coming in usually exceeds the mass going out in any given week. But, the lessons I learned during the FREE period have stuck with me and have helped me make a great improvement over my earlier life. Most important, over everything else, is the attitude I now have that none of the material stuff under my control is very important; every single item wears out in time, and not one single thing will be taken with me when I leave. Equally important is the realization that when I discard something that I don't justifiably need, I immediately feel a sense of freedom and I rarely ever miss it. Furthermore, my life is less cluttered and I don't feel the negative drag that inevitably results from disorganization and burial in superfluous crap.
Even though some of my spiritual and aesthetic oriented objectives have been curtailed by the results of my palsy, prostate cancer and heart disease, I attribute what I have achieved with my woodworking and family history to the values and measurable objectives identified during the FREE period. If we had not taken the action we did to walk away from “our baggage of the past” today we would still be turning hay into manure and other ways be yet spinning our wheels as we tended our half acre lot, never completing one cycle before having to start another. To put it another way, we would be bearing our barns and house upon our backs, never learning that simple Thoreau lesson that “a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
When I turned 45 I found myself surrounded with horses and barns, tools and welding material, old sporting goods, magazines and personal mementos, wardrobes of clothes I had been saving for “times of war,” too many vehicles, and lots of warn-out furniture. I sat down and reread Henry David Thoreau's “Walden's Pond.” Soon afterwards I made a major decision to rid myself of many old habits, old friends, and all but essential material possessions. In a relatively short time I got rid of nearly everything I had spent four and one-half decades collecting, except of course my family. What followed in the next three or four years was the FREEEST period of my life.
That free time gave me clarity to decide what my most important values were and to set some measurable objectives on what to accomplish during my remaining years. It also taught me some valuable rules on what to keep and what to throw away as each day passes. In the thirty-five years since, I have come to realize that these rules are not always easy to follow –- things continue to collect as the mass coming in usually exceeds the mass going out in any given week. But, the lessons I learned during the FREE period have stuck with me and have helped me make a great improvement over my earlier life. Most important, over everything else, is the attitude I now have that none of the material stuff under my control is very important; every single item wears out in time, and not one single thing will be taken with me when I leave. Equally important is the realization that when I discard something that I don't justifiably need, I immediately feel a sense of freedom and I rarely ever miss it. Furthermore, my life is less cluttered and I don't feel the negative drag that inevitably results from disorganization and burial in superfluous crap.
Even though some of my spiritual and aesthetic oriented objectives have been curtailed by the results of my palsy, prostate cancer and heart disease, I attribute what I have achieved with my woodworking and family history to the values and measurable objectives identified during the FREE period. If we had not taken the action we did to walk away from “our baggage of the past” today we would still be turning hay into manure and other ways be yet spinning our wheels as we tended our half acre lot, never completing one cycle before having to start another. To put it another way, we would be bearing our barns and house upon our backs, never learning that simple Thoreau lesson that “a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
Images Worth a Thousand Words........Please click on each image to enlarge and read the informative captions.
Look at the two photos below and you will know why it was love at first sight and why it has lasted over fifty-one years.
Everytime I look at her photo my heart says "Wow."
More Images I Like.....Go To Page -- Click Here...
And still more. Please click for family favorites....
On The Serious Side.....A Look At World History....Click Here...
Below Are Links To Some of my Racks and Hooks
As good as the above memories are, sometimes life throws curves and we are left to ponder the meaning of life! PLEASE CLICK HERE.
Want to feel younger? Ponder these precious tykes...Click to see our newest grandbabies
This is the story of where our geocaching adventures began -- interestingly enough and coincidentally, a very unusual tree that is older than Methusela played an intriguing role.