“Home Work” & “Home Church” -- Finding the Silver Lining

How I spent my COVID Staycation

Like everyone else, this whole coronavirus/COVID-19/pandemic thing has been life-altering. I mean none of us have ever dealt with anything like this before, especially on a worldwide basis. Having said that, it hasn’t been without its silver linings.

When the world got the lockdown order, we had to figure out how to live, how to associate with others, how to work and even how to worship at home. For work, I spent my first week or so sprawled out on the couch with my laptop sitting on my legs before eventually incorporating a second screen and taking over half of the dining room table. It was comfortable and even awesome to wear a t-shirt, shorts and slippers while stoking the fire burning in the fireplace. And if I got hungry, the refrigerator was a mere 8-10 paces away (which really isn’t a good thing).

The home set-up

On the downside, working at home meant I had to use our WIFI, or should I saw our lack of any kind of decent or reliable Internet due to our somewhat remote location in the woods. I soon learned I had to plan out my day so I’m not sitting and staring at a little circle that spins round and round on my computer screen as I try to send out mass work-related emails. One grouping in particular has more than 500 people in it. Even using a hotspot supplied by my employer, it would take 45 minutes for that email to reach all 500 of its recipients so I would work on daily duties until then and send it right before taking a break for lunch. At that point, I would hit “send,” and then eat and then wait until it finished going out. Frustrating? Yeah, but what are you really going to do? (I returned to the office after four weeks or so and we since installed a satellite Internet system which is better but still not high speed like at work.) 

When I returned to the office, the entire workplace was (and remains) like a ghost town. I am the only person in my whole corner of the building. There are somewhere between eight to 20 cars in the parking lot on a daily basis. And all of my team members continue to work from their individual homes. We remain productive and effective working remotely. We communicate via email, text, Slack and/or Zoom virtual meetings.

Worshiping remotely has been well, unique. You see, I’ve always been a believer and a church-goer. Sundays my whole life have been like this: get up as a family, go to church as a family, spend the day together as a family and take part in other church-related gatherings. COVID-19 meant no group gatherings, no group worship, nothing. Well, I shouldn’t say “nothing.” Church members continue to worship but we do so as families and remotely. My wife and I read and study scriptures on Sundays, which we actually do every night before we go to bed. Our stake (a group of local congregations stretching from the edge of Missoula, west to Frenchtown, north to the Mission Valley and further north and west to Thompson Falls, provided a weekly 35-minute online worship service. It was (and remains) nice to see friends from across western Montana. Pre-edited programs consist of someone conducting from their home, a song provided by the Tabernacle Choir , and then an opening prayer, a couple of talks on various gospel subjects, another Tabernacle Choir song and a closing prayer to wrap things up. All in all, it’s been nice to continue to learn and grow even though we cannot meet together.

Dress up for Sunday's online church service? Sure, why not.

An additional silver lining remains family time. While my daughter and her family live a mere 100 yards off our back property line, we’ve spent even more time together. More dinners, more play time and more bonding. Another daughter moved in with us from out-of-state during the pandemic with her family. It has been great having them here, playing with them and having their two boys with us as they develop deep ties with their three cousins out back. 

So here we are (five months as of this post). Stay-at-home lockdown orders are mostly over everywhere but our workplace still remains rather vacant with the majority of staff working at home. Our churches remain shuttered. Who knows when things will return to “normal?” Heck, who knows what the “new normal” will turn out to be? All I know is life may be different (aka very different) but silver linings abound. All you need to do is look for, recognize and take advantage of them. That’s what we’re trying to do.

Sooey! Beautifying a Post-Fire Eyesore

How I spent my COVID staycation

One of the scars resulting from our 2017 house fire stood out like a sore thumb, check that, a ”stinky” sore thumb. And it was smack dab in the middle of our front yard. 

Septic system installed in 2018

Arrow marks the spot

Rebuilding our home meant we were required to install a new septic system. Crews amazingly banged out the entire process in a mere three days but two manhole-sized, green covers along with a large white PVC-capped pipe jutted above the ground a mere eight feet off the front porch. Our challenge was to cover it up and make it look like it wasn’t there. Lori had the brilliant idea to use landscaping to put lipstick on that piggy. 

First, we drove high into the mountains above our house to gather some flattish rocks for this and for a flagstone walkway I’d put in later. We used the rocks to lay an outline for the flower bed, dug up a peonies plant (Lori’s favorite flower) from another part of the property and replanted it there. A large, old tin washing bin flipped upside down was large enough to cover one of the manhole covers while a wooden half barrel purchased after a trip to Home Depot covered the other. In the middle, we planted a pretty little magnolia tree surrounded by several other plants. But we still had that white cap sticking up. 

The Pinterest "solution"

What to do about that? Lori had a simple plan – Pinterest! She scrolled through ideas, found a photo of a birdhouse stand and asked, “Can you build me something like this? But can you make it shorter? And make the lower shelf tall enough off the ground so it covers up that white pipe?” I had my marching orders so I got to work. 

The first thing I did was gather a few birdhouses we already had including one Lori made with one of our grandsons, assembled a butterfly house and built another from old chicken coop wood from the old family farm in southern Utah. (insert link) I capped off that one with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation plate from my old pickup. 

I took measurements, used some of the leftover fir planks from our flooring installation, cut them for length and glued and clamped them together for width. After they dried a couple of days later, I attached the top platform to the sides and included the lower shelf for both looks and stability. After staining it, I used screws to attach each birdhouse to the top shelf so they wouldn’t be blown over by the wind or knocked over by birds or whatever critters, big or small, would come along.

Now, unless you saw the process unfold, you’d never know the above-ground ugliness that lies beneath. Sooey! It’s a beauty!

Slaughterhouse Outhouse Back in "Business" at My House

How I Spent My COVID Staycation

I was sitting at my computer working from home and it popped up online. “For sale: old outhouse. Price: $20.” It immediately caught my eye for three reasons. One, I like old, cool-looking stuff. Two, only 20 bucks?! And three, this just might work. 

You see, I was in the process of accumulating pallets in order to build a shed for storing my firewood. I found a couple of photos of pallet sheds and a semi-decent YouTube on how to do it. I gathered six pallets already but the challenge is they come in all sizes and I needed four more of the same height and width to start the job. That was proving to be difficult. But as I looked at this Facebook post I thought, “That’s not your normal outhouse. It looks…wider, bigger. And it looks pretty stout, too. Forget the pallet shed. This could work just fine.”

I responded to the post and turns out I was the first to do so. I struck up a conversation with the owner who later said, “I’m getting inundated with calls on this, LOL. Come and get it.”

I immediately unloaded a car from my son-in-law’s trailer, hooked it up to my truck and drove 45 miles south to the Bitterroot Valley, one of my favorite scenic drives.

The ever-so-romantic "double-seater"

I arrived just south of Stevensville about an hour later. I met the woman’s husband outside who pointed me where to go. Turns out the outhouse was part of a group of very old, still-standing buildings that were part of an original homestead well-known to the entire community back in the day as the local slaughterhouse. The outhouse served as, well, the “facilities” for the operation. And to look at it, it was indeed fairly large for an outhouse. As I opened the door, I could see why it seemed so large. It was a double-seater. Yes, two people could do their “business” at the same time.

All loaded & ready for return trip

We secured a large car-towing strap around the outhouse and the man used his tractor with forks on the front of it to lift it on the trailer and then eventually pushed it back between the wheel wells, the best place for weight of any kind to be supported by the trailer. We solidified its position with four additional straps. The whole process took about 40 minutes or so. When we were done, I was very grateful. I paid him $20 and then emptied the rest of my wallet as well – probably another 17 or 18 dollars. He was just so helpful and went above and beyond to help me out.

I was a little leery on the drive home toting that thing. I was hoping old boards weren’t flying off as I went. My pickup drew a lot of stares in traffic and even some pointed fingers from several people. When I finally got home I did notice one loose board fell off but it was still on the trailer. I’m guessing a bunch of old wooden shake shingles fell off in transit as well.

Getting it off Kenny’s trailer and placed onto a foundation we made out of slender cinder blocks would be a challenge. Kenny and I stood and thought out loud how we could move it what amounted to 10-feet or so without tipping it over or ruining the cinder blocks. My next door neighbor, Bill, has a small front end loader, saw the trailered outhouse and volunteered to lift it into place. The back of the loader came off the ground when he lifted it with his forks but we managed to get it into place. Thanks Bill!

Once in place, I measured it. Sure enough, it was a decent size – more than five feet wide by six and a half feet deep by seven feet tall. Yes indeed, that would work well to hold the wood and in such a scenic setting in the woods just off the side of our house.

Bye bye double-seater

Now it was time for me to get to work. After peeling off the wooden shake shingles, I tore off the roof. Then I demoed the “seating area” and used the best of the old roofing planks to fill out the rest of the floor. I cut a couple of sheets of plywood, nailed them to the roof studs and then shingled the roof. After tearing out some rotten boards below the door and replacing them with leftover rooting planks, it was as structurally sound as I could make it. I gave the exterior one coat of wood finish.

Stacked & ready for winter

About a week later, Lori and I rolled up our sleeves and loaded the outhouse with previously cut and split lodgepole pine.

Facelift complete

Now, what was once a part of Montana history is back in “business,” refinished and being utilized for the first time in decades.

The final resting place back in the woods of Montana

What I Love about Sports: the Great Unifier

I spent 14 of my 24 years in broadcast journalism as a sportscaster. That gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of great people, cover scores of memorable sporting events and witness life lessons learned through skill, agility, competition and teamwork.

Another reason that I love sports is because of its ability to bring people together for a common cause, especially in times of need. History shows sports gives individuals, teams, families, communities and nations the opportunity to heal, rally and overcome as one.

Mark my words. When COVID-19 finally buries its ugly head, the floodgates will open and citizens worldwide will once again flock to be together. And sports will serve as a great unifier.

“I think the American people need sports right now,” said Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints quarterback. “That’s typically something that really brought us through a lot of tough situations throughout our country. I think people have been able to lean on their local sports teams or national teams to unite them and get their minds off their challenges and daily struggle.”

Here are a few examples.

Hurricane Katrina – New Orleans Saints

We begin with Brees and my hometown Saints. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina pounded the Gulf Coast, caused more than $125 billion in damage, left more than 1,800 people dead and millions homeless. The tragedy transformed the Louisiana Superdome from the home field of an NFL franchise to a shelter for thousands upon thousands of locals unable to evacuate the devastating floodwaters.

The Saints, too, were homeless. They played every game away from New Orleans that season, struggled to a 3-13 record and fired their head coach.

As the city of New Orleans ever so slowly rebuilt its infrastructure, I remember hearing a national sports talk radio host, who had no ties whatsoever to the city or the state, criticize the franchise and its efforts to rebuild the damaged Superdome amidst the controlled chaos citywide. He belittled city and state officials for putting any focus at all on football.  

I remember saying to myself, “You’re not from there. You can’t speak for locals. You can’t speak for the mayor. You can’t speak for the governor. You can’t speak for those of us who have or had ties there. Shut up! Give the people something to rally behind. They need this. Give them an emotional outlet.” 

That break came in a big way on September 25, 2006. The nation tuned in to Monday Night Football to watch the Saints and their emotionally-charged fans host their long-time rivals, the Atlanta Falcons. Just 90 seconds into the game, Steve Gleason, a player I covered as a sportscaster for his senior year at Washington State University, broke through the line and blocked a punt. The ball bounded into the end zone where a teammate recovered it for a New Orleans touchdown. The Superdome crowd exploded in excitement, delirium, dancing and pure joy. The Saints rolled over Atlanta that night 23-3 in a game many to this day, still say boasted the greatest atmosphere in franchise history.

“I think it symbolized not only maybe the resurgence of our football team, but the resurgence of the city and the recovery and the rebirth,” Brees told SBNation.

(Three seasons later, this New Orleans native celebrated on the news set just hours after the Saints won Super Bowl XLIV.)

September 11, 2001 – Major League Baseball

On September 11, 2001, terrorists launched four deadly attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people, injured more than 25,000 and caused more than $10 billion in damage.

Our shocked nation stopped, mourned, honored and remembered those we lost that day. After that brief period, sporting events on the local, high school, college and professional level gave Americans prime opportunities to come together, sing together, cheer together and just plain feel a sense of “being one.”

My greatest personal post-September 11^th memory came at Veterans Memorial Arena where the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League played their first game after the attacks. With the arena lights dimmed, players from the Chiefs and the opposing team skated one-by-one to the center circle until it was entirely surrounded in an alternating fashion. Then a spotlight shone on a door at the far end of the ice. It opened and the only American member on the Chiefs roster, Kurt Sauer, burst onto the ice carrying an American flag. The crowd exploded in cheering and applause as he skated at full speed around the rink and eventually stopped at center ice. It was a simple display of patriotism yet for those in attendance like me, it was absolutely electrifying.

On the national level, I remember how Major League Baseball altered its seventh inning stretch tradition of singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame to God Bless America. And then on October 30, 2001, President George W. Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series on an emotionally-charged night. And he fired a strike right over the plate.

 USA-Russia Cold War – The Miracle on Ice

My favorite unifying moment is my all-time favorite sports moment – the Miracle on Ice. It happened on February 22, 1980. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing. I was downstairs at my house with my family watching the United States hockey team, made up entirely of young amateur players, take on the powerhouse Soviet Union, winners of four previous gold medals and a squad that pounded the Americans 10-3 in an exhibition game just three days before the games began.

As a family, we had the opportunity to personally watch Team USA beat the Tulsa Oilers in an exhibition game in Wichita, Kansas, only one month earlier. Plus, given that we lived in hockey-crazed Canada for three years in the early 1970s, we understood the game and we were all-in for this David versus Goliath showdown.

Internationally, this was not just a game. It was a politically-charged showdown between the world’s two superpowers in the midst of a Cold War that featured decades of finger-pointing and threats of nuclear war. In response to Russia invading Afghanistan right before the winter Olympics, President Jimmy Carter announced the U.S. would boycott the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow. Instead of boycotting the Winter Games, Russia announced its hockey team would come to American and win gold on U.S. soil.

Captain Mike Eruzione, goalie Jim Craig, head coach Herb Brooks and the scrappy Americans played the game of their lives beating the Soviets 4-3. Chants of U-S-A, U-S-A could be heard in the arena, on the streets of Lake Placid, New York, and across the country. The American people rallied together as one in one of the greatest upsets in the history of sports.

Come this fall, I, for one, cannot wait to blend into a crowd and let loose. Because that’s just the unifying kind of effect sports can have on us.

After Eight Generations of Holyoaks...

The email hit my in-box at 3:37 p.m. on February 27, 2020. It simply stated, “Hey Mark, you are recorded on this land!” And with that, it came to an end. After approximately 165 years and eight generations of Holyoaks, our direct family line no longer owns land in Parowan, Utah.

George Eli Holyoak

The Holyoak coming-to-America story goes way back to the mid-1850s. George Eli Holyoak and his family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and started their 4,800-mile emigration journey to Utah from their home in England. They survived what must have been an eternally long nine-week journey on the ship “Windemere.” Along the way, a number of fellow travelers became seasick and developed cholera resulting in multiple deaths and burials at sea. The ship later caught fire and started to leak. Men, women and children used buckets and pans to keep it afloat until finally reaching the final destination up the Mississippi River at Quarantine Island in St. Louis.

From there, they later camped at the Missouri River where George’s oldest daughter died, leaving behind a husband and two young children. While crossing the plains, George’s beloved wife Sarah died of mountain fever. Ten days later a second daughter, Ann, passed away from the same sickness. He buried them both and painfully left them behind on the plains of Nebraska. 

Original farmhouse (1860's-1929)

The Holyoaks forged onward and arrived in Salt Lake City in September of 1854. Shortly thereafter, George and his family answered a call to settle in Parowan in the southern part of Utah. They purchased property and homesteaded at the southern end of what is now 200 South Street, but to this day locals still call it Holyoak Lane.

Fast forward to four generations later. Grandpa Vern had passed away leaving the old stone block farmhouse vacant. Dad asked us kids if we wanted to take over ownership of the farm and two pieces of outlying property. We each had families, busy lives and none of us lived anywhere close to southern Utah. We declined so he and Mom continued to care for the place by taking two trips there each year.

In September 2017, Lori and I decided to take an impromptu trip the farm to spend about a week with my parents. It was so nostalgic. And so fun. 

                             Rabbit Hunting                                                Mom + Hi-Q + only 2 pieces left = "A Sharpie"

We ate together around the old farm table, did a little rabbit hunting from the back of the pickup like old times, watched general conference via the Internet, played vintage games, laughed until we cried (at least Mom and I did), ate burgers and milkshakes at the Dairy Freeze in town, and Dad and I repaired fencing and then used shovels and Grandpa’s old 1954 Martin-Harris tractor (that still purrs like a newborn kitten) to drill holes in the ground to construct a fence out of old cedar posts on the outlying 37-acre property. It was hot, hard work but it was great to have some quality one-on-one time with Dad. Before Lori and I left for our Montana home later in the week, I wandered through the house to take photos. Not knowing the future, I didn’t know if I would ever have the chance to return.

In the late summer of 2018, Dad was diagnosed with cancer. He passed away about four months later. He knew Mom did not want to oversee upkeep of the farmhouse and land but he hung onto it for tax purposes. After his passing, Mom and I chatted and I offered to help her sell the land. We found a buyer for the house and surrounding couple of acres. After a burial service in Parowan in early March, we all took one final opportunity to walk through the old farmhouse and adjacent garage/shop before heading to Cedar City to sign paperwork to sell it. Each of us claimed some things that tied us to the old place. Lori and I, who only several months previous finally moved back in our home after a house fire, acquired some things to help furnish our rebuild house including four old wooden chairs, a couple of wood bins (actually acquired earlier), some kitchen items, an old quilt and a few other things. I was very fortunate to receive Dad’s old farm truck to eventually be used as a plow truck to deal with snow in the winter, and Kenny got some tools and the old tractor with a blade, bucket and several other attachments.

Not very long thereafter, my back-and-forth dealings with the realtor and several suitors continued and led to the sale of the larger, 120-acre piece of outlying property where Grandpa used to run his cattle. Mom signed the final paperwork and it was sold. That only left the smaller piece of land where Dad and I built the fence.

We initially received a couple of low-ball offers but we passed. In early February 2020, we relisted the property with a reduced price. We had two immediate offers and started negotiations. One offer was clearly superior so we pursued it. Again, after a flurry of paperwork the process came to a successful conclusion on February 27.

Now in my late 50s, I look back on my time in Parowan on “our” land with a flood of fond memories including visiting my Great Grandma, many trips rabbit hunting, successful fishing outings to Panguitch Lake, borderline out-of-control races with my siblings on Grandpa’s three-wheeler (which is now sitting in my shed – he originally acquired by trading his horse to get it), hunting for arrowheads, and my favorite and by far most anticipated activity of all of hopping in Grandpa’s Vern’s old, dusty pickup to go with him everywhere – to feed the cows, grocery shopping, cutting and bailing hay, picking up the mail, going to church, stopping by his brother’s or sister’s houses, bottle-feeding orphaned calves, shooting prairie dogs, trips into the mountains, eating mints out of his glove box, climbing atop the old barn with my brothers to hammer loose nails back into the old trusses, being given a metal rod and sent into the chicken coop to dispatch of invading sparrows that ate the chicken feed and just plain spending time with him.

I’m so grateful to have those memories yet I am so sad! The next time I drive down I-15 in southern Utah, pass Parowan and look to the east on the southern edge of town, it will be the first time I pass the old farmstead in eight generations of Holyoaks that it won’t be “ours.”

The old chicken coop

 

 

A Fistful of Memories

It’s funny how seeing one small thing triggers a flood of memories.

Here’s what happened. After a late December 2017 fire (the epicenter of which was our upstairs master bedroom) riddled through our home in Frenchtown, Montana, I was digging through the charred remains that fell through the side of the house onto the snowy ground below. Then I saw it. A small, burned swatch of gold and black fabric. I immediately identified it. It was all that remained from my favorite suit coat – a coat that had quite a tale to tell.

I spent the first ten years of my broadcasting career in Topeka, Kansas. When I arrived at Newsource 49 fresh out of college, I made very little ($12,500 annual salary) but we somehow skimped by as a family. In those early days, ABC affiliate KTKA-TV did not offer clothing allowances to its on-air personnel as larger, more successful stations did. Fortunately, that changed as we started to gain ground on the front runners in the ratings race due to a quality staff that broadcast a quality product, worked hard and had fun doing so.

One day I walked into a men’s clothing store called the Gentlemen’s Rack to check out their suits and suit coats. And there it was gleamingly showing off on a hanger in front of a rack of other coats – a shiny golden sports jacket with a black plaid pattern. I looped through the store and then asked about the jacket. “Oh, Mitch Holthus was just in the other day eyeing that same sports coat. He loves it,” I was told. I’d worked with Mitch a number of years. At the time, he had recently left a job as play-by-play radio voice at Kansas State University to become the radio voice of the Kansas City Chiefs. Together, we collaborated to create a video series titled A Minute with Mitch, a weekly insider report about all things Chiefs football. We recorded the segment together on a Monday morning and then I edited in additional video or graphics and mailed tapes to television stations across Kansas, Missouri and into Nebraska and Iowa.

When I heard Mitch was eyeing that sports coat, I knew I had to buy it, which I did. (And yeah, I rubbed it in the next time I saw him.) That golden coat was the most hip outfit I owned. Even though I wore it for more than a decade, it still stood out. I proudly wore it to work on Sunday, February 7, 2010, when the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts to win Super Bowl XLIV. Coupled with a gold and black tie, and topped off with a New Orleans hat, it was the perfect ensemble to celebrate the Saints victory on the air.

Of course, the golden coat also made appearances for scores of not so memory-provoking occasions including newscasts and other events.

One of the last times I wore it before it met its fiery end was to a formal dinner with Lori six months before the house fire while on an Alaskan cruise in 2017. I honestly don’t remember the last time I attended such a dressy meal and we did so twice while on board. I guess you could say it served me well.  

Yeah, funny how a small piece of cloth sends your mind down memory lane.