Lewis Peak Hike

I was not much of a hiker when I was younger. I did it when I had to, usually as part of a youth group excursion. I frequently lagged behind the main body of the group. I first began to enjoy hiking when I spent a couple of summers working on the staff of Camp Loll, a Boy Scout camp near the the Tetons and Yellowstone. Since being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis more than 20 years ago, I have hiked and backpacked more than I did in the years before that.

Not all of my family members share my enthusiasm for hiking. My #3 child has turned out to be more willing to hike with me than any of the rest of the family so far. Yesterday we hiked to Lewis Peak from North Ogden Divide. (See SummitPost for more details and pictures.) This was the fourth mountain peak in Weber County that we have hiked to together. During the past year, we have hiked to Willard Peak, Ben Lomond Peak, and Malans Peak (which isn’t really a peak). We also hiked Little Emigration Canyon last fall and did some hiking in Idaho last summer. We will be going into the Yellowstone back country this month and plan to make a trek to Mount Ogden later this season.

Yesterday was the perfect day for a hike. It was warm, sunny, and clear, but it never got hot. I wanted to get out on the trail early in the day, but my son made me go pick peas with him at a neighbor’s garden. It seems they had a bumper crop this year and needed to get rid of the excess. After our pea picking, we hit the trail at almost exactly 8:05 am.

The first 2½ miles of the 5½ mile trek to the peak is all uphill, with the first 1¾ miles being switchbacks. The trail isn’t terribly steep, but it’s a relentless climb that should tax your cardio-vascular system. When my son complained, I reminded him that you have to climb a mountain to get to a mountain peak. If you need consolation on the way up, you can look across North Ogden Divide and be grateful that you’re not climbing the more extensive switchbacks that lead toward Ben Lomond Peak.

The Lewis Peak trail is well improved and maintained. The switchbacks have no shortage of spots with loose rock. On the way to the peak, we passed fewer than a dozen hikers, a few mountain bikes, and a couple of motorcycles. The highest point of the hike to the peak mounts a hilltop that is actually higher in elevation than Lewis Peak. Once you hit that point, the trail trends mildly downward for about 2½ miles before it climbs the last half mile to the peak. Mountain bikes and motorcycles can drive right to the peak.

Once you crest the top of the switchbacks, you are offered good views of both sides of the mountain range in many spots. You can look north to Ben Lomond and south to Mount Ogden. You can see Pineview Reservoir, Willard Bay, the Great Salt Lake, and the ski runs at Snowbasin resort. You can follow branches of the trail to Pineview and to Ogden Canyon, if you wish.

The wildflowers were beautiful, although, they are at their peak beauty toward the end of July. Once you reach the top of the ridge, you can expect wind just about any time. An eyrie of golden eagles can often be seen near the top of the switchbacks. I have counted as many as seven eagles floating on the breeze up there like they were surfing the wind currents. We didn’t see the eagles yesterday.

We arrived at the peak at almost precisely 10:35. We had made it in almost exactly 2½ hours. A couple of hikers and a motorcyclist had arrived shortly ahead of us. Soon we were joined by eight more hikers and a dog. It seems that Lewis Peak was popular yesterday. One lady was carrying nothing but an empty ½-liter water bottle. There are no water sources on this hike and you can expect to sweat a lot while climbing the hill. So it’s wise to carry plenty of water. Dehydration can be dangerous. As I always carry extra, I gave the lady one of my water bottles for the hike back.

We spent about an hour lunching and hanging out on the peak. More hikers came, as did a couple of mountain bikers and another motorcyclist. We left the peak at almost precisely 11:35 am. After the initial descent, my son was stunned to discover that we had a (relatively mild) uphill climb for the next 2½ miles. It had seemed level to him on the way in. He had to stop and rest a few times before we reached the top of the hill that marks the beginning of the descent to North Ogden Divide.

On the way out, we met quite a few hikers and mountain bikers on their way in. Although I have hiked children as young as eight to the top of the switchbacks, I would personally avoid trying to take children younger than 11 or 12 all the way to the peak. I was surprised to pass several families that had very young children on the hike. A couple of families had young children with mountain bikes. While the trail is quite bike-able, being a mountain biker myself, I’d consider the trail to be too technical for young riders.

After we started down the switchbacks, one mother with an extended family group asked how close they were to the top. She explained that they were headed for the Pineview trailhead. I was concerned. Some members of the group looked about shot already and the Pineview trailhead was more than eight miles away. It seems that some people undertake hikes like this without adequate research or preparation.

Going down the switchbacks can be as challenging as going up, but in a different way. The incessant downhill trek can take a toll on your knees, shins, and toes. We arrived at the trailhead at almost precisely 1:35 pm. We had hiked out in almost exactly two hours. That was very close to my pre-hike estimate.

We met some friends in the parking lot that had hiked to Ben Lomond Peak. They were hampered by snow as they neared the summit, they said. After climbing to the summit anyway, they said the wind howled and that they were very cold. They figured that the bulk of the snow would be gone within two weeks.

My son said that he would take a nap as soon as we got home. But I made him take a shower first. Even though the trail wasn’t particularly dusty yesterday, we were dirty enough. I have a little muscle soreness in my hips, calves, and shins. But that’s a small price to pay for the great hike I was able to enjoy with my son yesterday.

A Youth Activity Ends In Tragedy

Having been involved with youth groups and having been an adult leader on many youth outdoor excursions, I am especially torn about the death of 17-year-old Sophie Barton of Holladay, Utah. (See KSL story.) Barton died on Monday after collapsing while hiking with an LDS Church young women’s group under controlled and well supervised conditions. Barton’s mother was one of the adults hiking with the group.

Barton’s tragic death is no doubt having a stark impact on her family members and friends. The adult leaders that were in charge of the hike must feel terrible. I wish the best for all of these and pray that they will find solace amid their grief.

In the hundreds of youth outdoor adventures I have attended, I have dealt with a variety of medical and first aid issues. Most have been the garden variety injuries that can be expected when engaging in such activities: cuts, abrasions, burns, blisters, hypothermia, sprains, etc. There’s been the occasional illness, such as flu, histamine response, or intestinal distress. More serious injuries, such as broken bones, have been rare. Ditto with serious illnesses, although, these have occurred too. I’ve seen a very few campers end up riding in ambulances and Life Flight helicopters over the years.

I have friends that have dealt with deaths on youth outings. One friend had a seemingly healthy boy die after swimming in a lake at an organized Scout camp. The boy had passed a doctor’s medical exam. A medical doctor that was a few yards away when the boy collapsed on the beach immediately administered treatment, but the boy died anyway. An autopsy revealed a previously undetected rare heart anomaly. It was only by circumstance that the boy died at camp. He might have passed away while sitting at home watching TV.

Another friend had one of his young campers die after being struck by lightning while sleeping in a tent. They figure that lightning struck a nearby tree and traveled through a root that was under the tent. The tree was unaffected. The other boy in the tent was unaffected and was unaware that his companion had been shocked until later in the night.

There is risk involved in any kind of activity. Organizations that sponsor youth groups go to much greater lengths to mitigate unnecessary risks associated with youth activities than at any time in history. We know more about these risks than ever. Medical precautions, training, equipment, and accessibility to qualified professional help have never been better. And yet participants in activities can still be injured, get sick, and even die.

We don’t know for sure why Barton died. KSL reports, “The state medical examiner hopes to have an answer to that within 48 hours.” The Standard Examiner reports that a Sherriff’s deputy “suspected that heat played a role in the death of the girl….” That’s curious, since it wasn’t particularly hot at the time and in the location where Barton collapsed. Perhaps the deputy was referring to heat exhaustion or heat stroke.

Both heat exhaustion and heat stroke begin primarily with dehydration — inadequate fluid intake to replenish the fluids being lost from the body. Naturally, physical exertion and heat — factors inherent in summertime outdoor activities — increase fluid loss. Illness and some medications can contribute to dehydration as well. Simply replacing fluids can remedy mild dehydration, but severe dehydration requires immediate medical treatment.

The layperson may not be able to tell the difference between heat exhaustion and heat stroke. But both conditions require medical attention. Body temperature rises under either condition, but it is generally higher with heat stroke. Body temperature may reach or top 105° with heat stroke because the body’s cooling system has shut down.

Adequate hydration begins well before an activity begins with making sure that all participants start out well hydrated. Activity leaders should carefully consider the condition of those that have (or have recently had) diarrhea, young women that are having periods, and those taking medications such as antihistamines.

Proper planning should ensure that each participant has adequate fluid for the duration of the activity and during the hours afterward. I want to take some of my sons hiking to a nearby mountain peak this summer. I know that there are no water sources past a half mile into the hike, so even my backpacking water filter won’t help. We will have to carry a lot of water. That will add weight to our packs, but it is essential to enjoying a safe hike.

Several years ago, we took a large group of youth to St. George, Utah for several days of activities. We enjoyed hiking slot canyons, games in a city park at night, waterskiing, swimming, and even a service project in 104° heat shoveling silt out of a tennis court that had been damaged by flooding that spring. Throughout the days of the activity, we supplied copious amounts of bottled water. Each adult was assigned to watch several youth during those days to make sure no one got close to dehydration. We had a great time and nobody suffered from inadequate fluids.

Right now nobody knows for sure whether dehydration played a role in Sophie Barton’s untimely death. We don’t even know if her death was preventable. When the medical examiner reveals the cause, perhaps it will serve as a learning experience for those of us that lead, participate in, and help with outdoor activities. Such activities are an important part of life. But everyone involved should enjoy them as safely as is reasonable.

Cousin Reunion

My Mom came from a fairly large family. My grandparents were working class folks. Like many other families of that era, they migrated from the Midwest to the West over a number of years. They started out as farmers, fell on hard times, and kept moving west to find jobs to supplement their meager farming subsistence. The births of their children spanned about two decades.

The structure of Mom’s family ensured that I would have lots of cousins. In fact, there are nearly four dozen of us. Our births span four decades. I think that I have met most of my cousins at least once during my lifetime. But Mom and her siblings spread themselves around the West. And their kids have spread themselves all over the country. So I can’t be certain that I’ve met each and every cousin; although, I’ve heard Mom talk about all of them.

There are only a few of my Mom’s generation left alive. One of my cousins passed away at a young age, but the rest of us are still alive. One of my older cousins noted that the oldest of us is suffering from a terminal illness. Another has what may be a terminal illness. He thought that maybe it was time to gather our generation to reminisce and get to know each other.

After more than a year of planning, we held our first ever family cousin’s reunion this past weekend. Only the children and grandchildren of my grandparents were invited to attend, along with their spouses. It was felt that if later generations were invited, we’d miss out on opportunities to spend quality time with our fellow cousins. I know that my children were grateful for this arrangement, since spending a weekend hanging out with extended family members they hardly know isn’t their idea of fun.

Some gathered for events on Friday evening. We had an all-day picnic with lovely weather conditions on Saturday. About two-thirds of the gang attended. We ate, socialized, took pictures, and enjoyed each others’ company.

On Saturday evening, most of that crew gathered for a formal banquet at a nice setting. One representative from the family of each of my grandparents’ children spent a few minutes telling what is unique about their family clan. Some stayed for Sunday morning worship events.

While most of those that attended our reunion came from the broader Intermountain West region, we had cousins from both coasts and many points in between. It was interesting to see the diversity among the group that attended, but the bonds that tie us together were readily apparent as well. It was a rather momentous event.

There was some talk about doing something like this again in the future, but who knows whether that will ever come together? Some of my oldest cousins are great grandparents themselves. Most are grandparents. We’re all busy with our own clans.

Several of my cousins did a lot of work to make the reunion a success. One cousin put together a handout that gives contact information for all of us and shows where each of us falls in the succession of births. Another cousin gathered biographical sketches of each cousin and compiled them into a book.

Yet another cousin made name badges that were very useful. Many years ago, my Mom and her siblings had a rare family portrait taken. My cousin extracted the images from that photo and imposed them on the badges. I and my siblings (and our spouses) got a badge with Mom’s name and picture on it, emblazoned with a number showing her order in the birth timeline. Alongside my name was my number in the birth timeline of all members of my generation. These badges were immensely helpful, especially when encountering a cousin I hadn’t seen since I was a kid. Some of us have changed quite a bit over time.

I felt that meal management was handled well. Everyone was on their own for most meals. The picnic was “bring your own food.” The only meal that was jointly supplied was the Saturday evening dinner. One cousin gathered payment for this event several weeks in advance. Since it was a nice meal at an elegant venue, it was not cheap. A few that attended other events opted out of that dinner.

The meal actually cost a couple of dollars less than the charge. The extra amount helped defray other expenses, such as handouts and badges. There were no other frills, so the cost of putting on the event was limited. Several cousins did a lot of volunteer work organizing, gathering money and info, and putting together books, badges and handouts.

All in all, I’d have to say that our cousin reunion was a great success. An event like this is a worthy activity for any expanding (and aging) family clan to consider.

Blame It on the Kids (or the Lack Thereof)

A few studies that made news several years ago noted that many baby boomers expected to retire later in life than their parents and grandparents. But it was also noted that retiring boomers would be better off during their golden years than their parents were. One study found that after a half century of declining retirement age, the trend had reversed.

While researchers have been puzzling about the causes of the increasing retirement age, the explanation may actually be quite simple: Baby boomers tended to have fewer children than their parents did.

A century ago, 30.1 babies were born per 1,000 people in the U.S. That rate dropped to 18.7 during the Great Depression. (Birth rates generally trend lower during economic difficulties.) But after World War II, the rate surged, staying in the mid 20s during the 1950s, and slowly declining to below 20 in 1965 at the end of the boom. (See Infoplease site.)

Although boomers have generally been better off throughout their lives than their parents were, they opted for fewer children. And their children have continued that trend. Concern was sounded when the U.S. birth rate dropped below 14 per 1,000 for the first time in 2002. (See About.com article.) While there was an unprecedented surge in the rate in 2007, it dropped off as the recession took hold in 2008. (See NY Times article.)

The advent of widely available birth control permitted baby boomers more flexibility in determining family size than any previous generation had experienced. Increasing affluence and increasing wages for women helped fuel an increase in the divorce rate along with a decrease in the marriage rate and an increase in the average marriage age. The resulting increase in shorter-term child bearing relationships also contributed to the declining birth rate.

Affluence has been another key factor. As boomers’ parents became more prosperous, they tended to spend more on their children. Boomers took this trend to new heights with their own children. Spending on children has become such a status symbol that an entire child-focused marketing industry has grown. Parents use so many resources per child that it limits the number of children a family can afford.

Overall life expectancy has steadily increased during the past half century, so that the population of people beyond normal child bearing years is higher than ever, and climbing. The increasing median age means that even with increases in the raw number of children being born, the rate of births per thousand is still declining.

The point is that, despite ups and downs, the overall birth rate trend has been significantly downward since the the baby boom. This has a generationally delayed affect on retirement age.

In effect, the parents and grandparents of baby boomers were able to retire at younger ages because there was a huge supply of younger workers surging into the labor market. To some extent, these older workers were pushed out of the market to make way for the burgeoning young generation they spawned.

Another phenomenon of the baby boom generation was the trend toward increased preparation time to enter the job market. Increasing affluence played a role in this, but so did demographics. With more workers entering the market, boomers needed more ways to distinguish themselves to compete for jobs. This trend has continued into subsequent generations so that workers are entering the job market at later ages than their parents did.

The upshot is that as baby boomers eye retirement, there are fewer new job market entrants. This creates less pressure for older workers to retire, as well as fewer workers to fund Social Security pensions that many retirees are depending on to help fund living expenses.

Health conditions play a role in all of this as well. Better lifelong affluence means that boomers have had better health care and nutrition than any previous generation. Since they are healthier (or can be kept healthier) than their parents were at the same age, they are more capable of continuing to work than their parents were. Being healthier means that boomers need to plan for longer retirement times as well. That means more savings. And that means more work.

Increased affluence and expanded options are causing baby boomers to work to older ages than the previous two generations did. Subsequent generations can expect to work to even later points in life as they produce fewer children to replace them in the job market and as workers become productive in the market at older ages than their parents did. Hopefully they’ll be healthy enough to work long enough to enjoy some kind of retirement.

What I Have Learned from Decades of Weight Control

This is the fifth and final post in a series on weight control. In previous posts (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4), I have discussed my various approaches to maintaining a healthy weight throughout most of my life. In this post I will sum up what I have learned about weight control.

After fighting the battle of the bulge for decades, I have learned that different things work for different people, and that different approaches may be required at various stages of life. If you want to reduce to a healthy weight, the first thing you’ve got to do is to find a program that actually works for you. What works for someone else may not work for you. Or you may find that you simply can’t stand it. Each individual requires a custom approach. Discovering what works for you may require some experimentation.

I have also learned that pretty much every successful weight loss program involves denying yourself foods and habits that you very much enjoy and/or to which you are addicted. There’s just no getting around this fact. Mark Twain famously quipped, “The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.” So, find a set of restrictions you can live with without cheating much and give it a whirl.

To do this, you need to understand your own personality to a certain degree. Some people only have success when a social element is involved. They find weigh-ins, group meetings, and even working out with others at a public gym to be useful. They need the positive peer pressure to keep them on track.  Me? I’m a lone wolf. I like to manage my diet and exercise privately. But knowing that helps me find approaches that work for me.

It is also important to be willing to try new and different things when the program you are using stops producing acceptable results. Some people seem to find methods that permanently work for them. That hasn’t been my experience. Every few years I end up having to rework my diet. Besides, variety also has benefits.

One of the main secrets to weight control is to dive into whatever program you choose with full commitment. Programs with limited timeframes can be appealing because many people can succeed at maintaining self discipline for a specified number of weeks. The key is to commit and then to do it completely.

Success often breeds more success. When you start on a program and get good results, it provides a pattern for how to continue to succeed. But, as stated above, if your program stops working for you, don’t be afraid to try something different.

Perhaps the greatest key to weight control is controlling your mental picture of yourself. If your mental self image is of an overweight person, your weight loss will be difficult and/or temporary. Permanent weight loss requires an ingrained image of a slender you. There are ways to develop such an image. Some experts claim that only external influences can cause this, but I believe my own experience proves this theory wrong. Get the right image in your head and the appropriate behavior will naturally follow.

Some people never have a problem with excess weight. I didn’t get that kind of body at birth. I imagine that I will be fighting the battle of the bulge for the rest of my natural life. So far, I have figured that it is a battle worth fighting.

Low Carb Weight Control

This is my fourth post in a series on my nearly lifelong struggle with maintaining a healthy weight. In past posts (part 1, part 2, part 3), I have described my teenage, young adult, and early middle age weight control efforts. Each approach produced acceptable results at first. But each time, I eventually started to gain weight again.

As my early middle age years went by, I became relatively comfortable with my own mixture of the BFL and BFFM programs. But I was also getting older. I noticed that it was getting harder to maintain my same weight and waist size. What concerned me more was a new pattern I was seeing. I’d maintain well for months. And then I’d suddenly experience a jump in weight and waist size.

Without any significant change in my routine, I’d suddenly put on two pounds and increase my girth by half an inch. Sometimes I could take measures that would somewhat reverse the gain. Other times, nothing I did seemed to help. I would be at a new plateau. This happened several times. Again, I wasn’t sure if it was simply due to advancing age or something else.

A few months ago, a brother introduced me to the 6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle. I was very wary of low carbohydrate diets. Besides having heard a number of horror stories, I figured that eating piles of fat and protein seemed unbalanced. But I figured that trying the diet for six weeks couldn’t kill me. So I gave it a shot.

The book explains why the equation of simply eating less and exercising more works on paper, but not so much in real life. This section struck me squarely, because it described my precise experience.  More exercise and a stricter diet no longer seemed to help.

Middle-age fat is harder to reduce, the book claims, because it consists of visceral fat that entwines itself around your abdominal organs. This stuff increases blood pressure and causes any number of physical problems. Carbohydrates, it is asserted, can lend to inflammation that helps hold this visceral fat in place. It’s not the saturated fat that’s the problem. It’s the mixture of carbs and saturated fats that causes harm.

The first two weeks of the plan is designed to cleanse your liver. This reduces the body’s ability to hold onto visceral fat. They have you downing three protein shakes each day. You also get one solid low-carb meal. Surprisingly, this wasn’t as difficult as I had expected. Oh, you also have to give up most medications (especially ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and other NSAIDs), all alcohol, and all caffeine. Since I don’t use these products anyway, this was not a problem for me.

During these first two weeks, I dropped about seven pounds and reduced my waist girth by 1½”. They have a method for measuring visceral fat. Almost all of the fat I lost was visceral fat. I felt pretty good about that.

Weeks 3-4 are known as “meat weeks.” You get as much protein and fat as you need to satisfy yourself. But you get minimal levels of carbs. And you get no dairy at all. After so many liquid meals, solid meals were great. I got to eat and enjoy many foods that I had long avoided. During these weeks I lost another couple of pounds. My waist shrunk by another inch.

If you are not yet satisfied with your results at this point of the plan, the authors suggest that you alternate between a “shake” week and a “meat” week until you get to where you want to be. I did this for two weeks. I lost a little bit more weight and girth.

Finally, the last two weeks of the diet are designed to be “maintenance.” That is, they are supposed to be examples of how to eat for the rest of your life. They are a lot like meat weeks, but you can use dairy products. You also get more carbs, but they’re still very restricted.

By the end of three maintenance weeks, I had lost a total of 13 lbs and almost three inches around my waist. I feel as well as I felt under my previous diet plan. I am still doing my same strength training/cardio interval workouts. I have lost a couple of pounds of lean body mass, but I have also lost 11 lbs of fat.

I am as lean as I was nearly a decade ago. Clothes fit well that have been tight (or unwearable) for two to three years. Despite my previous unease with low carbohydrate diets, I am quite pleased with my current results. I was pushing the limits of normal BMI when I started the 6-Week Cure program. (Yes, BMI is a marginal tool for measuring healthy weight, but it is unfortunately widely used nowadays.) Now I am comfortably within normal BMI. By my calculation, I am about 13% body fat.

As has been my pattern for years, I suspect that I will follow this dietary plan until it doesn’t seem to work well for me anymore. Then I will look for something else. My goal in maintaining a healthy weight is to enhance overall health. I’m much less concerned about vanity.

Next time: What I have learned about weight control

Adult Weight Control

This is the third post in a series about my experiences with weight control. In the first post, I discussed my initial weight control efforts as a teenager. In my last post, I explained how I gained 40 lbs after getting married, and then lost 60 lbs by following a strict high carbohydrate diet.

During the next few years, I slowly gained back about 10 lbs. Then I was introduced to the Zone diet, which centers on a balanced ratio of lean protein, low glycemic complex carbohydrates, and ‘good’ fats. A 30-40-30 ratio of these nutrients was to be consumed at each meal and snack to maintain optimal blood sugar levels. While continuing my same workout program, I soon dropped the 10 lbs I had gained.

This plan worked OK, but learning to prepare meals under the plan was a nightmare. The Zone folks put out a cookbook, but it was all gourmet stuff. I’m no gourmet chef, so it didn’t work for me. I had to learn nutrient amounts for all kinds of foods. I needed a calculator, a computer, and spreadsheets to prepare a meal. Where I had once enjoyed cooking, I came to detest it. But overall, the results were positive.

A few more years slipped by, and then my brother introduced me to the Body for Life program. While BFL also included a 30-40-30 diet, it seemed less rigid than in the Zone diet.

Another change for me was the exercise program, which was structured around alternating resistance (strength) and cardio workouts. All workouts were designed as a series of intervals of increasing intensity. I quickly added muscle and reduced my waist size. I found the variety offered in the workouts to be much more satisfactory than daily aerobic training. (Your own results may vary.)

BFL seemed to work great at first. But after a couple of years, I started to notice my waist size creeping up again. I wasn’t sure if this was the result of my dietary/fitness program or my advancing middle agedness. Frustrated that even strict adherence to the plan wasn’t achieving the kind of results I had previously seen, I started casting about for other options. I chanced upon the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle program.

As I had with other programs, I dove into the BFFM program. It wasn’t a huge change from the BFL program, but it did offer more details as to why to avoid certain foods while focusing on others. I achieved marginal results with the program, likely because it really wasn’t much different than what I was already doing. But it seemed to help me hold the line for a while.

Next time: Going low-carb

Weight Control As a Young Adult

Last time I wrote about my first efforts at weight control as a teenager. I experienced some success being careful about my diet while spending a summer planting pineapples in Hawaii.

Back to my regular routine, I quickly regained some of the weight I’d lost in Hawaii. But only some of it. Over the next couple of years, I worked at a fast food restaurant and at a grocery store. I spent my summers working on Boy Scout camp staff, which imposed a fair amount of physical activity. I wasn’t very careful about my diet during this time.

While serving as a missionary in Norway, I again began putting on weight. While Norway is commonly perceived as somewhat Spartan, they’ve got some delicious dishes and treats. Finally, one of my companions convinced me to be careful about my food intake and to take up jogging. That helped me maintain my weight.

Back home in the U.S., I found that jogging at 4,500’ above sea level is a lot harder than jogging at sea level. I slacked off on working out and I didn’t watch my diet much. I led a busy life that included school and work. Eventually I got started on a regular aerobic routine. I still didn’t watch my diet. I knew I could stand to lose 15 lbs. But my physical activity was helping me maintain my weight.

Marriage and home ownership changed all of that. I no longer found time to work out. My wife’s cooking was wonderful. During the first year of marriage I packed on 40 lbs! It really freaked me out, because I kept on gaining. The trajectory didn’t seem to be leveling off. I kept buying bigger clothes.

One day I saw an infomercial for a program called The Neuropsychology of Weight Control. I had never bought anything from an infomercial. But this program offered a 60-day money back guarantee. And I was getting desperate.

Once I received the program, I went at it full tilt. In fact, I can now see in hindsight that I became downright fanatical about it. My overboard dietary evangelism couldn’t help but annoy friends and family members.

The program included three elements: diet, exercise, and mental imaging. The diet was high in complex carbohydrates, somewhat low in protein, and very low in fat. Refined carbohydrates and saturated fats were to be strictly avoided. It was thought to be best if the minimal fats consumed came from polyunsaturated sources. This kind of diet was all the rage at the time and is still officially promoted by most government sources.

The exercise program was straightforward. Just do one hour of aerobic fitness walking each day. The program included a number of mental imaging exercises that were designed to employ as many senses as possible in perceiving oneself to be fit and slender.

By obsessively following this program, I saw very good results within 60 days. So I didn’t bother to try to get my money back. On the contrary, I tried to get others to purchase and use the program. Over the space of a year I dropped 60 lbs. I leveled off after having dropped 10 inches in pant waist size. My waistline was smaller than it had been when I was 16.

Having experienced such dramatic results, I stuck to this plan for many years. I eventually transitioned to using a Nordic Track cross country ski exerciser on many days to reduce impact and to get out of the elements.

Next time: Finding ways to maintain my weight

A Lifetime of Weight Control

I was a chubby kid. Or at least, I was made to think that I was such. When I look back at my childhood pictures, I don’t appear particularly overweight. Especially compared to many of the kids today.

But kids can be harsh to each other. They tend to ruthlessly exploit perceived differences. I would be lying if I claimed that I am presently unaffected by the cruel treatment to which I was subjected as a kid. My offense was being thought of as having a non-ideal body type.

I first undertook a serious effort to battle the bulge at age 16. And I’ve been at it ever since, more or less. All in all, I’d have to say that I’ve been relatively successful. But it has been necessary to take different approaches at different times in my life.

A picture survives of me at age 16 after my first day working as a pineapple planter on a plantation in Hawaii. (That sounds a lot more glamorous that it was in real life.) In the photo, I have removed my shirt and am covered with red dirt. I am flabby, but not plump. My muffin top shows over my belt line.

My supervisor in Hawaii convinced me to give up candy, desserts, and treats of any kind throughout the summer. I ate only the cafeteria meals, but gave away my dessert at each meal. (You’d be surprised how many friends this gesture earned at mealtimes.) I spent my days doing manual agricultural labor in the hot sun.

My family almost didn’t recognize me when I got off the airplane upon arriving home. My neatly cropped brown hair had turned into a shaggy blond mane. I was much trimmer. My pants were kept in place only by virtue of my belt cinched to its tightest setting.

Next time: Weight control as a young adult

Tales from a One-Time Order of the Arrow Leader

When I was 13, I was elected by my Boy Scout troop to become a member of the Order of the Arrow, a fraternal service organization that is part of the BSA. It is often called Scouting’s national honor society.

Having friends that were very active in the OA, I also became quite active. In time, I was elected to various youth leadership positions: chapter vice chief, chapter chief, lodge chief, and section chief. I remained active in my young adult years, serving as an assistant chapter advisor, committee advisor, and chapter advisor (twice).

For many years, I was deeply involved in the OA. I often spent several nights each week and many weekends involved in OA related activities. When I became a scoutmaster, I had to reduce my involvement in the OA. Then, as a father with young children and a career, I went to school at night to improve my skills. I had no time for the OA and many other cherished pursuits during those years.

A short time after finishing graduate school, I was called into a fairly demanding church leadership position. This kept my focus in other areas. During that time, my two oldest sons joined the OA. The second found little interest in it, but the first was heavily involved for many years and was awarded the Vigil Honor.

I have always cherished my experiences with the OA, but in recent years I have still found little time for personal involvement. I have supported my oldest son in his activities, but my duties as a member of the district staff and service in my local unit have kept me as busy in scouting as my circumstances permit.

This past weekend my third son was inducted as a member of the OA. I spent the weekend with him working at a scout camp in Idaho, preparing the camp for the summer. I worked with a detail that felled large dead trees. Some were hauled and used as new trail markers. Some were cut and split into firewood. My son spent much of the time splitting wood. He was actually rather proud of the blisters on his hands at the end of the day.

While there were a few old timers around that knew me, the vast majority of the 130 people at the event had no clue who I was. Having relative anonymity while also having a deep understanding of what was going on provided for an interesting experience.

While the adults in the lodge work, serve, and enjoy fellowship with one another, I watched how most of them assiduously deferred to the youth leaders. I watched the youth leaders make some mistakes. It would have been so easy to step in and correct some of these problems. There were some background sessions where adults led the youth leaders through some lessons learned, but the youth very much appeared to be in charge. Despite foibles, the whole event went off satisfactorily.

I was also reminded of some reasons I don’t mind missing events like this. These kinds of activities used to be like my life blood. I was always in the middle of everything. I was one of the important people. Now I prefer to let others take the lead. Anonymous service suits me just fine.

Every time I attend an OA activity, I am chided by various people for my low level of involvement in the organization. Part of me wants to be more involved, but there is only so much of me to go around. I have other priorities. It’s not like I’m idle. While I realize that some of these people are merely trying to express concern, the constant pressure to return to my previous levels of involvement grates after a while. Who needs that?

I have several BSA uniforms. All of them have what I consider to be the bare minimum of insignia. Whenever I attend an OA event, other adult leaders scold me for not having this or that award that I could be wearing. I am frequently admonished to pursue awards that I already have. I just don’t care to display the award insignia on my uniform.

I see these adults in BSA uniforms that look like five-star generals in military dress. I am so not one of those people. There was a day when I had to make myself feel important by following that line. I am not that person any longer. Perhaps it’s because I see my former self — or a different version of what I could be (but glad I’m not) — that causes me to find these folks repellant.

And then there are the collectors. Some of them are or have been good friends. I’ve been involved in scouting for a long time. I have patches that are considered to be highly valuable on some uniforms. I have patches that are worth thousands of dollars. And I don’t care. The only value a patch holds for me is the underlying memory and sentiment. Frankly, some of my friends that collect BSA memorabilia come across as vultures.

So when I get taken to task for my relatively unadorned uniform, or get pestered to give up some old patch or pin, or get ragged on about how I haven’t been around much, it makes me want to do less rather than more with the OA. I do plenty in other realms of scouting. I know that I can’t do what I used to do with the OA. And moreover, I don’t really want to.

My youth and young adult years in the OA were grand times. I carry many fond memories of those precious years. Perhaps my reluctance to become more involved at present is because I don’t want to spoil those memories. I am not that person anymore. Perhaps I worry that I might revive some of the less savory elements of that person once again.

I hope that the youth involved in the Order of the Arrow gain some of the same kind of fulfillment and leadership opportunities that I had in the organization during my youth. I am grateful for the adults that work to help provide those opportunities. For the present, my focus is elsewhere.

The CDC Says Utahns are Healthy and Skinny, but Have Lousy Mental Health

StateMaster is an interesting and useful site. It lets you see a broad variety of data as it relates to the U.S. and to individual states. You can see where your state ranks in the U.S. for many different measurements.

But like all statistics, StateMaster’s figures have to be taken with a grain of salt. My statistics professor was fond of saying that unless you knew the methods used to gather, filter, and derive the data behind a statistic, the number was essentially meaningless. He warned that without this essential background knowledge we tend to lend unwarranted credibility to statistics cited in by media organizations, companies, academicians, governments, and others.

I happened to click on this StateMaster report showing Utah’s health status ranking. How is it that Utah ranks as #7 in the nation on the health index? StateMaster doesn’t say. And the links it provides to its main source, the Kaiser Family Foundation’s statehealthfacts.org site are all broken. Fortunately you can get to the right place rather easily on your own.

It is unsurprising that Utah has among the nation’s lowest rates for smoking, alcohol consumption, alcohol related fatalities, illicit drug use, and sexually transmitted diseases. And that it has the nation’s highest birth rate. A little more surprising to me is the obesity rate of 18% (making Utah 43 of 51) and 83.1% for physical exercise (2 of 52). Are Utahns really that slender and exercise oriented?

I became more suspicious when the report said that Utah’s prevalence of poor mental health was 41.4%; the worst in the nation. While this may fit a stereotype fostered in certain circles, it doesn’t seem to pass the smell test. Are over 40% of Utahns actually mentally unhealthy?

I started digging into the sources of the health data, and found that most of it came from the Centers for Disease Control Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. The surveillance system is nothing more than an annual telephone survey.

Many of the figures cited on the StateMaster site come from the 2007 survey. I’m not sure why some figures come from different years. The CDC applies various weighting factors to the results. A few of those factors are explained here, but it is not at all clear how Utah’s or any other state’s statistics were actually derived. The CDC provides this document that delves into data quality, but it doesn’t really treat my question.

Telephone surveys are notoriously faulty. They do provide some value for tracking opinion trends, but they are terribly unreliable at pinning down hard facts. The main problem is that respondents have no incentive to treat questions seriously or to answer accurately. The result for the respondent isn’t much different either way. If something serious, such as financial reward, future status, or a personal reputation were riding on the answers, you can bet that you’d see significantly different answers.

Then you have to ask whether the population of people willing to answer an extensive CDC telephone survey closely approximates the general population of a state. It is reasonable to assume that respondents are more likely to be people with telephone land lines and are less likely to have caller-ID. They apparently have enough time on their hands to answer the extensive survey. Are most people in the state like that?

Next you have to question the usefulness of the information you get from these people. When the CDC survey taker asks how much the person weighs without shoes on (question #12.11), how useful is the information received? It is wholly unverifiable. It might mean that Utahns are lighter than their counterparts in most states. Or it could mean that Utahns are more likely to lie about their weight than people in other states. We don’t know. It would be silly to treat these answers as if they had serious scientific value.

The quality of the survey questions is a major factor. The physical exercise statistic comes from a single unverifiable question (#4.1):

“During the past month, other than your regular job, did you participate in any physical activities or exercises such as running, calisthenics, golf, gardening, or walking for exercise?”

Possible answers are Yes, No, Don’t know / Not sure, and Refused. How would you answer the question? Even if you answered yes, do you get anywhere near enough physical exercise? Respondents’ answers to this question do not provide any serious indication of a population’s level of physical activity.

Getting back to the mental health issue. Section 16 of the questionnaire includes 10 questions about mental health. Several are related to stress and/or depression. Some are about mental health perceptions. The first and third questions try to pinpoint now nervous and fidgety you have felt in the last 30 days. Despite the answer classifications, these questions are very subjective. In fact, all of the mental health questions are highly subjective.

Although StateMaster says that 41.4% of Utah survey respondents (as weighted) reported “poor mental health,” the Kaiser Foundation site, which is supposed to be the data source, pins the number at 38.1%. Even at this lower number, it can only be assumed that the definition of poor mental health is so broad as to include almost any temporary negative emotional perception; a position that would please those in the mental health activism industry.

As with the questions about weight, the value of the mental health questions relative to other geographic areas is dubious. The answers are completely unverifiable. One person’s feeling “restless” on “most” days may be analogous to another person’s sense of restlessness on “some” or few days. Or not. We simply don’t know. As with questions about weight, the answers provided by respondents have little scientific value.

The CDC survey can be a useful tool for tracking trends in a population’s opinions about some health related issues. But there is too much ambiguity in most of the data gathered to provide any real value with respect to geographical ranking.

The StateMaster site pegs Utah at #7 on the “Health Index.” This index is simply a bunch of factors that a group of elites with various unapparent motivations decided was important. Given that the data plugged into the index was poorly controlled and often ambiguous, we should assume nothing more than entertainment value from this ranking and from the rankings of the categories that make up the index.

The Meaning of Memorial Day

We visited my Father-in-Law’s grave on Saturday afternoon. The weather was relatively pleasant. The cemetery was filled with colorful flowers. There were a number of people standing in groups around graves. Some seemed to be thoughtful. A few appeared to be enjoying one anothers’ company.

Yesterday we visited my Father’s grave along with a number of family members. The weather was very nice. We placed flowers and chatted. Some stood, while others sat on the lawn. Many other families were doing the same.

Dad’s grave is less than a mile from my home. I frequently stop by. But other family members that don’t live as close get fewer opportunities to visit. My Dad-in-Law’s grave is across the county, so we don’t visit as often.

I quite enjoyed remembering and memorializing my Dad and my Dad-in-Law. Both were magnificent human beings.

Large swaths of the cemetery where my Father-in-Law is buried have flat, ground level grave markers that can easily be mowed over. This gives the appearance of relatively unobstructed rolling green lawns. The feeling seems pleasant to me.

My Dad is buried in a municipal cemetery that was founded by early settlers. The place is filled with a broad variety of monuments and markers of various, shapes, sizes, and colors. The job of the caretaking staff is much more involved at this cemetery, given that there are few markers that can simply be mowed over. Each marker requires custom trimming. But the place looked fantastic. The staff had done good work.

I have many fond memories of this municipal cemetery. I used to walk through it on the way to and from school. When my kids were younger, I walked them up and down the cemetery’s roads in a stroller. They loved it. I enjoyed the sparse traffic and the rarity of dogs. I know where the most unique monuments are, and I was at least somewhat acquainted with quite a number of grave occupants.

There are several competing versions of the details surrounding the founding of Memorial Day. But most sources seem to agree that it was instituted to memorialize soldiers killed during the Civil War.

Over the past couple of months, I have been very slowly watching Ken Burns’ documentary on the Civil War. And I do mean slowly. Last night I took a rare opportunity to watch an entire episode that covers roughly 1863; the year that the war turned in the Union’s favor after it seemed like the Union could do little right for over two years.

Burns does a good job of mixing moments of valiancy and triumph with the incredible horrors of deprivation, depravation, violence and carnage that were part of that war. As the episode concluded with a reading of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, I was left in a somber mood.

The extreme destruction of life and property seemed so senseless on one hand. But the obliteration of the American institution of human slavery carries an incalculable value, even if one assumes that slavery would have dissipated organically. From my comfortable seat in the 21st Century, it certainly seems as if all of this could have been avoided had any one of a handful of individuals chosen differently.

Given the ongoing controversy about the war — a series of disagreements that will far exceed the lifetime of my future great-grandchildren — I realized that I wasn’t going to resolve the matter in my mind at the moment. But I did comprehend that, regardless of viewpoint, the Civil War was a significant historical event that helped define what it means to be an American. It helped characterize what the United States of America is and what it means.

Thankfully, each of us still has the freedom to arrive at that understanding on our own, though our results may differ.

Do Memorable Graduation Speeches Exist?

A decade ago when I finished my master degree, I was selected as the student speaker at commencement. I had to submit my prepared remarks to an advisory board for approval. The board issued its approval without remark.

I painstakingly crafted my nine-minute speech. (I had a 10-minute time limit.) I selected each phrase with care. My wife helped me rework clumsy sentences and refine structure. I practiced the speech over and over again to get my diction, intonation, emphasis, and body language just the way I wanted — much as a vocal artist would practice to perform a song.

When the day arrived, I sat on the stage of the auditorium in my graduation robes, surrounded by faculty dressed in similar robes. I noted that others that were to spend some time at the lectern were not wearing their mortar boards, so I waited to don mine until the point arrived where graduates were to move their tassels from one side of the board to the other.

The keynote speaker that day was Rocky Anderson, who was then in his first year as mayor of Salt Lake City. Mayor Anderson’s speech was OK, but it was frankly rather lifeless. He droned on about how those of us that had been so blessed by life had an obligation to give back to the community — a sentiment with which I agree. The Mayor ducked out after his speech.

I could tell from audience response that my speech kept most listeners engaged. Among other things, I talked about the value of learning how to learn. I made a few minor stumbles, but overall the speech went very well. I was so relieved when it was over that I almost failed to appreciate the audience’s magnanimous response.

After the conclusion of the commencement exercises, I received many compliments from faculty, graduates, and other attendees. One seasoned faculty member said that she had never heard such a fine student commencement speech in decades of listening to such speeches.

Many remarked that the quality of my speech dramatically exceeded that of Mayor Anderson’s remarks. I explained that from overhearing a conversation prior to the event, I knew that this was the Mayor’s sixth speech of the week and that he left early to attend yet another engagement where he was to speak. The Mayor’s commencement address was just another speaking engagement on his busy schedule. My speech, on the other hand, was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I was determined to make the most of it.

In this season of commencement exercises, I am reflecting on the various graduation ceremonies I have attended over the years. I can’t remember who spoke at most of these events, let alone remember anything that was said. Have I just amalgamated these various valuable messages into my subconscious, or have most of them been simply vapid platitudes?

I recall one university commencement where one of the speakers was an aged, long retired math professor. I remember two significant factors. One was his explanation of the settling in bushels of tomatoes that occurred when as a boy his family hauled tomatoes from the farm to the market. The height of the tomatoes in the baskets was always lower upon arrival because the jostling caused the tomatoes, which had been touching on an average of five points to the basket and other tomatoes, to touch on six points. The other thing I remember is that his speech went on way, way too long.

I’m really having difficulty remembering much else that has been said by speakers at commencement exercises I have attended. Am I unusual in this, or is this experience more general? If the latter is the case, I think that it would be wise for commencement speakers to focus on three things: brevity, entertainment, and dignity.

While it is actually possible to speak too briefly, there has rarely been a case of this in recorded history. Making your remarks concise will force you to focus on saying the most important things.

Entertainment is more than cracking jokes. It is keeping the audience captivated and engaged. It is charming and delighting your audience. And that’s really what you want to do at an occasion like graduation. There is no need for academia to be dull and boorish.

Despite a general societal trend toward casualness and declining decorum, official celebrations of major life events merit a certain level of respectability. As important occasions lose respectability, people have less reason to regard them with seriousness. It is quite possible to be both entertaining and dignified. Even if society in general is moving away from this model, there is still a broad appreciation for class. Your tasteful speech may not be long remembered, but you will feel better about it.

Many of us will sit through a number of commencement exercises during our lifetimes. If you are ever called on to speak at one of these events, you should at the very least do your best to make the event more bearable for the audience. You can do this by making your remarks brief, entertaining, and dignified. After all, that’s the kind of speech you would want to hear yourself.

An Entertaining Vocal Eclipse

About a week and a half ago my local Boy Scout council held a council-wide scouting event in conjunction with the centennial of the BSA (1910-2010). Boy Scout, Varsity, and Venturing units were invited to camp overnight. Cub Scouts and families of anyone involved in the BSA program were invited to come the following morning and spend the day enjoying a broad variety of activities. Thousands attended.

On Friday evening, I was surprised to hear that the a capella group Eclipse would be performing. Our family has a couple of the group’s albums that we quite enjoy. Accordingly, my three older boys and I wandered on over to the event stage at the appointed hour and found ourselves thoroughly delighted by the show.

As soon as the group was announced, the music started. Then one by one, the six members of the group came up the steps and out onto stage, performing as they went. Each was dressed in an official scouting uniform. (Five are Eagle Scouts. They later even announced their BSA unit numbers.) And they were great.

My #2 son is fairly accomplished at beatboxing, so he was enthralled. After the performance, he took an opportunity to chat with Kevin Jones, the group’s vocal ‘percussionist.’

(Disclaimer: I do not personally know any members of Eclipse and stand to gain nothing from this post.)

Each member of Eclipse has a tremendous talent. Their vocal arrangements blend all six voices together into captivating numbers that are enhanced by stage choreography. These guys move around a lot. They’re not just standing in place and singing. Having sung most of my life, I can attest to how difficult it is to maintain vocal clarity and enunciation while moving energetically.

One of my favorite numbers was the group’s rendition of Owner of a Lonely Heart, where tenor Paul Hansen performed the entire main bass vamp line simply by buzzing his lips. (I wonder what his lips felt like by the end of the song.) While the song has never been on my tops list, the innovative arrangement and execution made for great entertainment.

The whole show was pure fun. The youth loved it. My three sons that attended the show with me loved it. I’ve attended a lot of scouting events during my lifetime. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything as superbly entertaining as part of a scouting event. I’d definitely suggest taking an opportunity to see Eclipse perform live. You’ll be glad you did.

Goodbye Soccer

When I was a kid there were three little league sports available in my town. There was baseball in the spring and summer, football in the fall, and basketball in the winter. It seemed like all boys played baseball and lots of boys played football. Basketball seemed to be somewhat more exclusive. You had to have at least some talent for it.

All of these were male only sports. I knew that older girls played softball because I sometimes saw them practicing on fields adjacent to our practice fields. But if there were little league sports for younger girls, I was oblivious to them. I had only brothers.

I hated team sports as a kid. I have never been any good at any game involving a ball. But I played because that’s what my brothers and all of my friends did. My baseball summers consisted of dreading to go to bat for the inevitable strike out and seemingly endless hours standing in right field where the ball seldom came. I swatted gnats and picked dandelions, unconscious of what was happening in the game.

Mom and Dad signed me up for football when I was eight, figuring that I was just like my older brothers. The team was huge. I was so bad that I was fourth string right offensive guard. I showed up game after game, but never played. That was OK because I didn’t want to play anyway. But the coach put me in during the last quarter of the final game of the season. Dad, who was watching the game from the car, had fallen asleep by then. I never signed up for football again.

Once a boy in my town turned 12, his little league days were finished. He could play church sports — softball in the summer and basketball in the winter. He could play school sports — football, basketball, baseball, wrestling, tennis — but only if he was good enough. I heard of a few kids playing on competition league teams, but these were rare in my area back then.

I never even heard of anyone playing youth soccer until I was 17. The first time I actually saw kids play soccer (except as part of gym class) was when I was a young adult living in Norway. By the time I was a father, however, it seemed like all kids played soccer. Plus there were lots of other types of athletics available for both boys and girls (and mixed). Many sports offered competition leagues.

Although I had detested playing sports as a kid, I vowed that as a father I would give my kids the opportunity to play and I would support them. I didn’t want my kids to miss out just because I didn’t care for sports. But I also vowed that I would never make any child of mine play sports if he didn’t want to.

We signed my oldest son up for AYSO soccer when he turned five. (We have never done any soccer other than AYSO.) Back then they fielded a fairly large team on a fairly large field. The kids ran around in a big bunch, all trying to kick the ball at the same time. One kid on each side played goalie. My son was often one of those that was off somewhere on the field picking dandelions.

Toward the end of my son’s second season, he was put in as goalie. An opposing player with a good leg (but lousy aim) kicked a ball right into my son’s gut. The team cheered him for his heroic save, but it had all been an accident. He thought he was going to pass out. At any rate, he was done with soccer. He later played baseball for a couple of seasons, but then decided he was done with all team sports.

My second son was far more adept at soccer. He seemed to enjoy it. Year after year he kept coming back. He played well in the back and mid-field, but was never great as a forward. When he got older, his teammates became aware of his goalie abilities. He didn’t mind playing in the goal, but he didn’t want to be there full time. When he was 16, he received an ankle injury as the result of an illegal action by a non-registered player. It took six months of physical therapy to fully recover. Although he liked soccer, he decided that he was done with it. He also played baseball several seasons, but eventually ran into enough time conflicts that he quit.

I was impressed with the soccer setup when son #3 started playing. They had small fields. Each team fielded three players at a time. There were no goalies. The coaches were on the field refereeing and coaching players. I thought it was a great way to learn. But my boy wouldn’t focus on the game. The next thing you know, he’d be talking to the coach of the opposing team about Pokemon or something. About halfway through the season, he simply refused to play anymore.

The following season, my #3 boy decided he wanted to play again. My wife relented and signed him up. He actually seemed to be developing well. Then after the best quarter of soccer I had ever seen him play, he came up to me and said, “Dad, I’m not going to play anymore.” It was his turn to sit out a quarter anyway. But when it was his turn to go back in, he refused. He said, “I just don’t want to play soccer anymore,” and he was serious. He did baseball for a few seasons and even tried basketball once, but he eventually decided that team sports were not for him.

My #4 son seemed to enjoy soccer, except that he detested the games eating into his Saturday morning cartoon and leisure time. He played for a few seasons, but then he decided that the game was too much of an imposition on his valuable time. He did baseball for a couple of seasons, but then he started developing problems with migraine headaches that would completely wipe him out. The headaches often came on during baseball practices or games, which were held on a shade free field. Maybe the heat had something to do with it. Anyway, he quit baseball.

My daughter has played baseball, but didn’t sign up this year. She was never as aggressive as some other girls on her soccer teams, but she has held her own. I felt like she played quite well this season. When soccer signup started a few weeks ago, however, she asked that we not register her for next season. Even after last week’s final game of the season, where she scored well, she expressed relief that she won’t be playing soccer again next season.

As I walked off the soccer field a few days ago, I realized that it was the last time I would be attending an AYSO soccer game as a parent. The next time I attend will be as a grandparent. That will likely be a number of years down the road. Despite my aversion to team sports, I have attended a lot of soccer games over the years to support my children. My wife has coached some of our children’s teams.

My wife and I are both happy that this phase is done. But oddly, it leaves me with a somewhat wistful feeling.

Is Grounding Children from Church Activities Good Discipline?

The neighborhood where I grew up was a new development full of entry-level middle class houses. That meant lots of young families and lots of children. There was never any shortage of kids to hang out with.

One member of my younger brother’s group of close friends dropped from the group in his teen years. After being widowed, this boy’s father married a woman who brought her own kids to the relationship. The dad and stepmother were decent, caring people that struggled with the challenges of blending two families into one.

All children need discipline. A common method used by parents is restriction of privileges. As the father of five children, I have found that this works better for some personality types than for others. To make it work at all, the restriction has to apply to something meaningful to the child.

My brother’s friend enjoyed attending scouting and church youth activities with his friends. His parents — trying to do their best under difficult circumstances — decided that grounding him and keeping him home from such activities was an effective disciplinary method. As a teenager, this seemed like a very wrong-headed approach to me. Shouldn’t parents be promoting the kinds of positive relationships the boy had at church and scouts?

It didn’t surprise me when this boy started hanging out with some pretty rough kids he knew from school. Before long he was involved in drugs and crime. He spent his young adult years satisfying his addictions, fathering children with various women, and getting in scrapes with the law. I hear that he eventually achieved some level of stability, but his once bright mind has been permanently limited by drug abuse.

I’m not saying that punishing kids by keeping them from church activities is going to turn them into druggies. I do, however, think that this method of discipline for this boy was part of a pattern that exacerbated certain life problems.

I was once teaching a merit badge to our Boy Scout troop as part of their weekly troop meeting. In the middle of the class, one boy’s father (who was a church leader) appeared and told the boy to come home with him. A few days later, this man explained that he had pulled his son from the class as punishment for the boy sassing his mother. He said that his son would be contacting me to set up a time to make up the missed merit badge requirements.

While I respect this man’s right to discipline his son, I admit that I was chagrined. The boy did set up an appointment. The dad saw this as a responsible approach. But the dad had disrespected my time. I am busy too. I had to take extra time away from my family to do for this boy what could have been done in a group setting with time I had already invested. I earnestly feel that this father could have found a different but effective disciplinary method.

This brings me to the question of the appropriateness of disciplining children by keeping them from weekly church and scouting activities. Attendance at these activities follows church leader counsel and brings blessings that cannot be had otherwise.

Where else are these kinds of positive relationships fostered? Where else do youth get this kind of positive mentoring from dedicated adult volunteers? What kind of message do parents send to their children when they purposefully prevent them from attending these weekly activities?

I would not say that there are never appropriate circumstances to keep children from attending church or scouting activities. After all, it is LDS doctrine that the church exists to support families in their pursuit of eternal life. And sometimes well meaning church leaders imprudently overschedule families. (That topic is worthy of its own post.) But I do question the value of grounding children from weekly church youth meetings as a method of discipline.

When I was a missionary, a recent convert to our church asked what members should do if they ever fell into sin. He asked, “Should they just stop attending?” We explained that Christ is the Good Physician — the Healer of souls — and that church is more of a treatment center for recovering sinners than a sanctuary for the perfected. I wonder if keeping children from church when they misbehave might not send the message that they should stay away from church if they sin.

Each parent is tasked with appropriately disciplining their children. I do not question the motives of parents that ground their children from attending church activities. I do, however, think that parents that use or consider using this method may want to consider the long-term effects of such a path.

Traffic Squeeze In North Ogden

Every city has transportation issues, and North Ogden is no exception. While there are a variety of problems, there is one that impacts my family on a daily basis. As with other towns that started out as small settlements, erstwhile farm lanes have developed into heavily used collector roads. This is the case with 2600 North.

Until just a few years ago, the west end of 2600 North terminated at 400 East, which is also known as Washington Blvd and is one of the main north-south routes through Weber County. Since long before I was a kid, the area around the intersection of 2600 North and Washington was part of North Ogden’s business district.

That area used to be mostly small family run businesses mixed with residential use. There has been a bank on one corner for more than half a century. There was a gas station for decades across the way. A 7-11 replaced some small shops years ago. One supermarket and another bank went up in the 1980s. Another supermarket went up in the late 90s. The last residence in the immediate vicinity of the intersection was torn down late last year.

You still don’t have to go very far east of Washington on 2600 North before it turns into a residential zone. But that’s part of the problem. North Ogden has grown significantly throughout my life. Much of the growth has been to the north and east of the intersection in question.

Since the middle of the last century, North Ogden has been chiefly a suburban bedroom community. Most of the people that live here don’t work here. Despite business growth, that is simply not going to change.

All of those homes that have been built to the east and northeast of 2600 North and Washington make for a vast amount of traffic passing through the intersection. Traffic on 2600 North is very heavy during high commute times each day. (You can cruise along the road on Sunday morning at 6:30 without encountering another vehicle.)

A few years ago, the old gas station was torn down and a 5-lane road was put in that connects 2600 North all the way out to the interstate exchange (and much further west). The result has been even more traffic passing through the intersection.

While the intersection has been improved, 2600 North is inadequate to handle its current traffic load. The first few blocks east of Washington were among the first residentialized parts of North Ogden. Projects over the years have widened 2600 North to the point that the road is quite close to the front porches of some of the homes in this stretch.

When cities face heavier traffic loads, they widen and improve roads where possible. They seek to spread traffic flow to other collector roads. All of this has been done with 2600 North, and yet the problem is still dire. It will only continue to get worse.

The only real solution to problem is to significantly widen 2600 North from two lanes with shoulders to five lanes with shoulders — matching the segment of the road west of Washington. The problem with this is that it would cost too much. The city would have to condemn property on at least one side of the road, and perhaps on both sides. The road would probably even end up consuming the current parking lot for the city building, library, and police station.

North Ogden is apparently making no plans for this type of road widening, since new construction has recently been approved and completed close to both sides of the road in recent years. Since widening is not likely to happen anytime soon, stopgap measures must be undertaken.

Last year the city added a concrete median on 2600 North between the west entrances to 7-11 and Wells Fargo Bank. Preventing left turns in and out of those driveways has improved safety, but it’s not enough.

UTA used to have its bus stop next to 7-11. Moving the stop half a block east has helped, but the stop still creates a huge traffic hazard. It is right in a squeeze zone where the road goes from two lanes to three without being any wider. (Shoulders are eliminated.) There are driveway approaches to businesses on both sides of the road in this stretch. Since it is an end-of-route stop, busses park there for long periods, often obstructing traffic and creating a visibility hazard.

The city needs to work with UTA to achieve a safer solution. While it is convenient for drivers and passengers to have a long stop near this intersection, the traffic hazard is unacceptable. This stop should become a quick stop only. Busses should remain there for less than a minute.

The city needs to consider extending the current concrete median to prevent left turns in and out of the east 7-11 and west Smith’s driveways. In fact, it might be reasonable to eliminate the west Smith’s driveway completely. Traffic would be funneled through the east driveway and through the driveways on Washington. When traffic is heavy, it is not even safe for vehicles to make right turns in and out of Smith’s west driveway on 2600 North, since no real shoulder exists and the driveway approach is too narrow to permit a turn close to the curb.

I invite our city’s legislators and executive to consider the worsening situation in this heavily used stretch of 2600 North. Planners need to prepare for eventual widening of the road. In the meantime, additional measures are needed to improve safety in the short term.

North Ogden's Beauty Pageant Battle

For decades the city of North Ogden has included a beauty pageant as part of its annual “Cherry Days” (July 4th) celebration. The pageant has been affiliated with the pageant industry that feeds into state and national contests.

Residents of two adjoining cities have been allowed to enter the pageant. Overall participation has declined in recent years. But more importantly for North Ogden citizens, the number of contestants coming from North Ogden itself has dropped significantly. Pageant winners in three of four recent years have come from neighboring cities that have paid nothing to help host the competition.

Personally, I do not care for the beauty pageant industry. It seems like a throwback to a less enlightened era. Our culture already focuses far too heavily on physical appearance. I question the value of promoting this kind of thing as a matter of public policy. While I understand cultural tradition, I do not see how a show like this improves our community’s quality of life. I would strongly discourage my daughter from participating in such exhibitions.

I know that pageant supporters bill these events as “scholarship pageants.” But if we are honest, we will admit that the quintessential elements of these spectacles are their sensually appealing factors. Without those, the pageant industry would dry up and blow away. With carnally gratifying displays intact, beauty pageants would continue even without the attachment of scholarships or other features that are added to lend respectability.

Still, I have no problem with beauty pageants as long as they are private affairs. I become concerned when my tax dollars are used to make me an unwilling supporter of these events. That has been the case in North Ogden.

Last year, the council allotted $9,600 for the pageant in this year’s budget. Over the past several months the city council has discussed the pageant and made new decisions about the expense. At its February budget retreat, the council decided to finance the pageant if at least eight contestants from North Ogden registered.

The deadline for registration was the council’s April 8 meeting. Pageant supporters signed eight participants by that date, but two dropped out. At a later council meeting in April, pageant supporters (including former contestants/winners and their mothers) showed up in force to lobby the council to fund the pageant this year. They claimed to have signed 16 participants. The council relented.

After reading some of these details in newspaper reports, it bothered me that the council had considered the $9,600 expense of taxpayer money worthwhile, even with only eight contestants. That amounts to spending $1,200 of taxpayer money per person for a fancy dress up party. “Self esteem” notwithstanding, that seems like an unbalanced taxpayer burden.

So I shot off an email to all five council members and the mayor expressing my concerns. I questioned whether there was any other budget item that transferred a sum that high to a private beneficiary for a totally nonessential service.

So far, two council members have contacted me. First I received a phone call from Wade Bigler. During our extensive chat, Mr. Bigler provided a number of details and clarifications about the matter of which I had been unaware. He followed up our discussion with an email.

Brent Taylor responded to my email with additional clarification. He included a PDF copy of the minutes of the February budget meeting, detailing the discussion of the pageant matter. Mr. Taylor’s explanation pretty much matched Mr. Bigler’s account.

I very much appreciate these two council members taking time to address my concerns. After all, $9,600 is not really a large budget item. We’re talking about roughly $2 per household per year. But when all of the ‘small’ expenditures are added up, it makes for a large chunk of the city budget. So I think it is important to see how council members address even these smaller items.

Both Mr. Bigler and Mr. Taylor feel that the pageant should be privately funded. However, Mr. Taylor felt that the city should at least partially fund the pageant for a couple of seasons so that supporters could have some lead time to develop private funding. From what I can gather, most other council members agreed with that sentiment.

However, Mr. Bigler noted the concerns about declining enrollment and winners coming from other cities. He proposed that the pageant be funded this year only if at least eight contestants from North Ogden signed up. This motion carried. But Mr. Bigler told pageant supporters that they were on their own for funding next year.

Following the council’s decision to fund the pageant, Mr. Bigler received information that caused him to suspect that pageant supporters had padded the number of contestants. After repeatedly requesting an actual list of committed contestants, the pageant manager supplied a list of only seven girls. With the nine others having evaporated, the city will not fund the pageant this year.

Mr. Bigler is insistent that pageant supporters could still run the event if they put in the effort to obtain private funding; something Mr. Bigler asserts would not be terribly difficult for them. I agree that pageant supporters should find private parties that are willing to pay for the pageant rather than lobbying the city for a share of limited taxpayer funds.

It is difficult to be an elected official with the authority to spend taxpayer money. When lobbyists come calling, the benefit of giving them a chunk of taxpayer money is very clear. With only $2 per household per year at stake, no taxpayers are going to show up to protest the transfer.

Benefits are concentrated while costs are diffused in these instances. It is easier to play the ‘good guy’ that ‘helps’ the people that are there plying you for cash. It’s difficult to be the fiscal disciplinarian that comes across as ‘mean’ and ‘stingy’ for trying to protect taxpayer interests without any assurance that taxpayers will care or even know about it.

I applaud elected officials that are willing to appear unpopular to keep government within its proper bounds. It is by doing this that we can be more certain that government will have adequate funding to handle its essential duties.

I will add updates if any council members contact me about the pageant issue.

Update: 5/19/2010
Council member Carl Turner contacted me about the pageant today. He noted that his sister won the pageant back around 1980, but that interest in the event has waned significantly since that time. Times have changed, and he thinks it’s time for the city to move on. He is not in favor of the city funding the pageant in the future.

Mr. Turner noted that he actually suggested de-funding the annual July 4th fireworks display due to the tight budget. He quipped, “I almost was tarred and feathered for saying that.”

Mind Games

A friend of mine told me today that when his four adult children were younger, he was constantly yelling at his son for terrorizing his younger sister. At a recent family dinner, my friend’s daughter admitted that in almost all of these incidents she was the antagonist. Once the parents were out of earshot, she would laugh at her brother for getting in trouble for something she had caused. My friend was astonished at this discovery.

A few years ago at a family gathering, my brothers and I discussed a number of incidents from our childhood that were poignant at the time they occurred, but that later seemed humorous. My Mom kept saying, “I never knew about that!”

In real life, I know that Mom was at least somewhat aware of some of these events at the time they occurred. But I suspect that nature has a way of blissfully burying certain memories that stem from the intense years of raising children.

It may also be that you get so numb from the antics of five boys that some things that would otherwise be significant kind of float above the layer of consciousness — perhaps because you’re so stretched out that you can’t do anything about it at the time anyway.

Kids sometimes think that parents are oblivious to what is going on. Other times they think that parents have an uncanny sixth sense to detect what is happening. As a parent of five children myself, I find that the extent of my awareness of everything going on in the family ebbs and flows. It is dependent on my capacities to comprehend it at any given moment.

Even when I am relatively aware, my actions in relationship to what is happening vary based on several factors. My ability and desire to deal with matters depends on how well I feel, how stressed I am, what I have going on, how readily my wife can respond, etc. Sometimes I purposefully stop myself from intervening in the hope that the kids will learn some valuable life skills from working it out themselves.

Given limited capacities, a parent must prioritize constantly. While consistency in parenting is a virtue, prioritization means that sometimes children will get away with things and other times they won’t.

I wonder how unaware my friend really was of the dynamic between his daughter and his son. Perhaps the details have been buried in his memory. My only daughter is our youngest child. I would be lying if I denied that she enjoys special status as our spoiled baby girl. She has had me wrapped around her little finger since she was still in the womb.

Sometimes my daughter is a brat. She can tease, torment, and/or be petulant. Her next older sibling probably catches more of this than any of the other children. But he knows that he will get in trouble if he retaliates. It’s not that we, as parents are unaware that she pesters him. But my son needs to know that lashing out is also improper. It is true that this leaves the boy with limited outlets for addressing the issue.

Conversely, these two siblings can be very close and can play together quite nicely. They share a close bond that is different than the bond they share with any of the other children.

Families have interesting dynamics that can bring great joy and great difficulty. I look forward to someday sitting around with my adult children and finding out about some of their childhood antics of which I was unaware — or have just forgotten.

The Boy(Scout)s of Summer

I just had a chat with my son’s scoutmaster. He is fretting about summer camp coming up in July. Most of the problem stems from one man insisting on bringing his too-young son to the weeklong event.

A little background might be useful. The vast majority of Boy Scout units in our area are sponsored by the LDS Church. Each BSA unit answers to the head of its chartering organization. In the LDS Church, that’s the ward bishop. The LDS Church enrolls boys in different levels of the BSA program based on age.

• Ages 8-10 are Cub Scouts.
• Ages 11-13 are Boy Scouts. But the church has a separate program for 11-year-olds. While the members of the New Scout Patrol are members of the Boy Scout troop, they do not participate in the troop’s full program. They hold few camps and they focus mainly on advancing through Scouting’s primary ranks.
• 14-15-year-olds are Varsity Scouts.
• 16-18-year-olds are Ventures.

Consequently, most boys that go to weeklong organized BSA camps from our area are ages 12-13. It is not uncommon for older boys to tag along. Every once in a while a Varsity team or Venture crew shows up at camp. But these units for older youth usually focus on other types of high adventure summer activities.

LDS Church policy prohibits 11-year-old boys from attending summer camp with the troop. There is a loophole that allows people to skirt this regulation. 11-year-old boys cannot be barred from attending summer camp if they are accompanied the whole time by their parent or legal guardian. And there’s the rub.

One boy that is in our unit’s Cub Scout program turns 11 a week or so after the troop goes to summer camp. He’s only 10 right now. But his father wants to come to camp with the boy. You wouldn’t want a boy that will turn 12 during the summer to miss camp due to an accident of scheduling. But a 10-year-old is a different matter.

When I served as scoutmaster I had a similar situation. I simply went to the bishop — the charter organization head — and asked him to tell the father that the boy couldn’t go with the troop. That worked back then. But the father of the boy in question this year is a member of the ward bishopric.

Perhaps without realizing the difficulties he was foisting onto the scoutmaster, the bishop agreed to allow this man to take his son to summer camp with the troop. Since it wouldn’t be proper to allow only one individual such a privilege, all boys of a similar age in the ward must now be permitted the same opportunity.

This situation dramatically expands the number of people that will be going to camp with our troop. It increases planning and trip execution by orders of magnitude. More troop equipment will be needed. The scoutmaster will have to keep track of the activity and advancement progress of more boys, even while he has far more boys to look after. More people will have to fit in the campsite.

BSA policy prohibits adults from sleeping in the same quarters as youth that are not members of their immediate family. You can minimize tent space by grouping the adults and grouping the youth. But our stake’s interpretation of church policy is that boys under 12 must sleep in the same facility with their father. That means that each sub-12-year-old that attends adds another tent. Since campsites are only so large, we will be cramped.

Meals will become far more difficult, as the number for which food must be prepared nearly doubles. Cleanup becomes a much larger chore. Keeping track of troop members ends up being like trying to hold a pound of sand in your hands. Some is always slipping out between your fingers, no matter how hard you try to keep it together.

You’d think that having all those extra adults along would be helpful, but you’d be wrong. As I have long known, and as the scoutmaster explained to me today, there are low maintenance adults and there are high maintenance adults. Some adults know how to facilitate the boys’ growth and accountability. Some are more of a hindrance than a help. Fathers that aren’t fully on board with the program sometimes thwart their sons’ ability to engage properly.

Having been involved in Boy Scouts for a very long time, having worked on BSA camp staff, and having been to Scout camp more times than most people have gone on overnight campouts, I have developed a different personal philosophy. With rare exception, I do not like to take a boy to camp that is outside of the age range of the target youth group. I have carefully observed this rule with my own sons.

I have found, for example, that when 11-year-olds go to Boy Scout summer camp, they end up being pretty high maintenance campers — even when they have their fathers in tow. Then by the time they’re 13, Scout camp seems so “old hat” to them that many of them end up making trouble.

A Varsity Scout leader once insisted on bringing his 12-year-old son hiking with the team in the High Uintas. At one point during our encampment, the boy broke the buddy system rule while he was out fishing and tried to make it back to base camp on his own. He ended up getting lost, and it was only by a near miracle that we were able to rescue him.

One year when I allowed some 14-year-olds that had been some of my best Scouts to come with us to Scout camp, even they ended up being trouble. There are certainly exceptions to this, but it seems to me that it is usually worth sticking to the age-limit rule.

Having said that, I must now admit that my scoutmaster let me and two of my friends come to camp with the troop when we were 14. (We all turned 15 just a couple of months later.) We acted in the role of junior assistant scoutmasters. That camp was a very important event in my life. A few years later I found myself working on camp staff.

The first time I went to summer camp I was homesick, hated hiking, and was scared of adventure. Who knew that I would someday work on camp staff and would grow to enjoy hiking? That staff experience of my older teen years has very positively colored the whole rest of my life. So, I’d say that there are times that exceptions to the age-limit rule are acceptable. A wise leader will know when it is right to make such exceptions.

Right now I am feeling sorry for our scoutmaster. I have been in his shoes before and have taken very large troops to summer camp. The run-up to camp and the camp experience will present serious challenges for him. I will do my best to support him. But I know from experience that he will breathe a high sigh of relief when it’s all over.