8 Jul 2023, Saturday

 8 Jul 2023, Saturday

Prioritized Daily Task

8:00 AM - help clean tree up from 

9:00 AM - help clean Lehi 7th Ward Building for church tomorrow

Take Book of Mormon to Maggie

3:00 PM - Pick Ethan up from driving class at the Maverick gas station in Thanksgiving Point and take to the cabin

Take journals here in Lehi to the cabin in Heber and bring back the 2015 journal.     

Note:  A stranger came by the other day with an offer that set me to thinking.  He wanted to buy the old barn that sits out by the highway.  I told him right off he was crazy.  He was a city type, you could tell by his clothes, his car, his hands and the way he talked.  He said he was driving by and saw that beautiful barn sitting out in the tall grass and wanted to know if it was for sale.  I told him he had a funny idea of beauty.  Sure, it was a handsome building in its day.  But then, there’s been a lot of winters pass with their snow and ice and howling wind. The summer sun’s beat down on that old barn ’til all the paint’s gone and the wood has turned silver gray.  Now the old building leans a good deal, looking kind of tired.  Yet, that fellow called it beautiful.  

That set me t thinking.  I walked out to the field and just stood there, gazing at that old barn.  The stranger said he planned to use the lumber to line the walls of his den in a new country home he’s building down the road. He said you couldn’t get paint that beautiful.  Only years of standing in the weather, bearing the storms and scorching sun, only that can produce beautiful barn wood.  

It came to me then.  We’re a lot like that, you and I.  Only it’s on the inside that the beauty grows with us.  Sure we turn silver, gray too…and lean a bit more than we did when we were young and full of sap.  But the Good Lord knows what He’s doing.  And as the years pass He’s busy using the hard weather of our lives, the dry spells and the stormy seasons to do a job of beautifying our souls that nothing else can produce.  And to think how often folks holler because they want life easy!  

They took the old barn down today and hauled it away to beautify a rich man’s house.  And I reckon someday you and I’ll be hauled off to Heaven to take on whatever chores The Good Lord has for us on the Great Sky Ranch.  And I suspect we’ll be more beautiful then for the seasons we’ve been through here…and just maybe even add a bit of beauty to our Father’s house.   

         

Debbie and I had prayer and I drove up to Kris Johnson's mother's (285 W 1200 N) and started working on getting an old dead tree that had fallen cut up and put in a trailer.  I got there early and when other brothers started arriving we put the chain link fence back up.  There is still some work to be done on it but when Kris gets the tools and parts he can finish it.  I used one of his chainsaws.  Two other brothers came and used chainsaws.  We got the dead tree that had fallen cut up and loaded on a trailer.   When I got home Rae Lynn called and asked me to pick Ethan up after his driving class and bring him to the cabin in Timber Lakes.  Debbie and I went to the church building we attend and helped clean.  When we got home Debbie made a nice brunch meal from leftovers.  Debbie, Mirko, and I ate; Ljubica had already eaten.  Debbie went shopping for Shirley Hobbs; Mirko and Ljubica are sleeping.  I read; Dan called and Ora is about the same, Elain called and the break in her back was an old break and she OK and is so happy.  I was going to send the retainer fee to Eric Fisher, Attorney, in Atlanta but I will have to wait until Monday when the banks are open and someone is in the office at Barnes & Thornburg LLP.  When Debbie got home I drove up to the Maverick gas station and picked Ethan up.  He made a score of 100 on his driving exam to get his license.  Rae Lynn, Brett, and Westen have gone to Brody's basketball game.  We came back by the house.  He wanted to know if I had any other old clothes similar to the Darling Prom T-shirt Matt had given to me and I gave to him.  He went through my closet and the only thing I had that he wanted was another 1/2 sleeve red and white T-shirt and a black silk kimono.  He took the 1/2 sleeve T-shirt but not the kimono.  We rode up to the cabin in Heber.  We had a good visit on the way up.  When we got there he wanted to spend time with Tucker and Luke.  Owen was playing with Maggie.  I gave Beth a missionary tab Book of Mormon for Maggie for her to mark during seminary and her personal study.  Debbie and I thought we had given her one when she was baptized.  Beth took Tucker, Maggie, Andrew, Ethan, Luke, and Owen to a trampoline place to play.  I spent the afternoon making sure all the journals I had kept from 1976 to 2022 were at the cabin. I took pictures.  I drove back home and Debbie had a bowl of chicken paprikash that Ljubica made for everyone.  We thought Beth, Tucker, Maggie, and Andrew were spending the night here with us.  The children wanted to be with and play with their cousins. much as they could before returning home.  Debbie took some potatoes over to Laura's.  Clara has her driving permit and looks for every opportunity to drive someone with a driver's license.  Ellie, Clara's first cousin was there. Debbie told us all that was going on when she got she got home.  We had prayer with Mirko and Ljubica.  Later Debbie and I had prayer together before going to bed.

*Note - Daily Journals 

** August 14,  1976, Having attended stake leadership meeting tonight and once again reminded of my accepted goal to keep a personal record. I stopped by Cumberland Mall and purchased this book.  I shall within the next few week attempt to bring up to date this personal history.  After my mission, June 1968 - June 1970, I was without employment.

                                                          Franklin Day Planners 1991- 2011

Hard-bound copies of daily Blog journals on left and office supple hand-written journals are on the right 

                                                        First digital printed Blog daily journal

December 31, 1990, was the last Standard Journal from office supply and the first Franklin Day Planner January 1, 1991

          The physical location of my journals are in the back of the closet under the stairs at the cabin at lot 1234 in Timber Lakes where all my daily journals for over forty years are kept.

       It took me more than a few weeks from Aug. 14, 1976, to get this book written and printed. It contains stories about my early life and my family who have passed on into the spirit world.

   When I started my search for ancestors on my mother's side of the family, the Smiths, and Thrashs.I had a great aunt, Elender Josephene Smith, who provided names, dates, stories, and pictures of deceased family members.  

On my father's side of the family, I hit a wall at the parents of my g grandfather, Thomas Jefferson McAlpin.  There were no records of his parents and an honest effort had been made to keep this information a secret.  Thomas Jefferson McAlpin's death certificate stated his parents were unknown but my dad had spent time with him when he was a young boy and his grandfather had told him stories of going with his parents and playing with his cousins in an Indian village.  When I learned the names of his parents, William Alexander McAlpin Sr. and Manah Matilda, it was as if a dam broke and information begin to be brought to me from family members who before had been very reluctant to provide me any information on our family.  There were hundreds. even thousands of names of family members lowed in.  I had a cousin Doris McAlpiin Russell who helped me organize and put the names in a book, McAlpin Geneaolgies 1730 - 1990.