happy 95th birthday

Wow, Dad, you're 95th birthday is this very day. Can you believe it? 95 years since the sinking of the Titanic. 95 years since you made your appearance in Oak City, Utah. We know so much about your first 51 years. The death of your mom. Your love of livestock and agriculture. Your going to the circus and coming home to try to tricks on grandpa's horses. Your mission to Germany. Your finishing college at the U having started it as an Aggie in Logan. Your work for the census bureau that led to another bureau, the FBI. Way to put that German to good use. Your meeting our mom. Your marriage. Your career. Your daughter and then me, your son. Your stockbroker years. Your curiousity. Your gentle ways. Your love of color, creativity and mom. Your impatience with the unimportant. Your patience with me and all that mattered so much. The vacations, the Christmasses, the family reunions. The tapercorders and movie cameras and 16 millimeter projectors borrowed from a friend. The diagnosis you didn't want to believe. Your will to "beat this thing." That last summer and such a fall, such fire in the leaves and in your heart. That last Halloween. The last time we shoveled snow and drank hot chocolate. JFK in Dallas. Our president dead and you in the hospital the next day. Thanks for asking me to pray. I'm still praying, daddy. I wonder what you've been up to all these years. Have my teens, twenties, girl friends, hobbies, hopes, marriage, children, college, careers, anxiety, depression, scholarships, photos and music---have all these passed in just minutes for you? Have you seen it all or just read my blog? Happy birthday, dear Dad. I hope you'll visit soon in another dream like the one on Aunt Susan's back porch on Kayland Way, and let me know if my hunch is right, or just wishful thinking.

post 5K greetings

Ran the Salt Lake Marathon's 5K yesterday. A great experience, and a particularly refreshing race when compared to the beautiful but much more difficult Canyonland Half Marathon. Today I'm a little stiff and sore, small price to pay for the opportunity to run freely, joyfully the short distance from Liberty Park to the Gateway.