Doing Hard Things

In modern America, an experience like that of Kumen Jones is virtually nonexistent.
 
At the age of sixteen, Kumen went to work delivering mail between Cedar City, Utah and Boullionville, Nevada, a round-trip distance of 225 miles. It was a lonesome job. He traveled by himself and spent nights with families from settlements along the way. Each trip lasted six days and he did this for three years.
 
Anyone who travels this same stretch in our modern era knows that it continues to be a desolate area. Imagine a sixteen-year old boy making this journey in the bitter cold of winter in a foot of snow—depending solely upon his own merits for survival. Even under ideal conditions, an experience like this would quickly transform a boy into a man.
 

Kumen Jones

At age nineteen he began work for a cattle company from Cedar City. He tells the story of spending the winter on the east fork of the Virgin River at a place they called “lower herd.” In February, he and a friend started back for Cedar on what was known as the “Shoonsberg Trail.” This would take them through the settlements of Shunsberg and Toquerville, and up the Black Ridge toward home.
 
They hadn't traveled far along the fork of the river when it began to snow. Soon, the trail was obliterated and the two men lost their bearings. For two days they wandered without food and the snow piled two to three feet deep. They prayed fervently, knowing the desperate situation they faced. Even their horses were exhausted.
 
Then, on the morning of the third day, the storm broke and they recognized the hills near their original starting point. At last their prayers were answered, as Kumen put it, “by the kind Father above.”
 
These experiences helped shape Kumen for the rest of his life. He went on to be a member of the infamous Hole in the Rock Expidition, where he played a key role in assisting with a seemingly impossible trek. He later helped build a city and became a leader in the community.
 
Stories like these aren't limited to Kumen Jones. After the violent death of his father and uncle, Joseph F. Smith was required to drive one of the ox teams from Montrose, Iowa to Winter Quarters, and later to the Salt Lake Valley at the age of nine. Many of my ancestors built towns from land that had scarcely been seen by white men. Say what you may about teenage marriage, but the truth is that many women married young and it was really hard work. They matured quickly. My Grandmother Workman buried seven of her own children before any of them passed the age of twenty-five. Our progenitors didn't have the conveniences we enjoy. They washed clothes on a wash board, grew their own food, and built their own homes.
 
Even in more recent history, my wife's grandfather, Howard Smith—at the age of eighteen—was a tail gunner in the South Pacific during World War II. My own grandfather, Claude Lacy, walked seven miles home every evening after football practice when he couldn't hitch a ride. They made-do during The Great Depression, living in conditions far below our current standards.
 
The truth is, we live in luxury. It is generally agreed upon that we, as a society, have become much softer than we used to be. In my view, we are not as often doing those hard things that our ancestors did—the things that made them tough. Even the arduous jobs of manual labor we are passing off to immigrants.
 
I have thought about this lately—a lot. Although we as adults are not exempt, I have particularly observed the youth. Anxiety rates are climbing steeply. I watch as youth and young adults get anxiety and quit over seemingly small tasks. The age that kids tend to “grow up” is continually on the rise. The first-time mother that once matured quickly at age fifteen has now morphed into the “man-child” that plays video games and lives at home into his late twenties. We have become seekers of pleasure rather than choosing to accept greater responsibility.
 

In light of all this, I would like to tell you about my daughter, Kaitlyn, who right now is definitely doing a “hard thing.”
 
For the past two months she has attended Basic Training in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. It has been the most physically draining thing she has done in her entire life. At barely five feet, she is the shortest soldier in her platoon. She trains alongside the males, where the rigors and abuses of boot camp do not discriminate by sex.
 
Through her letters we have been able to capture a small glimpse of her world—the sub-zero temperatures, ruck-marches in the dark, drill sergeants yelling in her face and a run through the gas chamber.
 
Even “chow” is no cake-walk. As she describes it: “You must be silent, keep your heels together, bring your bowl to the food when you pour something in it, and if you mess up on anything you will probably get caught and they will make you sing the Army song at the top of your lungs for 5 minutes, or repeat a phrase over and over again. For example, if you forget to keep your heels together they'll make you say, 'heels together makes the food taste better!' while everyone else eats.”
 
One of my favorite stories is of the night that one of the males in her platoon lied to the drill sergeant. Instead of going to bed, they had to go outside in the rain with rakes and “organize the mud.”
 
She wrote about another incident: “Last night once we finally got to go to bed a drill sergeant came in our bay while we were sleeping and found a weapon that was left on semi instead of safe, so we got woken up and smoked. They had us run up and down the stairs changing into different uniforms in very small time periods. Then, when we were late to change into the next uniform, we would have to do exercises.”
 
To say the least, it was a difficult two months. She was sleep-deprived, pushed to the limit physically, and psychologically tested to the max. She was almost completely cut off from the outside world. Except for a couple of brief, five-minutes calls, she had no access to her cell phone. Every minute of her life was dictated.
 

Upon completion of Basic Training, Jenelle and I traveled to Fort Leonard Wood for Kaitlyn's graduation. Families of soldiers crammed into Baker Theater and watched four platoons march into the auditorium in their dress blues, all in cadence, and all returning song to their drill sergeant. It was quite a sight to see. I was impressed with the polished professionalism of the soldiers. I was surprised at the diversity of people serving our nation, which included many from different countries and territories.
 
It felt good to talk to Kaitlyn face to face. I thought she might call us “sir” and “ma'am,” but it was still “mom” and “dad.” We could tell that she made many friends as she was continually greeting fellow comrades after graduation. We were able to spend a majority of two days together, catching up on the last two months, and enjoying our final time with her before she left for advanced training in San Antonio.
 
Kaitlyn told us that Basic Training made her tougher mentally. Her discipline and character had greatly improved. When asked what was the biggest thing she learned, she gave two answers: 1) How much she appreciated her friends and family back home and how she was raised, and 2) To have faith in your failures. This means to trust that you can overcome your failures and to let them teach you to become better.
 
This now brings us back to the original topic. How do we become a better people if we don't get out of our comfort zone and do difficult things that may involve failure?
 
We may not be forced into a situation where we have to drive an ox team across the plains, or fight a war in the South Pacific. Boot Camp may never be a thing that falls within our life plans. But all of us can accept greater responsibility and look for opportunities to do hard things. ♠

The Greatest Generation

One of the greatest men I ever knew was my grandpa Lacy.
 
When I was a teenager, he and my grandma would travel to Las Vegas, and when they came home they would often bring me a new pair of shoes—the first was a pair of high-top Reeboks. I once asked him why he did it and his response was that he grew up during The Great Depression and often-times they went with no shoes at all, something he didn't want his grand-kids to experience.
 
Tom Brokaw wrote a book entitled, The Greatest Generation. Those he wrote about were men and women who were molded by The Great Depression and then World War II. Although there are great people in every generation, these were a cut above the rest. I couldn't agree more. Although my grandfather didn't serve in the war, his character was certainly sculpted during that era.
 
Growing up in the Mid-west, my grandpa's father was a wrestler with the carnival. They had an old Diana Eight that pulled a small trailer and that is how they lived when they traveled around. He said his dad was always fixing flats because the tires were never good.
 
He further explained the conditions of that era: “There wasn’t any money. We were struggling hard and nobody had any money back in those days. We didn’t eat too high on the hog. When we got out to either grandparent’s place we ate better. Of coarse they still didn’t have any money, but they had farm produce and eggs and stuff like that. We ate good, but we didn’t eat any fancy stuff. If you got a candy bar or a bottle of pop, you were in tall clover. You felt real good. Of course, back in those days you could take a penny and buy some penny candy, take a nickel and buy a Snickers bar or a Milky Way and a bottle of pop, but those days are gone. Yeah, I remember eating a lot of cornbread and beans, and I like cornbread and beans. It got tiresome back then.”
 
He recalled observing that none of his grandparents had any money. What little cash they had came from selling cream from their farm. His Grandfather Seals used to go into town on Saturday (from Coolidge, Kansas to Holly, Colorado), and even then, didn't spend any money: “They would park on Main Street and open the doors up, and anybody that would walk by that they knew, they would visit with them and everything. I'd never see them spend money. They must have spent some, but I'd never see them do it.”
 
Unlike kids (and adults) of today, Grandpa Claude didn't spend hour after hour absorbed with entertainment that came from a screen. In fact, they didn't own a television in those days. His main source of entertainment came from a small family radio. On Sunday mornings he enjoyed listening to programs such as The Shadow and The Green Hornet. He remembers distinctly on December 7, 1941—the day Pearl Harbor was bombed—and being on the fight because none of his programs were on!
 
When he was older the family lived on a farm outside of Wellington, Utah. Claude was athletic and played three sports in high school: football, basketball and wrestling. After practice and games, there was no “late bus” like there is now days to take the players home. Instead, Claude and his older brother, Earl, had to rely on hitchhiking the nearly nine miles from Carbon High in Price to their home. Sometimes they would find a ride all the way to Wellington and then they would have to walk the final three miles to the farm. Other times times they couldn't find a ride at all and had to trudge the entire distance in the dark. Once they got tired along the way and spent the night in an abandoned cabin.  “Dad, he didn't come and get you. Of course, he had a beat up old vehicle that might not have made it. He didn't worry about you. When you got home, you got home. That was the way he was raised.”
 

My Grandfather, Claude Lacy.

Forty years later I watched my grandpa and concluded that “the way he was raised” must have worked. I saw my grandfather as a tall, soft-spoken and gentle man who was “tough as nails.” I knew of the accomplishments of his past, but to me he was the man who took me out for ice cream and to Bill Foy the barber to get a buzz. Not once did I hear him raise his voice, and all he knew respected him. Never did he boast.
 
Grandpa was always frugal and wise with his money. I surmise that much of this came from lessons learned during The Depression. From nothing he eventually amassed a modest amount of wealth, although you would never guess this from looking at him. The house that my father was raised in was once in a mining camp in Hiawatha, near Price. Grandpa paid $150 for the house and then paid $1,500 to have it moved to Blanding, a distance of 200 miles. He put it on a lot that he purchased for $225.
 
Later in life (when he was in his fifties) my grandparents moved from the Hiawatha house and built a home on a hill. He chose to build on a hill because that's what my grandmother wanted. Unlike the mansions we see today that are being built by people in their thirties or forties, the home of my grandparents was very modest. His sister, Alice, once asked him why he didn't go out and buy something fancy with all the money he had. His response: “Because I would rather have the money in the bank than have something fancy.”
 
As I grew older and started a family of my own, he would always enjoy spending time with me when I came over to visit. He would ask how each individual was doing, and was genuinely concerned.
 
Probably the greatest hallmark of my grandfather is how he loved my grandma. During the final years of my grandmother's life, she became afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease. Even when she became difficult, he chose to take care of her.  It took a great toll on his health. During this period I watched him change from a healthy and active person to a frail old man. After several years, when he could no longer care for her himself, he finally admitted her to a nursing home. He was down there several times a week and would sit with her and talk to her, even when she no longer remembered who he was. He loved her until the day she died, and on that December day he wept because he didn't want to lay her to rest in the cold ground, because she hated the cold.
 

Grandpa loved my grandma to the very end.

Recently I had the privilege of going to lunch with my wife's ninety-year old grandmother.  Joe Ann Smith, or “Gram,” as she is affectionately known, is very much of The Greatest Generation. We picked her up at her home in Bountiful. Like a true lady, she was dressed for the occasion with her hair and makeup done up nicely and wearing pearl earrings, dress pants and a striped shirt jacket. She can't walk as well as she once did, carrying a small limp with each slow step. She chose to eat at a locally-owned Italian restaurant called Robintino's.
 
As we sat together at our dining table, within a busy and bustling atmosphere, I listened intently to the words Gram spoke. I knew there was wisdom and experience behind her words. She was very personable, and asked us direct questions about our lives, especially to my daughter, Kaitlyn, who was about to enter the National Guard.
 
She explained that during The Depression they would repair their shoes to make them last as long as they could. Sometimes her father would use cardboard from cereal boxes to patch up the holes. She told us about “party lines” in the olden days and how 4-6 families would use the same line, and how you could pick up the phone and listen in on another conversation. She also talked of her own generation, and how she once went to a class reunion where 95% of the couples were still married. “We didn't give up on things just because they were difficult. We worked hard at it.”
 
In her memoirs, Gram tells a story about the first Christmas she can remember, which was during The Great Depression. While many men had a hard time finding one job, her enterprising father had four. One evening he came home with a purse full of coins collected from one of his debtors. He poured the change into his hands to show his wife. This would be all the money they for Christmas that year.
 
Gram writes: “This was my wonderful Christmas. Dad had saved scraps from his building to make me a little doll bed. It was a darling little bed. He saved a little piece of chicken wire for the bottom of the bed. The sides were slats, and they were painted orange and white. Mother had soft flannel to make a thin little blanket to cover the chicken wire. Another little piece of flannel was used to make a blanket that covered my doll. She had also made a nightgown to dress my dolly. My beautiful little baby was about six or eight inches long. I had an orange and an apple and some pieces of candy. I thought I had the world by the tail! I couldn't have been happier! What the other six siblings received, I was totally unaware. This was my Christmas!”
 
This is certainly a contrast to our current society, where we are so materialistic that our homes are cluttered with “things” of which we have forgotten, or that we don't appreciate. Often times we don't even know what to buy someone because they already have “everything.”
 

(L-R) Great-granddaughter, Gram, and Granddaughter.

Gram's sweetheart passed away several years ago and she misses him every day. To us he was known as “Papa,” but to her and many others, he was simply, “Howard.” The two were married in 1947, but not before Howard fought in World War II.
 
He enlisted in the Navy at the age of seventeen. During the war he spent much of his time on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, fighting the Japanese. It was his job to load the bombs onto the plane, and then take off with the plane, where he became the tail gunner. The story is told about one day after loading the bombs, the officer in command decided that Howard would stay behind on the ship to load more planes, rather than go up with the bomber. When the plane returned, the tail gunner (who had went in Howard's place) was mutilated with combat fire, so severely that the corpse was barley recognizable. Howard knew that this could have been him.
 
Like many of his generation, Howard rarely talked of the war. “It doesn't do anybody any good,” he would say. When I asked his daughter how the war influenced him, she explained that it made him grow up really fast. In high school he was a typical cocky, spoiled kid, but when he came back from the war he was humble, grateful, had a softer heart, and was more devoted to his home, church and country.
 
Howard and Joe Ann married sometime after the war and raised a wonderful family. They built a modest home where they would spend the rest of their lives. I came into the picture much, much later when they were well into their golden years. Great-grandkids were already in the picture and I could surmise from witnessing their fruits that Grammy and Papa had done a good job. All their posterity adores and respects them. They are very honorable people.
 
On more than one occasion I have heard Gram say that if she had a choice to come to Earth now, or back when she was born, she would undoubtedly choose back then. This always comes to a surprise to the younger generation, who can't fathom a life without all the technological advances of our times.  She states they were happier back then and life was much more simple.
 
“I had the best, one of the most challenging, but the best and most wonderful times on this earth. We learned how to work hard! How to give! How to share! How to trust, and how to be trustworthy. How to learn and how to help. I thank my Heavenly Father for all of this!” ♠

Howard (on right) during his time in the Navy.