Come to Scratch

I have told this story before, in a 2010 blog post, but I think it’s worth retelling seven years later. It seems to fit well with the intent of this post. As you will see as the discussion proceeds, I “came to scratch” with the adversary and lost.

My first chance to get a taste of real beer came one evening in Antioch, California when I was about 14 years old, as I was babysitting our next-door neighbor’s children. They were not LDS, and there were three or four beer cans on the table in front of the couch. There was also cold beer in the refrigerator. I didn’t have the courage to open a fresh one, but as I shook some of the cans on the table, I discovered that they still had some beer in them. After some personal discussion with the adversary (or one of his minions):

My Personal TOUCHDOWN!

When I was in 9th grade in the old Antioch Junior High School (long gone now) we had gym class every day. We suited up in our grey shorts and tee shirts (gym uniform – everybody wore the same thing) and went out on the playing fields to do whatever our gym instructors wanted us to do.

The Murals

In the Salt Lake Temple, the walls in the various rooms are covered with beautiful murals. While the temple is not open to the public (only church members in good standing may enter), many smaller renditions of the murals can be seen in the work of the 5 art missionaries sent to Paris to prepare by studying with the masters of the Paris art scene. They were to return and paint appropriate murals on the walls. The most prominent among them was a Swiss-born artist, John C. Hafen. You can find out much more about him by Googling John C. Hafen, or Utah impressionism.