A trail above the water

For many years, we have lived sort of alongside the Murdock Canal.
Marc and I have both covered stories about the canal that bisects North Utah County, stories about people who found out in a tragic way that the sparkling, rushing water wasn't friendly, that once someone got in there was no getting out.
We've covered stories about teenagers who tried to prove they could outwit the siphons and grown men who underestimated the water's power.
We've biked through the fields and lawns that bordered the waterway.
Marc has picked up many a bullhead in his tires from the weeds on the trail on the edge of the canal.
When we learned that the Provo Water Users Association and Utah County and the seven cities between Orem and Lehi had hammered out a contract that not only called for covering the canal but also for putting a trail over top, we couldn't quite believe it.
But the ink is dry on the contract and the work is pushing ahead so perhaps it's OK to celebrate.
We love to bike.
We enjoy the outdoors and the exercise.
We de-stress on our bikes and so the more trails we see, the better.
Highland has done a good job making trails through nearly every neighborhood.
Lindon deserves high marks also. (American Fork has room for improvement as does Alpine.)
The cities in between are kind of hit and miss about it but the Murdock trail will resolve much of the missing pieces.
It's supposed to be finished by the spring of 2013 — two years from now, two years before initially planned and two years later than we'd like.
I just talked to a couple of guys in charge who told me to be patient a while longer. It'll be worth it, they say.
Can't be too soon.

Looks good to me

I got this query from the people who run a site called Couponchief.com
They wanted to know if I'd promote their site on this site.
Now, I've been hesitant thus far to accept advertising and/or strings on Grandma's Place because grandma pretty well wants to write what she pleases when she pleases.
Over the years, I've had enough of editors telling me what, when and how to say things.

One of the pleasures of writing this blog is that it's all me, whatever that is.
So when I received this query I ignored it at first.
Then curiosity got the better of me and I went over to look.
What I found is intriguing.
It appears that there's no reason not to check it out and use this site to save money.
In my brief investigation I found several stores offering coupons for things I had recently bought at full price (Best Buy among them).
I can see distinct advantages that could come from regularly checking out this website.
You might too.

Missing the moment

I remember early on when I would be working the Obit desk at the Daily Herald thinking it was odd and a pain to be asked to call on EVERY obituary to see if someone real answered the phone.
I used to think it was a waste of time because 99 percent of the time, a receptionist or employee of the funeral home/mortuary would answer the phone.
Sometimes it felt invasive if I reached a member of the grieving family.

My bosses basically told me to just do it, never mind that I didn't see the reason.
Now, many years and much experience later, I see the reason.
In fact, it's so clear that I can't believe I ever dared write a word without checking first to see if the source was legitimate, still alive and fairly sane.
More times than anyone would think, people will try to put one over on a news outlet.
An ex-wife will submit her philandering husband's death notice or sell his new Porsche for $20.
A bunch of goof-offs in a fraternity or high school debate class will send in a false lead for a sensationalist story as a joke, ha, ha.
Some enterprising folks just want to see if news folks will fall for a made-up story.
It makes for a fairly paranoid management.
And if you've watched the recent flurry of concern over a recent phony story in the Deseret News, you can see what happens.
(Seems somebody sent out a false press release announcing the Southern Baptist Church acceptance of gays and lesbians. Most news outlets smelled a rat and refused the pickup. Somebody at the D News missed it. The paper ran the story followed by a lengthy, embarrassing retraction: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700150528/Southern-Baptist-gay-marriage-story-a-hoax.html?s_cid=rss-32.)
When this happens, it always makes for a miserable few days as everybody tries to sort out who's to blame and who missed it and how do we make sure it never happens again?
I feel for the unlucky reporter and editor who got taken in.
It's so easy to assume you can trust information someone took the time to prepare.
It's so hard to admit you've been fooled. Every day, there are so many close calls.
Thank heaven for the early obit training.

Steel Days Coming and Going

Marc and I have been to a lot of Steel Days Parades.
In the early days, we were both shooting pictures and talking to people and writing stories about the people on the floats, in the cars and marching in the bands.
We'd set up our chairs (borrowed out of the office right behind us) and watch the whole thing, waving to the mayor and the beauty queens and taking note of which floats won which prizes.
Some years, we watched to see who read the parade programs that Marc had hastily put together the night before, programs full of local stories and ads and passed out by the publisher's kids.
Other years, we ducked as the firemen sprayed us with water.
Most years we plucked up candy from the road. (For a few years, there was no candy because somebody's child had run into a tire on a float and hurt himself.)
It's always been entertaining.
We've waved and smiled and joked.
It's become a tradition that we follow today even though the American Fork Citizen has long been sold and remade into a gift shop.
We ride our bikes down the road, eat with the American Fork Band at the band pancake breakfast, and then park in front of the building where we lived and worked for many precious years.
It brings back a lot of memories for us as we sit on our camp chairs and watch the world go by.
I think we both miss those days when Marc hefted a camera on his shoulder and walked the parade several times over as he chased the perfect Kodak moment.
We liked being in the know and being friends with the politicians, the stars of the town and the kids.
Today, we sit with grandkids and help them beat out the competition for free candy and we admire the colors and the cheerleaders and karate kids and the occasional traveling jazz trumpet player. We know fewer players. We have less to say and do.
But it's still a hometown parade for us filled with heart and warmth, Americana the Beautiful.
Please let us keep sitting here.

Keeping out of trouble

Ever since I was a child, I've had a hard time keeping out of trouble.
My teachers in the primary grades used to write on my report cards that I like to talk too much.
When I got older, I would get called into the principal's office (or the local ward bishop's office) because I was creating so much havoc in my classes that the teachers were at their wit's end.
I was either talking too much or writing too much down to share.
(I actually started my writing career with a novel that I wrote in home room one page at a time. I would send off a page as it was finished and start another. The pages worked their way around the room until everybody was reading the latest installment instead of doing their classwork. The only reason I escaped without punishment was because the teacher got caught up in the story and needed to know who had Page 12!)

Gathering

In my inevitable career as a reporter, I often got called to task for a story somebody didn't like or didn't agree with.
Once in a while it involved bringing in my supervisor and the big bosses.
Usually I was OK because I had done my research and my editors know that writing for a newspaper was like working in a mine field. Anything can explode on you at any time.
The ones that got me into the most trouble were the fluff stories, the little innocuous stories that I would do as a favor for somebody, a groundbreaking or an advance for a minor event.
Somebody would see their name in the paper and freak out. Didn't I know this person was hiding out from an ex-husband, the mob or a bill collector and how could I print this trash?
It's been an interesting life as I've gone along, never a dull moment.
And you'd think I'd have learned something about the printed/published word.

Sharing the word

That's why it was a surprise to me when several people reacted to a recent blog, calling me to task for being mean.
I thought I'd been careful with my words.
I hadn't set out to hurt anybody or malign.
I really thought I was simply entertaining the valiant readers who check into "Grandma's Place."
I thought what I was writing was totally benign but possibly interesting.
But I was wrong and so here I am, 60 years old and still talking too much. I apologize but I'll probably keep blundering on.

Happy Birthday again and again

It's always a challenge to figure out what to get Marc for his birthday. It comes just after Father's day so I'm usually out of ideas.
This time though, I thought I had a clear shot at getting exactly what he wanted.
See, he had this pair of Boze earphones that had apparently been stolen when he want to Salt Lake for an audition.
He was heartsick because it hadn't been easy to talk me into buying them for him at Christmas.
I thought they were too expensive and it always makes me mad when I try to talk to him and he's lost in his music.
But he really, really wanted some earphones that stayed in and sounded marvelous to boot.
So when he came home to tell me he'd tossed them on the car seat as he ran in to his interview only to find them gone when he returned, I figured I could save the day by getting him another pair for his birthday.
In the meantime, he got his new job so we wouldn't be free to shop on his actual birthday so I suggested we go up the Saturday prior to pick up a pair. (I dare not buy these without him.)
He was pleased but less than thrilled when I said, "Of course, you won't be surprised on your birthday."
"These are for my birthday?" he said. "We're counting them for my birthday?"
Whoops. I guess not.
Now his weedeater has quit on him so we've bought a new one. Since his birthday is tomorrow, I'm thinking, "All right. Here's his gift."
It came in yesterday so we drove up to pick it up. When I said "Happy Birthday!" he was less than impressed.
So that's no good.
I would have counted the extra tie we got when we bought a wedding tie but that seems cheap.
I wonder if there's any chance he'll break or lose something else in time for me to pick it up before tomorrow.

The night lights

Whether or not you agree with the changes in Utah's fireworks law, one has to admit, it certainly made for a more visually interesting 4th of July.
We happened to be driving home from my son's home in Eagle Mountain and were amazed at the scene.
There were dramatic fireworks on every turn, so big and so many that it was difficult to pick out the professional ones being set off at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi.
(The only way to tell was to identify the longitude and latitude.)
There were fireworks of all colors and kinds, big boomy ones and spinners and the kind that look like giant dandelions.
Some whistled and others danced. Some did a series of flashes and flares. Others soared really high into the air, headed for the moon.
I'm not sure making some more elaborate fireworks legal in our fair state is cutting down on the traffic to Wyoming and Nevada. There were plenty of displays that we could see that didn't look all that legal.
I'm not even convinced that it's a safe and sane plan but it made for a really fun night, especially since we actually only spent about $30 for ours but reaped the benefit of thousands of dollars of other people's expenditures.