January 8, 2012

I sat with my grandson, James, tonight as he shared his version of life, of goodness, family, and forgiveness. I must confess that his insights were about 100 times what mine were at that time in life. Remember! He is five. When I was five, we lived in Cashion, a Northwest Phoenix rural farming town where my father worked twenty four/seven watering a farm that produced very little but frustration. Mother said he was very ill and in very foreign territory. He was always prone to the cattle side of agriculture; thus, he and Cashion only lasted one year and we went back to Concho and the white house on main the main highway (well, the only highway) in Concho where he returned to cattle ranching and restoring his health.

I can’t remember thinking much about anything other than running, playing, and doing everything my older brother, and his older friends did. I was in a league of my own. I would get banged up running around trying to keep up with them. On one occasion Glenn, Alfred Padilla, and some of the other big guys decided to get an old car frame that was at the top of a hill just west of the school, put me on it and push it down a very steep hill. We actually live through that one, and yes it was fun. Not bright, far sighted, or even productive, but we did it.

Next, we decided that a slide was in order. A culvert full of mud was in the yard and demanding that someone do something with it. My brother, Glenn, being somewhat of a genius in getting us into deep doo doo, determined that we would clean out the mud by sliding through this culvert over and over again until it was sufficiently lightened to be lifted up to the crotch of a nearby fruit tree. How, you say? We would simply use great engineering and technology. By raising the culvert using a pry and fulcrum over and over, putting wedges under it each raise, we eventually got it up high enough to go into the crotch of the tree. Memory escapes me as to how we moved it to the tree ( how did we get it there, Glenn).
Another time a great catastrophe fell upon Concho school and the much older kids determined to come to the rescue. It seems that a lovely mother skunk had found a wonderful, warm place to have her baby skunks. We couldn’t let this peaceful school go to rack and ruin because of the needs of a mother skunk, so we found ways to bless the school and rid it of this terrible malady. The task was completed and after a large amount of scrubbing, fumigating, and anything else that could be done to rid the school of that incredible fragrance, school went on.

Then there was the mystery of the exploding egg in the wall heater in the South classroom. It seems that an egg just happened to be placed on top of the heater and after several hours of heating it built up heat, gas, and wow, what an explosion.

Now, you ask? What can we possibly learn from these (and a thousand more I will probably share as time goes on) life experiences. Simple! The more things change, the more they stay the same. Grandmother Jacobs and I have watched and learned as we have gone through several generations of young people growing through experiences. We can’t seem to take the word of our elders for the fact that if we play with fire, we will get burned; that if we live by the principles of the Gospel we will be blessed; that the opportunities to be free from the nightmares of regrets are all embodied in living righteous lives, loving those around us, and generally doing those things which will bless the lives of our family, our friends, our country, and our future.

God bless each of you as you strive to bless the lives of those around you.

Duane Jacobs, AKA, father, Gpa, friend, cousin, uncle, brother