On day-dependent patriotism, Sophie’s exhausting-sounding social life, major awards, and the legend of Gabe Ossi (vol. xxvii, no. 7)

Dear Family,

I have a complicated relationship with the Fourth of July. 

This has nothing to do with patriotic ambivalence. Notwithstanding the insanity of our road system, too many d@mn cars, and the lack of a viable political party where I feel I belong, I feel fortunate to have been born here. I am grateful to the people who have sacrificed to make the United States of America what it is and admiring of those who work today to try to make it better.

I just wish we could figure out a way to make the Fourth of July always be followed by a non-work day. I thoroughly enjoy the Fourth when it falls on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday for the simple reason that I don’t have to go to work the next day.¹ My enjoyment of the Fourth when it falls on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday tends to be curtailed by the knowledge that I know I’m going to have to wake up early the next morning and be productive.

When it comes to Fourth of July fireworks, I could take them or leave them. I’ve made the trek downtown numerous times, and watching the sky light up over the monuments on the National Mall is undeniably awesome. But it doesn’t get dark enough for them until after 9 p.m., which is basically my bedtime when I have to work the next day. The show takes nearly half an hour, and then you’ve got to fight the mob to get home. Sometimes the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

The Fourth fell on a Tuesday this year, which is why Crystal, Sophie, and Grace went to the fireworks while Ari and I stayed home. I hope the girls had a nice time. I don’t know when they got home because I was asleep.

Humbug.

But the rest of the holiday, even though it fell on a Tuesday, was surprisingly enjoyable.

For me it started early in the smallish town² of Towson, just north of Baltimore, where I participated in a four-mile race (“Four on the Fourth”) the local chamber of commerce puts on right before the annual parade. Americana at is finest.

I would not ordinarily drive that far (it’s like an hour away) to participate in such a short race, but I had a purpose. I had the privilege of helping push my new friend Sam, who suffers from a congenital condition that confines him to a wheelchair most of the time, around the course. 

As many of you know, a couple of months ago I became involved with a local charity called “Athletes Serving Athletes,” which helps kids (and some former kids who are now young adults) with disabilities participate in mainstream running races around the area.

I have many things in my life that bring me great happiness. (And most of those “things” are not actually things.) Few things, however, make me happy the way this does.

Two weeks later I got to push my friend Tisha in a local 5k.

Last month, I got to help my friend Terrence finish the Baltimore Ten Miler.

I love running, but it has always struck me as one of the more selfish things I do. (And I do a lot of selfish things.) In Athletes Serving Athletes, I have discovered a seemingly magical way of making somebody else happy simply by doing something I love and am already inclined to do anyway. I may not be posting personal record times in any of these races, but I can honestly say I’ve never had more fun. 

Now, if only there were a way of making others happy by falling asleep watching golf on weekend afternoons…

ASA relies on donations to enable athletes like Sam, Tisha, and Terrence to participate in the program at no cost to their families. Many of you have contributed and I thank you. If you haven’t and would like to, you can do so here.     

The rest of the Fourth of July was pretty fun, too. We spent most of the afternoon at the pool. I was on the losing team in an epic greased watermelon battle in the diving well (next year I’m wearing goggles) and was eliminated in the first round of the high-dive big splash contest. (Making a big splash requires some technical skill, which I apparently lack. But in my defense, not many splash contests are won by marathoners, if you know what I mean.)

All in all, not a bad Fourth. You know, for a Tuesday.

Sophie

Before I share with you all the details of Sophie’s dating life, I wish to point out that I do so only with her blessing. I generally aim to follow this policy in reporting all the noteworthy events of my children’s lives.

I should probably clarify that when I say “with her blessing,” what I really mean is “absent her express objection.”

Nevertheless, I actually did ask Sophie a couple of weeks ago how she felt about my sharing the details of her life here. Her response was classic Sophie: “I figure if I don’t want it to be in the Famlet, then I probably shouldn’t do it.”

This comports quite well with my personal outlook. And while it is possible that not all of Sophie’s siblings (and their mother) share it, I am going to proceed under the assumption that they do. What could possibly go wrong? 

I really don’t know a lot about Sophie’s dates except that she seems to go on a lot of them. I can’t remember any of the boys’ names. Instead, I compartmentalize them based on where they first took her. Accordingly, to my memory, Sophie has been on dates this month with four different people. Their names are: Cheesecake Factory Guy, Harpers Ferry Guy, Cafe Rio Guy, and Top Golf Guy.

Cheesecake Factory Guy, if memory serves, works for the Department of Defense and is about to start a Ph.D. program in computer science at Maryland or Hopkins or some other nearby place. When I learned where the two of them would be going, I reminded Sophie about how a former boyfriend of Grace’s had successfully ingratiated himself to me by paying me regular tribute in the form of baked goods. Crystal’s reservations notwithstanding, I suggested that Sophie mention this to her date, which she did.

Crystal and her fellow philosophers can debate the ethics of it all they want, but at the end of the day, it netted me a delicious slice of Oreo cheesecake. 

Harpers Ferry Guy, to my knowledge, is currently unemployed. Probably because he had just finished his mission like a week earlier and is currently navigating that sometimes awkward transition period between mission and school. I thought his choice to take a first date to Harpers Ferry – about an hour’s drive from here – exhibited a certain boldness. I certainly wouldn’t have the confidence that I’d be able to keep an engaging conversation going for that long. But it sounds like he pulled it off okay. 

I can’t remember much about Cafe Rio Guy except that he also does something with computers. I’m sure he has many fine qualities, but all I know about him is that his response to learning that Sophie was studying to be a high school English teacher was something like, “Why would anyone want to teach?” He may have been asking rhetorically, since his follow-up comment was something about how teachers are just people who couldn’t cut it as practitioners.

I don’t know whether he pulled out and/or attempted to take credit for the old George Bernard Shaw line, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach,” but flinging it on a first date at someone currently studying to become a teacher doesn’t strike me as the smartest move.

Which means they’ll probably end up together.

Top Golf Guy wins the award, perhaps tied with Cheesecake Factory Guy, for taking Sophie on the date I most would have wanted to tag along on. He is the only one of the four who grew up in the Silver Spring Maryland Stake and reportedly recognizes/remembers me as the “Bow Tie Guy Who Plays the Organ at Stake Conference.”

Which, come to think of it, is probably how a majority of the current, practicing membership of the Silver Spring Maryland Stake now thinks of me.

I’m good with that.

Sophie’s imminent return to Provo has the benefit of lowering the stakes for all this local, Washington-area dating, but I’m happy she’s having a good time.

She met all these boys at something called the Strathmore Ward – an odd (if you ask me, which no one does, which is probably a good thing) geographical designation for a congregation of Young Single Adults that meets in Potomac. Sophie serves informally as the Strathmore Ward’s choir accompanist and attends its many social events even though her membership record still resides in our ward, where she somehow finds time to be a Young Women adviser.

Grace, Swim Team, and the End of an Era

Our family’s 21st and final season with the Forest Knolls Seahawks Swim Team came to its inevitable and emotional conclusion this month. I’m not sure how to succinctly convey how much this team and the people associated with it have meant to our family lo these many years, and so I won’t try. Suffice it to say that we have loved everything about it and are immensely grateful to our neighborhood friends who have made it possible. 

Grace and a half-dozen other seniors were recognized during halftime of the final home meet in the customary way — with balloons, giant cookies, other gifts, and an emotional farewell address praising the graduating class not for their swimming accomplishments (which for a few of them were quite extraordinary) but for the magnificent people they had become and were becoming.

The speaker’s soaring oratory gracefully (and at times tearfully) blended notes of pride and gratitude for the graduating swimmers, culminating in an impassioned plea to younger swimmers to follow their examples of kindness and goodness and generosity.   

The address was delivered, as it is every year, by the swim team’s primary “team rep,” a man of unmatched kindness and generosity, a man who can be brought to tears by a good insurance commercial, one Gabe Ossi.

Broadly speaking, the swim team is run by two groups of people: coaches and team reps. The coaches are young adults, alumni of the team in our case, who teach the kids to swim fast. The team reps are the grown-ups — two parents — who do pretty much everything else. (And a lot goes into staging something like 15 swim meets over a two-month span.) The team reps are assisted in this by literally dozens of other parents. But it’s a lot of traffic to direct — a lot of cats to herd — and even with all the help, being a team rep looks (to me) like something close to an unpaid full-time job. 

At the season-ending banquet, Gabe, in what he announced was a shameless ploy to make it into the Famlet, presented our family with the much coveted annual Seahawk Rock Award.

The award is an inside reference to a giant, painted rock that runs along one side of the pool. “The Rock,” as it is known, has taken on something close to spiritual — even mythical — significance to the swim team over the decades and features prominently in the team’s broad repertory of cheers (“We’ve Got the Rock,” “V-I-C-T-O-R-Y,” and “Bonzai,” among others). In addition to the handsome award pictured above, the recognition, if history holds, will also get our name immortalized on the actual Rock at the pool (immortalized, I suppose, until someone paints over it).

It was clearly meant as a lifetime achievement award more than anything — lots of other parents do at least as much as Crystal and I do — just no one for quite as long. But this much is certain: it would not be much of an exaggeration (if it’s an exaggeration at all) to say that my cumulative contribution to the team over 21 years is less than Gabe Ossi’s contribution in any given year. 

So happy 50th birthday, Gabe. You made the Famlet. Thanks for being so awesome!

Hannah

Crystal and Grace missed the swim team banquet in order to spend a few days with Hannah in Utah this past week. I wasn’t there and can’t speak to what happened, but Crystal and Grace said they had a nice time and provided the following pictures as evidence.

These first two pictures (I think) were taken at a place called Thanksgiving Point, which, according to the internet, is in Lehi. That is precisely everything I know about Thanksgiving Point (and everything I know about Lehi).

This third photo is from an ice cream place Hannah likes in Salt Lake City.

And because some things never change, here are the two sisters in the pool at Hannah’s apartment complex in Orem engaging in horseplay that neither of them would have tolerated as lifeguards.

Nothing brings me greater joy than the knowledge that my children genuinely love and care about each other. I’m glad Grace was able to spend a little time with her big sister before scurrying off to college in Southern Virginia in three weeks(!)

Shift 11 and the End of a (Much Shorter) Era

Last night (Saturday), Sophie and I worked our last shift together in the temple, which was cut short when a violent thunderstorm knocked out power to the building.³ As of the end of our shift last night, the temple is now closed for the next two weeks for its annual maintenance break and deep cleaning.

When the temple reopens on August 15th, Sophie will have returned to Provo, and my beloved Saturday evening shift (Shift 11) will be no more. (Sometimes it amuses me that we refer to temple schedules as “shifts” since it doesn’t feel at all like work and none of us gets paid. But I guess I don’t know what else they should call it.) The shift is being discontinued primarily in response to staffing constraints brought about by the opening of the new Richmond Virginia Temple earlier this year, which siphoned off some 200 of our ordinance workers. Apparently, dropping the late shift and closing down at 5:00 on Saturdays brings us into alignment with most of the other East Coast temples.

I will genuinely miss being in the temple on Saturday nights and my friends on Shift 11. The temple has asked those of us who can to join Shift 10, which will now run from 11:15 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays. I’m inclined to give it a try even though that schedule is likely to cramp my style. (As mentioned above, I usually devote much of that time to falling asleep in front of the TV and making excuses for not mowing the lawn.)

Sophie characterizes her temple dresses (accurately, I think) as “old fashioned.” Crystal recently handed a few of her old ones down to Sophie, including one (not pictured) that Sophie says “makes me look like a governess.”

She is studying to become a teacher, after all.

Love,
Tim

1. I recognize that the Friday following a Thursday Fourth of July is technically a work day. I, however, do not count myself among the 0.003 percent of Americans who actually do any work on that day.
2. I just looked up Towson’s population, which is 57,000. Despite being home to one of our state’s largest universities, it feels smaller than that to me (in a good way).
3. Back-up systems provided sufficient power to keep many of the lights on (though none of the big, fancy ones) and to run the A/V equipment in the ordinance rooms, so the sessions in progress were able to finish. But neither the HVAC system nor the elevators worked, and the temple presidency was concerned about killing the elderly patrons and workers (I’m told workers needed to carry a wheelchair-bound patron down the stairs in order to exit) and so they shut everything down just prior to the 6 p.m. session and sent us all home.