Twice-Broken Windshield

While living in the Carterville house in Orem, UT, I bought a little Datsun B-210 for $300. I kept it parked along side the house a little off the dirt driveway, on the grass. One day I came home and found a huge, jagged hole in my rear windshield and a very large rock sitting in the back, surrounded by broken glass.

Hysterical, I ran into the house, hollering about what I found. I quickly learned that Derek had been throwing these huge rocks and "accidentally" threw the rock right through my rear windshield.

After the dust settled and I calmed down, I realized that I had no choice but to buy a new windshield. There was an auto salvage yard in Orem next to Geneva Steel where you could buy used parts off of junked cars. So I found and bought a new rear windshield for $50. I took it home, wrapped it in blankets, and laid it on the floor of the shed near our home. Rarely did anyone ever come into this little spider-infested shed, so I thought the windshield would be safe for a day or so, while I made preparations to put it in.

Shortly thereafter, Derek went walking into the shed for some unknown reason and walked right on top of my windshield lying on the floor. Broke it right in half.

When I found out I went nuts again. My second windshield was broken, and again by Derek, who kept indignantly shouting, "Why'd you leave it lying on the floor?"

I think Derek had it in for my windshields.

Sadistic Wart Removal

When I was a young boy living in Logandale, NV, I grew a large wart on my hand, between my thumb and forefinger. I was taken to the doctor at the little clinic on the way to Overton. The doctor looked at my wart and told me that a nurse would come in and do something to or around the wart, and then he would come back and remove it.

I sat there for 5-10 minutes or so, after which the doctor came back. The nurse had not come, but I think he assumed that she had. The doctor strode up to me, held my wrist in one hand, and with the other hand grabbed my wart and literally tore it off the skin of my hand. I cried out in pain. He looked at me incredulously and made some disparaging remark, calling me a baby or something like that.

I gaped in horror and pain at the large, bloody, open wound in my hand where the wart had once been attached. I was in shock that he had simply torn it out like that, with flesh tearing and severing from my hand. Young as I was, I knew this couldn't have been right. Then he took a machine with two metal needles attached, stuck the needles into my open wound, and began pulsing electricity through the needles. This shocked and hurt and felt awful.

That was my last recollection of the event, aside from later telling my parents (who weren't in the room) what had happened. They didn't believe me. They were utterly incredulous that a doctor would simply grab someone's wart and tear it off their hand.

I have often reflected on this bizarre medical event in my life and wondered what kind of a sadistic medieval doctor would do something like this to a young boy in our modern age. Had I lived in the 11th century in poverty, in some dirty corner of Europe, I would have expected some pathetic undertrained doctor to tear a wart from my hand, but in 1970's America? I am curious about a few things. Was non-anaesthetised wart-ripping a common practice for this doctor? Did many others have this done? Did he only do it this way to young kids whose parents weren't present in the room? Maybe I'll never know.

Mormon Missionaries at a Catholic Funeral

One morning in 1992 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, as my companion and I were studying and getting ready to go out proselyting, I caught sight of something unusual out the window. Coming down the main street that intersected the road we lived on was a long procession of cars, including limos and police cars. With curiosity piqued, I suggested to my companion that we jump in the car and follow the procession. "Let's see where they're going," I said.

Three minutes later, mostly dressed, we entered the procession of cars and followed them to a large and magnificent catholic church in Eau Claire. We parked, got out, and made our way to the crowd gathered outside the church. The crowd was split into three sections. Two large groups stood on each side of the front entrance of the church, and one smaller group stood right in front of the entrance. The smaller group consisted of maybe 40 people, and the large groups each had maybe a hundred. Everyone was dressed in Sunday clothes.

Within about ten minutes, the great doors opened and the smaller group in front began filing in. We joined the small group so we could go inside. As we entered the building we found that it was already filled to capacity and all the occupants were standing in front of their pews. There were many hundreds--perhaps a thousand--standing inside the church. Following the small entering group, we walked forward down a great aisle toward a reserved and empty section at the front. Once at the front, we all took our seats, as did the thousand others in the building.

At this point we began to feel conspicuous and trapped. We felt we had probably overstepped our bounds and come where we shouldn't have. We looked around for an easy escape, but there was none. The only way out was back the way we came, down the long aisle, and past a thousand people. We decided to wait and sit and not draw attention to ourselves.

A man in religious garb went to the podium and began speaking. It soon became apparent that we were at the funeral of an important man. After about ten minutes of him speaking, he announced something like, "And now we will allow a few minutes for the family and friends of the deceased to console one another." At this point, the small group we were with at the front of the church all stood and began hugging each other.

This is when things got really awkward, and I thought, "Oh boy, what have we gotten ourselves into?" To avoid standing out or attracting attention, we stood as well. People turned around and started toward us as if to give us a hug--then stopped, gave us and our name tags a funny look, and discontinued the hug. And we could see that everyone in the church was looking at us. This was getting out of hand.

I turned to my companion and said that we've got to get out. It could only get worse from here. We were both hesitant to bolt, as this would certainly make us the center of attention of the entire congregation, but we felt we had no choice. We got up, and with all eyes upon us, made our way as quickly as we dared down the long aisle and toward the back of the church. Sheepish but relieved, we exited the building, went straight to our car, and fled the scene.

Peek-A-Boo Horror

While I was the Stake Technology Specialist in the Herriman West Stake, I often had to visit ward buildings in the stake at odd hours. Usually it was to run reports, install new software, or fix computer problems.

One night I arrived at our ward building around 10 pm. The building was dark and deserted. On this occasion I had to get something out of the library. It felt a little spooky being in the church late at night by myself with most of the lights off. I resolved to go in, do my business, and leave quickly.

I approached the door to the library. The hall lights were off but I recall there was a foyer light on at the end of the hall. In sum, it was very dark all around. I unlocked the door and opened it. As I stepped into the pitch black library and before my hand could find the light switch, I heard the eerie voice of a doll--from somewhere in the darkness of the room--say "peek-a-boo". The mechanical words were not spoken quickly and cheerfully, but slowly, methodically. Something about the doll's voice suggested supernatural evil. I froze. My blood ran chill. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck and head start tingling. My heart pounded. My pulse raced. Imaginary horrors flooded my mind. I didn't have it within me to muster rational self-assurances or depracating chuckles. I was irrationally terrified by the supernatural. I did the only thing I could think to do: I ran!

Stumbling backword out of this library of terror, I shut the door behind me and sprinted down the dark hallway of the church. I felt as though unseen demons were chasing me and nipping at my heels. I flew out the glass doors at the back entrance, ran down the sidewalk, jumped in my car, and sped home. I was safe at last.

Once I was calm and able to rationally reflect, an explanation of that night's events became clear. Our ward's lost-and-found was in the library. Presumably a motion-sensor doll programmed to say "peek-a-boo" had been left with the other toys, clothes, and forgotten scriptures.

In hindsight, I don't think anything supernatural happened, and my reaction may have been silly. Still, in the dark of night, I never go alone to the church library. . .for fear of a peek-a-boo doll who may be awaiting my return.