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Letters from Grandpa. 2.

(As I grow older I grow poorer; getting more & more in medical debt as I struggle to control my illnesses. So it's likely the only legacy I can leave my grandkids are letters sent by snailmail; I'm hoping they will mean SOMETHING to them someday.)

Monday, November 9, 2015                                             Timothy Robert Torkildson

1274 West  820 North                                                       4:14 p.m.

Provo  Utah  84601

My Dear Noah;

I’m at the Provo Public Library this afternoon, just lazing about and basking in the aura of so many books. Sometimes I think Heaven will be a huge library, where you can eat anchovy pizza while you read whatever book you want. So I thought I would jump on the public computer and pen you a note.

I used to do this a lot – write letters, that is. I wrote hundreds of letters to your Dad when I was away with the circus, and after the divorce. I wonder if he has kept any of them?

I remember sending him an old wrist watch that I found in my mother’s sewing drawer while he was on his mission. Using a recovered memory, I wrote him that the watch had been given to me by my dad when I went on my mission. It might have happened like that – my memory is very selective when it comes to the early years of my membership in the Church. I can remember things like a Halloween party at the University Ward in Minneapolis where I dressed up as Groucho Marx, and even had a rubber cigar that had a little green worm pop out and squeak whenever you squeezed it. But I can’t even remember my own missionary send-off when I left for Thailand. What did I say? Who was there? Did we have a buffet afterwards? All those memories are disappeared. So maybe my dad DID give me that watch – I dunno.

I’ve never seen your dad wear it.

I remember once when I was a First of May with Ringling Brothers Circus out in California; me and several of my pals were walking down the street when a guy in a big Cadillac pulled up and offered to sell us Rolex watches for next to nothing. He seemed very nervous, so I thought the watches had been obtained somewhat illegally and he was anxious to get rid of them. Thinking myself pretty darn smart, I got him down to $20.00 for what he said was a gold Rolex with jewel movement. After two days the watch stopped running and my wrist turned green from where the band was rubbing it. I took the watch to a jeweler; he opened it up and told me the mechanism was from a $9.00 Timex, and it was rusted.

So much for my bargaining skills . . .

I eventually bought a Mickey Mouse pocket watch at Disneyland for about five dollars. It ran steady for many years, but it ticked so loud you could hear it all over the chapel during the Sacrament. I finally gave it to a beggar while on my mission in Thailand.

Since then I’ve never had another watch. I don’t like things on my wrists or fingers or around my neck. I don’t even like hats on my head, though I wear them all the time to keep the sun out of my eyes or keep my head warm in winter. This winter I plan on getting a head band to keep my ears warm and let the top of my head take care of itself.

I don’t like carrying things around, either. I’ve got a backpack I use when I go swimming at the Provo Rec Center, but lately my knees have been bothering me so much that I haven’t used the pool – I’m afraid my knees will swell up and keep me in my recliner, like they did last winter. I had to stay at home, going nowhere, for almost a month. And I lost my teaching job because I couldn’t get to the school in Orem; taking the bus, I would have had to walk a mile from the bus stop to get to the school, and my knees were not up to it. But eventually they settled down. So anyway this week I’m not swimming and not carrying my backpack around, and it feels great. It’s much more fun to walk. In fact, I’m thinking that after I finish this letter to you and check out some books (I’ve got one on Martin Luther and one on the Year 1927 in American History) I’ll walk the half mile over to McDonalds and get their pancakes. Boy, do I love their pancakes! The only other pancakes that were ever that good were your Grandma Amy’s whole wheat pancakes. We practically lived on those during our honeymoon in Provo back in 1981. They were scrumptious with butter and honey.

I wonder if she ever makes them anymore?

I’ve included a card from my friend Phil Hinckley. He likes to make up ‘proverbs’, as he calls them, and then have them printed up so he can pass them out to friends & strangers. He lost his voice in an industrial accident years ago, and he has to get a shot of Botox in the neck once a month to relax the scars in his throat so he can whisper a little bit.  He & I go to the Temple every Tuesday morning. I hope you have pals like that when you grow up!

                                                                                Yer pal,

Letters from Grandpa. Letter 1.

(These are the letters I've written and mailed to my grandkids. I wanted a permanent record of them somewhere, because it's highly doubtful the grandkids themselves will comprehend the historical importance of them, and will probably lose them eventually -- much as their parents did when I wrote them letters 20 years ago . . . )

Monday, November 09, 2015.                                  Timothy Robert Torkildson

1274 West  820 North

Provo  Utah  84601

My Dear Deisel;

I’m feeling pretty spruce this afternoon, after getting a pedicure at the Model Nail Salon (business card included).

It’s run by some Vietnamese, and they charge $20.00 for a basic pedicure. Sadly, I’ve grown so fat and my back so stiff that I can no longer cut my own toe nails with any accuracy or comfort. So every other month I go to them; they’re right across the street from the Provo Recreation Center, which also houses the Provo Senior Center, where I get my lunch every week day. On the dot at noon.

It’s about a mile walk from where I’m living, and I enjoy the exercise and the chance to poke around as I traipse along the uneven sidewalks of 820 North. Today I picked up a maple leaf from North Park, which I am including in this missive to you. (Not the Park, but the leaf!)

Another nice thing about walking is that I can stop and gawk at whatever interests me – today that happened to be a couple of guys with a huge vacuum on the back of a truck. They drove all over the park, vacuuming up the leaves. Looked like a lot of fun. I imagine if any squirrels or chipmunks were unwary enough to be hiding in the leaves they’d get sucked up too.

Have you ever had days where you feel like you’ve been sucked up into a giant vacuum cleaner?  I have . . .

I suppose your mom and dad will be after you to rake up all the leaves in your yard. As I remember, there was always a ton of ‘em. I think I helped you rake them one year, didn’t I? We put them in orange pumpkin bags for Halloween.

When I was a kid (you’ll be seeing A LOT of that phrase in these letters) we didn’t have to bag up the leaves. Instead we raked them into a HUGE pile and were allowed to set fire to them!  Lemme tell you, son, for a buddying pyromaniac like me that was simply heaven on earth! And strangely enough the fire never killed the grass underneath. It left a grey ashy patch, sure, but come next spring the grass there would be a brighter healthier green than anywhere else in the yard.

You’ll be happy to know (or maybe bored and don’t care at all) that my Social Security starts this month. Once that starts rolling in I won’t have to ever work a paying job again, and devote all my time to my useless poetry.

Which reminds me, here is one I wrote today:

Down in Dallas, at the zoo, you can't come packing heat.

If you try to bring a gun you'll be thrown out in the street.

But zoos are full of danger, and a gun should be allowed.

What if the flamingos are let loose into a crowd?

Suppose a tortoise with a knife creeps up on you one day --

or a loopy llama lobs a hand grenade your way?

Those monkeys . . . they're planning trouble; you can see it in their eyes.

And the seals are waiting for the signal to take us by surprise.

When confronted by a large and vicious alligator,

I'd rather shoot first and then ask all my questions later!

(It’s from a Wall Street Journal article about how the Dallas Zoo is being sued by gun nuts who want to be able to bring their concealed weapons into the zoo, which currently bans all weapons.)

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The Life and Times of Donald Trump, the Once & Future President. Foreword.

As the United States spins into further recession, malaise and funk, there is one figure who stands on the horizon and beckons his fellow citizens to join him in his quixotic quest to save us from ourselves.
Donald Ogden Trump.
Although his enemies have labeled him "poopy" and "ninnyhammer", millions of Americans are now giving serious thought to making him the next chief executive of the United States of America.
His life story is a fascinating blend of fact and fiction that only a Jackie Collins could do full justice to.
The following narrative is based on personal interviews, exhaustive historical research, and an overactive imagination.
The entire project is animated by the motto of an old Ringligh Brothers clown, Swede Johnson, who often told the author:

"It ain't the truth, but it's close enough."