Playing For Change: Peace Through Music

Stand By Me from the award-winning documentary, "Playing For Change: Peace Through Music."

Who is this is Matt Harding guy?

The world needs more of this.

Anytown 2008

It's been a long time since my last post.

I just returned from Anytown 2008 where I was blessed to be an adviser. Things have changed since I attended from 1957-1962, but the program is just as powerful now as it was then. When I first attended, we dealt with racial, religious and cultural bigotry. Now Anytown has added sexism, heterosexism, ageism and ableism. At first, maybe a third of the delegates acted as though they hated being there, but by the end of the week Anytown became a community where each delegate respected, understood, loved, and cared for the others.

Day Tripping at Silver Lake in Big Cottonwood Canyon

October, 2007

With Wandering Steps and Slow

I love English literature. In these lines from Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve leave paradise and begin their life's journey.

"Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way."

- John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book XII; 1667

Utah, 1980 to Present

We moved from California to Utah in 1980, thinking that would be a better environment for our children,  and we've been here ever since.

Family picture ca. 1989
Top row l-r: Kerry, Shannon, Derek
Bottom row l-r: Dave, Lindsey, Janice

I worked for the Simulation Division of Evans & Sutherland where we made special purpose graphics systems that generated real-time out-the-window imagery for flight simulators. I managed sales, marketing, and Air Force programs. Work took me all over the U.S. and to England, France, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. I loved the Paris and Farnborough Air Shows.

The Bountiful bench -- click the picture to see the B on the hill and the temple near our home. We moved from Bountiful to our present home in North Salt Lake in 1994 when our children were grown.

I turned 65 in October, 2007. When Garrison Keillor turned 65 a few months before I did, he wrote,

"Lighten up. Get a grip. Leave morose silence to teenagers; it's too dramatic for you and me. We have passed the great test of a republic, to survive the most incompetent leadership, and now we can anticipate a new era, one with no Bushes. As Emerson said, 'This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. . . .' Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. In other words, cheer up."

September: Time to lighten up and get a grip
Garrison Keillor
September 26, 2007
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

My sentiments exactly.

Now I am retired. That leaves time for reading, writing, blogging, photography, caring for grandchildren, and computer and church work. I've enjoyed photography as long as I can remember -- here are a several photographs taken with my Nikon D40X.

Agoura interlude, 1978-80

We moved to Agoura when I went to work for Evans & Sutherland in 1978. Agoura was a great place to live on the L.A. - Ventura County border, a dozen miles inland from Malibu. We had a nice hilltop home in the Lake Lindero neighborhood, and enjoyed the homeowners' association pool and clubhouse. We were there for the Agoura fire in October, 1978 --it started less than a mile from our home and raged through the canyon to Malibu.

Mountain View 1968-78

I lived in Mountain View on the San Francisco peninsula from 1968-78. The bay area was a wonderful place to live.

The Viet Nam War made those years tumultuous. The war escalated, LBJ announced he would not seek reelection, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, Nixon was elected and reelected, the Watergate break in occurred, and Nixon was impeached and resigned.

I was regional manager for Mosler Information and Automated Systems, then regional manager for CALSPAN (Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory).  Work took me to nearly every state in the U.S.

We belonged to Mountain View (later Los Altos II) ward in the Palo Alto stake. David B. Haight served earlier as president of our stake, and we got to hear from him. Henry B. Eyring was bishop in a neighboring Stanford student ward, and Ronald E. Poelman was our gospel doctrine instructor at the time he was called to the First Quorum of the Seventy.

I drove Triumph sports cars in those days -- first a TR3, then a TR6, like these. The TR3 had side curtains instead of windows, and 4 cylinders. The TR6 got roll-up windows and a 6-cylinder engine. Both were red, convertible, and a joy to drive.

Southern California, 1964-68

I was an administrative assistant in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, programmer at Carte Blanche, and systems and programing manager for the City of Glendale.

I married Janice in 1966 and we lived in La Crescenta.

That's us 41 years later

I went to work for Mosler Information and Automated Systems, doing systems engineering. Mosler moved us to Mountain View (near Palo Alto) in 1968.

University of Missouri 1960-64

I attended the University of Missouri from 1960 to 1964. Columbia was rural, agricultural, and somewhat southern. The civil rights movement was underway -- University housing became integrated in 1960 and there were sit-in demonstrations at restaurants that refused to serve black students.

I majored in journalism and was managing editor of the student newspaper, The Maneater,  and a news writer for the Office of Public Information. That office sent me to the 1962 Blue Bonnet Bowl in Houston to report and take photographs. Mizzou beat Georgia Tech 14-10.

I was a midshipman in N.R.O.T.C. and went on a naval aviation indoctrination trip to Corpus Christi Texas.

Midshipman Dave

Jesse Hall, University of Missouri

The Columns

Memorial Student Union

The Columbia branch met in a one-room wooden building -- just 55 people attended my first Sunday. I might have dismissed Church as unlearned, except our district president was chairman of the genetics department, a counselor was a sociology professor, and the branch president was a chemistry professor. We had great Central States Mission youth conferences in Wichita, Oklahoma City, and Columbia and Springfield, Missouri.

I met Harry Truman on the way to school for my junior year. I worked for the L.A. County Superior Court summers while I attended the University and after I finished school. I handled press relations when Chief Justice Earl Warren dedicated the courthouse and was an adviser at an American Friends Service Committee retreat at which Justice William O. Douglas was keynote speaker. I have autographed pictures of Harry Truman, Earl Warren, and William O. Douglas. Those were heady days.

Anytown/Brotherhood, U.S.A.

I attended Anytown, U.S.A., later known as Brotherhood, U.S.A., from 1957 to 1962 -- first as a student, then as a counselor. This was a summer camp for human relations and leadership development, and it was a defining moment in my life. I grew up in an insular environment and Anytown introduced me to different cultures and broadened my perspective.

Glenn McMurry from the U.S.C. Film School produced a film, Brotherhood, U.S.A., that I appeared in and helped narrate. I got a copy from his son, Greg, that brings a flood of wonderful memories.

A scene where I am reflecting on the Brotherhood, U.S.A. experience on the last night of camp.

Anytown is alive and well today. An 18 year old granddaughter, Heather, attended in 2006. She loved it as much as I did years earlier.

Growing up in Southern California, 1942-1960

I was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Highland Park, a mostly white, Protestant, working-class neighborhood in north east L.A.

Growing up in the 40's and 50's was different. We listened to radio for news, sports, and entertainment before we got television in the 1950's. Instead of watching TV, we played softball on our street corner, football in the backyard, and war games on Billy Goat Hill. We flew kites there too.

People in Highland Park didn't have swimming pools -- we swam in a public plunge.

Few kids had cars -- we walked and biked everywhere. Cars were on our minds, though. I read Motor Trend magazine regularly and could identify the year and make of just about every car. Gas cost 25-30 cents a gallon then.

We had a hot 58 Ford station wagon in 1960 that my dad sometimes let me drive. I "dragged" another car on the way home from a church dance and got a speeding ticket. I was afraid dad would shoot me and put off telling him as long as I could. When I finally told him, he just smiled and said he got HIS first ticket for doing the same thing.

Disneyland opened when I became a teenager in 1955, and I went to date nights and graduation night parties there.

I was on the student council, sang in the choir, and edited the school newspaper in high school. My journalism teacher took several of us to the L.A.Coliseum in 1959 to watch the Dodgers beat the San Francisco Giants from the press box; Sandy Koufax struck out 18.  My goal was to major in journalism and become a network news analyst or anchor. I sang in a double quartet at vespers and spoke at graduation.

Between graduation in February and college in September, 1960, I worked for the Los Angeles Daily Journal. I got to use the paper's press pass to the Democratic Convention where John F. Kennedy was nominated.

I belonged to Garvanza Ward in Glendale Stake from 1942-1960. We had great activities like bussing to the Mesa Temple for youth baptisms, riding the train to San Diego and going to the zoo, and taking the great white steamer to Catalina Island.