Walking on main street

So as I was out for a walk in the wonderful town of Rexburg, Idaho. It began to rain. However, I hadn’t seen such wetness and precipitation for such a long time that i all but rolled in it. About four blocks from my apartment is main street, and as i was walking down this street the rain continued to flow, and began to start dumping. Now when mother nature starts dumping, it’s a lot cleaner than when we human beings, or any other animal for that matter, start dumping. At least I hope so, because i ran, fell, even opened my mouth to catch what mother nature was dumping.

Now, back to my walk. I decided i was soaked from the neck up and should take a little cover. And yes i did mean neck up, in case any of you thought that i meant from the neck or head down. As I walk under this…… canopy, which hung out from the store I spotted a few windows that you couldn’t see inside. Like those mirrors windows, then there door was like this as well. This sparked my curiosity, so i stepped in for a closer look and in doing so I noticed a small sign which read “please use other door.” I thought to myself “what other door?!” Then on the door next to it a red sign read “this is the other door.” I thought how dumb! If you can’t figure out which door works, then you shouldn’t be opening doors anyways. Your like a kid who can’t read a push sign, and you pull for five minutes until someone comes along and pushes the door open for you.

Then I thought, well what if I read the other sign first, “this is the other door.” I’d  begin to question it, “why am I supposed to look for another door? Well where’s the first door? What is the significance of “thee other door” and why should I open it?” By the time your done questioning the sign, you are already sick of the place and instead of reading the sign on the other door next to it, you storm off in rage of fury back into mother natures dumping hour.

Since you are so enraged with a hatred for that door you slip and fall into mother nature’s dump, and now you soaked and need a place to hide from further dumping by mother nature. So you run back to the door, completely forgetting about the sign and try and pull the door that says “use the other door.” Now looking like an idiot who can’t read the push sign and are pulling until someone finally comes and opens the door next to the one you have been so struggling to open for the past ten minutes.

obama posters

So I was walking around in K-Mart the other day, searching for some new shirts, or a toy. You know, just ambling around, when i saw the posters. I usually take a look to see if there are any new additions worthy of going on my wall. As I looked through them I was surprised to find a Barack Obama poster. I chuckled to myself at the thought of someone putting that up on there wall. As I continued to flip through the many posters, I came across another Obama poster. Once again i chuckled at the thought of an Obama fanatic putting both posters up on their walls, probably having one in there yard, maybe a few button pins, and possibly a few plates with Obama’s face on it. Who knows, they could even have those collectible coins and cards of Obama. I flipped through the posters a little more, when i found a third and final poster of Obama. I thought this is just ridiculous. Anyways, I thought I would just share my thoughts on this.

The beginning of Earl

Earl the Ice-Cream man pulled onto Cardinal lane every Tuesday at four o clock with a smile on his face. Earl is living the dream, his dream, bringing a smile to the face of children all over the town of Stanwood. “Good morning kids! What’ll it be today? Fudgesicles, mmmmm, maybe a strawberry shortcake? What’ll it be what’ll it be? Earl wears a navy blue shirt with the London Clock tower on it, and has never been seen in anything else ever since he came to Stanwood.  Since he was little he has spoken with an English accent, which everyone thought was so strange because he was from Brooklyn. However, that accent has brought a laugh and giggle to the children of Stanwood. It is a part of him as much as his deep blue eyes, which were shaded by his large brow, or his large, soft hands that seemed to handle the ice-cream so gently; even as a archeologist would handle a price-less possession. His dark brown hair kept cut just above the ears. After all “A man must look his best when delivering Ice-cream to the future of the world.”

Fired?

So the past week, I was outrageously sick. I had the chills and a fever for 5 days. Not to mention I was coughing up lungs left………and right. It was gross, I didn’t know I had so many lungs. Well I’m a Janitor for BYU-Idaho University from 4am-7am, then I attend class at 745am. Well, being this sick I needed all the sleep I could get. Needless to say, I did not attend work for 4 days in a row, and on the 5th day I went to work, but left early sick. This last week I missed tuesday and wednesday, on thursday I went into work knowing that my supervisor wanted to talk. I thought for sure that I was going to be fired. I was kind of excited to. I thought, “NO MORE GETTING UP AT 3:40am!!! WOOOHOOO!!” Okay, I was actually way excited. Unfortunatley, I was not fired. All he said was keep in contact and lt him know when i can’t make it. LAME!  Sad day, i know. However, I guess its a good thing, because I really need the money. Anyways, my first experience with almost getting fired was exciting, dissapionting and a relief.

Clouds of Memory

A blanket of gray clouds lied beneath the sky, like a ragged quilt with holes to let small glimpses of blue through, bringing with it a gloom. The snow below it mirrored the sunless sky, and like an open flood gate, memories of the ocean came rushing into my head. Waves thrashing against rocks, while the fading sun throws shades of purples and pinks into the cloud covered sky.  The more I stared out into the frigid and wintery abyss, the more I longed for the comforting sounds of sand being pulled out to sea, while running across my feet. The more I remembered, the more my eyes became fixed on those all too familiar clouds.

            Ever since I had moved to the small, dusty college town of Rexburg Idaho, I had somehow removed memories, blocked them out like a beaver blocks the lake water to make a home. I too had made a home, with new memories, new friends, and forgotten dreams. Now that may not be what the beaver had in mind when he made his new home, but this was exactly what I needed. I needed was to remove my self, and forget everything about the even smaller bohemian town of Arcata, California, with hippies crawling out from underneath rocks to smoke some early morning marijuana, like starving cockroaches that just spotted a dumpster full of leftovers. However, it seems to be impossible, if the cloud covers of Rexburg Idaho stay as they are for much longer I might be forced to move again.

            We never really got along; my brother and I, and sharing a room did not help with the situation. “Pick up your clothes John! Stop messing around you lazy fart knocker!”

“Don’t say that! I am cleaning geez!” The pudgy, brown haired boy snapped back.

            “Yeah, you’ve folded one pair of socks in the past 20 minutes! Great job John! You’re so slow! Why do you even bother fatty?” John, my younger brother, eyes began to swell up with tears. He wasn’t mad, as much as he was hurt; John’s weight was a sensitive subject.

“I am not!  Shut up! AHHHHHH!!!” John ran towards me, hoping to make me pay for what I had said, but we both knew that his efforts were useless. I have two years of age, weight training, wrestling, and a strange mental edge over him.

            With all of the force my little brother could muster into his forearms, he thrust down on the back of my head. However, my poor little brother never really wants to hurt me or anyone for that matter, and he doesn’t know how to fight, but he does have all of the physical strength and ability to cause some serious damage. After his failed attempt of crashing my head into his knee, John continues to punch my arms, kicking me every five seconds or so. This continues for about thirty seconds and, it usually stops after I land a punch and he leaves crying. This is due to the fact that my little brother can’t stand fighting, and is always worried about the feelings of others, not because he was necessarily hurt.

John absolutely hates confrontation. If he had to choose between roller coasters, which is one of his biggest fears of all time, and confrontation, he would choose the roller coaster. Putting my little brother on a roller coaster is like putting someone who is claustrophobic in a cardboard box and duck taping them inside of it.

            After our little spits of rage I would finish the room, and John would hold a grudge for the next few hours.

            As the next few years past, are arguments became fewer and less often. You might even say we became friends, which made the next part of our lives much easier. Our parents decided that we were moving out of our home town, Stanwood, WA, to Arcata CA where our cousins live.  We had lived in Stanwood our entire lives; all of our friends were there. My best friend of all time, Parker Seegmiller, who I have known since I was 2, lived there. We made our final move down to California the weekend before school started in our new town.

            John’s new school was a charter School, his eighth grade graduating class consisted of about 40 kids. That was about an eighth of the amount of kids in his 5^th grade graduation, needless to say it was a big change. At John’s new Charter School he was forced to retake algebra because over the length of a summer vacation, he had not managed to remember everything he had previously learned in his algebra course. This brought his spirits, and enthusiasm for moving to this granola town further into the pits he had already placed it in. Now along with digging them deeper, he was placing stakes and tigers in them. Arcata, California was not growing on my little brother.

            Making new friends, in a brand new town is never an easy task, especially when you are as shy as John. Trying to get John to talk to someone he does not know is like trying to teach a white man to salsa dance. He might be able to do it, but it’s not going to be graceful. In fact, you may want to close your eyes. “H h hi.” Said John in almost a whispered tone.

“Hey! You new here?” Replied the perky, tall blonde girl from across the small four by six foot table. John pulled out his chair, and while trying to play it cool, tries to sit down, but unfortunately misses the chair, and plops onto the old, musty, carpeted floor. However, like the white man trying to salsa dance, once you get John having fun he can’t be stopped, all the while making everyone else in the room laugh. “oh my gosh! Are you okay!” The tall, perky blonde put out her hand to help John up, when his inner salsa dancer shined. With a smirk on his face my little brother replied in a suave and debonair voice. 

            “I am now.” His remark made the entire class start laughing, but even though John was funny, he never had any friends to hang out with after school. However, neither did I.

            I remember one school day, I was fed up with going to lunch with my cousin, who was a grade younger than me, and her friends everyday because I didn’t have any of my own. So for three weeks straight I went to lunch alone; I walked all over the liberal town with no money, which made leaving campus kind of pointless, but I needed to do something to get my mind off of Stanwood and all of my friends from back home. I made a few friends over the course of the next few months, but there names matter not. For high school friends never last much more than six months after that part of your life is over, but John…….

              The next year was John’s Freshmen year of high school, and all of his friends from middle school left him for new crowds. I stopped hanging out with my friends from last year, mainly because I didn’t like the after school activities they participated in. Drinking, the dancing they did, drugs, and all of the rest of the basic “cool” and “mature” things they did in high school. John and I began to spend a lot more time together, most of the time during lunch, we would drive home, grab something to eat and go back to school for 5^th period. However, I didn’t like to hang out with him after school. I would go hang out with my church buddy in the next town over, and I would never let him come with. When he would ask me to come hang out with him, I wouldn’t do that either. I felt trapped, like I could not get away from this little brother of mine. He was an annoying mosquito that I couldn’t slap, but was buzzing in my ear constantly. 

            I guess that’s what I regret the most; all the times we could have had, the hundreds of memories we could have shared had I only said yes.

            One day, John asked me if I wanted to go to the beach with him, Kyle (John’s church buddy), and a few more kids from church.

“UH uh!” I yelled from my bed. It was six pm on Saturday, and I did not want to be bothered; it was my mid-day nap. 

            “You sure? The waves are roaring today, and it’s sunny,” asked John in hope that I might go with him. John leaned against the door in sorrow and surrender. “ok, I’ll see you when we get back Trevor,” John lowered his head and walked out the door.

            I woke up at exactly 7:02 pm to the sound of sirens, however, we lived on the same street as the hospital; so this was nothing unusual. The sun had just started to meet the horizon and was shooting shades of pinks and purples into the clouds that had rolled in over the coast line. It had only been two hours so I thought I might still be able to find them at the beach. I grabbed the keys to my Hyundai Accent and drove off. As I pulled into the sandy parking lot, everyone on the beach was in a scurry. There was an ambulance and someone giving a small pudgy boy on the beach CPR. I looked around and spotted John’s church buddy Kyle standing over by the body.

            “Hey Kyle! Where’s John!” I yelled to Kyle. If I found John, maybe he could fill me in on what happened. Kyle didn’t yell back, he just waved for me to run to him, he was jumping up and down, throwing his arms back and forth. Meanwhile the men with the stretcher from the ambulance ran out and started putting the boy on it. The sun was almost gone now. I had a knot in my gut, I felt like I was going to puke. As I ran closer to where the crowd had gathered around the stretcher, the knot tightened. I knew who was on the stretcher. I looked back towards the parking lot for a split second and saw my parents pull in.

            Suddenly the people who carried the stretcher out were coming back, they had blood and sand all over their white powdered gloves. Their shirts were stained with blood from John, and this became very real. As they walked briskly by me I saw my little brother, his face was cracked and bleeding; his left arm was scraped up and jagged pieces of rock were stuck in his forearm and wrist. His other arm was malformed. John had been playing a game we loved so much “Dominate the Waves.” Basically we go out as far we can standing and jump onto the rolling waves coming into shore. John had loss focus of his surroundings, and didn’t realize how far up the shore he had been moved. John had placed himself in front a the rock wall we used to cliff golf off of. Completely made up of young jagged rocks and barnacles, it was no place for a 15 year old to be. John heard his name called out by Kyle, turned his back on the incoming wave and in those few seconds two peaks of two different waves joined forces to create a wave beyond the sweet, funny, and innocent boys capability of handling. This wave pulled John under the surface, and thrashed his head against the sandy ocean floor, knocking him out he was the mercy of the waves, which had decided to take him to the wall where he would draw his last breaths.

              I road in the ambulance with John and held his skin shredded hand. He died about two minutes from the hospital, completely unconscious the whole time. “He’s gone” said the one of the paramedics.  I began to break down and cry. “WHY! WHY NOT ME! I’M SO SORRY JOHN!…… I’m soooo sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” That’s all I could say was “I’m sorry,” nothing else would come out of my mouth. He’s gone.

Rampaging stalker girl

Please note that fake names are used in this scenario

One long morning in the middle of July, my youth group and I were at a service project, and I don’t know why, but this girl thought it was romantic. However, all I said was “hi.” We never even danced at the social later on the next week. I mean my goodness. What is this world coming to if a guy can’t say hi to a girl, without her falling for him and stalking the poor man endlessly into the night.

This I believe, girl stalkers are creepy, unless I like them, then, and only then is it acceptable. I say girl stalkers, because I have had no personal experience of being stalked by a boy, it’s a good thing too. That would just be weird. Now one might think that this is a harsh statement, but one doesn’t know the whole story behind this………

  Roughly two years ago, I went to a church service project; it for those sixteen to eighteen years of age. We were placed into groups, and our assignment was to put together care packages for Mormon Missionaries. I happened to have a particular girl in my group, now at a first glance; one might say she was cute. She had a cute face, slim body, and had I not gone through the experiences I have, I would have to agree.

  Our group had broken coloring crayons of every color imaginable, as would be expected at a Mormon youth church activity. So we wrote letters, drew pictures, and then a basket was brought to our table with a plethora of random items such as; soap, and that’s about all I can remember. Can you blame me? I’ve been trying to forget this day for the past two years.  Not knowing what I was getting myself into, I opened my big mouth and said “Hi, I’m Trevor.”  The girl with dark brown hair, maybe a highlight or two, looked up and moved her chipmunk cheeks only to open her mouth where the braces began to talk. “Hey, I’m Laura.” The conversation continued with small talk, nothing flirty, at least not that I could tell, but who knows, maybe I’m way off when it comes to this kind of stuff. 

The group of about fifteen kids finished the service project, and we went outside to play some games in the church parking lot. My favorite game had to have been Commando. Think of it as, a more intense version of hide-and-go-seek.  The reason it was my favorite, is because I finally got her off my back. That’s right, Laura had been following me everywhere, and this was the one game where I could pull away from her. I just had to risk myself losing the game in the process. However, in the words of Dr. Cox from the sitcom Scrubs “totally worth it.” After all the games were done, we cleaned up and it was time to go home. I thought a simple bye to everyone would suffice, but once again not knowing what I had gotten myself into, I was wrong. Putting my hand up to wave goodbye to Laura, big mistake, she moved in for the kill and snatched a hug from me before I could put my hand down to block it.

The next weekend was a big church dance, where all of the Mormon kids around would gather for a non-bumping and grinding, clean music dance. These are dances where the gym doors are still open so there is plenty of light for the adults to chaperone and keep the dance floor “church approved.” Which I love by the way, but it made me easy to spot. I was like a wounded gazelle in the Serengeti.   Once I spotted Laura, I tried to keep my distance. I wasn’t sure why, but something about her smile made me cringe. Unfortunately, I was extremely unsuccessful. This girl must have had a homing device on me, because every time I turned around, she was there. Me being the brilliant man that I am came up with a plan to get her off my back. I thought if I danced with her once, she would leave me alone. BIG MISTAKE!

After this, she wanted a hug with every encounter, and with every hug came that creepy smile. She asked for my number, and again, I did not know what I was getting myself into. After that night, the texts were flying in; she even sent me pictures of her. Not inappropriate or anything, just of her and that smile. AAAHHHHH!!

This continued for a week or two. Soon she wanted to hang out, and I didn’t want to be mean. So I said “sure, why not?” Awful, awful answer. She started asking weird questions after that. For us to hang out, she needed to know what my parents did, when they worked, and who they worked for. I asked her if she wanted to know their tax returns to. It was getting ridiculous and the texts were relentless, and you never could tell when she was going to call. All you were sure of was that she would. This had to be stopped, I sent her a text, since talking to her flat out scarred, telling Laura that I didn’t like her in that sort of way and the texts need to stop, especially the pictures. I didn’t send one to her, not one, and still she sent more. Needless to say, her stalking days were over, at least with me. Who knows what poor soul she is stalking now. And since the day I sent the text, she has not said a single word to me.

This I believe, stalker girls are creepy. When I said “unless I like them, then and only then is it acceptable,” I meant if they stalk me in a cute way. There is a difference between constant bombardment, awkward hugs with strange questions, and knowing my class schedule because I told you it so we could meet after every class. Now relationships are all about stalking, knowing their favorite color, food, where they live, and all that stuff. But when you hardly know someone, and have barley said more than a paragraph to them, constant bombardment just turns out to be creepy.

HELP

Hey, I need random topics for a “This I believe essay.” Just through em out there.

Let the bodies hit the floor

Have you ever heard the song “Let the bodies hit the floor” by Drowning Pool? Well if you haven’t, 31 out of  the 63 lines in the song repeat “Let the bodies hit the floor.” And usually the line “nothing wrong with me, comes after it, well and before, but in this case we’re going to say that it follows ”Let the bodies hit the floor.” I heard this song on the radio and couldn’t help but laugh. This interesting scenario popped up in my head.  Now I have yet to read or look up the background to this song, but still. Something is wrong with the man in this song. It’s like he is screaming at someone, “LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR! COME ON! Just, just let them hit the floor.” And the poor guy he is screaming at is like “woooo, dude you need to chill.” So the guy in the song feels threatened and says “for one, NOTHINGS WRONG WITH ME! two, nothings wrong with me, and thrrrreeee, nothings wrong with me.” The poor guy he speaking to is afraid that he’ll be the next body to hit the floor. “wo dude, I never said there was. Let’s think about this alright?……” The man trying to stay alive;  has his hands out, moving up and down trying to calm him down.

But he’s a persistent one, this man in the song. The whole way through, almost 50% of the time he is telling someone to let the body hit the floor. He really wants the bodies to hit the floor, I mean my goodness.

Not a Limerick

This man had locks of brown hair

He still has them

It’s not fair

I want brown locks

I got them, I ripped them off his head

An amazing essay

Okay so if you like ice-cream, this link is for you.  If you like politics then this is also for you. 

http://www.thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?uid=20217&themelist=equality&yval=0&start=20