It Is FINISHED

IN A SCRAPBOOK OF POEMS
By Richard Realf

Here: gathered from all places and all time,
The waifs of wisdom and of folly meet.
High thoughts that awe and lilting words that chime.
Like Sabbath bells heard in far valleys sweetly;
Quaint fancies, musical with dainty rhyme
Like the soft patter of infant’s feet;
And laughter radiant as summer skies,
And giant hopes looking out from human eyes.
With thrilling hymns that make the quick tears start.
And here, in garlands of strange fantasy
To catch the careless passer’s casual look,
And show, within the limits of a book,
Unto him his life’s own large epitome.

I started copying these quotes, poems and stories when I was 13 years old. I can’t remember now if it was this poem, or a lesson somewhere (which I have since heard on several occasions) that said "A good speaker is always on the look out for good material. Begin early in life, and collect every story, poem, quote, article, or thought you see, read, or hear that makes you think or touches your soul." I remembered getting Dad’s old Missionary I. P.* Book off the shelf from time to time to find a poem for a Primary talk, and there were LOTS of good things in it. So, I decided when I was 13 that I wanted to start my own IP book by copying everything in Dad’s IP Book.

I spent one whole summer carefully copying one or two pages a day on an old manual typewriter - - - which probably didn’t hurt my typewriting skills, either! But the project bogged down largely after that, and I didn’t make much progress with it over the next 10 years.

25 years ago this month, Dad died, and I managed to talk my brother into letting me have the IP Book "just until I can finish copying it onto computer. Then I’ll give it back, you can keep the original, and I'll make a CD for all of Dad's descendants." And I really *MEANT* to get it done soon . . . And I *did* work on it sporadically from time to time, making intermittent headway.

And then, Sherm was called to the High Council in his Stake, and I told myself, "I have REALLY got to get on the ball and get that book back to him." So, I made a SERIOUS PUSH to get it done, and I *think* he’s only been on the High Council for 3 years . . .

So, when Mom had to undergo some major surgery, and I was the only one who could spent 4-6 weeks with her nursing her through the rehab and therapy, I decided it was the PERFECT opportunity to get some of these long-term goals FINALLY accomplished.

During Mom’s first surgery, I took a tape recorder and a PILE of cassettes, and a book of questions, and got nearly 15 hours of recorded interviews with her, talking about her childhood, memories of her parents and grandparents and siblings, her courting years, me and my brother as babies - - - stuff I’d never known before. I guess my NEXT major project can be typing all of THAT up . . . !

During Mom’s second surgery, I took the last half of Dad’s IP Book, and I sat there, day after day, copying and typing, and sometimes categorizing while Mom watched one news report after another. And by the time I came home just before Christmas, I was close enough to finished that it only took a few more days to complete the task.

I shipped the Original IP Book, with Dad's handwritten notes (which was what he was really interested in having), off to Sherm with my blessings and thanks, and in February began the NEXT task: organizing the contents so they would be usable.

That has kept me occupied for the last 6 months, mostly on Sundays. This last Sunday, when I went to polish off the last 25 pages, I discovered, to my shock and horror, that the file had become corrupted -- I had lost 9 pages of material, and I had no idea whatsoever what was on it. But, God blessed me to be able to find one of the documents I had typed in St. George in my recycle bin that appears to have 90% of what was lost on it, and I found the other half of one corrupted poem online, so if I am missing anything, it isn’t much.

This afternoon,40 years after I copied my first quote from it . . . .
25 years after Dad died and I took possession of it . . .
5 years after I said "THIS is the year I FINISH IT . . ."
I truly completed copying Dad’s I. P. Book.

Now all that remains is to have Derrin turn it into a searchable book-on-CD so that our posterity can actually get some USE out of, so all my work doesn't just sit on a shelf.

(He says that’s EASY to do . . .)

* I. P. = Instant Preparation. The idea being, if you keep this book with you, you are ready at a moment's notice to stand up and give a talk on any subject at any time, complete with humorous stories, poignant poems, and scriptural references.

Like Father, Like Son

The older Hyrum gets, the more he looks JUST LIKE HIS FATHER!!!!

See if you don't agree!!

Doesn't look like the apple fell very far from THAT tree!

Comin' Home

We had a wonderful experience last week. We took our annual "Anniversary Honeymoon" Trip. But, this time was special in a number of ways.

We've now been married for 31 years, and while we are not usually able to take time off ON our anniversary, we have always been able to find a few days sometime within a few weeks on either side of our wedding day to "escape" from the demands of life and go away together to some designated "vacation getaway." I heartily recommend it as a time to find each other again through all the clutter of life, and rediscover your love for your spouse.

One of our favorite get-aways has come to be the Hilton Torrey Pines in La Jolla. So, when Derrin was asked to speak at a breakfast meeting there last week, we were *delighted* to accept. And as we drove down, we reviewed all the wonderful things we enjoy doing while we are in the San Diego area. There is never enough time to do half of them!

But, I have been suffering from some serious migraines again, and didn't feel up to a lot. So, our first day we chose to take it easy and just wander around our all-time favorite site: Sea Port Village -- a beautiful, romantic little treasure right on the ocean with over 50 marvelous little shops and a very inviting park.

When we were first married, Derrin and I started collecting music boxes on our annual anniversary trips. But, we kind of got out of the habit, first because we stopped being able to find something we really liked when we went on the trip, and then later, because it became more and more difficult to find a song we didn't already have. So, we haven't done an "anniversary music box" in AGES! even though we ALWAYS go into the music box stores (force of habit . ..)

But, this year, the music box store was the first store we visited, and there were these INCREDIBLE music box clocks!!! They had the most BEAUTIFUL sound, played 12 popular or 3 Christmas songs (you choose which) at the top of the hour, and the face of the clock splits, opens up and dances around, and there are hot air balloons underneath it that spin, and there's a CASTLE at the bottom of the clock! But, it's smart, so if it's night, it shuts up so it won't disturb you! It is SOOOOO COOOOL!! You guessed it - - - we got one in honor of our 30 years of married bliss!

We had all kinds of plans for our next day, but ultimately decided that what we would enjoy the most was staying at the beautiful hotel, enjoying it's amenities, taking a walk along the world-class golf course, and playing games together - - - in short, just spending time together - - - something that has been in rather short supply over the last year! It was the most wonderful, restful day I think I've ever had!

The next (and last) day we had scheduled a visit to the exquisite San Diego Temple, and it is really this which has prompted this blog entry.

As we came up the path to the front door of the temple, there was no one else there. No one going in; no one coming out. But while we were still 30' away (much too far away to trigger an electric eye), the doors opened in greeting, as if the temple itself was eager to see us and couldn't *wait* for us to come in! I felt SOOO welcome!

I admit, I've had a love-affair with this particular temple ever since we were driving to San Diego for some other business event, and saw it there by the freeway, not knowing what it was. It was so breathtaking, we simply *had* to get off the freeway and wander around until we found it so we could learn what it was . . . . And then, to find out it was OUR temple!!! WHAT a thrill.

As we handed in our recommends to gain entrance to the main body of the temple, I felt such gratitude that, with all my faults and weaknesses, I can still be counted worthy to enter His House. And as we rounded the corner and began to ascend the stairs, a feeling of "home" came over me that I find difficult to describe. This place was my home. It is where I belong.

Now, I must do what I can to get my own home to more closely resemble that one . . . .

Political Musings

I'll be perfectly honest with you here: this election terrifries me.

I mean, I've been increasingly worried about every election since Nixon faced McGovern in 1972. The stakes get higher and the issues hotter with every passing decade. And now, here we are, having somehow survived into the 21st Century, and everywhere I look, I see madness. Men marrying men; women murdering their unborn children; parents who just can't *wait* to dump their little ones into state-run institutions so they can pursue dreams of wealth; and now school books that, by LAW, are forbidden to MENTION "father," "mother," and "family;" birth certificates required to list "parent 1" and "parent 2" - - - it's a genealogists' nightmare!!!

Pres. Reagan quoted an anonymous source in two separate speeches, which have since been merged into the following quote: "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.'

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;

2. From spiritual faith to great courage;

3. From great courage to liberty;

4. From liberty to abundance;

5. From abundance to complacency;

6. From complacency to apathy;

7. From apathy to dependence on government;

8. From dependence on government back into bondage."

Depending on whether you count the beginning our OUR Republic as 1776, when we officially signed the Declaration of Independence, or 1787, when the Constitution was finally drafted and approved, we crossed that 200-year line while I was in college or when my children were young. I can't see that we've made any progress in holding the line since then . . . except perhaps during the Reagan years, when, for a brief time, we could be proud to be Americans again.

And now we are embroiled in another election, and this time it seems our whole way of life is at stake. . . perhaps our very survival as a nation and a civilization. And I am terrified.

I am not a political person. I am not married to a particular party. . . although I *do* tend to vote for candidates from one party, it is because I feel they best represent my views and will do the best job of representing me on the State or Federal level.

An email has been making the rounds lately in response to Barak Obama's recent visit to Iraq, talking about how he brushed off the soldiers and only "made nice" when there was media present. I also received an email from a former Marine, commenting: "McCain did the same thing in Iraq (protected visits, etc). Obama did speak with soldiers in Iraq. These political types have tight schedules. I wouldn't make too much of this. I think the issues facing our country are far too important to let something like this make our decision for us. For once, we have a real choice!"

This has weighed on my mind, and this evening I sent him the following email:

I think it is a serious mistake to vote for someone - - - anyone! - - - based solely on their campaign rhetoric. Both parties will say and do *anything* to get elected. And what we hear them say in sound bites more accurately represents what their campaign managers feel the public wants to hear than it does the core beliefs of the candidates. To know what kind of person we are voting for, what kind of choice we are making, it is FAR more important to look at the man, his history, his stated public opinions when the cameras *weren't* on him, than to make a big hullabaloo over who he did or did not shake hands with on a big publicity-stunt tour.

And, frankly, Sir, *that* is where this election really scares me. I don't care for either one of the major candidates. So, I'm not here to ask you to vote for either man. My only hope in writing to you is that, before you cast your vote, you will look at who the candidates are when they are alone at night, after the cameras have turned off for the day --- who they pray to - - - what their experience demonstrates their character to be - - - and consider who you want sitting in the oval office WHEN, not if, the terrorists make their next successful strike on mainland USA."

I did not include anything else, because I know I'm not going to persuade anyone of anything. But, here is what I am most concerned about re Barak Obama: Read what he has to say about and for himself:

From Audacity of Hope: 'I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.'

From Dreams of My Father: ; 'It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.'

I don't care that the man is half black. Heck, I'd vote for Alan Keyes in a heartbeat!! Race is unimportant to me; who the man is loyal to is what is important to me; who his heroes are are important; what he stands for and his vision of America is what is important.

I also find these arguements persuasive:

Obama's 143 Days of Senate Experience
Posted by Cheri JacobusMay 5, 2008 at 5:35 pm

Just how much Senate experience does Barack Obama have in terms of actual work days? Not much.
From the time Barack Obama was sworn in as a United State Senator, to the time he announced he was forming a Presidential exploratory committee, he logged 143 days of experience in the Senate. That's how many days the Senate was actually in session and working.
After 143 days of work experience, Obama believed he was ready to be Commander In Chief, Leader of the Free World, and fill the shoes of Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK and Ronald Reagan.
143 days -- I keep leftovers in my refrigerator longer than that.
In contrast, John McCain's 26 years in Congress, 22 years of military service including 1,966 days in captivity as a POW in Hanoi now seem more impressive than ever. At 71, John McCain may just be hitting his stride.


Now, I know a man should not be judged by his wife. But, I think you can tell a lot *about* a man by the kind of woman he keeps company with; the kind of woman who stands beside and inspires him. And, while the First Lady has no official power, there is no question any more about her power and influence. When we choose a President, we also choose a First Lady, and we would be wise to consider our options there carefully, as well.

But, I think I have probably pontificated long enough. You can look up the achievements of these two women for yourself and decide who you would rather have beside the most powerful man on earth when you stand in the voting box this November.

Who most nearly represents your views, hopes, and dreams for this country?

Speaking of Books . . .

C. S. Lewis once wrote: "If good stories are comments on life, good novels of fantasy are actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensastions we never had before, and enlarge our conception of the range of possible experience. Specimens of this kind will never be common. . . . Tolkein's "The Lord of the Rings," David Linday's "A Voyage to Arcturus," Melvyn Peake's "Titus Groan" -- and William Hope Hodgson's "The Night Land," from the unforgetable sombre splendour of the images it presents."



Based on this "recommendation," I read all of those above-mentioned books (and every book in each series, when one was more than a single volume), and I agree that they each have a special charm. EAch does, indeed, give sensations never experienced before. But, I would not recommend Lindsay or Peake to the casual reader. (Nor, truth be told, would the average reader appreciate Hodgson!!!) They are simply too far "out there." But, I *DO* recommend "The Night Land," even if it *is* hard to reach.



And thus we come to the purpose of this blog post: I have heretofor listed various and sundry other's people's "Best Of" book lists. I shall now present a VERY BRIEF list which I think of as my "C. S. Lewis Books-That-Changed-My-Life" list. I can and do heartily recommend each and every one. They are not all fiction; not all the fiction is fantasy; they are in no particular order; but each has touched me and changed my life. A day does not go by that I do not find myself thinking about a lesson I learned from one or more of them; certainly a month does not go by that I do not reflect on each of them. Perhaps I should post future blogs reviewing each book and explaining it's influence on me . . . .



In any event, here is my "Essentials" List:



C. S. Lewis -- The Screwtape Letters

The Book of Mormon

Ester Rasband -- Confronting the Myth of Self-Esteem

Stephen R. Covey -- The Divine Center

Dallin H. Oaks -- Pure in Heart

Agatha Christie writing as Mary Westmacott -- Absent in the Spring

Paul Dunn -- I challenge You/I Promise You

Richard Eyre -- The Discovery of Joy

Cheiko Okazaki -- Lighten Up!

William Hope Hodgson -- The Night Land

Madeleine L'Engle -- A Wrinkle in Time

Madelein L'Engle -- A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Ayn Rand -- Atlas Shrugged

Ayn Rand -- Anthem

J. R. R. Tolkein -- The Lord of the Rings Trilogy



The list is not a complete list of my favorite books, for i have not included ANY of the "Dragon Riders of Pern" series, or any Harry Potter, or any of Elizabeth Kern's wonderful dragon trilogy . . . But they do not belong on this list. For, although I THOROUGHLY enjoyed them, and many of them were a "better read" than some of the titles in the above list, none of them made me a different person when I finished, and THAT is my criteria for this posting.

Bookworms . . . Then, and Now

THE BIG READ TOP 100
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. The Harry Potter Series JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (well, maybe not absolutely EVERY work . . .)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - - - Nope. Not gonna. Seriously
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert -- In fact, read the ENTIRE DUNE SERIES!!!!
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce - - - (Didn't have to . . . I read Homer in the original Greek!)
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - read the COMPLETE WORKS, actually
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So, let's see - - - on Today's List, I score 20.

Now, compare this with Eaton Press' list of the 100 Greatest Books Ever Written and see how you do:

1. A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
2. A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man by James Joyce
3. A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens
4. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Twain
5. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by A. Conan Doyle
6. Aesop's Fables
7. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Carroll
8. Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
9. Billy Budd/Benito Cereno by Herman Melville
10. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
11. Candide by Voltaire
12. Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
13. David Copperfield by Dickens
14. Don Quixote by Cervantes
15. Euripedes by Euripedes
16. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
17. Faust by Goethe
18. Great Expectations by Dickens
19. Grimm's Fairy Tales by Grimm
20. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
22. The History of Early Rome by Livy
23. Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
24. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
25. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
26. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
27. Little Women by Alcott
28. Lord Jim by Conrad
29. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
30. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
31. Oedipus the King by Sophocles
32. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
33. On the Origin of Species by Darwin
34. Paradise Lost by John Milton
35. Plato Dialogues on Love and Friendship by Plato (in the original Greek, no less)
36. Poems of John Keats by Keats
37. Politics and Poetics by Aristotle
38. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
39. The Rights of Man by Paine
40. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
41. She Stoops To Conquer by Goldsmith
42. Short Stories by Oscar Wild
43. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Stevenson
44. Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Poe
45. The Federalist by Hamilton
46. The Aeneid by Virgil
47. The Alhambra by Washington Irving
48. The Analects of Confucius by Confucius
49. The Arabian Nights by Burton
50. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Franklin
51. The Birds and the Frogs by Aristophanes
52. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
53. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
54. The Comedies by Shakespeare
55. The Confessions of Jean by Jacques Rousseau
56. The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine
57. The Decameron by Boccaccio
58. The Descent of Man by Darwin
59. The Divine Comedy by Dante
60. The Essayes by Francis Bacon
61. The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Emerson
62. The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
63. The Histories by Shakespeare
64. The Iliad of Homer by Homer
65. The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling
66. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
67. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Stern
68. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
69. The Odyssey of Homer by Homer
70. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
71. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
72. The Poems of John Donne by Donne
73. The Poems of Robert Browning by Browning (not all, but a goodly number of 'em)
74. The Poems of W.B. Yeats by Yeats
75. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
76. The Prince by Machiavelli
77. The Red and the Black by Stendhal
78. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
79. The Republic by Plato
80. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
81. The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne
82. The Sea Wolf by Jack London
83. The Short Stories by Dickens
84. The Tales of Guy de Maupassant by De Maupassant
85. The Talisman by Scott
86. The Three Musketeers by Dumas
87. The Tragedies by Shakespeare
88. The Way of all Flesh by Butler
89. Three Plays by Henrik Ibsen
90. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
91. Treasure Island by Stevenson
92. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
93. Two Plays by Moliere
94. Two Plays for Puritans by George Bernard Shaw
95. Two Plays The Cherry Orchard/Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
96. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
97. Vanity Faire by William Makepeace Thackeray
98. Walden by Thoreau
99. War and Peace by Tolstoy
100. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Of THIS 100, I score 25.

And then, there's the 100 Favorite Novels of Librarians - - - they should know a thing or three:

1. Pride and Prejudice by Austen
2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee
3. Jane Eyre by Bronte
4. Gone with the Wind by Mitchell
5. Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
6. The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger
7. Little Women by Alcott
8. A Prayer of Owen Meany by Irving
9. The Stand by King
10. The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald
11. Mists of Avalon by Bradley
12. David Copperfield by Dickens
13. Kristen Lavransdotter by Undset
14. Beloved by Morrison
15. Age of Innocence by Wharton
16. The Shell Seekers by Pilcher
17. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Hardy
18. The World According to Garp by Irving
19. Catch 22 by Heller
20. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Auel
21. The Horse Whisperer by Evans
22. Pillars of the Earth by Follett
23. Prince of Tides by Conroy
24. Possession by Byatt
25. Rebecca by DuMaurier
26. Follow the River by Thom
27. My Antonia by Cather
28. The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway
29. The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne
30. Sophies Choice by Styron
31. Snow Falling on Cedars by Guterson
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez
33. Name of the Rose by Eco
34. The Giver by Lowry
35. Cold Mountain by Frazier
36. Cold Sassy Tree by Burns
37. Atlas Shrugged by Rand
38. Bridge to Terebithia by Paterson
39. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Tyler
40. The Hobbit by Tolkien
41. Les Miserables bt Hugo
42. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by Lewis
43. Wuthering Heights by Bronte
44. A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens
45. Huckelberry Finn by Twain
46. Alice in Wonderland by Carroll
47. The Wind in the Willows by Grahame
48. The Bean Trees by Kingsolving
49. Ben Hur by Wallace
50. And Then There Were None by Christie
51. The Secret Garden by Burnett
52. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Taylor
53. Busman's Honeymoon by Sayers
54. Schindler's List by Keneally
55. Emma by Austen
56. The Color Purple by Walker
57. The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas
58. Charlotte's Web by White
59. Anne of Green Gables by Montgomery
60. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Wells
61. Lady Chatterly's Lover by Lawrence
62. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Smith
63. East of Eden by Steinbeck
64. The Once and Future King by White
65. Enders Game by Card
66. The Fountainhead by Rand
67. A Patchwork Planet by Tyler
68. Gaudy Night by Sayers
69. Shogun by Clavell
70. Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
71. Handmaid's Tale by Atwood
72. Lonesome Dove by McMurtry
73. Outlander by Gabaldon
74. Pigs in Heaven by Kingsolver
75. Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut
76. Jude the Obscure by Hardy
77. Time and Again by Finney
78. Misery by King
79. A Christmas Carol by Dickens
80. The Accidental Tourist by Tyler
81. Giants of the Earth by Rolvaag
82. Persuasion by Austen
83. Fried Green Tomatoes by Flagg
84. Tisha by Specht
85. The Thornbirds by McCullough
86. Christy by Marshall
87. Lost Horizon by Hilton
88. The Little Princ by St. Exupery
89. Fahrenheight 451 by Bradbury
90. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway
91. Frankenstein by Shelley
92. Bleak House by Dickens
93. Boy's Life by McCammon
94. Chesapeake by Michener
95. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Adams
96. How Green Was My Valley by Llewellyn
97. Howard's End by Forster
98. I, Robot by Asimov
99. Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck
100. A Passage to India by Forster

(When *I* was a librarian in Jr. High, we pretty quickly figured out which were the best books!)
Let's see . . . of *those* I score only 17! $:-(

I've been searching for days for the 1975 BYU Honors Program List of Books Every Educated Person Should Read. That was my "Lifetime Goal List" as I graduated from College. Unfortunately, so far, I haven't managed to lay my hands on it. So, you'll have to tune in again later to see if I've come across it in my travels.

Well, I'm getting autosave failures, so I'm guessing this blog is already too long. So, I'd best post it while I can . . . . (Although I *really* wanted to do a comparison study of these 3 lists to see which books appear on each . . .)

Emergency Preparedness

I know, *EVERYBODY* and their small dog is harping about preparedness, thanks to the Gap Fire! (Thank you, Santa Barbara Independent, for this STUNNING photo!!!)

Sometimes, it takes a real emergency to get our attention and focus us on what really matters. So, I hope you will bear with me as I reminisce for a moment.

As I sat here alone last Wednesday, waiting for Derrin to return from Florida, and watching the flames creep ever closer, I began considering what I would grab should I have to evacuate - - - a very real possibility.

Of course, living creatures first, and I thanked God that all I had to worry about THIS time around was cats; with the Painted Cave fire, we had small children as well.

Then, grab the computers!! If we lose them, we're sunk.

After that, it used to be a toss-up: do we grab all the handwork I have spent my life creating, or do we first grab the family history and journals? With several people at home, that's not an issue, because everyone can be sent to collect some of each. When it's just me . . . .

And then I realized that things are different now than they were 20 years ago.

I have spent the last 20 years (well, 15 at least!) transferring all our genealogical data to . . . COMPUTER!!!! Including scanning in all the proof documents and precious family photos I could get my hands on.

I'd *rather* have the originals. But, as long as I had the computers, I had the genealogy. And all the pictures of Baby Hyrum. And a good piece of our music collection.

As an added bonus, when Derrin got home he reminded me that we also had off-site backup for everything. So, should the worst happen, (which, Praise God, it didn't!) our most important files are being preserved elsewhere.

What a wonderful day we live in! Computers allow us to access information of all kinds at the touch of a button (or click of a mouse); the gospel has been restored to give purpose and meaning to our lives and to allow us the opportunity to bless our kindred dead; with cell phones and blackberries we can keep in touch with worried relatives, wherever they may be, and get virtually instantaneous fire updates to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe.

Now, as the fire moves away from us, let us not forgot to offer prayers of thanks as earnest as were our prayers for protection last week. And let us remember to GET that "Emergency Evacuation Closet" (that we TALKED about 20 years ago - - - with the list of "What to Grab First" on the door) FINALLY pulled together, so we won't have to go running around the house grabbing stuff next time we have an emergency. And, let's make it a higher priority to get the rest of our family history digitized, with a copy someplace else, so that if our house burns down while we're out of town, we won't have lost the work of a lifetime.