The Coolest Thing 5-30-2021
What’s The Coolest Thing You’ve Ever Seen?
Carrie Keiser
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever seen? That was the question for this week's story. I’ve thought about this all week. I think it’s a matter of perspective and age.
Had I been asked this right after I went with Jody, Doug and Nancy Robert to Yellowstone for the first time, I would have said Yellowstone National Park was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. It is a very cool place.
Had you asked me in 1987, I would have said seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. The ocean is an awesome sight, and the power behind water is amazing.
Had you asked me after our trucking trip to Illinois, I would have said Nauvoo, Lake Michigan and the Gateway to the West Arch were the coolest things I’d ever seen.
If you had asked me after my first flight in a plane I would have said seeing the world from the window of a plane is the coolest thing I had ever seen.
If you had asked me after my first flight in a plane I would have said seeing the world from the window of a plane is the coolest thing I’d ever seen.
The first time I was through Las Vegas, Nevada was, then, the coolest thing I’d ever seen. All the lights and glitz.
Had I been asked in June of 1993, I would have responded with the temple is the coolest. The temple is very hard to beat. But it’s a different kind of cool.
When I was handed Cody for the first time, that was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. Here I was holding a little human I had helped to create, that’s pretty cool. Each time I held my new baby was a coolest thing.
In early spring of 1998, had you asked me, I might have said that seeing the Kool-aid smile on my 3.5 yr old son’s face after having gone racing in a race car at the Laughlin Challenge dirt track during an actual race, was the coolest thing. It was terrifyingly cool! And he smiled and yelled, “Woohoo!," for a week.
When I saw the power of the Yellowstone River “going out” for the first time, the crazy destructive power of water and ice! The size of the ice chunks that float and often end up on the land is pretty cool. I’m amazed by it every year.
In 2008 I would have told you the coolest thing I’d ever seen was the ruins in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. Those were and are pretty cool things.
In 2012 we took a trip to South Africa and at that time I would have stated flying over that country, seeing the exotic animals and the amazing sunsets were the coolest things I had ever seen.
The growth and changes in Cody because of his decision to serve a mission was the coolest thing I’d seen at that moment.
The Sunday that Cody and Scott blessed the sacrament was a pretty cool thing.
In May of 2017, I was with Shantel while she labored to bring life into the world, that was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.
As we grow and the years go by, the coolest thing I’ve ever seen changes and I’m sure I’ll have more “coolest things”.
I asked other family members “What’s the coolest thing you have ever seen?”:
Mary- Niagara Falls
Bob- Child birth in the backseat of a police car.
Troy- 61 lb golden nugget worth over $1 million located at the Golden Nugget Casino.
Cody- Uh, I'm not sure, that's very open ended and a lot of things competing for that slot. I’m not even sure lol, I guess recently
I'd have to say the scale model of the tower/eye of Sauron I printed.
Megan- Hmm...I don't know if it's it's COOLEST but I once saw a butterfly come out of the cocoon and it traveled across the others and I saw its wings dry out and it start to fly.
Shantel- I remember being with gma and grandpa in Utah and being at a flag ceremony and in the middle of it a bald eagle came and landed on the top of the flag pole and that’s just something I’ve never forgot.
Savanna- I really don’t know, but watching Jenneel break the school hammer record and win the meet was pretty cool.
Robby- Hahah idk I mean when I went to DC and watched the evening parade of marines or was a part of the tomb of the fallen soldiers ceremony.
Scott- When we had all young men blessing and passing the sacrament. The sunsets in Maksohika.
EmmaLece- stars, planets, the night sky.
The Coolest Thing
Ryanne Leavitt
Beings that I am the coolest thing I have ever seen, this might be the shortest story ever...ok, for reals, how does one determine what the coolest thing is? Watching someone who has gained a testimony of the gospel be baptized is pretty dang cool, looking down into the eyes of your new born child is again, pretty stinking cool, being able to see the joy on your parents face when you did something to please them, is super cool...so how does one decide.
Well, I decided that I would go with the coolest thing I saw this past week, and call that good! Tuesday started like my Tuesdays do lately. Wake up at 5:30, get the boy up and moving, head out the door for seminary. We had class and learned stuff, then came home and hoped he would do his “school work.” At lunch time, Aaron and I went for a walk around the field. As we approached the house we could see Javin tinkering with stuff in the back of the pick up. I said to Aaron, I bet he wants me to take him fishing...he had tried, last minute the day before and I told him that tomorrow would be better, and sure enough, as soon as we walked down the drive way he asked if I would take him to warden lake to fish for a bit. What could I do, I had said the day before I would, so ya know! I packed up my bag, Book of Mormon, my camera, a novel, a bottle of water and off we went.
Javin got himself all set up for fishing and i set up my chair, pulled out the Book of Mormon and read for a bit. Then I pulled out my novel and read for a bit in that. I was enjoying the warmth of the sun and feeling the breeze. After awhile i decided I would wonder around with my camera to see if any big birds were swimming on the lake. That was a great idea, for no sooner than I got my camera out, a pelican came swimming in for the side hidden by reeds.! I was stoked! I love those large white birds with their huge beaks, pouch things and the little bump on their bills. Soon I notice another, another and yet one more! In total there were four large pelicans just hanging about! The one that seemed most willing to let. Me capture his image had this funny cute tuft of feathers that looked more like hair styled to perfection. He just kept swimming back and forth allowing me to capture him from every side. He must have felt they were all his good side! The clouds began to roll in and there were dramatic clouds to photograph as well! My lucky day! The pelicans then began swooping over head to find new places to search for fish, and and that gave me a chance to get some close ups on them.
I wandered as far as my flip flipped feet thought prudent. I made it to the top of a rocky outcrop that overlooked the lake where I saw a large shadow fly over head. I looked up to see a lone Blue heron doing a fly by! Jubilation! I was so excited, I am always on the lookout for those, because they are such cool birds. This gave me the chance to capture his flight over head and watched him land on the far side of the lake.
I continued my walking around and spotted some black necked stilts, one of them was very obliging and came and landed on shore about 20 feet away from me, so that was fun.
during all this time a man came with his two adorable, enthusiastic boys to do some fishing as well. Every time they saw a fish jump or there was a tug on their fathers line they yelled “fish daddy fish!” I mean, how cute is that! Right after one of those instances I had the chance to yell something enthusiastically as well! I was taking pictures of the clouds reflecting on the lake when there was this loud swooshing sound over head! Javin shouted, “what is that!” and then we both look up to find a bald eagle coming in for a fishing trip of his own! He went right over our heads, just 10 feet in the air, and swooped down to the water not more than 20 feet in from of the man and his boys. That eagle grabbed a fish and headed for the sky again, all the while being chased and harassed by a silly gull.
I was in too much shock and wonderment to swing the camera up and around to get pictures of ANY of the incident. I just stood there watching and yelling happily, “ “that’s a bald eagle! Look at that its a bald eagle!” The boys thought i was crazy and just stared, not at the awesome sight going on out in front of their fishing spot, but at the crazy pink haired
Lady that was yelling!
So, I made a short story long, but at the end of the afternoon of fishing, that was by far the coolest thing that I had seen, and I already listed all the other cool birds and the dramatic clouds, but on top of that, the sky opened up and poured down rain by the buckets.
Though I had camera in hand and was watching and looking for amazing things in nature to come into my view, the coolest one was only to be witnessed by my ears and eyes!
The Craziest Thing I Ever Saw
(Flynn Family Stories, 30 May 2021)
—Cary Holmquist.
After 60-some years, I have several candidates for this...so now I will have to settle one one. Here goes with this one:
One summer, in the late 70s I suppose, we were running for cover from an impending summer thunderstorm on the Holmquist farm in northern Cascade County, Montana. Our family lived across and down the road from my grandparents, whose house was nearly completely surrounded by tall cottonwood trees.
A bolt of lightening hit a tall tree in Grandma’s front yard and the power of the electricity blew a large root out of the ground, violently pushing up the dirt and sod from 18 inches down, making a windy trench almost 10 feet long and six inches wide from the tree to Grandma’s house. No one saw it blow out, but we all goggled in amazement at the natural trench when we saw it later, and at the scorched streak leading down from the crown of the tree down to the lawn grass.
This same blast of lightening traveled under my grandparents’ house, following some kind of geologic trail, across the road and up a small slope to our house and jolted our collie dog—who yelped a lot—and jolted my sister, who was trying to push a lawn mower out of the rain into the garage. To this day, my sister Sally is deathly afraid of lightening and thunder—and that’s another crazy thing we can be amazed about—her reaction....!
Maja Holmquist
I wake to an impossibly loud clapping in my ear, the loudest crack of thunder I have ever heard followed immediately by a light switching on in the sky, barely snuffing out before another switched on again. The thunder is all at once both outside, filling the valley, and inside, hollowing out my chest.
Blasts of light silhouette my brother’s dark shape against the side of the tent, again and again and again. Thunder claps overlap each other in the heat of a dangerous, crackling argument. I say something to him over the smattering rain, I don’t know what. His reply: “There’s nothing we can do.”
So I lay and shiver and imagine the pricks of lightning piercing the dark lake beside us, every deep corner suddenly awash with eerie daylight, revealing the pulsing color of each fish and rock, again and again and again. I shiver. And I pray.
Comments
Post a Comment