I've Known Them for a Long Time (7-11-21)

Some stories are true and some are made up enjoy them all!

By:Carrie Keiser

 ‘I’ve known them for a long time’, such a simple phrase, but What does that really mean? How long is a long time? For a kid, it could mean a week or their whole life. I guess some adults might feel that way too.

We’ve lived here for 20 years, that means all the long-timers here, I’ve know for ‘a long time’. As Cody gave his first talk after moving back today, and said, “I know a lot of you, but there are a lot I don’t know, so I’ll introduce myself too. I’m Cody Keiser. My parents sit right there (and he points towards us) for as long as I can remember.” He went on and gave a nice talk on preparedness (procrastination). After Sacrament, I headed to the Relief Society room where Mary and Megan were already seated, a sister asked, “Are you The Keiser or your husband?” I replied with, “My husband,” waving towards the other Keiser wives and said, “we are the married into Keisers!” She said, “Now I know how you all fit.” One day, she may say, “I’ve known the Keisers for a long time.”

Prior to living here, we were in Vegas for a few years and so those people that I keep in contact with from there would qualify as having been known a long time. It is has been 27 years since I met some and 23 years for others from there.

Other people who ‘I’ve know for a long time’ would include The Robert Family of Missoula/Frenchtown. Having grown up as neighbors and spending many hours/days in their home, they are more like family than just people I’ve known a long time. I have known them since I was five, that’s a LONG time! The long-timers in the Frenchtown Ward are also included.

When I was 17, we moved to Ephrata, Wa. (The first move I ever remember making. I don’t remember moving from in town out to The Hill {Sunset West}.)  That has been 30 years ago so the people that I know from there, also fit the ‘I’ve know them for a long time’ mold.

There are some people that I feel as though qualify as having known forever. How do they come by this distinction? Well, people who were friends with my parents/family before I was born: the Murdock, the Foust and the Lutness families fall in this ‘I’ve known them for a long time’ category. 

This week, pondering on this story prompt, while cleaning a bus, a memory of Tisha and I in grade school popped into my mind. We must have had an assignment to create our own exercise routine. I remember we were in Mom and Dad’s room making our routine to music, if I recall the day properly. There was a lot of laughter and “dancing/exercising”. It brought a smile to my face and I stopped cleaning and sent a message to Tisha about the day.

 

I recall many sleepovers at the Fousts and adventures around their place in Arlee. The time I went to school for a day with Char. A few adventures when they came to our house on the hill. 

People who I cannot remember not knowing, are people I’ve known the a long time!

We Have Known Them a Long Time

By: Myrna Flynn

What happens when we unexpectedly learn things about people we have known for a long time? Things that should have been recognized many years ago?

Well, we experienced that just recently. We ran into our friends, Bob & Mary Forsyth, in the grocery store. It had been quite awhile since we had seen them. One thing we did not know was that they had decided to sell the property and home that had been in his family for generations.

His great, great grandfather, Samuel Forsyth, came to America in 1770. The usual story of poverty that brought immigrants here. His ancestor had one advantage that many others did not. He had trades that were needed in this new world. He was a blacksmith, gunsmith and carpenter.

America was in the turmoil of disillusion and betrayal by the Mother Country, as they thought of England. The 2 main sides were those who wanted to stay a part of Britain and those who knew it was time to cut the threads and become independent.

It did not take long for Samuel to acquire the money needed to buy land and build a home for his family. The home he pictured was on the par with General Washington, a beautiful mansion.

We asked, "Have you considered a year young AirBnB?" We told him we had stayed in one that the owners still lived in and that considering the way the mansion was laid out, it would be easy for them to still have their privacy.

They looked at each other, and said, "we had never thought of that. We will have to look in to it, because we really do not want to give up our heritage."

We talked a little longer, and offered any help that we could give in getting it set up. My wife is a CPA and I had just finished my law degree specializing in real estate and property management and ownership.

We gave them our cards and said, "Call us. We will be happy to help you get things up and going, if you decide to open your home and go for it. I will help you pro-bono and Shirley will help you with the tax side of things. It will be helping us, as I get experience starting my new career as an attorney."

We never would have known that they had money worries if we had not seen each other at the grocery store. We always figured that they were rolling money. They hide their difficulties extremely well. Just goes to show that we never really knew them well.

I'VE KNOWN

family project

Daren Flynn

I've know them for a long time.

They've influenced this life of mine.

They've made of my life some sense.

They've given me confidence.

They've shown me what I could be.

They've instilled self worth in me.

They've been a light to me each day.

They've helped me find the way.

They've brought joy and happiness to my life.

They're the love, faith and trust of my good wife.

I’ve Known Them for a Long Time

By: Cary Holmquist

I have known them for a long time, but I still have my doubts about them.  For example, when I asked them to tell me a story I could use today, they all looked at me with all those big eyes and just mooed and kept on chewing.  

Fat cows are too contented to be helpful.  Or even interested.  The world just seems to revolve around them.  I’ve waited here for a long time and haven’t heard a word out of them and they look at me like they don’t care.  

Wait ‘til I find the cow dog.  That will teach them.  A stampede will be a   w h o l e   different story, you bet!

That’s prompting for ya! So...lemme try this again....

It was a dark and a stormy night and the dog barked.   

Or, as it turns out—it was a hot, hot day and the dog whimpered and went to lay down in the shade and the cows just stood there, chewing and mooing as if they had not heard a thing and the world just kept right on revolving around them.  

So the stampede did not happen either.  Is there a story in that?

Nope. No story coming out of this today.  Dogs are napping and doubts are winning, it’s like a three-way tie and the cow herd nothing.  

(And that’s all I could come up with.  That’s several minutes you won’t get back.  My apologies.)

By: Aaron Leavitt

Jay Cox is a singularly impressive man. From my point of view it feels like he’s simply existed into perpetuity. All of my growing up there he was at church each week, spreading that smile around and greeting everyone with a firm handshake and a jolly laugh. 

When I got my first computer calling at church he was the clerk and we worked together to sort out the glitches and weirdness of that old green monochrome CRT computer (yes, that long ago). Every time we’ve come back to visit seeing him there at church with Mary makes it feel more like home. With all the changes in the world, it feels like his faith in the Savior and his faith in people places him as a solid rock in the rushing river of daily life.

He doesn’t see as well as he used to (hardly at all anymore unfortunately), but each week he still greets everyone with a smile and declares it a “beautiful day in the basin”. He’ll always tell you he’s doing great, regardless of what struggles he and his wife have been facing, and anytime you help his gratitude is unbounded. If pressed a little, I’d say, when I grow up, I’d like to be like Jay. I love that man.

By: Jemma Tabor

By: Leyla Tabor

I’ve known him for a long time. 

By: Colleen Holmquist

Mike Biggins was my boss for twenty-two years, give or take…off and on. I think one of my kids said he reminded her of a leprechaun. Not sure why… his hair was a lot like Aaron’s—but now it’s much grayer. 

I met Mike in 1980 when as a student in the Missoula Vo-Tech respiratory therapy program I went to Community hospital for a clinical rotation. He was from Cleveland, Ohio. He and his wife, Betty also a respiratory therapist, just kind of hopped in their car and headed west one day. They arrived in Missoula and never really left—except to build a cabin and move to Seeley Lake several years later.

He always pronounced my name “ Call-een”

Mike offered me a job when I was still a student, at that time of OJT, student RTs were a thing. I couldn’t work alone but I could be the second therapist. I’ve never really understood what he saw in me but Mike encouraged me in every direction. 

After graduating from the RT program, I moved to Great Falls and worked there for a year and a half on night shift. I decided to move back to Missoula to attend the University of Montana and study German. Mike hired me again. I worked for him until I departed for my mission to the Philippines. 

He hired me the third time in 1996.  Cary and I had retuned to Montana about one and a half years earlier. This time I outlasted him—he retired about two years before I moved on to my present position at the Missoula College.

Mike is a man of action and never one to sit around and twiddle his thumbs waiting for things to happen. His counterpart across town, Randy, was a Montana cowboy who was deliberate in his speech as well as everything he did.  Mike always commented on how long it took Randy to get to the punch line in a joke. 

Mike hated enduring the multitude of endless, circular, whiny meetings. He simply wanted to get things done—efficiently. He wrangled a four-day work week for awhile to maximize his time off. But to do that he had to find someone to go to the weekly QI committee meetings—and he asked me to fill in. I soon loathed endless, circular, whiny meetings. Eventually, someone’s jealousy came to play and he had to return to five-day workweeks.

When he went through the door at the end the day, Mike left work at work. He is the quintessential outdoorsman. He backpacks, hunts, takes mules and horses into “the Bob”, rafts Montana rivers, cross country skis—in short enjoys life in this awesome part of the country. 

Mike advocated for expanding our skill sets adding as many opportunities as he could to make that a reality. I took him up on nearly every one. He turned the pulmonary rehab program over to me. I was the pulmonary function tech; I learned to hook up and scan holter monitors—a wearable cardiac monitor—and when the hospital created a new electrodiagnostic department and put Mike in charge of it, he asked me to train to do EEGs. He would leave me in charge when he was on vacation and Pat—his “right-hand man” was unavailable. There was a time when this all backfired—some of the other therapists thought I was “teacher’s pet.” Most of them had no interest in the other activities. But Mike decided not to leave me in charge anymore—that was totally fine with me because It wasn’t my favorite duty anyway.

We spent many hours in his office discussing anything and everything—respiratory and otherwise, our families, politics, religion—even our hair styles.  One day, he commented that I’d look younger if I dyed my hair. I shot back at him that he’d look younger if he cut off his pony tail! He eventually did lose the ponytail and kept his hair short. I, as you well know, never bothered to dye my hair.

Mike developed Menier’s disease during his tenure at Community. Sometimes the vertigo would —without warning—drop him directly to the floor.  He told me about an attack he had one day while driving home to Seeley Lake. He was on Reserve street only about five miles from the hospital. He was able to get off the road and into the parking lot of a motel but he wasn’t able to get out of the car. Someone eventually thought he was drunk because he couldn’t talk coherently; he was there for a few hours waiting for the attack to subside. Never one to let things get in the way of life, he opted for surgery to correct the problem in his inner ear—but it left him deaf on one side.

Even though Biggins sounds Irish to me, his heritage is Italian and his wife is the Irish one. Most years for St. Patrick Day, she would bake Irish soda bread for the RTs. Her recipe is the one I use every year.

Mike has three kids, Autumn, Katie and Micheal junior. When Autumn was born, Betty invented diaper bags with built in changing pads. Some friends encouraged her to sell them. She advertised in a national women’s magazine and soon was inundated with orders. She cleaned the fabric stores out of supplies and hired some help.  They kept busy for months.

One time he told me that he admired my faith. He was raised Catholic—including attended parochial schools—and just never felt anything from his experiences.  Shortly after that, one winter after they had built their cabin and moved to Seeley Lake, which is about 45 miles from Missoula, Betty called and told him that their son, Mike jr., had gone snowmobiling and wasn’t home yet. It was dark and she was frantic. Mike left immediately for home to look for his son. Later he related to me that as he was driving home he kept repeating the rosary—the only way he knew to pray—and he felt a calmness settle over him assuring him that his son was fine. He didn’t understand what was happening. I testified to him that Heavenly Father was listening to and answering his prayer and that in fact, he—Mike—had expressed faith when he prayed. His son was fine, he had called his sister to tell here where she was but she hadn’t passed the message along.

Mike and Betty sold their cabin and moved to the west side of Placid Lake several years ago where he is the care taker of a small ranch of sorts.  One time he had a retreat for the RT department in the bunkhouse. I well remember that because it was an adventure in learning to follow the Spirit and directions. But that is a story for another day.

One day he told me that he and Betty were going to become grandparents. His daughter, Katie, was pregnant. Mike was all for being a grampa but had expected that he’d be a father-in-law first.

We didn’t always agree on everything. As I said, Mike left work at work. One night we were really short staffed and I called him at home. After explaining our plight he essentially told us to just handle it. I was annoyed and pretty much demanded that he come in and help. He was not at all happy with me but he did come in and help out.

Another time, I had traded a shift with another therapist so I could go to Megan’s wedding. At the last moment, the girl who was supposed to cover my shift called in to say that she couldn’t due to a family emergency. Mike then told me that I had to cover my shift or find someone else. I didn’t feel like it was my responsibility. I was annoyed—again. In the end, I had to work the night shift and drive to Spokane when I got off.

One day as he was preparing to retire, we were visiting in our usual manner; he was expressing frustrations over several aspects of his job as department manager. He looked at me and said, “you should apply for my job.” I met his gaze and retorted, “After everything you just told me, you think I would want it?”  He chuckled and said, “Fair enough.” 

I consider Mike a friend as well as the most fair boss I ever worked with.