November 13, 2022 -- A letter to your younger self or what your younger self would say to you now.

 

By: Carrie Keiser

Dear Carrie, 

I’m writing to you from the the future, I hope that I’ve successfully sent this back in time to you.  I want you to know that the hard times will make you better. That you will have happiness, in spite of your shortcomings you will have some great kids and adorable grandkids. There will be days that you want to run away.  Stay strong, reach down deep and stand on your feet.  You won’t always know the answers and that’s OK.  Never loose faith, always pray. Do not be afraid to try new things.  You are stronger and braver than you believe.  Stay close to your sisters they will be your strength and your sounding board. Be patient with yourself and others.

By: Colleen Holmquist

So, you thought you would be a meteorologist or an elementary teacher. You said you would learn German and go on a mission. You also said you would get married in the temple and have a whole bunch of kids did you? And you would name two of your girls Danika and Mariah and one boy Alonzo Cline? And then what happened? Where did this respiratory therapist thing come from?

What can you say for yourself fifty years later except that you are old and gray?

Well Smarty Pants…I did learn German—most is lost among the neurons in the white matter of my brain. I served a mission. I got married in the Cardston, Alberta temple and I have four kids—obviously didn’t use any of those heretofore mentioned names, however, my children’s names are the right ones!

I’m not exactly a meteorologist but I can discern when it’s cloudy or sunny or partly cloudy. I can tell when there is an inversion. I can see a thunderstorm coming, I can feel a change in the barometric pressure. I can look at the clouds and say, “It will rain.” Or “Nope, no precipitation today.” My predictions are accurate as often as the ones on the weather app!

As for the respiratory therapist thing, well, I had no plan when I graduated from high school except to move out of the house and make room for someone younger to unfold . After three years working at a variety of low wage jobs and a bit of traipsing around—a short stint in Cody, Wyoming at Taco Time and a summer living in Reardan with the Booher grandparents picking up film and delivering photos for Washington Photo while driving an old Galaxy 500 that Uncle Ed gave me, I decided that maybe I should look for something with a future. 

Mom probably suggested that I apply to the radiology tech program at St. Patrick Hospital but instead I obtained a catalog for the Missoula Vo-Tech school. I had no idea what programs they offered nor what I wanted to do so I just kind of did a pin-the-tail-on-the donkey maneuver and let the book open the pages falling where they would to decide for me. It landed on Respiratory Therapy Technician—a twelve month program. While I wouldn’t recommend that technique for everyone, it worked for me. 

Mom was working at the answering service, I got a job there as well and moved into an upstairs apartment next door—owned by the answering service proprietor. Finished school in the year Which just happened to e the May that Mount St. Helens exploded. 

I moved to Great Falls for my first job—night shift at Columbus Hospital. Came back to Missoula after a year and a half and enrolled at the University of Montana to study German while working at Community Medical Center. I was fortunate enough to participate in a German speaking study abroad in Vienna, Austria at the end of my second year at UM. I didn’t go back to school that fall rather, I left to serve a mission in the Philippines—not a German-speaking mission. A few months after returning home from the mission, I relocated to Salt Lake City to work at LDS Hospital; a year later I got married, two years after that started raising a family. I was too old to have the 10 or 12 kids I thought I wanted. But, if I add the six grandchildren I’m up to ten…

Four years ago, I became a teacher—not an elementary teacher—technically a professor but that sounds pretty presumptuous so I “identify” as an “instructor.”

So, in the end, I guess I accomplished most of what I hoped to do—even if some of it was temporary I often wonder if I should have tried harder and done more. 

But it isn’t really the end yet so…All I can say now is I’m still breathing and moving so if there is more to do, I will find a way.

Story Slingers

Prompt: "Write a letter to your younger self"

Nov. 10, 2022

Daren Flynn

Dear Daren, 

You will not believe this... but... what I tell you is true.

I am you and you are me. Yes, that is right. You are the twelve year old me and I am the eighty-five year old you. I know it is hard to believe so I will put it another way. You are the child I was and I am the old man you will live to be.

That said, let me now say that you will have a good life overall. Oh, you will have hard times, difficulties, sorrows and regrets. I know because I experienced those rough time. You will get through them and learn from them. I probably would not change them, even if I could, because life is supposed to be a test, to see if we will make right choices and progress. And if we make poor choices and mistakes we can correct them, be forgiven and pass the test.

So, yes, you will make mistakes but you will deal with them and in the long run you will be okay. You will make more good and proper choices than otherwise and the balance sheet, if there is such a record, will heavy on the plus side.

How do I know? Because, remember, I am you and I have made all those choices, good and not so good. I have made those mistakes. I have been blessed for the good and right choices I have made, and so will you.

Yes, the things I have written are pretty general and you are probably wondering if I will reveal specific things about your future, right? 

The answer is: No.

Let me just say that your future holds the promise of a good wife and family. So, in the words of a country song which will come out in a few years, "Do what you do, do well son."

That's all for now from me, the future you.

Story Slingers

Nov. 13, 2022

Myrna Flynn

Talk With Me

I was given the opportunity to climb into a time bubble and go back to the year 1949 to visit with my childhood self. I thought this would be an interesting experience.

My bubble glided to the ground and there was me at age 10. I looked at myself and saw that I was not very happy to see a strange lady getting out of a weird transparent vehicle. She looked ready to jump on her bike and peddle away.

I said to my other self, "Do not be afraid of me. I am the you of the future."

Myself said, "I want you to go away. I do not want anything to do with you! This is too weird to be happening."

"Please," I pleaded, "Lay your bike down and come tell me of your plans for today. I want to walk with you, down memory lane for me. I want to see if my memory of the past is what I really did. 

Myself took a second look at me curiosity took over. "Okay," myself said to me, "Where should we start?"

I would like to a tour of the special places I remember. Let's start at the lime kiln at a 4th of July picnic." (I had put that date in the bubble's agenda program.)

"Sounds like good place to start," Myrna said, "I will get my brother's bike for you, unless you would prefer to walk."

I had not been on a bike for years, but I had always heard that you never forget how rot ride bike. So I said, "Let's go." At the time, I did not think about how sore seldom used muscles might respond to being used riding. I got on, and off we went. When we got there, it was just as I had recalled it. There was the small creek, there were the crawdads, the ice cream makers, and all the delicious looking food. I wondered if I would be able to eat some.

Everyone stared at me and asked her who I was. Myrna was at a loo and did not know what to say. I spoke up and said, "I am a relative from far away, that she thought to never see. She is my namesake. She is giving me a tour of the town.

I turned to myself and asked, "Where do you suggest we go next?"

Myrna thought for a few seconds, "I will show you the ponds where I swim in the summer and skate on in the winter."

Things were about to get more strange for Myrna. I could adjust the settings in the bubble first for the summer activity and then to the winter skiing scene. Since I only had a couple more hours that I could be here, I wanted to cram in as much as I could.

I said, "Let's head down the highway to a road where I remember riding bikes with a friend, Linda Presho, and we got tired and hot. We thought It would be good to take a swim in the creek beside the road. We took off our clothes and we went skinny-dipping."

Myrna looked at me like I was crazy. I guess I had jumped ahead by3 or 4  years. This obviously had not happened yet. Now how did I backtrack and get back to age 10?

I apologized and said, "My mind slipped. I did not mean to get my times mixed up/ I am back where I belong now."

She shrugged her shoulders, scratched her head and took me to her, and my favorite, swimming hole. Then to her surprise turned into a sling pond. I checked my timer and found I had only 10 minutes to return to the bubble. I gave Myrna a big hug, jumped on the bike, threw her a kiss and rode as fast as I could. I dropped the bike and ran to the bubble just as it was getting ready to leave the ground.

Letter to My Younger Self

Flynn Family Story Slingers

13 November 2022

By Cary Holmquist

Dear 1960s Self,

Just thought I would write you about something you speculated about and cared about casually.  Back in your day, you were interested in the magic of speaking other languages.  Remember the time in second grade when you made up a language for show-and-tell at school and called it Dutch?  Remember that you claimed that you knew Dutch because Dad would say about Mom that she was  English and Dutch and didn’t amount to much?   Even though you did not comprehend the elbow jab he was giving Mom about her heritage?  Which was mostly in error—as in, there was no Dutch in her—neither the type from the Netherlands or from Germany.  

Anyway, then you wanted to speak French because you already knew that “Oui” was how to say “Yes” in French and your Grandma Holmquist said she was French-Canadian and so that sounded like something you could learn easily through your heritage.  

You were disappointed because French was not taught at Fairfield High School.  But Spanish was taught there and so you took Spanish as a freshman—and formed a massive crush on the teacher, who had actually been to Spain and she saw a bull fight.  It was a curious class, made up of four freshman boys and five senior girls…strange dynamics all around.  As a result, those boys grew up a little faster, I think.

Anyway, when you entered the University of Montana, you immediately enrolled in a French class which was taught at noon daily and lucked out when the teacher was a native French speaker who grew up in Lille and seemed to enjoy teaching a freshmen class—at least she had a lot of patience about it.  Her accent was compelling and she was adventurous.  “Repetez en français, s’il vous plait,” was her constant refrain—Say it again in French.  She encouraged us to go to French movies, which played at least a couple times a month at the Crystal Theater, which was open just a few blocks away in Missoula and had cheap tickets.  

Later in the year, you moved out of the rowdy college dorms and had a nice apartment with roommates a couple of blocks from campus.  You kept the same French class and instructor and hosted a French foods party for your class at your apartment and she taught you how to make real French crêpes, a recipe that I still use today, except that I skip the tablespoon of beer.  

And then you kept taking French classes, thinking the language might come in handy if you ever got to international relations in your political science major.  That did not work out academically or otherwise, but you met several interesting French teachers along the way, including the one with the unmistakable Texas drawl accent…. 

However, I would have advised you to try harder to attend the weekly noon-time informal get-togethers, called La Table Française, at the University Center, to practice hearing and speaking French with your fellow students and instructors who sat in.  

You much later attended such gatherings when you took German (to be able to talk with your brother Craig and secret crush Colleen) at the weekly student Der Stammtisch in which you participated at the Press Box pizza place.  That’s how you learned just by listening how to conjugate past-tense in German a full quarter ahead of the curriculum.  

Anyway, La Table Française would have given you a similar boost to hear and understand French than you ever learned from French films—which you figured out early on were of little use since the actors generally slurred their words, talked far too fast and slangy.    

After three and a half years of French classes, you should have tried to get a French minor on your college degree.  Although, the reason you stopped taking French classes was that to advance further would have meant dedicating a good deal more time to studying French at a higher level. Which you were not prepared to do since student-government politics was much more compelling, along with more demanding senior-level classes overall.   

Unfortunatley, after all that time learning French, you had no one with whom to practice the language.  And so, to get enough credits for your last year in college, you enrolled in Russian classes because several of your student buddies were taking Russian and you would have someone to talk to and practice with and entry level classes were easier than upper level French would have been.

Which brings up an anecdote about those early days in Russian.  The Russian professor insisted that the class learn the entire Russian Cyrillic alphabet by the second day of class—which was a satisfying challenge.  

Then the class went on to learn vocabulary words from the lesson book’s chapter one dialog section and the third day was a quiz on memorized main words, mostly nominative-case nouns.  You studied while watching Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show on t.v. and felt like you aced the quiz the next morning.  

But the test came back marked F and the professor asked you to his office to figure out what was going on.  So, he told you to read off the English words and Russian equivalents as you had written them on the quiz.  You did so confidently and he then asked you to listen as you spoke the Russian words again.  

It was then that you realized that you had been speaking French from Russian letters—that you had translated the English words into French using Russian letters, rather than translating the English to the Russian words.  The professor had seen this before, explaining that sometimes when someone begins studying an additional second language, then somehow the brain uses the previously learned second language instead of the new second language.  So, he suggested taking the quiz over and then you aced it because you actually knew what the words were in all THREE languages, that is, English, French and, at last, Russian.   

As it turned out, you took Russian only for one year, learning very little vocabulary while trying to master all those noun cases, which is how the first year goes with Russian.  So, after all these years later, I can report to you that you forget all the Russian and at least two-thirds of the French, which is directly proportionate to the years you spent studying them.  

Meanwhile, keep your dreams of learning languages because, as you found, it helps you to understand English better and you can propose le mariage to your future wife that way.…  And the crêpes are worth it. 

Cary on, 

Your older Self, 2022.

(P.S.  Y’all can wake up now.  I am finally finished.  Many apologies:  Je suis desolé,  Es tut mir leid, Я прошу прощения.)