Picto Diary - 07 to 12 September 2021 - Back to School

Above: Deux Magots Walkers (TWO3 and Freddie) and Rick Martinez Statue. Treasure Mountain Trail Head, Park City, UT. 08 September 2021.

Round Trip Wasatch Bagel. About three miles and four hundred vertical feet.

Above: Arrabiata Restaurant. Ivins, UT. 08 September 2021.

This was a real find. Ma and Pa Italian restaurant. Owner/chef, Eric, is Albanian who lived in Italy before immigrating to America. He ran an Italian restaurant in NYC, lower East Side, for fifteen years before moving to Scottsdale, where he had a restaurant for five years. Arrabiata has been open for a year. Eric was an artist... a purist. TIMDT wanted her steak well done. Eric refused to cook it that way. Eric said TIMDT should have the lamb instead. Eric even hesitated when I asked for a medium well steak, but, he went ahead anyway. There's a fine line between artistry and driving away good prospective customers. Arrabiata was pricy, but good. Good wine list. Arrabiata is not even on the Trip Advisor list. Its as if the owners don't give a hang... they know their fine dining experience will catch on without the hype. Like I say, they were purists. Eric's wife doubled as server/busser. She was shy (or her English wasn't "there" yet). You coulda been in San Margherita.

We had been under the impression that dining in Washington County would be sub par. This is not our experience so far. Wood Ash Rye (WAR), Arrabiata, and Painted Pony are above expectation as fine dining venues. Deplorable places, Crowshaw's Pies, Rib and Chop House, Cliffside Restaurant, and Magelby's are perfectly OK. There's a few other restaurants in both fine dining and deplorable categories that we haven't tried yet... Mexican and Indian food options, for example.

Above: Target Bank Board reunion. Bar J Ranch, Sevier County, UT. 09 September 2021.

Front: Strad, The Monk, The Bishop. Back: Palm Springs, Beaver Island, Risk, and Masters.

For about eight years, through 2013, I was a member of the Board of Directors of Target Bank. Utah is, effectively, the only state in the Union, where a corporation which was not a Bank Holding Company, can own a bank. An Utah Industrial Bank can, more or less, operate as a full fledged bank. It can make commercial and consumer loans. An Industrial Bank can take demand deposits as long as its size is less than $100 million in assets. Circa 2005, Target, the giant retailer. opened an Industrial Bank in Utah as an adjunct of its Financial Services Division. Industrial Bank regulations required a board of directors a majority of whose directors were resident of the state of Utah... hence my participation as a director. The Monk and Mwah (sic) had previously served together on the board of Millcreek Bank. In recent years, federal regulators, backed by the traditional banking industry, have set a very high bar for acquisition of a Utah Industrial Bank license.

Terry Scully (Beaver Island), retired head of Target Financial Services, travelling from Chicago, joined, with wife Bev, today's get together.

The reunion was hosted by Bar J Ranch owner, The Monk.

Above: Bee hive. Bar J. Ranch. Sevier County, UT. 09 September 2021.

Bees cling to the cool side of the hive, opposite the sun. There was much discussion about bees at the Target Bank reunion. Three of the participants were bee keeper hobbyists.

Above: Pipeline Excavation. Boot Hill. Park City, UT. 10 September 2021.

LSDM Walkers.

Two days ago, an excavator broke a pipe here. One million gallons of drinking water poured off the mountain and muddied up the Snow Creek (Wasatch Bagel, Park City, Market) shopping center.

 

Above: Grrr, Roy, and Z. First Day of School. 13 September 2021.

Image taken by their Mom.

My, how the time doth fly! Grand parenting brings one as close to immortality as can currently be had on this earth. You watch your genes being transmitted into the future. Maybe that will change. Peter Thiel and a few other tech oligarchs are spending a lot of money backing scientific research into prolonging life. Still, I find it hard to believe that whatever is accomplished in life extension science, it will fall short of the joy experienced from watching your progeny take the baton and keep the race going without you. PS. This is a keeper image, for sure.

Above: Park City Fire District 9/11 Memorial Service. Park Avenue procession, Park City, UT. 11 September 2021.

Here a procession, along Park Avenue, of firemen, city officials and 9/11 first responders from Park City Police station to Miner's hospital.

Freddie and I walked along with the quiet and somber procession. As I walked I reflected on 9/11. TIMDT and Mwah (sic) were checking into Hotel Diana, Vence, France around 2:00 PM on 9/11/2001. In the hotel lobby a crowd of hotel employees and guests were huddled around a TV showing a burning World Trade Center Tower. It was the second tower. The first tower had collapsed before our arrival at the hotel. We watched, incredulously, a happening which seemed impossible... difficult to process. We were too stunned to realize that the attack would have implications about ongoing travel back to the United States in another two weeks. As it happened, we were able to return to the US per our original ticketing. But, our travel through France and Italy, guys by motorcycle, and girls by hired van, was accompanied by a pallor of sadness and uncertainty as we tried to process the events of our arrival day in Vence. Standing out as Americans, we were regularly approached by locals who expressed their chagrin about what had transpired. We would thank them. Does it always take crises for such unifying moments to manifest themselves?

The procession to Miner's hospital was appropriately somber as a symbol of remembrance for the tragic attack on the United States twenty years ago. City luminaries were there: Mayor Beerman, his challenger in the upcoming election, Nann Worel. City Councilman, Steve Joyce and County Commissioner Glenn Wright were there, as well as City Council candidate, Jermey Rubelll. There may have been others whom I didn't see. I snapped an image of Scott Zink and his wife (uber parents both). Scott, a now retired New York City Police Department Sergeant, 9/11 first responder, was marching in full NYPD dress blues (see above image).

Above: LSDM participants 9/11 Memorial Service. Miner's Hospital, Park City, UT. 11 September 2021.

Forward Air Controller (US Army forward air controller, Vietnam),
Bishop
Big Data (US Navy Reserves. One Afghanistan tour)
The Actuary
TWO3 (US Army)
IBM
Freddie

The memorial service included remarks by various officials and firemen of Park City Fire District as well as a very moving talk by former Utah Governor, Gary Herbert. Pipers backed a color guard, flag ceremony and three gun salute. All a very appropriate memorial to a horrific event. Lest we forget. Good job PCFD.

Above: BYU Stadium, Provo, Utah. 11 September 2021.

BYU 26 Utah 17.

I admit to being a fair weather follower of BYU sports. I hardly watched ten minutes of this game before switching channels to Amazon Plus's "Night Manager."

It was not always so. Back in the day I was an avid follower of BYU sports, particularly football. I was personally part of the BYU sports program. On a BYU basketball scholarship, I was a little playing scrub on BYU's freshman basketball team during the 1965/66 basketball season. Team mates Jim Eakins and Roger Reid, went on to become BYU varsity stars. I went on an LDS mission to France in 1966 thus ending my playing days.

I remember following the BYU football team during the era of great quarterbacks. BYU, playing in a backwater, second tier football conference, achieved an NCAA championship in 1982. How? Celebrated coach LaVell Edwards changed the entire game. Where, heretofore, college football champions would win games on the ground..."three yards and a cloud of dust," Edwards based his game plans on the forward pass.

It was by taking a group of good, but not great, college prospects, causing them to successfully execute on an "out of the box" (at least for college football) forward pass play book, that BYU was able to win a NCAA football national championship (1982). I remember Bryant Gumble, then an NBC sportscaster, trashing the BYU program at the time of BYU's 1982 football NCAA championship... to the effect..."who are these losers? where did they come from?..." I was so upset. I've hated Gumble ever since, though, I have to admit his "Real Sports" show on HBO is oft times pretty good. But, Edwards pulled it off. Lavell Edwards and BYU football: One of the great success stories of college football. I'm pleased that I got to watch it real time.

Great quarterbacks I saw play at Cougar Stadium included Virgil Carter, Gary Sheide, Gifford Nielson, Jim McMahon, Steve Young, Ty Detmer (Heisman Winner, 1990) and Robbie Bosco. They had to have great receivers... consider, Glenn Kozlowski, Phil Odle, and Mike Bellini.

Over time, living far away from Provo, and faced with new challenges, I lost touch with the school and the game. Games like last night's can revive me, if only for a bit. BYU's win here was its first win over Utah after nine losses. BYU/Utah has been one of the great rivalries of college football. One can see in the image how thrilled the fans were as they rushed onto the field post game. I try to revive within myself some of the old, acute sense of rivalry I once felt for the University of Utah. "Great BYU win over the hated, reviled, godless Ute cold fusion football program!!!!" :)

Above: Electronic Organ. LDS Church. Park City, UT. 12 September 2021.

100 172, 106, 250.

The above four hymns were my picks. I picked four that I knew I could play sans practicing. Grandson Drums had used our music room for a garage band gig. The teens had rewired my keyboard somehow... I couldn't get it to play in order to practice the hymns. I could have figured it out. I just didn't want to take the half hour it would take for me to fix the problem. I'm glad Drums and his buddies are using the equipment, that's the most importing thing. I can work around it.

I can play sans pre practice about a third of the LDS hymnal repertory. Another third of the hymns I could nail down with thirty minutes practice each. The final third would take more rehearsal time, depending on the hymn.

I appreciate being asked by the local ward to play occasionally. Asked to reincarnate as something different from what I was... a financial services executive... I would pick the new life as a performing musician.

Kathy Richards was the chorister. She comes over before meeting start and coordinates tempos with me. She likes tempos at the faster end of the stipulated range. This keeps me on my toes.... or my digits, as it were. Keeping my fat fingers from hitting wrong notes at quick tempo is a challenge.

Above: Freddie at the Bear River. Bear River State Park, Evanston, WY. 12 September 2021.

We have grown to love this half day trip, a loop up Chalk Creek Road to Evanston, WY and back to Park City via I-80.

The Chalk Creek landscape was uncharacteristically verdant following unseasonal rains in late August. Dark green, healthy looking grass was pushing up in fields usually dead looking brown this time of year.

Further south, in Sevier County, The Monk reported his cattle season was saved by the late rains which fell on his Bar J Ranch. Monk's cows are at high altitude where beaucoup new grasses are growing. In what otherwise is a draught year, the late rains save the herd from a below market early sell.

On draughts: TIMDT and Mwah (sic) currently "reading" (on Audible) Steinbeck's "East of Eden." Steinbeck's account about the cycle of Monterey County, California draughts was thought provoking: Seven years of heavy rains, seven years of medium rains, followed by seven years of draught... a cycle that repeated itself every twenty-one years. Steinbeck noted that during each seven year segment of the cycle, the locals forgot about the twenty-one year water cycle, and internalized as a permanent state that part of the cycle they were living through at present. Could we apply Steinbeck's Monterey County model to current draught conditions in the US West?

Don Pedros Mexican restaurant in Evanston, our go to meal stop on this one hundred twenty mile loop, has changed management. After two visits, service is noticeably slower, but the chef is the same and the food remains good. Slow service, post Covid, seems to be endemic throughout restaurant-world, even in a remote, Wyoming railroad town. We're not ready to give up on Don Pedros yet.

The Bear River walk we take, about 1.5 miles and back (three miles total) along the river side, is one of our favorites. A trip to a nearby locale like Evanston can give as much psychic kick as an international trip. Recently, I answered a click-bait meme on Facebook requiring me to note how many of sixty world cities I had visited. I answered fifty-five. I've been to one hundred thirty countries. Still, being here on the beautiful Bear River, very close to home, activates the thrill of travel every bit as much as being on the other side of the world. Really!

I once asked a Park City car guy what his favorite sports car roads were. He named several roads in Europe. I asked him if he had been over Wolf Creek, on UT SR 35, to Hannah and back. He replied, "Where's that?" I was dumbfounded. There is so much close to home to enjoy that is ignored by many. My first experience with the no visits close to home phenomenon was as a first grade student at PS 31, Bayside, Queens, New York City. I was asked by the class teacher to participate in "show and tell" by recounting our recent family visit to the Statue of Liberty. The teacher asked the class, "how many of you students have been to the State of Liberty?" Not one of the other kids raised their hand! The more things change, the more things stay the same. Visit Bear River State Park in Evanston, WY. Eat at nearby Don Pedros. You won't be disappointed!