there's a half hour before amy and i go to the temple this afternoon, so i'm challenging myself to write out a complete story from my past in 30 minutes.
about the circus maybe? my mission in thailand? growing up in mpls? my friends. family. school. what?
writing under the gun is no fun. i'm trying to think of a memory i shared with amy recently. let's see -- i told her about the time wayne matsuura and i as teenagers worked all summer to save up enough money to drive up to canada to camp on a lake and go fishing and how the day before we left wayne crushed his thumb and i put my back out, and how we still went on the trip, despite the fact that waynes thumb had a cartoon-sized bandage on it and i was bent over double,hobbling around like an old man. no, i don't wanna tell that one again.
something pleasant and uplifting. let's see . . .
oh sure. the last day we were in the MTC at byu in hawaii before leaving for thailand. i don't remember much about that day except we had a lot of pep talks from the mtc president and counselors and got the last of our shots done and packing, etc.
what i recall with a great deal of pleasure is that as we lined up to get on the bus that was to take us to the airport for the trip to bangkok, many of the mtc staff lined up to put a lei around each one of our necks. but for me they planned something special -- instead of just one lei, each staff member put one on me, so that when i got to the door of the bus i was literally smothered with leis -- i couldn't see anything. i played it for laughs, of course, staggering around and bumping into the bus door, etc. that is a very happy and fragrant memory that has stayed with me all these years. i like it when people pay special attention to me. that's part of the reason i became a clown, and something i have really missed in all the years since i've had to give up doing physical comedy.
i have nothing but happy memories of the mtc. of course, the long long hours of memorizing the discussions in thai by rote were tedious -- but when you're young you can put up with that kind of nonsense easily. at the end of the day i always felt great. i still remember that they translated the imaginary 'Mr. Brown' of the discussions as 'Khun Praphan, khrab." i enjoyed the speakers that gave firesides each night, mostly faculty from byu-hawaii. and i relished the food at the cafeteria -- not that it was all that great, but because, number one, i could drink all the chocolate milk i wanted, and, number two, there was unlimited coconut syrup for pancakes in the morning. boy, i thought that was the greatest thing since sliced cucumbers!
i slept good back in those days, so even though we were crammed into sweaty humid rooms with bunks, i always was able to fall straight asleep and be ready to get up at 6 without a problem. boy, those were the days -- never having to get up in the middle of the night to pee!
i guess the reason they put all those leis on me is because the mtc prez asked me to do a clown show for everyone, which i was happy to do. back then i had a large repertoire of pantomimes I could do -- giving the dog a bath, the sleepy man in sacrament meeting, fishing, and i even made up a special pantomime just for the mtc show -- all about me trying to memorize the discussions in thai and failing miserably. that one got huge laughs. i only ever did it that one time in the mtc, and quite frankly i've forgotten what it was all about. anyway, everyone from the mtc, and a lot of byu students came to see my one man show. it went over big.
so that's why i got all the leis, i guess.
time to put on my white neck tie. Heinie Manush.
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