Christ my sun will be

"Being ambitious for Christ will seldom mean that we are singled out for public honor."  Kazuhiko Yamashita. 


I must be determined that Christ my sun will be,
to set me in my orbit and to plan my destiny.
Accolades for worship of the Son are rare indeed;
those who grow to love him are called common as a weed.
But recognition in this world is just a flimsy bubble;
O Savior, if you'll smile on me I'll go through any trouble! 

Restaurant Review: Rancherito's Mexican Food

In the early spring of 1984 my wife and children finally succeeded with their "Keep Dad at Home!" campaign. It started a few weeks earlier, when I returned home by bus, minus my wedding ring, which I had hocked for bus fare -- after being red lighted by the Tarzan Zerbini Shrine Circus in the wilds of Arkansas. I vowed to Amy that never again would I go out on the road with a circus. Our marriage was already strained by my long absences and the lack of a steady dependable income. Amy and the kids stormed the very gates of heaven with their earnest requests for help. Heaven heard them, but chose to mock me . . .

Through tears and prayers and the help of Mike Kronforst at Brown Institute (my old Alma Mater) I was offered the position of News Director at KPRM Radio up in Park Rapids, Minnesota. Plus, once the owner,Ed DeLaHunt, heard of my clown background, he offered to double my salary. All I had to do was make a few guest appearances in my clown character every month, touting the station.

All went well for several weeks. I had just located a three-bedroom cottage next to Itasca State Park to rent, where the kids could gambol through the forest, when the fell hand of my cursed karma descended once again. DeLaHunt switched his FM band over to an automated system, then grandly informed me I was his new FM station manager -- along with all my other duties. All that was required, he said, was to follow the manual for setting up time slots for songs and commercials, and the automation would take care of the rest.

I couldn't understand the manual, not even when DeLaHunt sat down with me and went through it step by step. My attempts at programming the automation led to the same song being played repeatedly for several hours, or, even worse, hours of dead silence on the FM side.

I was let go, and to keep the wolf from the door, was soon back out on the road with another mud show, taking pratfalls and selling coloring books during intermission.

So what the hell has this got to do with a review of Rancherito's? Just this. As I go through life I find there are some things I can't learn from any book. One of these, obviously, is how to program an automated radio station. Another is how to make a burrito. Despite hours spent studying recipes on the Internet, whenever I attempt a burrito at home I wind up screaming obscenities at a fry pan full of burnt chorizo and shredded tortillas.

So when I want a burrito I have to go out. Which is what I did today.

 Rancherito's is located across the street from the Provo Deseret Industries building. I took the bus down after my morning aquatics class at the Rec Center, and ordered a breakfast burrito and medium fountain drink. One of Rancherito's strong points is their superb salsa bar, which features  pickled carrots, whole pickled jalapenos, sliced limes, sliced radishes, chopped onions and cilantro, three kinds of salsa, and prickly pear cactus fruit in brine:

You won't see anything like that at Taco Bell, amigo.
The burrito itself is full of thick, chunky bacon, plus lots of fried potatoes and scrambled eggs:

The fact of the matter is I could only manage half of it. I rewrapped the other half and brought it home with me for a late lunch or early dinner. This is extremely greasy, starchy, salty, comfort food. I relished every bite, and felt happy to be alive. That's what a good hearty meal does for me, especially on a frosty morning with the sun glinting off the mountains and a good bowel movement just moments away. In fact, the only fly in the ointment was the Lilliputian size of the Men's Room:

 I could barely get the door shut.
So I'm giving this place a 3 Burp rating. However, don't bring your date or your wife here, guys. It's too seedy and utilitarian. Or if you just have to have a burrito, use the drive-through.
A breakfast burrito and a medium fountain drink set me back $7.40.

Oh, and the next circus I hitched up with after the KPRM debacle . . . they also fired me, for losing a shipment of coloring books. After that I got a job as Ronald McDonald -- but that's a story for another restaurant review . . .

The ecstasy of divine potential

Each of us can experience the ecstasy of divine potential unfolding within us . . .    D. Todd Christofferson 


From the mud and dust below;
from the hateful drum of war;
from the tyranny of want,
our potential still can soar.

Planted in each breast of man,
waiting for its exaltation,
is the patient seed divine,
waiting for sin's abdication. 


Bliss and rapture can be mine,
from this broken mortal frame,
when I testify of God
in the Savior's holy name. 

You who do not know the joy
of the Master's gentle yoke,
find your pleasures melt away;
like the dew that turns to smoke.

The Lord will ravish all the earth
when next He claims His rights,
with joyfulness beyond the ken
of mankind's blinkered sights.

Restaurant Review: The Village Inn. Provo, Utah

During my fifteenth summer I rose at 4 in the morning to ride my bike to the Embers restaurant in Roseville, where I worked mornings as a busboy.
Embers was a notable franchise up in Minnesota that was justly famous for delectable onion rings. At least that's all I remember about the place -- I stuffed myself silly with the broken remnants of onion rings all during my shift, which surprisingly did not cause my adolescent skin to bloom with acne from all that ingested grease.
I hated the job, especially because the busboys did not get any tips. Money left on the table was scooped up by the waitress; if I dared approach the table before she picked up the loot she would swoop down on me like a harpy, all screechy and ruffled feathers. Besides, getting up at four in the morning tired me out so much that when I got home in the afternoon all I could do was fall on my bed and snooze until dinner time, and then not be able to get back to sleep until midnight, and then get up again at four in the morning . . .
It finally became too stressful for Evelyn Torkildson's little boy, and I quit in early August, spending all my glorious free time down at Como Lake angling for crappies and sunnies.

Since then I have not been much of a fan of franchise hash houses. I mean, sure, I eat there, but I wasn't going to 'review' any of them in this series of blogs.

However, I found myself getting real sick of pantywaist 'furrin' food today; yearning instead for the real deal -- a burger with fries and a slice of thick, luscious pie to top it off.

So I took the #850 bus down to the Provo Bus Terminal, where The Village Inn sits on the corner of a busy intersection. I walked in to the sight of mature, relaxed couples sitting in booths and talking about John Wayne movies. Old men shuffled about, mumbling on toothpicks and looking for refills for their iced tea.

I ordered cream of broccoli soup, a crush burger with fries, and a slice of caramel/pecan pie. With a glass of lemonade. The soup could have come from a can -- I don't know. But along with it I got a whole basket of Zesta saltine crackers. There was a time, not that many years ago, when I would have taken half the basket and surreptitiously slipped them into my pocket for dinner. Praise God I don't feel the need to do that anymore . . .

Now that I'm home typing on my laptop, I can't remember a darn thing about the decor. It was standard submissive pastels. And there was muzak of sorts, but played so softly I could easily tune it out. Well lit, too -- none of this cavernous darkness that modern joints think is so impressive and moody.

Then, huzzah! huzzah! Out came the crush burger, with fries:

It was all that a burger and fries ought to be. It filled me up; it filled me out; and it went down smoothly and simply, tasting just exactly the way a burger and fries should taste. A clean taste. A wholesome taste. And by jingo, an American taste! This is what our forefathers fought for -- the right to sit down in a restaurant and enjoy a meat patty
 between two buns along with fried potato splinters dowsed in as much ketchup as a man can hold.
Plus there was enough lettuce, onion, and tomato on it to qualify as a small green salad.
Each bite was a pleasure, although to be just a wee bit finicky, I think they could have gone to the trouble of putting some mayo on the bun.

Then came the pie:

I'm not going to torture you by saying how truly good and holy it was. Because I know that you are probably on a diet of some sort that won't let you eat something like this ever again. And I feel sorry for you.

So I'm giving The Village Inn four burps. My meal of soup, burger & fries, pie, and lemonade, cost me $17.91. And the cashier gave me the Senior Discount without me having to ask. -- take THAT, you boutique eateries!

In summation, this is the place where you take your out of town relatives and friends for a good solid meal. The place is a 'safe bet'. And we Americans need all the safe bets we can get right now . . .

Hate speech

"The American University law professor and Harvard University faculty associate has grappled for months with whether Donald Trump’s rhetoric constitutes dangerous speech as she has come to define it. She has examined election-year speech before, but only abroad where the risks of mass atrocities were great."

from the Washington Post 


There once was a man gave a speech
which he thought would act like some bleach
to purify thought,
but all that he got
was a well-deserved kick in the breech. 

Stumbling blocks

We cannot afford to have our testimonies of the Father and the Son become confused and complicated by stumbling blocks.  Quentin L. Cook.


Most stumbling blocks are little, but they trip me all the same.
Whenever I move forward, they are there to make me lame.
And if I take a step back they will offer me a seat
of comfort, to give up and contemplate my own defeat.
When I stumble, Lord, forgive my inconsistent pace,
and help me once again to look upon thy loving face.
Give me wisdom to pick up those blocks that make me falter,
and pile them high until they make an unpretentious altar. 

Restaurant Review: Osaka Japanese Restaurant. Provo, Utah.

Everything was better when I was a kid. The wars were better. The diseases were better. Even the Presidents were better. And especially the Japanese restaurants were better. Much better.

I am referring, of course, to the one and only Little Tokyo in Dinkytown, near the campus of the University of Minnesota. My best friend Wayne Matsuura's parents were good friends with the owners of Little Tokyo, so Wayne and I would go there on Friday nights to stuff ourselves with tempura vegetables and pickled daikon radishes and rice balls soaked in sake and then wrapped up in layers of seaweed. In return we washed dishes and broke to saddle the larger cockroaches so we could ride 'em out of town after the place closed. I remember the food as light and crispy and filling and pungent.

But today,October 31, some sixty years later, I find myself in a Japanese place on Center Street in Provo, Utah, that does not live up to my memories at all.

 I started with a bowl of miso soup, which tasted exactly like chicken soup. Then I got a green salad, with, the waitress said, the 'house dressing'. The so-called house dressing was some kind of watery mayonnaise. So that didn't do anything to cheer me up. The decor was dark and severe, with simple Japanese calligraphy on the walls. I was happy to have a nice thick pillow on my chair -- but it was covered with crumbs. Next came the pot stickers:

They were okay; nothing to strew cherry blossoms over. As I stared at my plate of pot stickers I realized with embarrassment that I've never really known the proper way to eat them. Do you pick them up with your fingers to nibble on or cut them in pieces with a knife and fork? Me, I just stab 'em with my fork, dunk in the sauce, and then stuff the whole thing in my mouth. On reflections, that seems a rather barbaric way to eat them. So I've probably been offending Japanese culinarians for many years past. Perhaps if I had stopped there I would not now be glaring at my computer screen, with steam slowly rising out of my ears. But I went ahead and ordered vegetable tempura:

It came with the smallest bowl of rice I have ever been served in an Asian restaurant, so I couldn't even fill up on stodge. The veggies had not been dipped in batter at all; they were dipped in cement. I tried using the dipping sauce to soften them up, but they remained as impervious as granite. And flavorless as well; I ladled on the soy sauce like there was no tomorrow, but it hardly made a dent in the void. As I gnawed my way through the last piece I noticed that even though it was now high noon there was not a single solitary other customer in the restaurant -- and now I knew why; if you didn't bring your own jackhammer you probably couldn't digest anything on the menu.

I give the Osaka a one burp rating -- and they're only getting that because I liked the fish in their lobby:

My meal of pot stickers and vegetable tempura, which included the miso soup and green salad, cost $10.56.

I did not feel I had dined well after finishing this meal, so I stopped next door at Bianca's La Petite French Bakery for a Bavarian cream filled kro-nut, a leviathan pastry that set me back $4.99:

It's supposed to be a French donut sliced in half with cream filling in the middle. It succeeds in being nearly impossible to eat without dislocating your jaw and getting powdered sugar on everything within a radius of ten feet:  

But it's very good; soft and sweet without being at all gooey. As I sat back covered in powdered sugar, I decided that one lousy Japanese meal does not a tragedy make -- not when I can balance it out with a heavy sweet that will soon have me napping peacefully in my recliner until the hobgoblins start coming out tonight for their cheap candy treats. I should have gotten some gift certificates from the Osaka to hand out for Halloween . . . talk about trick or treat!  

Inside the Affordable Care Act’s Arizona Meltdown

Premiums for some plans will be more than double this year, some of the biggest increases in the nation. Only last-minute maneuvering prevented one Arizona county from becoming the first in the nation to have no exchange insurers at all.

from the Wall Street Journal  

Affordable Care is a jest,
as popular now as incest.
The premiums soar
like the hammer of Thor, 
and crushing the poor in the breast. 

When I'm good and famous

I've been reading all about Bob Dylan  being unreachable; the Nobel Prize Committee wants to get a hold of him to give him his medal and a bunch of money, but Dylan won't return their calls. Same thing with Bill Murray; he's notorious for not having an agent or manager or secretary and for never returning phone calls and not giving a hoot in hell about publicity.

What is it with these people? Are they crazy?

Crazy like a fox. Or like J.D. Salinger.

These people have gone beyond the hype of fame, to discover the Land of Fame Zen -- where privacy, if not modesty, reigns, and the media goblins have been expelled forever.

And that's how famous I want to be.

I'll go back and live in Thailand, where I spent two years as a missionary and five years as an English teacher. Pick up where I left off with my girlfriend Joom. Live on a durian plantation in a teak wood shack.  No cell phone. No internet. No indoor plumbing. Just unreliable mail delivery. Any darn reporter who wants an exclusive will have to tramp through thorny jungle trails, barely wide enough for a python, to reach my compound. And the chances will be very good that I won't be there, because I don't care enough about journalists or publicity to follow the rules of normal hospitality. They can talk to Joom, who barely speaks English.

And if I decide to fly over to Hawaii to see my good bud Barack in his retirement, for some golf or body surfing, you can bet dollars to donuts I won't alert the media. Especially the social media. No Twitter or Facebook for me, kemosabe.

I'll have a beard-growing contest with Letterman, and the press won't know a dang thing about it until it's over -- and the only information they'll get about it is from Letterman, the blabbermouth.

I'll be so elusive and aloof that all the biographies written about me will have to use the word "Unauthorized" in the title.

I guess I'll have to get a penthouse in Manhattan as well, right next to Woody Allen's. We'll feud about his dog messing around in my garbage. But the public will never know about it, since Woody knows how to keep his mouth shut, and I'll be too busy with my New York bankers to care. And I'll do nothing to scotch the rumors about a possible Broadway production.

At some point the sneaky paparazzi will snap a photo of Tom Cruise giving me a Scientology book while I give him a Book of Mormon. This is the only photo of me extant for the next twenty years.

I won't be in Washington to receive my Mark Twain prize; I'll send Joom's daughter-in-law from her first marriage, who speaks passable English, to pick it up.

Let me tell you, it's a great feeling having complete validation of my talents without being bothered by any fans or questioned by the media. I get to have my kale and eat it, too.

Now the only question is just how exactly am I going to get that famous; it usually requires work and patience and genius. And I don't go in for that kind of strenuous stuff anymore. Bad for my blood pressure.

Maybe I'll just live obscurely without bothering to become famous at all. And then I'll become famous for that.

Christ is joy!

For Latter-day Saints, Jesus Christ is joy!    Russell M. Nelson


One name only fills the earth with joy and jubilee.
Jesus Christ, the Savior -- the mild Man from Galilee.
Believe in him and sorrow melts, along with cold despair.
Pray to him for rescue -- for it is His only care.
Never doubt his love for you; each sunrise will reveal
reasons to rejoice in Him with everlasting zeal!