John Fogerty

 Oh hi kid named Joe!

So another week has passed. At my age a week passes fast. The weather here is getting just about perfect, that late summer warm but not hot, cool in the mornings but not cold, with a little rain here and there.

Mom is full into school, and with her temple work, we don’t see too much of her during the week. Ben has school on Tuesday and Thursday nights too, and Jacob starts his night classes on those same nights too. So I’m going to have to find a way to keep myself busy on those nights until Christmas time. This week I’m going to sand and stain grandma’s deck. Jacob and I went over yesterday to move her grill and pressure wash it down. I’m not sure if washing it does much good or not, but it’s the process I follow. 

The big event for this week was Jacob’s birthday. On Tuesday grandma took him to Red Robin, I did not receive an invitation. But I was invited to go with the elders to teach a little kid in our ward. His name is Fynn. He’s got a good mom and dad that aren’t members but allow him to be taught. They want him to wait until he’s 18 to be baptized, so I’m not sure how long the elders will keep teaching him. In fact, the sisters had decided to stop teaching him until a new one transferred in, and you know how sisters are.

Wednesday was the John Fogerty concert. We went to dinner at the Red Iguana 2. It’s like the Red Iguana, only 2. It was good, we all tried something different and all enjoyed our meals. The concert was at the Utah State Fairgrounds, which is in a pretty rough part of town. We could have walked from the restaurant, but I wasn’t sure how how late the concert would go and I didn’t want your mom walking around that late. So we rode around for a while until we got closer and walked in. The fair was in full force but we found the line for the concert pretty easily and did not do any fair stuff. Once again I was on the younger, skinnier side of the crowd. The venue was an open arena designed for rodeos, but it probably held 8 or 10,000 people. John Fogerty’s adult kids have a band that opened the show, they weren’t terrible but obviously I was not familiar with their songs. Fogerty started a little later, his kids, who are adults, played with him, they were really good. Apparently, a long time ago he lost the rights to his songs, I assume after his band, Credence Clearwater Revival broke up. Anyway, he seemed pretty happy about that. He played a lot of his famous songs and his band was really good. It amazes me how these guys in their late seventies can rock so well, how iconic their songs are, and how big a part of our culture they are. 

We have one more concert planned this year, which I believe your brothers and mother are only coming to with me to be nice and because I paid for it. The band is called Leonid and Friends. They are from Russia and the Ukraine. The play a lot of covers from the 70s by bands like Chicago, Steely Dan, and Earth, Wind, and Fire. You know, dad rock. It’s going to be at the U of U at Kingsbury hall. It’s a place I used to go to concerts when I was a student at the U. It’s later in October so I’ll tell you about it then. 

Saturday after grandmas we came home and got the house ready for the game. Between moms surgery, school, and everything else, those homey times have been a little rare, so it felt good to be home with everyone doing simple chores together. 

Mom made really good chili and incredible home made bread. She had all the good toppings and I really enjoyed it. I already sent you a recap of the game, but my impressions were, Barnes had a good game but he’s still Barns and turned it over twice. Issac Wilson started off cold again but by the second quarter found his flow. I was commenting on how I loved college football because you can see the players evolve and grow, and it’s as if he did it in this one game. Granted, it was the Aggies, so I’m grateful to get Rising back next week against Oklahoma State, but Wilson has the potential of picking up where Rising let’s off next year. My cousins came over for the game, it wasn’t a big group but it was fun. Next week will be a bigger stakes game, Utah is only favored by 2.5 points, which is pretty much even. I’ll do my best to give you better updates.

Today was a long church day for us. We got up early to go to your cousin Max’s homecoming. I think k Jacob might have given you a summary in mom’s email. Let’s just say…he’s really impressed with himself, and leave it at that.

In our ward there was a missionary farewell, Taylor Carlson. I appreciated what she said as she never had plans to go until she had a seminary lesson and scripture touch her heart and let her know she had to go. She’s going to Chicago, where she’ll meet a lot of different kinds of people. Her aunt and uncle were in our Texas ward so it was fun to see them in our ward.

For Sunday school we had our Gospel Essentials class and Tara and Craig, the new member and investigator were there. Sister carver taught and did a good job, but I wish she had followed the manual a bit closer. There are a lot of good questions in there that are helpful in my opinion. Next time, your mother will give the lesson.

Mom made a dad style Sunday dinner. Roast beef, I made the mashed potatoes, salad with ranch, and brownies for dessert. Your brothers are a little high and mighty for a simple meal like that, but they ate it heartily.

We don’t have any big events coming up this week, we’ll just plug along and be grateful to have jobs and school and stuff. We also have great weather, grandma to serve and our health. It hard for me not to be grateful for those simple blessings. Remove even one of those things and you are in a trial man, a rough one.

That sounds like I’m done with my letter. I love you kid and hope we can chat tomorrow.

Pops