Topaz, Temples, and Theater

We love spending a weekend at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in the fall, seeing the last of the nine plays offered during the season.  October 13-15, 2017 was our Shakespeare getaway to St. George and Cedar City.  There were lots of "finds" on the way south and back, including a new Peruvian restaurant in Cedar City (above).

 We can never get enough of the Utah desert.  I remember being surprised, as I looked at the desert painting in Dave's mother's living room, that the colors the artist chose were blues, greens, and yellows.  As I looked again at the deserts of northern and central Utah during this trip, I agreed that the blue/green/yellow palette reflects the desert well.

We stopped at the new Topaz Museum in Delta, Utah, and were moved by the grace with which Japanese families interned at the Topaz relocation camp near Delta survived their four years there.  The museum curator enthusiastically showed us a movie about Topaz and told us about the former internees who serve on the Board of the museum.

Japanese families were given two weeks, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, to sell their belongings and move off the West Coast, or be forcibly relocated to camps.  Many of their neighbors were hostile.

Japanese families at Topaz quickly formed a community, including churches, jobs, schools, and even a baseball team.  A number of the Topaz young men were sent to fight for the US in Europe, even as their parent languished behind barbed wire.  The internment was designed to prevent sabotage, but there were no instances of sabotage either in the camps or other areas where Japanese voluntarily moved.

There were a number of artists among the internees, including the man who sent out this painting of the camp, including the guard tower, as his 1943 Christmas card.

Other internees gathered shells from the shores of ancient Lake Bonneville and turned them into flowers.

 In remembrance of the Japanese interned at Topaz, one elementary school made a paper crane for each internee.  We were invited to take a few home with us.

On Saturday morning, before leaving for the Shakespeare Festival, David and I did baptisms and initiatory ordinances at the St. George Temple for 20 of the Scottish individuals whose names I discovered.  David was not thrilled with the experience.  "I'll do that once every two years," he told me.

 More to David's taste was the new Italian restaurant in Cedar City, with its linguine frutti di mare.

We saw two plays, "How to Fight Loneliness", about assisted suicide, and "The Tavern", a witty farce.

Before leaving for home, we drove past the new Cedar City temple, which will be dedicated in November.  We signed up for a tour there when we return to Southern Utah next month.

That Luau Feeling

 "I'm feeling like a luau," I told Camille, and she agreed that we should embrace that feeling.  On October 8, 2017, Camille's family, Mike and Heidi, Kirsten, Herb and JoDee Flindt, and Alan and Shauna laughed, talked, and ate with us as "The Hawaiian War Chant" and other music of the islands floated through the house.

 "The pig" (or a part thereof) was nestled in the crockpot, doused in Liquid Smoke to make up for not being slow roasted in a hole in our back yard.  I remembered Michael's and Jonny's days on the East High football team, with their many Tongan teammates.  The fall fundraiser was a luau, with a whole pig roasted in a hole at the end of the football field!

 There were leis for everyone, as well as orchids on the table, and a meal of roast pork, huli huli chicken, fresh fruit, and coconut cake for dessert.

Everything Ethiopian

In early October 2017, I found 160 Calder family names from Dunnet, Scotland, and surrounding villages who had not had LDS temple ordinances done for them.  I enlisted Mike and Heidi to go with me to the Salt Lake Temple to do sealings.  We treated ourselves to an Ethiopian dinner afterwards, as Mike went over the details of a proposed trip back to Ethiopia.  Back home, I looked up recipes for both Ethiopian ingera, the spongy pancake that Ethiopian meals are served from, and wat, the stew that goes on top.  I love ethnic cooking, and we will soon have our own, homemade Ethiopian dinner!

By lucky chance, I attended a Utah World Trade Center luncheon that same week (October 5) to honor Ras Mengesha Seyoum, a grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie.  He has held cabinet positions in the Ethiopian government since the Emperor was overthrown, and he is now a business consultant, helping to bring business to Ethiopia.  Ras Mengesha was in Utah to talk with BYU and the LDS Church about providing equipment and expertise to copy and archive ancient manuscripts from Ethiopian monasteries.

Ras Mangesha Seyoum, with an Amharic inscription beneath his photo.

As Ras Mengesha discussed Ethiopia, I remembered the times that my father and mother had attended parties at Emperor Haile Selassie's palace.  I was asked to introduce myself and identify my tie to Ethiopia.  I said that my father had been the first business vice president at Haile Selassie University, and that I had a continuing fascination with the country after living there for two years.

I sat next to a woman who introduced herself as Sue Osmond.  The man next to her was Alan Osmond, formerly the leader of the Osmond Brothers singers, whose younger siblings are Marie and Donny Osmond. Alan Osmond's foundation provides help to orphans in developing countries, including Ethiopia, and the foundation had sponsored Ras Mangesha's trip to the U.S.  Mrs. Osmond told me how excited the Church is about the Ethiopian monastery records.  The Osmonds and Ethiopian princes--those are people I normally do not run with.  It was a very interesting lunch.

Shakes and Shivers

Dave and I took a drive on Saturday, September 30, to see the fall leaves.  As we headed through Kamas up into the Uintah Mountains, to Mirror Lake, we drove through fall and into winter.

 Mirror Lake was ghostly and beautiful.

Whenever I stop by Mirror Lake, I always think of my father and the picture taken at Mirror Lake in 1940 or 1941, as Dad captured a few of his friends enjoying a drink (hot? cold?) and the mountain air.  There are more mysteries in that picture than the temperature of the drink!  Who's the guy?  Who are the girls?  Is this a date?  And which one is Dad's special friend?

We paused by the trailhead to Fehr Lake, where Dave and I hiked several summers ago.  In a few weeks the area will be accessible only by snowmobile.

 Driving back out of winter, we stopped by the waterfall over the Provo River, which winds its way from its headwaters in the Uintahs, all the way to Provo City.

 This is the Utah I love!

 As we entered the lower elevations, we passed through patches of golden and red fall leaves.

 What a Utahn picture--ranch gate, mountainside covered with pines and maples.

 On our way home, we passed Hi Mountain Drug in Kamas.  On our way to Mirror Lake, we stopped in to buy an "everything shake," filled with pieces of a whole array of candy bars.  It was a day's worth of calories, but so luscious!  Jonny introduced us to Hi Mountain Drug on a recent trip home to Utah.

At the 'Bird

For more than 20 years, we've spent the week after Labor Day at the Iron Blosam Lodge at Snowbird.  From September 16 through 23, 2017, we partied up the canyon, enjoying Octoberfest and inviting family members to join us.  Mike and Heidi came, on Monday, September 18, for supper in the condo--bratwurst sandwiches, hot German potato salad, and a homemade Black Forest cherry cake.  They brought us gifts, as well--fresh corn from the Bastian farm!

On Sunday, September 17, Dave and I relaxed in the big, white Oktoberfest tent, home of Bavarian music and dancing.  There are always several tables filled with old-timers, dressed in dirndls and lederhausen, dancing the polka.  The party reminded me of how much my father loved Bavaria and its music and scenery.

 After 30 minutes, Dave asked, "Isn't this enough?"

 Not quite.  I needed a few more minutes of admiring the Bavarian hat of the man in front of me, filled with pins from the towns he'd visited.  One summer, as my mom and dad drove us around Europe, they bought Kent, Scott, and me hats just like that one, and we filled them with pins as we traveled.

 Dave and I finished that Sunday evening with dinner at The Aerie, the elegant restaurant on the 10th floor of The Cliff Lodge, with huge picture windows looking out at the granite face of the mountain.

 We got a table next to the huge windows and the view.

 It turned wet and cold, during our week at Snowbird, but it was still spectacular, with dark clouds rolling in over the mountains..

I leaned far out on the porch of our condo, Room 618, and captured views of the mountains and the winding, scenic road leading to SLC.

On Friday night, September 22, Camille, Steve, Ezra, and Mia joined us for dinner at The Lodge Bistro.  Afterwards, Steve, Dave, and Ezra watched football, while Camille, Mia, and I explored the game room at Iron Blosam.

Camille and I played shuffleboard and air hockey with Mia.  Mia took great relish in beating her mom.

 We then returned to the condo and Camille, Mia, and I played Bananagrams. 

 Ezra loves sports, like his dad and grandpa.

 Steve draped himself in Mia's purple parka. 

 And Dave floated off, even during that exciting game!

Mike and Heidi joined us, after the Friday night symphony, to spend the night and eat brunch at The Cliff Lodge the next morning.  When we awoke, the mountains were speckled with snow.  Of all four of us, Michael, the snowboarder, was most excited to see winter coming!

 Heidi was spiffy in a hat and jacket at brunch.  We enjoyed the granola, sausages and hashbrowns, yogurt and eggs Benedict, muffins and fruit.  We also enjoyed the view.