Well, they finely talked me into it, I am Moving to caldwell on June 1st, I will be about a mile from Tammi and a mile from Mada’s.
Here are some pics of the house I will be renting.
Front of house
Back of house
Sorry, no deer in this yard.
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May 12, 2008
Moving to Caldwell | # |
December 7, 2007
Barb’s lung transplant | # |
In December 1989 Barbara came down with pneumonia and was rushed to the hospital. Just as we arrived at the hospital Barbara quit breathing. She was resuscitated but had many complications there after. She was diagnosed as having emphazemia and slowly got worse. She was working for Dr. Broman at the time and was very hurt when she was no longer able to work because of her health.
Dr. Taylor was the Pulmonary Doctor that treated her in the Hospital and became her regular doctor and was a good friend to both of us. This Picture was taken 1 week after the transplant.
She was sent to the University of Washington Medical Center to be worked up for a possible lung transplant, this took two years and during this time her health became much worse. Her Doctor had told me, that she would not last more than two to three months. On February 14, 1995 we received a call from the hospital that there was a new lung for her. We rushed to Seattle where the run tests on her to see if the lung would be compatible with her. The Doctor came out and told us that she was too ill at that time to safely do the transplant and she would probably not survive the surgery. But, the Doctor said that he did not feel comfortable in making that decision by himself and wanted us to make it. Barbara and I looked at each other and said she needed this lung; she wouldn’t live long enough to wait for another one. She received the lung transplant on that day and had no problems during the surgery.
Little did the doctors know that Barbara had received blessing that day from Jack Roberts, who just happened to be at the hospital that day. It was a true miracle. 
Jack Roberts and his family
October 8, 2007
Barbs church beginning | # |
During this time I was serving a mission in the Asian Branch. She was baptized and confirmed on December 21st 1985. That same day President Backstein asked her if she would serve in the Asian Branch. She said she would, she had been serving there with me, whether she had received the calling or not. She immediately fell in love with the Asian people. The Branch is the only ward that she really knew. Over many years the boys and girls from the branch would come to our house. Sometimes there would be as many as 10 or 12 that would sleep on the floor. One year some of the boys were with us for Christmas and we gave them white shirts for church, they use to pass the sacrament in Tee shirts that would have Budweiser or Corona on them, afterwards I said, next year we need to have a Tie Party, they all looked at each other and then one of them said to me, A Thai party? But we are Cambodian. We have many Cambodian Sons and daughters; they have brought joy into our lives. In our house we had large skylights in the living room, about 3 ft by 10 ft. One night there were several kids over and about 3am one of the boys who was sleeping under the skylight, got up and moved to a another part of the room., about five minutes later the skylight fell down where he had been sleeping. I know it was the Holy Ghost that told him to move, he knows it too. 
Barb and I were married in the Seattle Temple on 28 of October 1989 for time and eternity.
September 11, 2007
I met Barbara | # |
I met Barbara in 1974 at the Lakewood Hospital Emergency room, where she was working as a Nurse and I was volunteering as an Emergency Medical Technician. 
We were married on the 21st of June 1975. I don’t know if it was a marriage made in heaven, but I know that it was blessed by heaven.
Barbara has two wonderful children, Michelle and Kenneth, whom I love very much and also our two beautiful grandchildren, 
Niki and Courtney. One year a young man, David Blunk, needed a place to live while he went to high school, and we took him in, he became the same as one of our own children and we love him very much. He now owns his own business as a Massage therapist.
Barbara was not a member of the church, but had no problem with me attending. Through a misunderstanding it took years before she would even hear about the gospel. We had home visitors each month, but she though the only reason that they were coming was to force the gospel on her and she resisted. We had many arguments over it, until one day I said to her that if I had to choose between the gospel and her, I would have to choose the gospel. Our marriage was for the time we were on this earth, the gospel was for eternity and I could not give that up. She decided that if it meant that much to me, she would be willing to find out more about it. The ward missionaries started to come and teach her the gospel. One day President Huish and Matt his son started to give the lessons. Barbara loved to hear them teach, she couldn’t have the lessons fast enough for her.
August 7, 2007
While working at the Fire Department | # |
While working at the fire department I took an EMT class. As part of the training I had to spend 10 hours in the Emergency Room at a local hospital. I did my 10 hours but continued to go back for more, I couldn’t get enough. I really enjoyed learning about emergency medicine. I would go in with the nurse to get the information from the patient as to what his or her illness or injury was, and then would go back in with the doctor while he treated the patient.
While working the night shift I worked with a Dr. North, who could tell one joke after another all night without telling the same one over. One slow night we sat listening to his jokes when the hospital night supervisor came down and said, “Dr North, now that you have succeeded in waking all the patients in the hospital except one, would you go down and pronounce her.” We had a lot of fun, but I learned a lot.
One day while working with another doctor, a man came in with the hiccups, he had had them for over a month and he couldn’t get rid of them. The doctor was going to try some medication on him when I told him of my favorite cure, put a pencil between your teeth and drink a glass of water. The doctor laughed and said it wouldn’t hurt to try it, but he didn’t think it would work. The man tried it and it cured him. Still works for me and everyone else that I have told about it.
At this time I was working with an Explore Post who specialized in search and rescue, we were going up to the mountains for a ski trip, a nurse that I worked with at the hospital asked if she could go with us, I said ok. After that she asked me out a number of times. 
After a few months of dating, I asked her to go out to dinner with me and said to bring her 2 kids. I had bought a ring I wanted to give her at dinner. While eating, one of the kids said, “Would you be our daddy.” I pulled out the ring and gave it to her. 
Who else has been proposed to by a couple of kids?
We were married in June of 1975.
August 2, 2007
Home Again | # |
In 1965 I moved back to Tacoma and moved in with Wayne & Mada. I worked for a while selling shoes with Wayne, then worked for a glass company. I then opened another service station; I bought my first house, in University Place for $1,100 and later sold it to Mom and Dad for $4,000. After Moms death they sold it for over $120,000.
Again I worked with the boy scouts, where one of the committee members was a Tacoma Firefighter. He and I talked a lot about the fire service; he suggested that I talk to the Fire Chief in University Place about becoming a volunteer firefighter. I did and started to learn how to be a firefighter, going to drills once a week and going to fire and aid call when I wasn’t working at the station. Again I got out of the service station business and bought a vending machine route, filling Candy, gum and cigarette machines.
In 1968 a firefighter had a heart attack and had to be off work for 3 months. The Fire Chief asked me if I wanted to work for the department for those 3 months, of course I took the job, I could still do the vending machine route because the shifts. After the 3 months were over, I went back to vending machine business. 2 months later the Assistant Chief had a stroke and would never return to work, I was offered the full time job, of course I took it.
I have already posted about my time at the fire department. When I became Fire Chief, I was only the 4th Fire Chief since the department was formed in 1941.
August 1, 2007
The US Air Force | # |
I joined the United States Air Force in 1961; I went to Lackland AFB in Texas for my basic training then went to Shepard AFB, also in Texas. While at Shepard I was walking down the street and a big hail storm hit, the hail stones were as big as baseballs, and then the wind started up. It took the roof off the chow hall that was my first tornado.
From Texas I was sent to Vandenberg AFB in southern California, I was a mechanic on the Atlas Missile. While stationed there I started working with the Boy Scout on base, after a year I became the Scoutmaster, We had our own building for our scout meetings. At one time we had 50 active scouts, 4 assistant scout masters and a large scout committee. My First Sergeant’s son was in the troop along with my Squadron Commander’s son. This made it easy to get things done. When we wanted to go a long distance I would check out a military bus and drive where we wanted to go. Every year we would take a 50 mile trip in the High Sierras. The first time we took the 50 mile hike we had a guide, he was 70 years old. We would all start out together in the morning, but after awhile we would get tired of hiking so slow and we left our guide behind, then we would get tired and stop for a rest and he would catch up to us. He never had to stop to rest. We soon learned to stay with him and not have to stop all the time. At one time I had 2 airmen, 1 lieutenant and a Lieutenant Colonel as my assistant scoutmasters.
I made some lifelong friends at Vandenberg, Lt. Fitzwilliam King, now a doctor in SC, My First Sergeant, Bernie Tannheimer, now retired and living in Texas and Airman Ron Hayduk, a retired electronics teacher in Colorado. I still keep in contact with them on the computer and on the phone. When I traveled with Lennis and Kathy last year we stopped and visited with Dr. King, he hasn’t changed a bit, except he has a son and grandson with the same name Fitzwilliam King. While there he took us on a large hill on his property and showed us his airplane hanger and landing strip. He has built his own plane and flies it all over the US.
After 4 years in the Air Force I went to Colorado Springs, Colorado to stay with 
Mom and Dad for a couple of months before I returned home to go back to work.
Life starts agin after high school | # |
I know some of the pictures do not go with the story, but they are interesting and you may not have seen them. This is a pic of Mom and Vesta dressed in, I think they called them Flappers.
Dad bought this car new for $85.00 in 1939, I think it was a Buick.
While going to Olympic Jr. College, I got a job at a Bingers gas station, I worked the night shift. One night I was filling up a car and noticed two State Patrol car pull up and park on the road next to the station, a couple of minutes later two Bremerton Police cars pulled up and parked on the other street next to the station. As I finished fueling the car, I turned and started back to the office and then all of the police got out of their cars with their guns drawn. They surrounded the car and arrested the two people in side. Come to find out the car was stolen from the Navy Base by two marines, and you never know if they are packing weapons. That was a scary night.
I attended college for one year, during that time Grandma Lydia Wilbur came to live with us. While there she fell and broke her hip. It was not easy caring for someone who can’t get out of bed, as some of you know, I would even have to leave class to go home and carry her to the bathroom.
About this time, Bill moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. He needed to get a job to pay for his schooling, so Dad leased a service station near the U of W and I moved in with Bill and we ran the station. The reason Dad leased the station was that neither Bill nor I were old enough to sign the lease. Bill would go to school during the day and I would run the station and he would help me at night till closing, that is when he wasn’t dating. I remember a young gal would come in every day and get 25 cents worth of gas, One gallon, and she would get one gallon of used motor oil to put in her engine. Boy did that car smoke going down the road. Lennis came up during the summer and helped out. One day I had serviced a car and was delivering it to the owner’s house and Lennis followed me in my car. I stopped at a red light and Lennis didn’t, I got rear ended by my own car. I had to not only pay for the damage to her car but also had to pay for the damage to mine, my insurance wouldn’t pay for it because I was using it for business. We weren’t able to make enough money to support both of us so we closed the station.
Mom and Dad had moved back to Tacoma so I followed and a short time later I joined the Air Force, but that’s another story.
After Graduation | # |
Yes, contrary to popular belief, I did graduate from high school in 1959, although I had decided not to go any farther with schooling. My graduation party was an all nighter, We went on a cruise for dinner and dancing, then to a movie at the Temple Theater, we got out at 5AM. There wasn’t any busses running at that hour so I had to walk home, from downtown Tacoma, it took me hours.
Two days later Uncle Ralph Lavar and Donna came to visit. The next day I went with them to Little America Wyoming, where I got a job in the service station. Little America was the largest service station in the world at that time, 150 fuel pumps. It was a great experience.
After summer was over I couldn’t wait to go home and go to college, so much for no more schooling. I moved back to Washington. Mom and Dad were living in Bremerton at the time, so that’s where I went. I enrolled at Olympic Jr. College. I just took general classes. One of the classes was choir. I got a scholarship in music. They wanted to teach me to play the piano, boy were they dumb. I didn’t have a piano at home, so they gave me a keyboard, except back then they didn’t make any noise. That didn’t work so I went out a rented a piano, bet you never knew I played the piano, did you. I don’t. Even though I didn’t learn the piano, something good did come of it. Verla wasn’t even in school yet but she wanted me to teach her how to play the piano, of course I did, Not. The woman across the street agreed to give her lessons. You know later she took lessons from a teacher named Mr. Johnson, who had given lessons to Bing Crosby and Patty Page, neat huh. 
This is a pic of the piano Mom and Dad got for Verla in Bremerton, the dogs were’t there at the time. Verla still has the piano. This was in 1959.
The college choir was asked to sing at the re-commissioning of the U. S. Coral Sea, an aircraft carrier. We were able to take a tour of the carrier and then sang for the ceremony on the flight deck, what a great experience.
More Pics | # |
Here are some more old pictures
Mom, Dad and Kids while in Spanaway
Hyrum Neilsen and his boys
Grandma Wilbur and Wayne, Lynn & Bill