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(contrived names used, not their real ones) The Stanford family in our ward has several children the youngest of whom match the same ages and genders as my children. The ward youth are few, and they have been close associates all their growing up years. Their Megan is “best of best-est friends” with my daughter.
The Stanford family is about as buttoned up as they get. Totally devoted and orthodox with a long impressive history of continuous service in major callings. Very calm, proper and even tempered. The father is a noted academic physician with patents that have earned him millions and he is likely the most accomplished person I have ever met. They live fairly modestly compared to their income. Their children are on a very tight leash with high expectations. They are good solid people and mean well. I admire them more than I imagine they admire us.
Megan is the rebel of the Stanford family. She is a tall, leggy, gorgeous but extremely shy blond. Her worst rebellions have consisted mainly of hanging out with my daughter. They sluffed primary together, along with all the other girls her age. And sang hilarious parodies of the children’s hymns. (I’m so bad when daddy comes home…) (I looked out my window and what did I see, full time mishie staring right at me…) They sneaked away from YW to bounce each other off the nursery teeter totter which was strictly forbidden. She stole away to Sunday night campfires in our back yard, against the Sabbath I was told. (What was the origin of the term fireside, anyone?) We had a few brief discussions about the lightest of grey areas of LDS history never dreamed of at her house.
In the extreme, Megan came over to our house and put on one of my daughter’s sleeveless shirts and a skirt that only extended to about 4 inches above her knee (instead of the required all the way to the knee), and applied forbidden make-up and temporary purple dye in her perfect hair and donned outlandish sunglasses and two sets of loop earrings, Oh my. And they would drive to the mall in my daughter’s then 20 year old candy apple red Celica with the 1.6 liter engine and a “racing” muffler, sipping coca-cola and eating handfuls of little chocolate candy bars. I think she watched and giggled while my daughter water-ballooned the missionaries at stake conference once and got in big trouble for that. Fast times for Mormon girls at our house.
Megan didn’t go to BYU as expected, but with the help of my daughter filling out the applications she got into an ivy league school. She studied international affairs, not an acceptable or practical field by their family standards. She got a job requiring international travel to dangerous places and she loves it. While her brother was getting persecuted on his mission she was in Africa doing something like helping fight ebola virus for a few months at a time, probably from a very safe distance and much to the consternation of her parents.
Megan claims to have never gone on a single date in college. Most Mormon guys seem to find her too intimidating and beautiful. But now she has a serious boyfriend. He is a new convert to Mormonism from a family who emigrated from South America just before he was born. He is an American by culture and reportedly a really good–looking, nice mellow guy. He is not as well-educated and barely supports himself working entry level jobs. My daughter snips he would make an excellent house-husband. Her parents said they liked him, that was when he was going to go on a mission after being a member for a year and that meant a marriage was impossible for at least 3 or 4 years. Now he has decided that a mission is not for him and has given her a ring. Now her parents object to this union and the wedding date is fast upon us.
They plan to have a temple wedding after his 1 year anniversary of conversion. Then a ring ceremony for his non-LDS family. Her parents refuse to pay for anything in spite of lavish receptions for older sibling (to which we and about half the ward were not invited). They do not think he deserves to have a share of their substantial inheritance and are cutting her out of the will if they marry. Because he is marring her only for her money. Megan tricked her mother into buying the expensive wedding dress by taking her shopping and then not being able to afford the dress her mother wanted. This is a stunt pulled before, right out of the girl’s play book. Except this time her father wants her to reimburse them for the dress she really cannot afford. Her married sisters refuse to wear the baby blue bride’s maid dresses she wants. Her father will not walk her down the aisle of a ring ceremony because it mocks the temple wedding. He will come to a simple reception in the church gym but nothing that might detract from the spirit of the temple, such as loud Latin music and extreme forms of dancing.
The groom’s family is perfectly capable of throwing a wild and rowdy wedding party without spending that much money as is their custom. Last night Megan asked my daughter to be her maid of honor in place of her sister and wants me to walk her down the aisle at the ring ceremony in place of her father!
I told my daughter I would but only if she lets me wear my $3.00 lemon yellow suit jacket (thank you Deseret Industries) popular in about 1960 and perfect for the Georgia Tech games. And my Baden-Powell hat (a cheap duplication of a British military helmet often used in India about 100 years ago with a swooping back to keep the rain off, it was probably white originally but is now faded to a grimy tan yellow hue and I have added a 2 ft long plastic eagle feather to it.) I think of this as an idle threat and the more outrageous, the more likely to bring my old friend Dr. Stanford to his senses.
Additional boring information: Dr. Stanford has hardly spoken to me for over three years since that ill-fated night hike. The boys in the ward that year upon graduation from high school wanted to do something memorable to celebrate. Like the fabled road trip. I suggested a difficult hiking expedition since the 3 of them were all eagle scouts. They decided to take the ward 16 man YM tent to the top of the second highest mountain in the state by way of the 18 mile hardest trail and pitch it on the elevated deck on top of the old fire tower. Then throw large quantities of canned salmon off the tower to attract bears. My son, the Sherpa, agreed to carry the tent weighing 60 pounds, and a size 12 Dutch oven , and 10 pounds of charcoal, and enough cans of food to make a good stew along with the canned salmon, and a 3 gallon water jug filled with raspberry lemonade and the 12 pound horseshoe set. The Stanford boy agreed to bring his new $400 light weight water filter, (it is a ridge hike with no water sources). The other boy, fairly new in the ward, agreed to bring a Book of Mormon and nothing else.
I convinced the boys to let me come along in exchange for showing them the location of a genuine Nephite baptism font. The concrete ruins of an old trout farm near the trail head do vaguely resemble what one might image to be ancient fonts or soaking pools in the dark. The other boy’s father wisely declined to have anything to do with this nonsense. But Dr. Stanford did not want to be excluded. He has thousands of dollars of the finest and lightest backpacking equipment available and he has done several treks with all of his boys of a few days length which is not difficult and quite enjoyable with the best equipment and planning and knowledge. He is as accomplished a backpacker as anything else he does. I tried to explain to him this was going to hurt, it was not going to be pleasant, that was the point. But considering the Nephite font allusion, he probably didn’t trust me to not get into some discussion that might jeopardize his boy’s testimony or plans to serve a mission.
It was dark and steamy hot and began to pour rain as we left the cars. The Stanford boy had no water and begged some from my son who refused but then he refused water from his dad’s reasonable 2 nalgene supply. When the water running down the trail got deep enough he filtered some of it but in the dark, neither I nor his father trusted it. The steep trail and slick mud from relentless rain grew extremely miserable as the night hours deepened and I don’t know how the Sherpa kept going. Dr. Stanford with detailed water-proof topo maps calculated we should summit before 2:00 am but at 3:00 am we were still going up steeper than ever. The trail took a sharp dip down for a few hundred feet that was not on the map and Dr. Stanford thought we must be lost. Only one trail I said, going up. He was so exhausted that he laid down in the mud on the trail and exclaimed he could go no further. Priceless. I was close, the only difference being I carried a near empty pack having slipped almost all of my personal gear in the side pockets of the Sherpa pack. (My almost priceless coronary stents were inserted about 5 months later, I had undiagnosed severe heart disease at the time and Dr. Stanford must have taken that news worse than most).
We tromped around in the woods until we found an almost flat spot big enough for the tent and agreed to rest and then summit at daybreak, we had to be close. We were too tired to cook or eat. Early the next morning Dr. Stanford said he wanted to return home quickly since he had things to do that day. The boys utterly refused to get up. The Stanford boy actually sassed his father which I found unbelievable. I told him I knew how to handle these boys. I grabbed my son by his sturdy ankles and began to drag him out of the tent. He reared back and kicked me like a mule with both feet square in the chest. It sent be sprawling head-over-heels some distance down the mountain. I looked at Dr. Stanford and said I think they have done grown up and there is not one thing we can do make them do anything they do not want to do. He packed his gear quickly and left. I asked him if he wanted company, don’t hike alone, and all that jazz. He asked me to stay with the boys and try to keep them out of any more serious trouble.
Around noon we got up and could see the summit and it was horribly hot and humid with swarms of biting insects and going to be a couple more hours of hard labor before heading back down. We were hungry and decided to eat cold canned food and go home. I begged them to at least get up to the top and pitch the tent so we could say that we did it. I even offered to carry the Sherpa pack most of the way, myself. My son said I was going to pay for that insincere offer, I could no more carry that pack than fly. We headed down the mountain. With about a mile left to go he put the pack on the ground and told me to carry it back to the car. I didn’t make it 100 yards. He told me I was a bigger wimp than he ever imagined. The Stanford boy defended me saying , I’m not as bad as his dad. My boy countered, your dad isn’t as crazy either.
The Nephite fonts that looked so convincing the night before were extremely lame in daylight. The boys agreed that after their missions they would meet again and next time get the tent pitched on that tower and feed bears canned salmon. Maybe leave the Dutch oven and horseshoes home. (Except the Sherpa was not that tired, it was more the stupidity of it). It would be something to think about during the hard times ahead. The other 2 boys have recently returned from their missions, neither had a baptism, my son didn’t go. The desire to do this promised hike has faded. The 3 of them recently went on a reasonable 5 mile day hike up a nice mountain with views we did as cub scouts and shared their experiences of the previous 2 years. Fathers were not invited.
I don’t think Dr. Stanford is going to be happy about the wedding of his rebel daughter and my participation in it. I wish there was something I could say or do to help ameliorate the situation. I am interested in your reactions to these plans.
I just want everyone’s input on this post, since I have been concerned about Porter’s motivation for being here from the start and because I’m not sure I believe him. I don’t disbelieve him completely; I just have no clue whatsoever if he is honest, given his contributions throughout his time here. This is the second very detailed, horrible story he’s shared ( http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5795&p=79402#p79402 Also, in another thread he wrote another very detailed, horrible story about a cousin who supposedly was killed by Ted Bundy. (
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5886&p=80730#p80730 Then there was this diatribe in another thread. (
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5784&p=79841#p79841 In this one, he compares the Church in Utah to the Russian government shooting down planes. (
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5795&p=79602#p79602 Once we’ve discussed it, we can delete our comments and do whatever everyone feels should be done with it. I am very wary of him, think he might be a bit nuts (or more than a bit, frankly) and would like everyone’s input here instead of in a public thread.
tl;dr I couldn’t read it all. It’s like he has a bot on his computer that posts creative writing assignments from a strange college class he took. I couldn’t find a point to it other than promiscuous disclosure, if even that.
It doesn’t fit into our site parameters or purpose. That’s the reason I would give for rejecting it.
Porter has seemed to discover the fun of having an anonymous internet sounding board and enjoys letting out all his thoughts out, without regard to making a point or if he develops any credibility. Reminds me of that scene in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, where Steve Martin’s character blows up at John Candy…”Here’s an idea. When telling a story…have a POINT. It makes it so much more enjoyable for the listeners!”
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