more stuff!!

my biggest fear is that I would not be able to get back into this blog!! But it looks like I made it so I have no more fears.
There is nothing quite like climbing up on a silo in late August or early September and looking out to the west, toward Nevada. Seeing the mountains, Swasey and Notch Peak - always there and recognizable - comforting. (I knew those mountains well, had spent days out there with friends, Young Men, my dad, Boy Scouts, and with my grandpa as he delivered fuel to isolated farms and towns out west. Sinbad Springs, Antelope Springs, Painter Springs, Amise Valley, Marjum Pass are all more than mere names to me - I had explored and camped in each place.) Often at that time of year, late summer, the thunderclouds would build up over those western mountains - the House Range. There would be a fine breeze (maybe even a wind) blowing in from the west and after watching carefully you would be rewarded by seeing some spectacular lightning, a great show, and shortly you would hear the thunder clap. But the best of all was to see the rain falling way out there, it's about 50 miles out to that particular range of mountains, and then to eventually smell that same rain, coming in on that same breeze, and bringing with it the sweet and delicious scent of new mown hay and sagebrush!! I had that experience frequently when I worked for Wallace Holman out in Sutherland between my sophomore and junior years of high school - summer of 1961. (Wow, that is a long time ago - it has gone fast!). It was a strange summer for me, to have that job with the Holmans', in Sutherland and Delta only about six miles away but I did not go home for three months, even for the weekends, even for church - I went to the Sutherland ward with the Holmans! I don't remember if I ever even bothered to ask why I could not go into Delta - I don't remember if my parents came out there to see me or if I even saw my sisters all that summer. I was only six miles away and I was there to work and I might just as well have been in Kansas!! Very strange!!
For whatever reason (maybe I was a delinquent!), working in Sutherland that summer for the Holmans, turned out to be a blessing for me because I will always have that wonderful memory of the smell of rain on sagebrush and new-mown hay - the memory of which has sustained me many times over the years when I found myself in tight places, places like Vietnam.