The Big Rock in Wyoming Signed by the Israelites and How to Make Friends, by 10-year-old Me

I have been skimming through a bunch of journals that I have accumulated in my life. Prior to age 17 I only wrote a few entries in a couple of small journals. I have been reading these and chuckling through each entry. But a couple of comments I made when I was 10 take the cake. It appears I did most of my journal writing back then during the summer, so I describe a couple of summer road trips from my 10 year old perspective. Most of these trips were to and from Wyoming. Of a trip through Wyoming I wrote (with the spelling from the original entry):

“I forgot to mention on the way to Baggs we stopped by a rock, a BIG rock. When Moses led the Jews out of Egypt they all stopped by this rock and chissled their names in it. We tried climbing it, but it got steep.”

I laughed out loud for several minutes! How did I get it in my mind that a rock in Wyoming was signed by the Jews led out of Egypt by Moses? Either someone told me a tall tale or some sort of switch took place in my mind. After all, Independence Rock was signed by hundreds people who were migrating to the western United States from the East along the California, Oregon, Mormon, and Pony Express trails. But Moses and the ancient Israelites? That would definitely be something. No wonder I thought that rock was so cool! [To learn more about Independence Rock, please click this link http://www.wyomingtourism.org/thingstodo/detail/Independence-Rock-State-Historic-Site/3337 ]

The other entry that I really enjoyed took place by a hotel pool in Wyoming in July of 1995 (I was still 10 at the time). This is what I wrote (again, I used the spelling from my entry):

“Grandma and Grandpa took me to Wyoming for my grandpa’s Superior High School Reunion. When we got to Rock Springs we stayed at the Outlaw Inn. There is a pool there and we got pool side rooms. Since my parents and cousins weren’t with me I had to make friends with total strangers. Some were more interesting then others. I made friends with a girl from Tenesse (she had a strong accent), from Texas, Washington state. My system for making friends was this…You go up to the person and say “Hi.” Of course they say hi back.  Then you say “What’s your name?” They say their name and then ask you what yours is. Answer. Then you ask how old they are. Then you kind of tell them a bit about your life. Then I ask, “You want to play beach ball?” They usually say yes, but if they say no just hang around and talk. Then ask again, “You want to play beach ball?” They say yes.”
I suppose this is a system that I have used most of my life. It’s the way I met my husband though we were at church and there was no pool around so I couldn’t ask him to play beach ball. I would also suggest not asking people their age right off the bat.

These are just a couple of things that I am glad I have in my personal history. My personality at that age is evident. I was a happy, confident 10 year old who went on family road trips, saw historical sites, and made new friends by the hotel pool. Those are fond memories for me, and I consider them to be of great worth.

What is it about the lives of people—specifically between the years 1800 and 1900—and more specifically the lives of women in that time period that captures my heart? A quick glance at the book shelf in my living room shows that my favorite books have heroines (fictional and real) who lived during that time. I have the entire “Little House on the Prairie” book series, the entire “Anne of Green Gables” series, and “Little Women”. Perhaps it’s because the main characters in the books speak of the thoughts near and dear to their hearts. And even though I’m living a hundred or more years later I find that the thoughts near and dear to my heart are not so very different from theirs. But they had those deep thoughts and emotions while doing hard, manual labor on a daily basis in order to have food, shelter, clothing, and occasional recreation. They washed their clothes in rivers and streams or maybe a washing basin and hung their clothes to dry on clotheslines or laid them on the sweet prairie grass. They made all their meals from scratch on wood burning stoves or over fires. They did the dishes by hand with home-made lye soap. They sewed and mended clothes, knitted socks, tatted lace. Nothing was wasted, especially not time. But the sweetest parts of these stories are the loving family relationships they speak of and the thoughts and musings of the heroines. That’s why I love these stories and read them over and over again. These stories are all about things that I esteem to be of great worth.

I am in the midst of deciding which of my things are of greatest worth and therefore worth keeping. We recently moved. It was a downsizing type of move and I find myself with more things to put in my apartment than there is space for. It’s a struggle that the authors of my favorite books (Laura Ingalls Wilder, L. M. Montgomery, and Louisa May Alcott) along with their heroines (Laura, Anne, and Jo) would find highly amusing. To have so many clothes from which to choose they no longer fit into a single closet? Ha! So many pots and pans they can’t all go inside the kitchen cupboards? Absurd! To put it in modern terms they would all tell me: “These are first world problems.” And indeed they are.

Perhaps my favorite part of the downsizing has been the opportunity to go through the boxes of family history items and stories, plus my own journals and personal history items (namely photos). These things, like sweet cream, keep rising to the top of my list of things that are of greatest worth to me.

I came across a couple of treasures in my boxes. One item was a book written by my aunt, Shelly Ritthaler. It is actually a compilation of short columns that she wrote for a newspaper. The title of the column, and consequently the title of the book, is “The Ginger Jar.” Another book I read was written by my uncle, John Cassinat. It is a collection of the blog posts he wrote for the Sacramento Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He is the president of that stake, and in 2012 they had a stake-wide challenge to read the Book of Mormon that year. He wrote a weekly blog post of witty commentary on the assigned chapters for the week helping the saints in the area to liken the Book of Mormon to our day. After being struck by the literary talents of these two family members it inspired me to try my hand at writing as well. I will enjoy this project and it will help me keep a record of the things of greatest worth to me. I plan to feature stories from my family history or personal history.

Thus begins my search for the things of greatest worth in my life and my endeavor to write about them—like Laura Ingalls Wilder, L.M. Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, Aunt Shelly, and Uncle John have done so eloquently and movingly before me.