Smart Dog!

It’s high time for another monthly message from our legendary friend and former neighbor, Rowland Smart.  He wrote this one in August 1990, and asked me to type it on my computer.  (I’m sure the floppy disk is in our basement somewhere, but it’s easier to retype parts from the legal-size draft copy found in my “Smart Philosophy” file folder.  As usual, the only final print went to Brother Smart to copy for neighbors.)

"Rowly" titled it “Fanny, My Friend” and told some great stories about his sister Eva’s “old border collie”.  Fanny came into his life in 1937, after he returned home from “picking up potatoes and topping sugar beets” in Idaho.  “This little pup took to me right off, and we became real friends … she always wanted to be with me.  Fanny was black with white paws, white chest and a ring around her neck, and a white stripe down her face … born with the instinct to know just how and what to do in handling and driving the cattle.”

“In the year 1939, I was farming on shares for a man named Larson [82] … for half of what I raised.  Every day I would get on a horse named Browny and ride [~1 mile] down to his place to farm.  Every day Fanny went with me.  …  She went through fields hunting [pheasants] as I rode down the road on the horse.  …  Whenever I went anywhere in my truck, I always took her with me.  She sat next to me on the seat with her head out the side window … Just mention going somewhere in the car, and she knew it and was ready to go.”

“Sometimes I would walk or ride a horse up Mill Creek Canyon.  Then I’d go up Thaines [Thayne Canyon] or Porter Fork, over to the head of Neff’s Canyon to look at the cattle we had … between Mill Creek and Big Cottonwood Canyon.  We always took the three dogs with us.”

“When I went into the army in 1941, old Fanny my friend went with me to catch the bus to go to Fort Douglas.  Each time I came she was waiting there at the bus stop.  I was there for a couple of weeks before I was shipped to Fort Eustice [Eustis], Virginia.  When I came home four times on furloughs, she was waiting for me ... the day I was due to be home on leave she knew it for some reason …  Then when I got the whooping cough and nearly died when I was 34 years old, instead of me, it was she who died.  …  I still think about my old true friend Fanny.  I feel when I die and go to the other side, she will be there wagging her tail to greet me …  Good-bye Fanny, until we meet again in a better world where time never ends.”   – Rowland Smart

Kids’ Ideas for Summer

Last week Kay and I “sat” (what’s a better word?) some grandchildren, ages 2 to 15, while their parents vacationed in “The Big Apple”.  We had a fun family home evening (“… in the context of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, refers to one evening per week, usually Monday, that families are encouraged to spend together in study, prayer and other wholesome activities. ...” -- wikipedia.org).  I asked them, “What would you recommend your cousins and friends do this summer that would make one a better, happier person?”  I was prepared with a list of two dozen ideas written on my little Super-Target-shopping scratch pad, but shared only three to stimulate the brainstorm session. 

Here’s what the children suggested for their peers:

Porter: “Go fishing, go swimming, help everyone, and go to Hawaii.”

Emma: “Go to Lagoon, read daily, and attend church weekly -- even when away on vacation.”

Bryon: “Treat others kindly, pray for people needing help, and invite a friend to attend Mutual” (mid-week youth church activity night).

Alem: “Learn right from wrong, be kind, get permission, pray for the sick, and read the Book of Mormon.”

Grace: (Lots of ideas, but maybe too young to express them.)

Here are two of my ideas I shared: Organize a neighborhood free yard sale, and pull weeds -- consider it a metaphor for life.