Tuesday, June 17, 2025

personal history simplified

To start writing your history, here’s an option: keep it simple.  Just start writing randomly.  For example, I took a few minutes of siesta and wrote this imperfectly on my phone Notes to be edited later … when I feel like it.


Once I was a child.  I was born of goodly, loving parents with an older sister to help raise me.  Mother and Dad taught me and kindly disciplined me.  I was probably shy and selfish, so at age 3 my first word was “cookie”, because that’s what I wanted most.  My best memories of kindergarten in the basement of Lowell School are of nap time and playing store.  I started reading in first grade with Miss Nash, as I recall my teacher’s name.

I enjoyed my own neat bedroom on Second Avenue near downtown Salt Lake City, close enough to hear the trains on summer nights.  I don’t know which came first: my love of trains, or Grandfather Cannon taking me to the train station.  Real trains and model railroads became a love of my life.  Good music and books inspired me forever.

After my mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Argentina North, true love surpassed trains when I started dating my younger neighbor and U of U classmate, the charming Kay Hinckley.  Music Appreciation 101 was key.  So, the rest is history … gratefully with no end.

In 2024, putting off my own personal history, I published my wife’s biography, the extraordinary history of Kay Cannon.  I have a feeling she is pleased, as members of our eternal family are all amazed.

I like this scripture: (Jacob 6:12) “O be wise; what can I say more?”