I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I am simply fed up with the community in general.  With all the crooked politicians in the world, it is no wonder that kids are killing kids and drugs are running rampant through the streets.  The way some parents teach their kids, it is also no wonder that America is losing faith in the sugar-hoarding delinquents who litter our neighborhoods with vulgarity and roller boarding.  I have to admit that I am losing faith in the future of this country, especially when this so-called future hides themselves behind long hair and apathy.

My husband Paul doesn’t agree with me though.  He always says, “Diane, if you don’t give kids a chance, then their fear of the elderly will only continue to grow stronger.”  There was a time when Paul would only talk about the new kids out of college and how smarter they are now then they were back in his day; and also how they should all be getting closer to inventing a Watchie Talkie.  A Watchie Talkie™ is a TV small enough to fit on your watch and is used to communicate with other Walkie Talkie owners at certain distances.  I don’t quite understand the obsession, but I know that the day he gets his Watchie Talkie is the day he will finally be happy.

Every time I ask where this TV watch idea came from, he always tells me to ask Kevin Stooler.  Kevin Stooler was Paul’s childhood idol.  He and his wife lived a few blocks down the street from Paul.  I have never met the man, but Paul swears that he could do the most amazing things.  For instance, Paul said that he was the creative mind behind some of the ideas for a few of the James Bond movie gadgets; he accidentally invented muffins; he had a prosthetic thumb that could be detached from his hand by simply pulling on it; he became a millionaire after he invented the oval toilet seat with the convenience gap in the front; and finally (and I don’t know if I believe this one) Paul swears up and down that on several occasions, he saw Mr. Stooler spread his arms and fly off of his bedroom window. 

Paul idolized Mr. Stooler all through Junior High and High School, until one day the local police came and arrested him for stealing the neighbor’s mail.  Paul said that when the authorities entered the Stooler home, they found a suitcase labeled “2015 Currency” full of approximately half a million black jelly beans as well as numerous toxic liquids simmering in Bunsen burners. 

Paul claimed that Mr. Stooler was the most fun adult he knew and that he didn’t understand why he needed to be taken away.  He repeatedly told his parents that Mr. Stooler was a generally happy person and he saw nothing wrong with his way of doing things.  However, during Mr. Stooler’s trial, Paul admitted to the judge that Mr. Stooler would make Paul talk into his watch whenever he spoke to him.  He also admitted that Mr. Stooler would take him to eat at Godfather’s Pizza and continually pressure him to try and eat his own weight in pizza.  Apparently back in those days, this behavior was enough to get a man 3 years in the county jail.  After the trial was over, the bailiff took Mr. Stooler back to his cell and that was the last time Paul ever saw him.

Sometimes when Paul talks about that great day when Watchie Talkies exit beta testing and become available to the public, I get caught in the futuristic fantasy of it all.  I once told Paul it would be great to get two of them so that I could talk to him whenever I wanted to.  He then became frustrated, almost to the point of yelling, and gave me a big lecture on how money doesn’t grow on trees and how I need to start paying better attention to the money I am wasting with my nonsensical purchases.  When I asked for an example of these ludicrous purchases I had been making, he promptly went to the cupboard and pulled out four Cream of Chicken soup cans and began telling me how four was way too much chicken cream and how three would have been just fine.  Rather than continue the argument, I decided to change the subject to what he wanted for dinner and we moved on.

I can’t wait for that day when this watch TV phone actually is available to purchase.  That would be some Father’s Day morning watching him come down the stairs in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes and smiling at the sight of his gifts under the Father’s Day lilac bush.  That will be a day of endless satisfaction, where the decades-long quest for a Watchie Talkie will end in complete success and all will be right with the world.

I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I can’t believe that we are already talking about electing another president.  It seems like the last time I was thinking about who to vote for, Nixon was still in diapers. 

My husband Paul likes to make a big deal about whom we choose to elect into office.  I always tell him that there are more important things to worry about, like:  why nobody refills the ice trays, why Angela Lansbury doesn’t seem to age, why there is no “I” in team (when the German word is spelled with one), and why Utah Lake continues to smell horrible and look polluted when Geneva is long gone.  He still says that one day the people in Utah will forget about the Heber Creeper incident and elect him governor.

The Heber Creeper incident was an unfortunate event that affected our family for years.  It is one of many experiences that I would like erased from my memory (if my husband ever perfects his current “memory erasing device,” which after 17 years is still in beta testing).

It was a chilly day for late October and yet our family decided to take a nice train ride on the Heber Creeper.  The kids were excited because they had never been on a train before and because Paul told them that if they were lucky, and if they wished hard enough, the train would actually fly.  I was a little perturbed after Paul outright lied to them, but eventually after much explaining, I was sort of able to convince myself that I saw where he was going with this.  I tried to figure out why Paul would come up with something so far fetched and the only thing I could think of was his watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang numerous times with the kids.

On the way up the canyon, the kids were excitedly telling each other where they wanted to fly.  I was beginning to get a little worried that the whole day might turn out to be a disappointment for us all.  Our oldest repeatedly told us that he was going to ask the engineer to fly us to the moon.  He then began asking Paul if he thought that the Heber Creeper could compete speed-wise with Neil Armstrong’s moon pod.  I chuckled a bit at the question, that is until Paul responded by saying that yes the Heber Creeper could in fact compete with the moon pod.  When I questioned his response, Paul said, “Diane, you’d be surprised at how fast our man-made locomotives can go.  Never underestimate the power of steam Diane…Never!”  The second time he said “Never,” he had one finger pointed towards my face and stared at me sternly in the eyes.  Just then, a raccoon darted out in front of us and Paul could do nothing to prevent hitting it with the car.  The younger kids were devastated and I felt sick to my stomach as I watched Paul use a screwdriver and an old flashlight from the trunk to clear most of it off of the road.

After the initial cleanup and the small prayer we said for the raccoon’s family, we finally made it to the train station.  Paul instantly began looking for the engineer while I took the kids to the bathroom.  When I came out, Paul was there laughing hysterically because he had found out that the engineer’s name was Casey Jenkins.  I didn’t understand why that was so funny, and Paul became a little irate over having to explain it.  He said, “Don’t you get it Diane?...Casey Junior, Casey Jenkins?...Don’t you see the irony?...C’mon Diane, you have about as much sense of humor as a screen door on a train!”  He then chuckled to himself and said, “Am I right Casey?”  But Casey had already boarded the train for pre-journey checks and we both stood there in the awkward silence our family has become so accustomed to.

When it was finally time to board the train, the kids were so excited they could hardly stand it.  Paul made sure that we all got a seat near the front of the train so that we could be the first ones to see our destination.  It was what he did next that absolutely ruined our outing (as well as all those on the train).  A few miles down the track as one of the Creeper employees was welcoming us, Paul stood up, pointed towards the back of the train and screamed, “THERE RIDES JESSE JAMES!!!…WE’RE GONNA BE ROBBED!!!”  A few of the older people seemed very worried, but the younger-looking passengers only struggled to see what Paul was pointing at.  I, of course, was embarrassed beyond belief and tried to decide if the track-rash from jumping from the train would be worse than awaiting the horror that surely lay ahead.

Just when I thought it couldn’t of gotten any worse, Paul blurted out, “Hold on kids!  We’re takin this train TO THE MOON!!!”  The kids were all smiles as was Paul as we gingerly glided along the tracks.  The all to familiar silence and stares began to burn holes in my ears and the back of my head.  Eventually. the only sounds heard were the steel wheels clicking rhythmically against the tracks.

Just then, something happened that never has happened in all my years of embarrassing outbursts and unexplainable behavior.  My silent prayer was answered.  A large water buffalo slowly made it’s way onto the tracks ahead of us and the engineer was forced to slam on the breaks.  The train squealed so loudly that I actually thought we were in danger of jumping the tracks.  Then, without warning, the train jumped off of the tracks and we all were violently flung forward.  When the train came to a stop in the dirt, Paul and I noticed that there were pieces of water buffalo all over the side of the first few cars.  When the kids asked what all the red chunks were, Paul trying to be gentle with his response told them that it was pieces of Jesse James and his horse “Tonto.”  He continued telling them that it was odd that Jesse would try and rob the train by running straight for it instead of attacking the train from the rear like he usually did.  Paul was then able to turn the horrible experience into a lesson about the consequences of stealing and playing near train tracks.  The kids were surprisingly happy that they were able to be there the day that Jesse James finally got his.

It took us an hour of walking along the tracks to get back to the parking lot.  While we were walking, Paul quietly told me that he was glad that we weren’t told to clean up the water buffalo carcass, because although he had his old flashlight with him, he had left the screwdriver in the car. 

Even though some of the passengers placed blame on Paul’s distracting outburst, the National Train Organization (NTO) blamed the accident solely on the animal.  However, some of the passengers were interviewed for the Tribune and most of them referenced Paul as the cause of the accident.  The Tribune wasn’t so much interested in the Heber Creeper accident as they were in the water buffalo sighting (as far as I understand, the only one discovered in North America to date).

Once we returned home, I asked Paul very sternly why he had caused such commotion on the train.  My anger decreased as he explained himself.  He said, “Diane, I was backed into a corner…after telling the kids that the train could fly, the only way I could think of to distract them from expecting this was to create a diversion.”  It was true, I hadn’t even thought about the train flying since he yelled that nonsense about Jesse James.  I realized then and there that although Paul sometimes seems out of control and irrational, his thoughts really are methodical and practically efficient…and that is why I love him.

I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I can’t believe that we are still arguing about whether the earth is getting warmer or whether it is getting colder.  I am a firm believer that the earth’s warmer cycle comes around every century because I remember my mother always saying how hot it was back in ought five and how the water from the well had a sort of buttery taste to it. 

Even if it is getting warmer and the future is looking dimmer, we should never let that change our way of life now; that would be very counter productive.  After all, I think that we can all use the advice penned by that lovable Michael Bolton song that states:  “We can build this thing together, standing strong forever, nothing’s gonna stop us now!”

On particularly hot days, my father always used to say, “If the sun gets any closer, we’re going to have to write a letter to the Governor.”  My father was a World War I veteran who had been through a lot and eventually became confused about what was real and what were strange scenarios he had made up in his mind.  Consequently, he began telling all of us kids that a small Japanese man living in the basement of the Governor’s mansion controlled the weather.  He continued to tell us that this man lived off of biscuits and Cheetos and whenever he ran out of sustenance, he would cause lightning and acid rain.  It wasn’t until my oldest brother took a Geology class during his first year of college that we found out about the atmosphere and clouds and such and stopped writing letters to Mr. Sakamoto.

My husband Paul is a lot like my father used to be, except for the fact that Paul has never been in a war and yet still truly believes some of the things that he makes up.  It got so bad one year that Paul actually began telling the kids that Hansel and Gretel lived in the field behind our house and if they didn’t get their homework done before dinner, they would come in during the night, steal their toys and cut off all of their hair while they slept.  Paul told the kids that story every night for over a year and eventually, as ludicrous as it sounds, he started to believe it was true.  What really caused Paul to start believing was when, during a friendly conversation, one of our neighbors told us that he had found bread crumbs while riding his horse Buttercup out in the field.

It got so bad that there were nights Paul slept with a baseball bat under both of our pillows.  Occasionally he would even wake up in the middle of the night claiming that he heard the pitter patter of little feet coming up the stairs.  It was usually our dog Mixie and luckily she only found herself on the receiving end of a few of Paul’s frightened blows.  He, thankfully, never did hurt any of the kids.

After a while, his sleepless nights began catching up with him.  He developed circles under his eyes and even began hallucinating both at work and home.  One night, while our family was watching the Partridge Family, Paul burst out screaming for no apparent reason.  The kids and I were frightened to death and had no idea what was wrong until Paul pointed towards the TV set and said, “That’s him…THAT’S HANSEL!”  When I turned to look at the TV, all I saw was Danny Bonaduce playing the bass and just assumed that he was hallucinating again.  What happened next is something that neither Paul, the kids nor I have ever talked about since.  Paul stood up, grabbed the broom and ran outside the front door.  He then proceeded to destroy ever lawn gnome, pink flamingo and yard decoration throughout the whole block.

After a few hours, one of the neighbors called and told me that they had found Paul asleep in their yard without a shirt on and gripping a stick sharpened at the end.  I was both embarrassed and relieved to find out that he was okay and that he hadn’t hurt himself or any children while he had been gone.

It took almost two whole days for him to be fully conscious again.  The doctor told me that Paul was lucky he didn’t do anymore damage to his body than he already had.  I stayed by his side the whole time he was unconscious and ran my fingers through his hair thinking about all the reasons that I loved him.  While he was asleep, he still seemed angry and restless and began mumbling things about pushing people in ovens; using candy canes to gouge out little eyes; learning to speak German; knitting scarves for John Wayne and other actors; and using chop sticks for crutches.

All in all, I think that our family learned a lot about taking care of ourselves through the Hansel and Gretel trial.  In fact, with all of the horrible and strange things that our family has already experienced, I would say that we should be some of the smartest people on the planet.  Paul never did stop telling “story problems” as he calls them.  In fact, just last week he told me that Liberace came back to life because he wanted to raid my closet.  Where does he come up with this stuff?!?

I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I think that parent's mistakes are rather funny in a way.  Parents are human and no matter how prepared and loving a parent you might be, mistakes can happen to anyone.

Speaking of mistakes reminds me of the time Paul (my husband) took our youngest son to the video store to rent some movies.  I told Paul to get some cartoons for the kids and to pick up a made-for-TV movie called, “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble,” starring John Travolta and Glynnis O’Connor for us to watch.  I repeated the name of the movie to him a couple of times because Paul forgets these things very easily.  I asked him if he was sure he would remember and he said, "Diane, I'm an engineer...we invented memories...in fact, I could even tell you how to spell the movie in binary!"  So off they went to pick up our movies.

When they arrived, our son went straight to the cartoon section while Paul searched for the aforementioned movie I had requested.  When he didn’t find it, he went to the counter and asked the boy working there if they had a movie called, "The Plastic Man in Bubbles."  The boy checked but could find no movie of that name listed in their directory.  Paul told them that they had to have it because it was new and the "grease lightning guy" was in it.  When the boy asked if he meant "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble," Paul started to get a little impatient and told him that he never forgets names of people or movies.  The boy then asked what it was about and who was in it.  Paul had never seen the movie, but didn't want to admit that at this point for some reason, so he said, "Well, besides Mr. Grease Lightning, it has Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson, and it’s about a man that builds plastic bridges…and realizes that the whole earth is really a bubble…so he has to escape before it pops…and that’s when he builds a plastic escape pod thingy…and then he lives on the moon.”  The boy had no idea what movie that was and apologized for not being able to help.  Paul then said, rather loudly,  “that’s okay, we’ll just have to go see if the other video store has it,” hoping that that would spark feelings of embarrassment and humiliation in the hearts of the employees.

When Paul and my son arrived home later that night, I asked if he had found it okay.  He then proceeded to tell me what had happened.  I chuckled a little at the story, but then asked what he had rented.  He reached into the video store bag and pulled out a collection of Smurf cartoons, and a How-to video on building model bridges.  He said that it was the closest thing that they had to what he had asked for.  The ironic thing about this whole story is that there was a mix-up at the video store and inside the Smurf video case was a documentary about the Iwo Jima invasion.  We had sent the kids downstairs to watch their video while we watched ours and had no idea, until our youngest came up from downstairs and told us that his sister had thrown up on the couch.  When I went down to clean it up, I found that the documentary was on, my daughter was crying, and the two oldest were playing “guns” with two broken broom handles.

Paul spent the rest of the night explaining death and war to our children.  It was a long lecture that included some things that I thought were a little over their heads (i.e. complex combat maneuvers, artillery rounds, right and left flanks, menopause, ghosts, and Winston Churchill).  It was a lecture and memory that will stay with me forever I am sure.  Paul did apologize eventually for forgetting the name of the movie.  His intentions are always excellent, but…well, you know, I guess that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I think that this announcement is stupendous!  Whenever I am out and about running errands, I always find myself wishing there was a strip mall closer to Alpine.  My mother always used to say, “Where there’s a Mall, there’s a way…to get the latest fashions.”  She was always good at turning cliché’s and popular sayings into something creative of her own.  She even tried to copyright the phrases, “Everyone needs a shoulder to spy on…that’s why we all love to gossip” and “All’s well that bends well…so stretch before early morning exercise.”

Before he retired, my husband Paul worked as a structural engineer and has plenty of experience with commercial development.  He even had a small part in designing Thanksgiving Point.  He says that putting the Thanksgiving Point sign on the water tower was solely his idea.  He always tells people, “They wanted to put real water in that thing, but I told them that it would never work because in the case of a natural disaster there would be hoards of people swarming around Lehi for a chance to get a free drink.” 

Ever since our kids took us to see that “War of the Worlds” movie, Paul has been saying that we need to build a bunker in the backyard just in case anything terrible were to happen.  He even bought a new shovel and started digging a couple of weeks ago, but soon became tired of digging and decided instead that we would bury a time capsule.  I was excited about that idea until he told me that he wanted to dig it back up in one month.  He was adamant about it and so I put a tablecloth and an old Better Homes and Gardens magazine in it while Paul contributed a spare house key, a picture of himself, and his old 2002 Winter Olympics T-shirt.  He even wanted to put the shovel in it too, but I then asked him what we would use to dig it up and he was silent and then started laughing hysterically and pointing at me, going on about how I was so gullible and that he should just bury me in the time capsule.  As soon as he said that he stopped laughing, had a serious look on his face, and said, “Wait a minute…if we had a tube for air and enough food and water….”  He then started thinking out loud and talking to himself like he was being interviewed or something, saying, “…the first woman to ever be in a time capsule…that’s right folks… step right up…it was my idea…”  and then he started making noises and saying some other weird stuff like, “Grape nuts?  No I shouldn’t…I’ve got a time capsule to look after…you want to be in the time capsule?...only 5 bucks.” 

The day that we were to open the time capsule, Paul was as excited as a child on Christmas.  He called the kids to see if they wanted to come over and help dig it up, but they all had plans already.  So I spent the afternoon hauling earth in a wheelbarrow while Paul kept joyfully digging.  The longer he dug, the more excited he became which in turn made him dig faster.  While he was digging he said, “Diane, we’re almost there…it won’t be too much longer now.”  Finally he hit the wooden box with the tip of his shovel and started screaming, “We found it!  We found it!!!”  He made so much racket that two of our neighbors came over to see if we were okay.  When I told them what we were doing, they opted to stay and witness the historic event.  When Paul hoisted the wooden box out of the hole, one of our neighbors grabbed his crowbar and they both cracked it open.  We all gazed at the box and the items that Paul began pulling out of it.  The Better Homes and Gardens magazine was the first to come out followed by the rest of the items.  The neighbors soon lost interest and went home, but Paul and I stayed and gazed at the phenomenal condition everything was in.

Paul decided that we needed to make some sort of Rudding time capsule tradition, so we decided to bury a new one on the first of every month.  So we are looking forward to next Wednesday (February 1^st) when we bury our next one.  Paul even has an old pair of pants and a few other items picked out.  The day we dug up our first time capsule, Paul said, “Diane, it’s funny how the world doesn’t realize that going without things for a while can really give you a new way to look at things as well as a new perspective on looking at things…not to mention the wonderful world that lurks beneath the earth’s crusty soil.”  When he says things like that, I’m not sure there is a deeper thinker than my Paul.

I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I can’t believe what uproar someone’s actions two hundred years ago are causing.  Shouldn’t we be trying to use our efforts towards that which applies to this day and age, namely: How to maintain peace throughout the globe; how to stop our kids and grandkids from becoming morbidly obese; how to control the pet population; how to prevent the spread of infectious germs; how to prevent unbecoming deformities brought on by osteoarthritis; and how to invent a safer, longer-lasting jet pack?

My mother was an enthusiastic supporter of anyone trying to create a better world for mankind.  She always used to say, “Diane, if everyone was willing to lend a helping hand, there would be a lot of one-handed jugglers in this world,” which was a lighthearted quip that I took to mean, if we would all help each other, then our lives would seem more manageable. 

For some reason, she would always recite this phrase at the dinner table, which drove my husband Paul absolutely bonkers.  He would always respond with, “Hey Meredith (which was my mother’s name), if everyone gave a helping hand, then we’d have to use our feet to clap at the symphony and at other such performances; which means that we’d all have to be barefoot, and I can guarantee you that no one on earth wants to see those two muddy, crackly, warted-up flaps you use as feet!”  This comment was always followed by my mother trying not to cry and me desperately trying to steer the conversation in any other direction.

Paul never was one to go out of his way to help strangers.  He always said that he would be a hypocrite if we continued to tell our children not to talk to strangers and then turned right around and started a conversation with a new neighbor.

One of our longtime neighbors did finally figure out how to get Paul to help in the community.  He discovered that instead of asking Paul to help a new neighbor move in, he would tell Paul that there was a friendly strength competition starting up down at the house with the moving truck in front of it.  Paul would always jump at the chance to be involved in any competition (or to gamble), so I was glad when this particular neighbor got him to help.  I would chuckle to myself whenever I watched Paul from the window trying to carry a whole bedroom set by himself. 

I have never seen anyone sweatier than when Paul came home from helping our new neighbors move in that day.  He was covered in dirt and had small cuts and bruises on his arms and hands, but also with one of the biggest smiles I have ever seen on anyone.  He then said, “Diane, I won the strength competition and the bet, so now you and I are going out for cheeseburgers and milkshakes tonight!” 

I was happy that Paul had made new friends and had helped so willingly.  However, not long after that night, another family moved in down the street and once Paul saw the moving truck he took off running in its direction.  On the way, he hollered at the other neighbors to come out because, as he put it, it was “double or nothing and ‘Captain Ryder’ (which is what he called himself) is hungry for a queen-sized win!”

I thought it was nice that the other neighbors played along, but I was astonished to find out that they were just as competitive as Paul was.  The even made moving games out of existing kid games, such as:  “Marco Polo Shirts,” “The Hammer and Tool Set Throw,” “Kick the Cannondale,” “Murder in the Move” (which apparently was a little like the board game Clue); “Find 26” (which was a simple game crowning the first person to find 26 cents in the furniture); and “Steal the Chips” (which made one family get so upset that they decided to move everything else themselves and sent everyone home early; I still think that their house smells like salt and vinegar).   

I am glad that Paul is so competitive, although at times it can sure be a nuisance.  Paul is a lot older now, and not a lot of people in our neighborhood know us very well.  Every once in a while I still catch him chasing moving trucks down the neighborhood and hollering at the neighbors.  This usually just causes the dogs to bark louder and the smaller children to run inside their houses.     

It has been years since he and I sat down and played a board game together.  I wouldn’t mind playing games again, but Paul has refused ever since the unfortunate “B & O Railroad” incident.  However, that is a whole other story, and I hardly have the time to get into that now.

I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I, like my mother before me, am a dietaholic.  Being thin is almost like the medal you get to show people how hard of a worker you are.  My husband Paul has a room full of medals and football trophies and I always tell him that my trophy room is inside a button-down shirt and some polyester slacks. HA!

My mother was a very thin woman who loved to talk about the importance of exercise to anyone she met.  She would always tell us kids to run to and from school, because walking wouldn’t burn as much fat.  She wouldn’t even let us back in the house unless she could see perspiration glistening on our foreheads. 

My mother was also a mean woman for the majority of her life, but she was a thin mean woman and she said that that was all that mattered in the long run.  I remember her saying to me, “Diane, you should always make it a goal to be thin and beautiful because that is how you want to be remembered.  You don’t want your fellow students looking at their yearbooks fifty years from now and remembering you as the girl whose butt looked like two oxen walking side by side…do you?”  Of course I didn’t and have been exercising regularly ever since.

My husband Paul, however, does not view health and exercise the same way my mother did.  Whenever I suggest that we exercise together, he always says, “If God intended for man to exercise, he wouldn’t have created things like Hot Dog on a Stick, King Sized Candy Bars and As the World Turns!”  Paul at one time was a big fan of soap operas because he was certain that at some point one of them would show what a baby from an incestuous relationship looked like.

Paul’s hatred for exercising almost completely went away after an unfortunate incident with a nail gun and a deer that had somehow gotten into our backyard.  Needless to say, we had to visit the emergency room where it was determined that Paul was in need of Tetanus and Rabies shots.  I first realized something was really wrong when on the way to the hospital, Paul began screaming at me to go faster because it was supposed to be a full moon that night and he didn’t know how long he had until he would change into a metal animal. 

The trauma of the incident, coupled with the wounds Paul had received, became too much for him and he began hyperventilating and foaming at the nose.  His panicking eventually progressed until he ended up fighting the nurses and doctors because he thought they were going to try and put him down.  The only way I could think of to calm him down was to run my fingers through his hair and rub his ears.  However, this caused him to have a twitch in his leg and he ended up breaking an incubator, which took us years to pay off.  Once Paul came home and got some much needed rest, he was back to his normal self.

A few days later, however, we noticed that he was getting some sort of an allergic reaction to the shots he was given.  The doctors ran some tests and drew some blood and told us that it wouldn’t take long and would most likely need some antibiotics to clear up the infection.  It took almost five hours until they finally came back with puzzled looks on their faces.  Paul and I instantly became worried that there might be something seriously wrong with Paul’s health.  One doctor began asking Paul strange questions like: Where were you born?; Have you ever been to Tanzania?; Have you ever worked near strong chemicals?; Were you ever tortured by the Chinese government?; Do you consume large amounts of Doritos chips? (I think they asked that because he did kind of smell like Doritos that night); Have you ever met Charlie Sheen?; and have you ever dated anyone from Peru? 

We were both confused as to why so many questions and it wasn’t long before we demanded answers.  Our doctor looked at the other doctors as if to get approval to tell us what was wrong.  He then turned back towards us and said, “It appears Mr. Rudding that your blood type is not A+ as your records would suggest.  The tests we ran conclude that your blood type, classified as “Type F” blood, has only been found twice before.  The only other humans that have ever had this blood type were a fourteen year old boy that was raised by wolves in Africa and a man working as a Machu Picchu tour guide.”

The doctors explained that they would like Paul to allow them to run more tests.  Instead of being discouraged, Paul was ecstatic and loved the idea of telling people about his uniqueness.  He even changed his vanity plates from “A+” to simply “F.”  That only lasted for a few weeks after Paul endured a lot of razzing at work about how his plates now looked like his grades did in High School.  Paul was so upset at his fellow employees that he went back to the DMV and tried to change the plates to read, “A+ ALL THROUGH SCHOOL AND I CAN PROVE IT!”  Of course the lady at the DMV told Paul that there simply wasn’t enough room on the plate and that he was restricted to eight characters only.  Paul then demanded that the DMV use a smaller font and when Paul became loud and unruly, he was finally kicked out.  A few weeks later we received the new plate in the mail, which read, “A+ ALL T.”

I am so glad Paul is unique.  If he weren’t, then I wouldn’t know how to entertain myself sometimes.  I guess I would have to start watching soap operas again.

I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I too am tired of this battle between legal and illegal immigrants.  The last time I checked, the word “illegal” was synonymous with the word “wrong.”  However, I would not call myself an educated woman and therefore am not qualified to tell our government what to do.

My husband Paul IS an educated man and often does tell our government officials how they should do their jobs, which has gotten him in many an argument and almost a night in jail once.  These close calls have only encouraged him to work harder at getting his voice heard.  Just the other day he said to me, “Diane, if the government chickens would stop searching for the best seeds and cheeses, they would see that the farmer has already spread the delicious chicken seed on the ground for them.”  Paul always likes to use metaphors when he is trying to get his point across.  He says that it paints a picture more colorful than a straightforward black and white finger painting would.

Paul has never been one to complain about immigration, whether it be legal or not.  He absolutely loves the foreigners that he encounters, and aside from a teenager named Chester from Papua New Guinea, he has enjoyed speaking to everyone he has met.  The incident with this Chester fellow was an unfortunate occurrence that took place while Paul was working one summer for Hot Dog on a Stick.  He and Chester worked almost everyday together and at first it seemed like they would get along fine.

The problem started when Chester began telling Paul about his home country.  He spent most of the afternoons telling Paul how beautiful it was there; how there wasn’t any income tax; how the people loved to water-ski; how dolphins would often become beached on the sandy shores; how Farrah Fawcett was from there (which we still think to this day is a lie); how the hot dogs there tasted so much better than American hot dogs; and how cranberries were invented there.

Even though Chester was a little annoying and talked way too much about his homeland, Paul was able to suppress his anger enough to fulfill his duties at work in a timely manner.  It wasn’t until a few months later that Paul realized that he genuinely disliked Chester and somehow needed to find a way to make enough money to send he and his family back to their home. 

One day during his lunch break, while Paul was eating his hot dog on a stick, Chester came in and noticed that Paul had bitten into the stick holding the hot dog.  He told Paul to be careful because it looked like he had bitten off a piece of the stick.  Paul told him that he didn’t mind and that he usually ate the stick because it tasted like a wooden tree and that he likes the taste of wood and trees.  This started an argument between the two about trees and wood and what was edible and what wasn’t.  Paul claimed it was the same as eating the cone after the ice cream was gone, but Chester wouldn’t have it.  The argument went on for quite awhile and ended with Chester calling Paul “tree eater” in New Guinese and Paul threatening to eat all the wood from Chester’s house.

The following weeks were mildly unpleasant, as Paul and Chester refused to talk to each other.  It was evident that their anger was festering inside, because the customers began complaining to their manager about the downgrade in service and cornmeal consistency.

A few weeks later, Paul had what he calls the most disgustingly wonderful idea he had ever had at that point in his idea career.  The day he received his next paycheck, he went straight to the pet store and bought as many guinea pigs as his check would buy (which was 21).  That night before Chester closed up the store, Paul placed all 21 guinea pigs inside his car and left a note on the window that said, “I thought that these would make you feel more at home.”

Paul was pleased with himself and began thinking that his little prank had ended their conflicts.  That is, until the next morning when he showed up for work and saw how Chester had retaliated.  He put up a new sign that read, “Try Our New Special…the 2x4 deluxe!” and under the sign was a picture of Paul eating a few hot dog sticks with mustard on them.  Paul was obviously unaware that the picture was ever taken and immediately ripped it down.

It didn’t take long for both Paul and Chester to get fired from their jobs.  In fact, Paul never saw Chester again until one day they ran into each other at Chevron in Santa Monica.  Paul said he wasn’t going to say anything until he heard Chester ask the clerk if they were all out of “tree snacks.”  Paul was beginning to panic because he couldn’t think of any way to get him back.  He knew he had to act fast because Chester was going to pay for his gas and leave, so he did the only thing that he could think of at that exact moment.  He walked over to the front counter where Chester was standing, put his arms straight up in the air, and yelled, “DON’T SHOOT...HE’S GOT A GUN!”  Everyone in the Chevron instantly put their hands up as well.  Paul then slowly backed his way to the door, turned around, got in his car and went home.

The next day there was a little blurb about the incident in the police blotter, but nothing major happened.  The article categorized it as a slight misunderstanding and Chester was let go.

Whenever there is talk of foreigners or illegal immigrants on the news now, Paul retells his story about how he now tolerates “foreign Americans.”  Just the other day he said, “Diane, America is really our precious treasure…and we are the ones in charge of finding a chest, making sure the treasure sparkles and burying it when needed.”  I thought that it was a beautiful metaphor, which detailed our situation today perfectly.  That is why Paul is on the phone right now trying to get through to the Governor.

I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and this Val Sharpton character doesn’t seem to understand that the world is trying to recover from the ailing wounds that racism caused to our country.  Now, I am an elderly woman and have seen the effects of racism and egoism in families and in the community.  What we need is to teach the young children that racism is wrong and hopefully if enough parents grab a hold of this way of thinking, it will become extinct entirely.

My husband Paul has met a number of local and national celebrities simply because he is always having his “nifty epiphanies” (as he calls them) and says that the world deserves to be privy to his brain.  For the most part, the celebrities have been nice.  However, there were occasions when some celebrities didn’t appreciate Paul’s ideas, and that was when I knew it was time to take the kids to my sisters for the weekend. 

The police even came to our house once after Paul somehow got a hold of Marie Osmond’s telephone number and called her repeatedly to tell her how he thought her songs would be more effective in a different key and accompanied by a tenor flute.  The police were nice about the whole thing and Marie said she wouldn’t press charges if Paul stopped phoning. 

The best experience we ever had with a celebrity occurred when our youngest son came down with a head cold and missed two days of school.  I wasn’t too worried about the cold, but somehow Paul found a way to blame it on the school cafeteria food and our son’s teachers incessant need to always have spelling tests.  Paul said, “Diane, this constant spelling mixed with the “trough slop” (as he called it) that they feed the kids…I’m surprised all our kids aren’t vomiting letters!”

It took me a while to calm Paul down enough so that he began thinking rationally.  A few minutes later, however, he came to me and said, “Somebody has to do something about this…I’m not going to watch my children die of malnutrition and over-spellinization.”  I told him that I didn’t think that “spellinization” was a word, but he told me that it was and to prove it, he was willing to call Webster, his real parents, and the people that played his parents on TV and ask them.  I didn’t feel like arguing anymore and didn’t want the police at our house again, so I decided to concede.

That night at the dinner table, Paul announced that he had been in his thinking shed all afternoon and had come up with an idea to get the word out to teachers and students that the school system needed to be changed.  He said that he had taken it upon himself to inform everyone and that he decided to ask for the assistance of whom he said was one of the greatest word-users of all time…Dick Norse. 

Dick Norse, at the time, was a fairly new anchorman for channel five and Paul liked watching him because he said he liked getting his news from someone who looked like they could play nose guard for the Redskins.  I asked Paul how he planned on getting Dick Norse to help him and Paul just smiled an evil-looking smile, rubbed his hands together, and stared at the wall.

To make a long story a little longer, Paul wrote Dick Norse a letter explaining our son’s sickness and how it would mean a lot to him if his favorite anchorman could come and visit him while he lay void of energy in his bed.  It took a few weeks, but Dick Norse’s secretary did call us and ask if our son was still sick and if we would still like Mr. Norse to visit. 

The night that he was scheduled to arrive, Paul explained that we were all to be on our best behavior and that all bathrooms were to be cleaned thoroughly.  Even though our son had since recovered from his illness, Paul instructed him to stay in bed so that Dick Norse would see how badly we were all affected by the school food and the spelling tests. 

When he finally arrived, Paul opened the door and nervously said, “Welcome Mr. Dick Norse to our home.”  Mr. Norse smiled and said, “Please, call me Richard…I hear you have a sick son?”  Paul invited him in and asked if he would like any baklava.  Richard declined, which was good because I knew we didn’t have, nor have I ever known how to make baklava.  When Paul gets nervous, he tends to talk a lot and this night was no different.  Paul went on and on about the size of his head after birth, how he always gets lost in the mall, how he hates Wednesdays because they always seem the longest, how he stopped being a Barbara Streisand fan because she always insisted on changing her hairdo, how it was strange that the Americans always hate the Nation of Greece during the Summer Olympics, how he once ate a whole bag of Doritos in one sitting, and he ended on how fun bathrooms can be to clean if we just make it into a game.

Richard seemed a little confused and uncomfortable and so I decided that it was time for him to meet our son.  When we all entered the room, our son became very excited because he thought that Richard was Mickey Rooney.  Richard was even more confused, but Paul explained that his sickness made him a little delirious.  After chatting with our son for a few minutes, Richard told us that he better return home to his wife or she’ll be thinking that he has a girlfriend.  We thanked him for coming by and he handed our son a signed picture of himself.  That picture was framed and still hangs in our house to this day.

With all the excitement that went along with playing host to a celebrity, Paul forgot to even mention the school cafeteria food and the spelling tests.  When I mentioned his forgetfulness, he just sighed and said, “Diane, we’re finally climbing up the social ladder…and no amount of trough slop or spellinization can stop us!”  I guess that’s what I love about Paul…he always is looking at the bigger picture…and in this case, the biggest picture was a signed headshot of Richard Norse.

I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I am glad that young men these days are looking towards God to guide their difficult paths.  As we all know, the world just continues to get exceedingly more grim and evil.  My husband always says, “If I had the whole world in my hand…then, I’d have to wash my hand.”  I think that is something we all would agree with.

My husband Paul has always been a “prayerful” man who loves to talk about things that most likely no one but God would know (i.e. Why the sky is blue, why we have to pay taxes, how Angela Lansbury doesn’t seem to age, how people with no arms can drive using only their feet, what the deal is with midgets and how they came about, why Canada doesn’t just give up and become part of the USA, why Pringles come in a canister and not in a bag like all the other chips, why no one has invented the flying car yet, and why the Chinese talk louder and faster than everyone else.

Paul continually surprises me with his ideas on how he thinks that he can score more bricks for his “cloud mansion” as he calls it.  In fact, one year I remember him waking up saying that he had had a dream that could change our lives for the better.  He said that in his dream he had met a man named “Centauri” and that this man knew the secret recipe for a potion that would make one invisible.  Paul said, “I know it sounds preposterous, but thinking about it now, I think that there is a chance it could work.”  I told him that he sounded like he was going crazy, but he just looked at me with a weird smirk on his face and said, “That’s exactly what Centauri told me you’d say.” 

After Paul explained the recipe to me in great detail, I decided that it wouldn’t hurt anything for Paul to try it out in his spare time.  After all, he did minor in Chemistry in college and has had dreams with people telling him to do things before.

The next day Paul went to the hardware store and bought a brand new wheelbarrow and some tools to mix everything with.  The next step was to acquire all the ingredients for the potion.  Most of the ingredients were simple cleaning products mixed with steak sauces and melted grape jolly ranchers.  Paul wouldn’t tell me what the most important secret ingredient was, but I did find out later that Paul had acquired it by trading some spare pinball machine parts to a couple of Libyans.

Finally the day came when Paul announced to the family that he had successfully completed the potion and that it was ready to be tested.  The kids were ecstatic and began fighting for the chance to be the first to try it out.  Paul explained to them that he would be the first to try it out and that if they didn’t stop fighting, he would pour some of the potion on all of their toys.

We all marched out into the backyard to watch Paul become invisible.  He told me to have the phone ready to call 911 if the potion somehow changed him into an animal instead of make him disappear.  The kids all gathered around the wheelbarrow and watched as Paul slowly placed his hand inside the potion.  As I got closer to the wheelbarrow full of potion, I noticed that it had a dark grayish color and smelled like a cross between pancakes and kitty litter. 

Paul’s face was beaming with excitement.  The kids were hanging on Paul’s every move.  Finally, it was time to take his hand out and show his invisibilities.  Paul counted down from three, yanked his hand out of the potion and held it up to the sky.  We all were a little confused when we all were still able to see Paul’s hand.  However, no one looked as confused and disappointed as Paul did.  He began making excuses about how he didn’t let the grape jolly ranchers melt all the way, and how he might have put too much “A1” in it.  His confusion quickly became anger and we all watched as he loudly and repeatedly cursed the Libyans, Centauri, the new wheelbarrow, Canada, his hand, Navajos, the Disney channel and the potion.  Paul’s cursing eventually brought the youngest kids to tears and I decided to take them back inside and try to calm and distract them.

The rest of the month was hard on our family.  Paul spent the next few weeknights in his shed trying to calculate what went wrong.  There was no consoling him; he just continued calling himself a failure and a good-for-nothing. 

Just when I thought the family couldn’t be more unhappy, the most amazing thing happened.  Paul went out to the shed one morning to find a pair of gloves and he noticed that the wheelbarrow was gone.  He was so excited that he ran inside and screamed, “It works and I’m a GENIOUS!”  Paul insisted that the potion inside the wheelbarrow had caused it to disappear.  I was astounded, as was the whole family, and Paul immediately began calling government officials, the Ed Sullivan show, Geneva Steel and all of his ex girlfriends from High School.

A few days later, our neighbor came by and dropped off the wheelbarrow that Paul said he could borrow two weeks prior.  Paul was crushed and so embarrassed that he took the wheelbarrow out back by the woodpile and beat it with a rake until both the rake and wheelbarrow were destroyed.  To make matters worse, a few weeks later Paul’s hand began to ache and the skin began to crack and bleed.  The doctor said, “It’s a good thing you came in today because had this gone untreated much longer, we would have had to amputate it.”  That is when Paul came up with the following saying, which he has quoted for the last 25 years:  “If I could make irony disappear, then THAT would be ironic!”

I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I am saddened by this news.  Just when I thought that we were finally winning the war on drugs, I find out that prescription drugs are being abused as well.  Whatever happened to the days where people would deal with pain by simply screaming or biting down on a piece of wood?  Nancy Reagan is probably turning in her grave at the thought of more and more people deciding to just say, “Yes.”

All of that being said, the Rudding family has also experienced the trials and horrors of drug abuse.  My husband Paul’s uncle bought some “anti-aging” pills from a traveling salesman one summer, which later we found out were women’s hormonal supplements.  Tragically, when he found out what the pills really were, he was too addicted to give them up.  He became more and more recluse, only leaving his house at night to hang around dirty bars and dark alleys.  He grew his hair out long and began wearing strange-looking clothing.  Things changed for him one day when he met the love of his life and decided to change his ways and clean himself up.  Last we heard he became a model for Sears, Roebuck and Company and never had any children.  We were able to see a few of his pictures and Paul said he looked like Diane Keaton with a five ‘o clock shadow.

I wish that Paul’s uncle were the only person in the Rudding family who had issues with drugs.  Sadly, our oldest son also was unable to eliminate drugs from his adolescence.  I started noticing a difference in his attitude and energy level right off the bat, but I quickly dismissed it as being his incessant need to consume large amounts of Hostess products for breakfast. 

The day I realized that our son had a problem is one of the happiest and saddest days I’ve ever had as a mother.  Apparently, on the way home from school one day our son witnessed a dog get hit and pinned under the wheel of a car.  Our oldest son has always been particularly sensitive when it comes to the well being of animals and watching this dog get struck by a car really cut into the core of his soul.  Once the driver screeched to a halt, our son noticed the dog’s leg pinned under the wheel.  Without a thought to his or anyone else’s safety, he ran out into the street and grabbed the undercarriage on the passenger side of the car.  With all of his might, he slowly lifted one side of the car off of the ground.  Our son later told me that as he was lifting, he looked into the dog’s eyes and saw the pain and fear and could feel himself getting stronger.   Somehow, he was able to lift the car up onto its side.  The driver was a fairly obese lady, so the force of her own body against the door consequently broke her arm in two places.  Some bystanders called the police and they eventually arrived to assist the woman and to fill out an accident report. 

After the policeman escorted my son home and explained what happened, I couldn’t believe that a ten-year-old boy could be strong enough to lift a car.  The story eventually got to the newspapers and we had reporters at our door for almost a week straight!  The front page headline read, “SUPERBOY SAVES DOG, HURTS WOMAN IN PROCESS.”  We were so proud of our son, and Paul even said that we could make a lot of money if we could somehow get our son to perform in some sort of a strength show.

One of the reporters suggested we take our son to a doctor that specializes in human abnormalities, just in case they could find out what it was that enabled him to have this type of strength.  Paul thought that it was a good idea, because he said that if it was his blood, then we could sell it to the Red Cross for a “boat-load of cash.” 

However, it was in the doctor’s office that our son confessed to spending his allowance on the “Flintstones Vitamins for Kids” and that he had been taking up to five or six a day for the past six months.  He also said that he only really liked the purple ones and that he would sell the rest of the other colors to the kids at school.  Scientists later determined that it was a combination of the purple Flintstones vitamins and Hostess products that produced our son’s super human strength. 

Needless to say, we weaned our son off of the vitamins and Hostess cakes and he now lives a very normal and clean life in Memphis Tennessee.  He does say that every once in a while he has a craving for the vitamins and cakes, but always says that that sort of strength should be left for super heroes.  

Ironically, the dog that was hit by the car was a stray and managed to follow our son and the policeman to our house.  Our son named him “Fred,” but Paul and I would only allow him to keep it if he promised to get clean.  A few weeks later, as Paul was getting a midnight snack, he accidentally stepped on Fred’s injured leg and Fred bit Paul in the ankle.  The next day Paul claimed that he might have rabies because he felt like he was going to foam at the mouth and so I took him to the doctor. 

Paul demanded that the doctor take a sample of what Paul claimed was his foam so that the scientists could analyze it.  Paul did receive rabies shots just as a precaution, but the truth came out once the results came back from the lab.  The doctor told me that Paul’s foam was merely a combination of Sprite and Tums and that it appeared that Paul could be addicted.  Paul denied having a dependency on Tums and I believed him…until I got home and checked in the medicine cabinet where I found three opened bottles of Tums…each bottle without ANY red ones!

I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I can’t believe that they are thinking of changing the name of our dear Utah Valley State College!  If the school will change to a University, then why not just add “University” to the end of it?  I think that UVSCU has a nice ring to it and would look so nice on a sweatshirt.

My husband Paul has always taken offense when he comes across names that he deems idiotic or unflattering.  Sometimes he will even go into stores and try to convince the managers and owners that if they change the name of their store, people will give in to their own curiosity and come take a better look at what they offer.  In fact, we were kicked out of the old KMART in American Fork because the manager didn’t want to hear any more of Paul’s ideas.

Paul doesn’t only get aggravated by the names of stores and businesses; he also gets upset whenever we meet people with ordinary names that don’t attract attention.  When the Brady’s down the street were pregnant, Paul was continually warned not to suggest anymore baby names.  It even got so bad that one night he had to be escorted out of their yard.  While being escorted, he still continued screaming a barrage of what I thought were alien-sounding names.

When I found out that I was pregnant with our fourth (and last) child, I instantly began worrying about the horrific names that Paul would want to give the baby.  I had always wanted to name one of our kids after my grandparents, and so I planned on “Boris” (if it was a boy) and “Esmeralda” (if it was a girl).  However, Paul said that those names sounded like we lived in New York City and were friends with Al Capone.  I didn’t really understand what he meant, but I figured that he wouldn’t like my suggestions anyway.

When I told Paul that I was pregnant, his face lit up like a bright light and he began telling me that he had already thought of the perfect name for it.  I didn’t want to argue with him on that particular night and so I told him not to tell me what it was until I was in labor.