Pauls early years

My Birth and Family Circumstances at that Particular Moment in my Life

I was born on December 6, of the year 1981. I was born in a hospital in the city of Payson. It was cold that early morning. My parents were so happy to see me they let me pee on the doctor. I few days later I moved to my new home in Springville. I was trained to wear those great comfortable cloth diapers. My parents had been living there for about a year before I moved in.

Ralph Poulsen was just called to be the bishop. He was the principle at Mapleton school. My dad had just bought his first package of bees. He was excited for that to come. He was called to be the ward clerk. My dad had begun to read Before and After Mt. Pisgah. This was a book written by my great grandfather, Clare Christensen.

That winter it snowed. It always snowed a lot down there, in Springville. It was because of the lake affect. In the last of December the weather was mild. The nights were cold, but there had been little snow or rain. My brother had just turned two years of age that August. He had yet to begun to lose his banana head.

In January of 1982, my dad had come home, and my older brother said to him, “daddy, daddy, I did it.” Mom had to tell what John just did. He wet in the toilet by himself. That was a great accomplishment for my older brother. On the 13th of January, a flight leaving Washington D.C. bound for Florida, crashed into the 14th Street Bridge. There was a lot of ice in the Potomac River. The plane sunk into the river. My great-grandmother Hanson was on that plane. My parents went to the east to see the funeral, I was tended by my Aunt Cindy. My father spoke at his grandmothers funeral. So did my father’s brother, my Uncle Duane.

My dad was working at Hjorth Brothers, a welding company. He wage was $ 6.75. One Saturday he was working at the Pacific States Cast Iron Pipe Company. He was working all alone. He thought he heard somebody yell. He was on the balcony looking down by the truck. He was laying on his stomach. My dad had thought he was looking at the truck. He actually had fallen from the roof. My dad ran down and saw blood by his head. Dad went to the guard house and called an ambulance.

John’s was two and a half. These were two of his favorite words. “Happy Do” and “Itsucky-MOM.” Fred Flintstone would say, Yabba Dabba Do. My mother would change John’s diaper and would say, “It is yucky, John.” He would reply back, “Itsucky-MOM.”