It's hard to realize that it really is so late in the year.  With all that's happened, I feel I've lost a bit of the summer.  Oh well,  enjoy what you have, I guess.  Since my last writing,  Kjell went in and had an operation on a hernia that was giving him problems.  He's recovering nicely.  My brother Tom was having some "tightening in the chest" when he exerted too much energy, so to be on the safe side, he checked with the doctor (Tom had had heart problems before, and had gone through bypass surgery and had a stindt put in on another occasion so he was a bit worried about it). They took some pictures of his heart and then decided they needed to do an Angiograhm ( my spelling of these medical words is probably all messed up).  During that process, they found that they needed to put in two more stindts, and so they did this while he was already on the table.  I was amazed at how fast they did everything. They kept Tom in the hospital overnight and released him the next evening.  He's home now and recovering nicely. The doctor said that his heart was in great shape and that it should not limit his activities at all and that he should expect to live as long as any other person his age who had an average heart. Great news.
Annette continues to get better.  She has a physical therapist helping her because of the accident, and she thinks that she's in better shape now than before the crash. She still is on oxygen, however, so I'm not so sure. There is no doubt that she is improving, though.  Everything else is going well.  We are expecting two new grandchildren by the end of the year.  Most things seem to be going well for the kids as well as for us.  The Lord is good to us.  I can hardly wait for Andrew to be back among us, although I know he's loving his mission and doing well there. I can see his maturing and growing via his letters, and I just want to see him again.  Well, it's late and I better get to bed.  May the Lord bless and be with you.
Sooner,  Badger Bil

So much has happened since I wrote in this blog that I'm not quite sure where to start. My sweet wife had planned for us to go up to the Idaho Falls temple to help her family do a big bunch of work for their progenitors who had been having their genealogy done for them.  They had requested help to perform the needed work on their behalf and we were more than happy to help.  Also, we had missed several of the yearly family reunions for her family and we looked forward to the social fun we could have.  One more thing that we were eager to see, was how hard this would be for my wife to make this big of a trip.  Its been a long time since her health has let her go very far from home, and she thought that this would be a good test to see if she could stand up to the rigors of an even longer trip that she had pretty well committed us to by going to San Jose, California to another family reunion they were holding there.  All in all, we had some big plans for June and they could be a lot of fun.

The day came for the Idaho trip and of all of the family down here in Utah that had planned to go, only my wife and I and my son Kjell and my daughter Heather were able to make the trip.  We did go up to Idaho Falls and had a great time.  Everything went better than we had expected and after a wonderful time we returned home to recoup and to prepare for the California trip.  While in Idaho, we had renewed contact with about 150 or more of her kinfolk there and although we knew that the number of relatives in San Jose would not be as many, we were still really looking forward to this get together also.

By the time we were ready to go, the drop out rate again took its toll and this time, besides my wife and I, my son Donald, again my daughter Heather, another daughter Ginger and her husband Marcio together with their two children were the only ones going from our branch of the family.  After all preparations we were ready to go and were car pooling with two vehicles. We left at about three in the morning and kept in contact with each other not only by cell phone, but also by using a pair of walkie talkies.  It worked out quite well this way.  All went well at first. We traded off drivers about every other stop along the way in order to keep fresh and rested.  I was driving the lead car as we entered California, and everything seemed to be going great, but just past the summit of Donner's Pass, we went off of the road and rolled the car onto the passenger's side. I've had a lot of people ask exactly what happened, and I honestly can't tell them.  A large part of my memory has blanked out most of the details of the crash and in my memory, I don't know what happened between driving along normally with everything going great, until I remember feeling the wheel pulling to my right and off of the road....trees and rocks and dust flying...about a four inch diameter tree coming up at us...the air bags going off, and the car coming to rest laying on its side. Too much happened in the next half hour to an hour to put down in this blog, but many things happened wherein we can see the intervening of the Lord in our behalf.  By rights, we (at least someone) should have been killed in the wreck. I'm sure that Donald, after crawling out of the busted rear window of our car, and Marcio, who came running down to the wrecked car as soon as his car could pull over working together saved Annette's life.  No doubt about that.  They broke out the windshield, and then Marcio was able to get to my wife who had stopped breathing due to the position of her body, the pressure of the seat belt on her neck and chest,and so forth.  I had been able to crawl off of her (which is where I ended up after we had stopped moving) and had crawled into the back seat area where I at least was no longer in the way of rescuers helping her. I was finally able with help, to get out of the car and then taken up to the road and put in an ambulance. By using the "jaws of life" to cut off the car's roof and then prying her out from under the dash board and a few other little stunts, they were finally able to get Annette out of the car, strapped onto a back board and up to the road.  They Life Flighted her to the main hospital in Reno, Nevada because it has a world famous trauma center , and the California Highway Patrol drove Donald, Heather and I to the same hospital in his patrol car, with Ginger and the rest following in her car.

Long story short, when all was checked out and done,  we could almost not believe how blessed we have been though this whole thing.  Other than a few bruises and a couple of scratches, Donald and I received no injuries.
Annette had received a slight concussion and was confused and a bit disoriented at fist.  But most of her memory has come back to her and she is in pretty fair shape for all she's been through. she did chip a small piece of bone on one ankle and she got a lot of bruises. They kept her in the hospital for the better part of a week mostly for observation and as a precaution due to the concussion and the fact that her blood oxygen level was low (they didn't know it had been low before the wreck). 


We were finally all released and returned home (my brothers Dan and Tom came to Reno to help drive us back). We now are getting back into our regular (kind of) routine again.  My kids all came through for us in many ways while we were waiting to get Annette released from the hospital.  We tried to keep them informed of our conditions and all, and they went to town here at the house to make it easier for Annette when she got home. They turned her "school room" into a nice care room for her as she still needs help for a while due to her arthritis and all of the banging around she received. We already had a hospital bed that we had received from our sister-in-law, Nancy and they rearranged things to make it nice for her.  They also installed some very sturdy hand rails by the stairs to the family room and then organized themselves into shifts to make sure that someone is here at all times 24/7 to help her in any way she needs until she is back to 100%.  Bless their loving hearts.

The accident happened on the 21st of June and it is now just turning to the 5th of July.  Most of our bruises are fading away and Donald and I are no longer on pain medication.  I believe Annette may be off of her pain pills too.
It's gratifying to see the almost daily progress we are making.  We have been blessed.

Count your own blessings.  It's a humbling experience.  May the Lord continue to bless us all.  Remember, we are not here to go through life without any trials.  What happens to us is of little import. It's what we do with and how we handle what happens to us that is important.

Sooner,

Badger Bill

Well, I've spent a lot of time waiting for summer to get here and it finally has.  We now are having days with temperatures in the 90's and we are worrying about wearing long sleeves and sunblock.  I've already been out enjoying the weather and playing with some of my toys, like my metal detector and guns, etc. .  I'm lucky because I have no ATV of my own, but my brother Tom has two of them and he doesn't like to go out running his "quads" by himself.  I have therefor been out playing with him and we've had some good times.  Saturday, his ward had an annual father-son outing out by Lookout Pass.  He had made arrangements with his daughter Jenny to take her two boys with him and another friend, but the other friend wound up having to go to work, so I stood in and went as the second ATV driver.  again, we all had a great time.

Penny and her family have moved to Cedar city as I mentioned they were going to.  Most of my other kids have been helping them, so I guess the entire family is happy for them now that they are there.  I know we'll all miss having them close by,  but they think it's for the best and I hope they are right.

My old Ford mini van gave up the ghost the other day, so I'm looking for another set of wheels.  I have the feeling that I won't be as fortunate this time in finding as good of a deal as with the van.  It only cost me $300 and was in pretty good shape.  I was able to put over 3 years of use in it, so I can't cry about that .  I don't know if I should look for a small truck (like an s-10 or something similar) or another van or even a little economy car like a Geo Metro or such. I suppose I'll look around and see what's available first, and then decide.

I'm already champing at the bit to be out prospecting for gold.  The price of gold has dropped a little. It went from over $1,030 per ounce to about $800 per ounce, but it's back up to around $930 per ounce.  All of these prices are still fine with me. I was happy when it started going up last summer and went over $400 to the ounce.  Tom and I are working on some new equipment we are building to help recover the fine gold out of the concentrates, and we are looking forward to working some more with our "mountain Goat" and the system we perfected while down in Arizona.  I think that it will not only be fun, but profitable.  I'll let you know.

I have to go for now.  I hope everyone has a great summer this year and that things go well for all of you.  Don't lose track of the important things in life.  Stuff like toys and gold and other material things are just fluff when it comes right down to it.  The gospel, family and true values of faith and honor and progress in Eternal things is what is of true import.  Be true at all times, and be happy and joyful with all of God's blessings to us all.

Sooner,

Badger Bill

Well, I guess it's time I updated this blog.  I realized that I had been remiss in keeping up on events and felt a little sheepish because it's usually me that is riding someone else about not keeping their blogs up to date.  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Since I last wrote, I've been out playing in mother nature's backyard twice.  The first time was when I went with my brothers Dan and Tom to deliver one of our high bankers to a friend that lives down in Richfield, Utah.  While there, we took along the quad runners and went riding the Piute trail up in the mountains above the town.  I think we only went about 25 miles or so, but we had a good time.  That particular trail goes on for some two or three hundred miles from what I've been told. We did get a late start and were not really trying to go any further than that.  As I said, though, we did have a good time. We spent the night at Dan's house in Ephrium, Utah, and the next day we rode the four wheelers up above Ephrium in their mountains.  We saw literally hundreds of deer and again, we had a good time just playing around and having fun.

The second time I was out in nature was a couple of weeks later when Dan and Tom and I again met and took the quad runners down to Delta, Utah to check out that area and to play some more.  We left in a real snow blizzard and were wondering if we were doing the right thing.  Just a few miles outside of Delta, however, the snow stopped, the sun came out and life looked good again.  The weather stayed great the entire time we were gone and even lasted until we got home before it snowed again.  We rode all over the White mountain range and had fun looking for trilobytes (fossils) and also playing with our metal detectors around the old foundations of a couple of torn down houses that we found up in the hills. Again we had a ball.

In between these outings I took the time to have my 65th birthday and let the government officially recognize the fact that I was old enough to retire. The family came and we had the obligatory ice cream and cake, etc. and they all wished me the best.  Just after the second outing, Dan had his 68th birthday just to keep me humble, I suppose.  We had a fun time thinking back over our lives and looking at how much had changed since we were kids.  We talked about the progress of radios from the crystal radios to the transistor radios we have now, not to mention television from totally a dream to the things on the market now.  Also, telephones from the first ones we had (do you still remember the old party lines?) to the ultra slim cell phones we all take for granted now that come complete with built in cameras and computers, etc.. We thought back over many things, including life style changes.  Some things are of course much much better, but we have lost some of the sweet flavor of life, too.  All in all, I guess we are the winners, with more good than bad, so I'm not complaining.

Today we all met at Ginger's ward house to participate in the blessing of their second child and then have a nice social meal at her home afterwards.  This child is a darling little girl and they named her Jordan.  She seems to be a very easy going child and she smiles and coos a lot.  Her brother has come into his own now with her around.  He keeps his folks updated on all of her needs and desires and even insists he knows what she wants when "her frogs, mommy, her frogs" (his way for saying "she's crying".  He seems to have no sibling rivalry at all and loves to see her take her turn at whatever he's trying to do.  Ginger's great grandmother-in-law, came all the way from  Brazil to be here for this occasion, and combined it with General Conference so that she has been here for a couple of weeks and will still stay for a few more days.  She seems like a neat lady.

It looks like Penny and Johnny and family will be moving down to Cedar City pretty soon.  Johnny has let himself be talked into what sounds like a good financial deal with his old employer.  Johnny gets to buy the business from his old boss, while working for him and splitting profits with him or something like that. At any rate, the business is in Saint George, so the move is needed in order to put the deal together. Steven and Sarah and their family are getting a handle on curing the allergies that their kids have been troubled with for most of their lives.  Things seem to be looking good for them.  All in all, we are being blessed and I am so grateful to our Heavenly Father for all He has done and is doing for us.  Sure, we have our share of problems like everyone else, but they are not anything that we can not overcome or survive with the Lord's help.

Not much in the way of news from Wendy and Tom.  They are kept pretty busy with all they have to do.  We do see them from time to time, and they seem happy (although they have had a touch of the flu or whatever is going around. I would like to see them more often but they seem to have their  time all taken for now.  Maybe when the weather breaks and the days lengthen.  We'll see.

Andrew seems to be having success on his mission.  We got word a couple of weeks ago that he had been made the district leader of his area.  The mission president seems happy with his work and progress.  His letters sound like he's getting on well with his companion and with the people in his area.  I do miss him and I know that his mother misses him also, but we are proud of him and look forward to being with him again in about a year.

I'll try to keep up a bit better on this blog (but no promises). It keeps looking like we're getting closer and closer to summer.  We have had a couple of nice days strung together and that has helped. Keep smiling and we will see you

Sooner.

Badger Bill

Well, we made it there (although it took a little longer than we expected) and now we're back home.  Was it a success? Yes. Did we get rich? No. Did we have a blast? Yes. We had a great time and we learned a lot.  I believe we could actually get quite a lot of gold next time we go.  We did find gold this time, but not as much as we thought we would. It seems that much of the information that we had counted on was incorrect and this cost us a lot of time that we had expected to be able to use in the processing of the gold rather than in the locating of it. Oh, well. As I said before we left, the hunt is as much if not more of the fun as the finding.  We met a lot of great people and we had an enjoyable time.  Our equipment worked very very well and we did have a great time.  I would do it again even without the financial success that of course we had hoped to have had. I look forward to other outings this summer.

Sooner,

Badger Bill

O.K..  Most of the fall and winter I've been longing for, talking about, dreaming of and planning for good weather so that I can get out and look for some yellow metal. Well the time has come.  It's early in the morning, and about noon or a little afterwards, we'll be leaving to go out prospecting.  Now we'll see if we can put all of our dreams into a fruitful and rewarding motion and come out on top.  I know that to a lot of people this may sound greedy, materialistic and foolish, but like the song says, "You gotta have a dream. If you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?".  The poet Robert Service said, "Gold, and it's haunting and haunting...driving you onward and out. It's not the gold that I'm wanting, but merely the finding the gold". In other words, the reward is as much in the hunt as in the finding of the gold.  Not that I don't want the gold or the money that the gold can be converted into.  I would be lying if I said anything like that.  I have my own dreams of what I would do if I hit that big strike and solved a lot of if not all of my financial problems. What I am saying is that you have to prioritize things and the fun and excitement of the process is every bit as valuable as anything of a monetary nature that may come from the planning and carrying out of the plans.  Another thing that is hard to describe to anyone who's not been there, is the thrill of being the very first person on earth to lay eyes on a treasure of a gold nugget.  When you uncover a nugget for the first time, and pick it up and examine it, there is a real "rush" knowing that no one has ever laid eyes on that chunk of gold in all of the history of mankind.  In spite of the high price of gold ( it has actually broken the $1,000 per ounce mark now, I've been told) I know many prospectors who keep all of the gold that they find and refuse to part with it just because they want to be the only person in history to ever own that particular piece of gold. It's hard to explain. At any rate, I hope to be reporting our success to you in a few days and the fun we hope to have had by then in our efforts.  In the meantime, keep both feet planted in reality while dreaming your dreams and you can be a winner in both worlds.  Both are important.

Sooner,

Badger Bill

I've heard all my life that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks".  I've also heard that we should be adding to our knowledge and improving our talents continually, all our lives.  I'm casting my official vote in favor of the stand that we are never too old to learn and that only when we stop trying to learn and to progress does it get more difficult to do so. 

Recently, my brother Tom and I were trying to figure out how to add hyperlinks to our online sporting goods store, www.cougarhollow.biz so that we could trade hyperlinks with the Gold Prospecting Association of America and not only help our customers that are interested in prospecting to find the GPAA's website, but also get people who are visiting their site to link over to ours in order to find a place to find a large inventory of prospecting equipment at good prices.  Neither Tom nor I are anything approaching computer gurus and find ourselves lacking in this area quite often.  We are, however, learning.  We now knew that we needed to learn enough about HTML coding that we then could figure out how and where to post the hyperlink instructions in our site programing to tell the program how to link the user over to the proper URL address. It did take some time to figure it all out (even though it's very simple to do once you get the basics down...as with most things) and we finally were able to do it.  With gold at an all time high and so much of it still out there to be found (and I'm not kidding you about this) many people are looking back to the land to help augment their budgets.  I looked tonight and gold closed out on the world markets at $973.00 per ounce. It's been bouncing around in that area since about October or so and many people think that it is bound to go over $1000 per ounce before it's finished.  Weather this is true or not, this is still an awfully lot for gold.  Most people don't know how much gold it takes to make a troy ounce (gold is measured in "troy" weights, which vary slightly from "standard" weights).  Generally speaking, a gold coin approximately the size of a Susan B. Anthony dollar coin, or so, is about equal to an ounce.  That would be about $970 dollars or so as far as "bullion" or bulk gold is concerned.  If your gold is in the form of true naturally formed nuggets (still not all that hard to find with a metal detector as well as other methods in many areas) then the price or value of the nugget goes way up and you could be looking at between $2500 to $9000 per ounce depending on the uniqueness and beauty of the nugget. 

Even forgetting prospecting as such,  With the price of gold what it is, coin and relic hunting with a metal detector still has people going out and having a very fun time learning this hobby that to some is a true family endeavor.  I have seen total novices swinging a metal detector for the first time and find rings and coins that were very valuable and impressive.  One friend of mine found an old metal detector at a yard sale several years ago and took it outside to practice with it and to get the feel of it.  He was just walking up the sidewalk in front of his own house,  passing the head of the detector over the cement and then the lawn as he walked.  When it sounded off, he said that he really didn't believe that it could be anything of any importance, but he was curious about what could have set the thing off, so he took a screwdriver that he had with him, and "dug the target".  It turned out to be a gold ring with ruby stones in it that appraised at $3000 plus.  You never know.  I've seen kids as young as 10 and 12 years old with their own inexpensive detectors out in fields and picknick areas doing quite well.  More importantly,  they were having a ball, getting their exercise and doing something constructive rather than some other things that kids could get interested in.

We've been having fun at our house this last couple of days.  We have had six and sometimes seven of my grandkids here for a bit of an extended stay.  They have had to share sleeping facilities with each other, but have been very good about doing so.  I'm continually amazed at how young kids seem to be able to learn things today.  I do attribute a large part of it to the fantastic jobs that their folks are doing at home schooling the kids, but I also wonder if the kids themselves are predisposed to learning more and faster with the PBS programs and access to computers and all that they have that we did not have when I was growing up.  However they are getting it, they really are getting it!!! This same learning and assimilating of knowledge not only applies to the academic areas, but also the the gospel that they are being taught at an earlier age.  My folks taught us the gospel and I think that we were at least normal in what we were retaining about the scriptures and all, but if put up against the kids of today, I fear that we would look like we had been playing hooky instead of doing our studies.  These kids not only can tell you the stories and the lessons to be learned from these stories, but also the principles that pertain to it all.  I think that they truly do have testimonies of it's truthfulness. I'm proud to be their grandpa.

Sooner,

Badger Bill

The weather men on all of the t.v. stations were united in their forecasts about the weather that we were going to have.  They all said that the day before valentines day at between 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. we would have a quick little snow flurry pop in over Utah and then leave as quickly as it had come.  They said that by 7:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. we would see the winds subside and the temperatures go back up and that they would stay up for that next several days.  The most snow that we could look forward to, said they, was between 1 to 2 inches on the valley floors and maybe as high as 4 to 6 inches of snow on the benches.  Yeah, right.  They are now trying to explain to us how it is that the " worst snow storm I've ever seen in all of my years of being a meteorologist" could have come from such a low key beginning.  They were close to being correct on the call of when it would start, but hours off of when it would stop.  Also, the amounts of snow that it left in it's wake totally made them look like kids with their wet fingers in the air and guessing about which way the wind was blowing, as far as missing the mark on accuracy.  The least that it dropped in the valleys was 8 to 9 inches and in some places it got as high as 2 feet.  There were many auto accidents due to the storm and the lack of visibility and quite a few were 8 to 10 vehicles or more.  Many roads were closed and traffic was so bad that people were abandoning their  cars and hiking out to shelter.  In the Hyland- Alpine area, the kids were sent home from school "a little early in order to help the buses beat the traffic that was anticipated due to the snow and the anticipated rush of cars going home from work".  A high number of these kids were not even able to get away from the school and of those that did leave in buses, I don't think any were able to deliver any of the children to their homes.  Instead, they were recalled to  the school after hours of being stuck in traffic and some of them didn't even make it back to the school until after 10:00 at night.  Over 150 kids wound up having a sleep over in the school gym.  They were fed and watched t.v. and had a pretty good party, actually, but didn't get home until the following day, when school was canceled so that the teachers (now totally worn out from trying to control the whole mess) could go home and get some well deserved sleep. A great number of businesses and schools, etc. were closed for the day because they were so badly snowed in. Happy valentines day!!!

Again, for the 3rd or 4th time this year, I just hunkered down and rode the storm out right here in my nice warm home and rejoiced at being able to due to being retired.  It makes me strain to try to remember how I used to just go out and brave the storms knowing that I really had no choice in the matter.  It had to be done, so I did it.  It makes choosing so simple. I so enjoy the options that I now have.  One of my ward members who is a little younger than I am (though not by much) slipped on the ice the other day and broke his hip. He'll be laid up for quite a while trying to heal from that. I remember taking a number of good hard falls myself when out in bad weather, but I was blessed by never having broken any bones or anything else of import when I went down. The only thing that was really hurt was my dignity. 

Now that this storm is supposedly over, the great prognosticators of the whims and whiles of mother nature assure us that we are on our way to the warmer weather that they had forecast for us before.  I hope so, as I really am getting tired of winter and long to be out prospecting with both my metal detector and my high banker before the prices of gold and silver start to go back down.  Gold is still closing out at between $900 to $950 per oz. every day and many people are saying they believe it will continue up until it goes over $1000 per oz..  With today's economy I suppose it just might, but I don't want to bet anything serious on it.  My brother Tom and I have started putting more emphasis on the metal detectors that we have for sale through our web store at www.cougarhollow.biz and in our ads in the on line media in channel 2, 4 and 5's classified ads as well as in our e-bay sales. I think it's turning out to be a good idea, now that people are starting to look forward to getting out too. The fun thing with a metal detector that varies from the gold hunting is that it can be done even in your own yards and local parks and public areas and quite successfully.  We also are putting several good books in our inventory telling about where and how to look for coins and jewelry and so forth expressly for those who are just getting started.  This is a fun hobby that can be enjoyed by the entire family and can be fairly lucrative also. Most people have no idea how much gold it takes to make an ounce of gold. It usually surprises them to find that a gold coin that is just a little larger than a quarter is equal to an ounce of gold and that this is the amount of gold that is bringing over $900 on the international markets. A couple of gold men's rings could amount to  that volume with very little trouble, and that's not counting any gemstones that these rings could contain. A good metal detector could pay for itself quite fast if  you found a couple of items like that (and believe me, people do).  I've been asked several times to help people find lost rings and things with my detector.  Its kind of fun ( like a hide and seek game, almost). At any rate, I can hardly wait to get back out there.

Sooner,

Badger Bill

Today I watched as Mitt Romney closed his presidential campaign.  I can't fault his reasons, but I sure wish he'd not done it.  I believe he was the only one we had to choose from that stood for the right things.  President Hinkley told us to "stand for something".  While this is true, I would add, "but make sure that what you stand for is based on true principals".  How do you make sure that the things you stand for are based on the proper principals?  The answer is simple.  Are they based upon the principals of the gospel that we know are true and in accord with what the Lord has taught through His own words and that of His prophets? 

When I was getting my medical exam and my shots so that I could go to Sweden on my mission, I was in the offices of our family doctor and while I was sitting there for a few seconds with little to do, I noticed a small leaflet on the table that was talking about socialized medicine and how we needed to fight the government and the liberals to keep from having them pass any laws that would move us any closer to having any of this kind of program in our country.  At the time, I knew nothing at all about any of this and so when the doctor, a man whom I knew to be easy going and very bright, got to the point where I could talk to him a little, I asked what socialized medicine was and why it was so bad.  His answer at first confused me, because he stated that it was government financing to pay for medical procedures and that it was not a good thing.  I asked why he would object to letting the government or anyone else help pay for the medical bills that a person might have trouble paying.  He told me that this had been tried before in countries like England, France, Germany and Holland and that everywhere that it had been tried, it had not only failed, but that it had put that country trying it into financial ruin.  Also, he said, once you started down that path, it was almost impossible to turn back.  He also said that the other programs that were based on "federal aid to"  (education, families, etc.) were just as bad.  This was back in the early 60's and I was in my late teens and not at all wise in anything to speak of.  I said I still didn't see why this would be so.  He was getting very frustrated at my ignorance and I had never seen him so passionate about anything before.  He then gave me a quick but very insightful lesson on both government and economics.  Who, he asked, is the government?  That is, who is it that pays these bills for all of these things and where do they get the money to pay for it all?  It all comes from us and from taxes that are levied against all of us in order to pay for the monetary obligations that we permit our elected officials to encumber us with.  Furthermore, whenever the government gets involved in something of this nature that should be handled by the private sector, it takes at least one and most times several extra layers of government officials to oversee the programs and these people have to be paid and their offices supplies and so forth need to be financed with still more money that it then needs to get from us to pay for.  Furthermore, government officials, once set in place are almost impossible to control or to get rid of (ie. to fire them) if they don't do the job the way you think it should be done.  In short, it takes more money to do the job, and more paperwork to do the job, and more time to do the job and the job is not done nearly so well as if the people who have been doing it since the country first started to be a country were left to continue to do the job as they have been doing.

I still was not sure if he was right or not, but at least he had made me aware of some new concepts that I had never given any thought to before. I went ahead and continued my preparations for my mission and soon found myself in Sweden.  I fell in love with the place.  It was fabulous. I loved the work. I loved the people. I loved almost everything about it.  One thing I did find out about Sweden, However, was that it is socialistic all the way.  They have this dreaded "socialized medicine". They have social aid to education and in the workplace and family and business and media and everything else you can think of.  They are held up to the world as the showcase of socialism and to show that socialism really does work. The only problem is that it doesn't work.  At least not to any degree that I would want to live under for any length of time.  I saw people suffer and some die because of their socialized medicine. I saw businessmen who were being strangled by the government oversight that they had to put up with,  such as having to hire someone to help them and then not being able to fire that person when the job was done, and not only that, but having to continue to pay that person for work that he literally never even showed up to work to do because "he didn't really feel up to it today".  I saw students that after graduating from their equivalent of high school, didn't have a ninth grade education. I saw families get "barnbidrag" which is pay to the families for each child that they had.  Many families earned their living just by having enough kids (five or six usually did it) that nobody in the family had to work, but were totally supported by the government (again, who pays for all this?).  I saw socialism in all of it's forms and one thing that I noticed that to me was even greater than the fact that the average Swede paid well over 80% of his income in taxes to support this government intrusion into all facets of their life (at that time, we were paying about 20% or so), was the fact that because the government did so much "for them", it took away their control of their own lives to the point that they actually got out of the habit of making their own decisions about things.  I know that this sounds a little funny, but to witness it is no laughing matter.  They actually get to the point where they have trouble making the simplest of decisions.  They need someone else to make the decision for them and then ask them, "is that o.k. with you"?  I heard stories when I was growing up about the slaves in the south after the civil war was over.  Most of them didn't know what to do or where to go and so they many times just continued on working for the families that they had always worked for and in the same conditions or worse.  They had lost the ability to make the simple little decisions to run their own lives.  Prisoners in our penal systems become "institutionalized" in the same manner, as do many prisoners of war. Citizens of Russia and other dictatorial countries, upon getting their freedom, often are in the same condition.  Why? I believe that our ability to make decisions is like any other thing in our life.  The more we do it the easier it gets to do.  Maybe this is why the Lord rejected Satan's plan.  It was based on taking away our ability to decide for ourselves what we should do.  It took away our ability to prove ourselves to ourselves or to God, what manner of men we would be. It is a major pillar in the very concept of freedom and of the gospel. I dread socialism because I have seen what it can and does do to a person and to a nation.  Yes, I have seen it. I have been there and done it and lived under it and I want no part of it.  I found out what my good old family doctor was trying to tell me.

 I had the opportunity to interview a married couple who were both doctors in their socialized medical system.  I mentioned to them that I had a companion who had been having some trouble with his health. At last we went to a hospital to get it checked out.  We literally waited in the waiting room all day long for two full days to be helped, and still hadn't gotten any.  Finally, on the third day, after it became apparent that we were in for more of the same, my companion butted in line and said to the receptionist (in English, this time) " Pardon me, but what does it take to get waited on around here?"  She looked at him like he had just pulled a gun on her, and said something to the effect of "are you an American?  What are you doing here?  This is a public hospital.  Just a moment, please."  She then jumped up and went into the back area and was immediately followed out by a doctor who ushered us into a private room.  He there told us again and again how sorry he was that we had been treated so badly and that it had taken so long to see him.  He told us that we should have let it be known right from the start that we were Americans and that we were not there at the expense of the Swedish government. He said that then we would have been taken care of properly because he knew that we would be paying our bill ourselves.  The couple that I was interviewing, laughed at this and said that the other doctor was right.  That this was not an exception, but rather, the rule.  I asked why and they told me that they only got paid a set amount for each patient and it made no difference what was wrong with them, or how long it took.  Also, the average person was so used to any and all medical attention being "free" to them, they would go to the hospital for every little thing that they thought may be going on no matter how trivial.  As a result, the system was flooded with hypocondriacs and if anything at all, all they needed was an aspirin or a band aid.  Also, they mentioned that because of this it was bankrupting the country and they never had enough money to get the right equipment that they needed to really take care of the people that did actually need their help.  All of this together made it very tough to actually be a good caring doctor all of the time and after a few years the average doctor became burned out and for the most part, gave up.  I asked when they had switched over to this system and was told that it had not happened all at once, but in little bits and pieces.  First came medical help for the aged. Then for the kids. Next for the very poor and then for industrial mishaps, and so forth.  It was hard, they said to turn down any of the small additions to the package and that they really weren't sure when they had gone too far.


when I was there, I heard and saw ads telling the people not to support the "pirates" in any way.  I asked what was meant by that and was told that Sweden had one t.v. station and three radio stations that were all government controlled. The entire content of what the people were allowed to see and hear was dictated by the State.  The whole thing, of course, was also financed by the government.  The trouble with that was that there were some capitalistic  "pirates" that would broadcast from just outside of the "three mile limit" from stations set up on ships, and that played more of what the people wanted to see and hear on their radio and t.v. stations, and then financed their stations with advertisements from businesses operating within the area that could receive their signals. This really bothered the government because they had absolutely no control over what was broadcast and they couldn't tax it either.  These stations were by far the most popular ones and all the government could do to try to limit them, was to appeal to the publics sense of patriotism to try to limit the pirates' success.


When you look at what we were like back then, and what we are today, it makes me shudder.  Having been told what to look out for and then watching it creeping up and over us year by year since I came back, has been a very frustrating and discouraging thing.  I don't know how to stop or even slow down what is happening to our once great nation.  And when we finally get a good man running for office, that may be able to see what's coming and may know how to hinder it's enveloping pervasiveness,  the people that need to vote him into office get sidetracked with minutia and don't see the real issues and the seriousness of the whole situation.  Not just in the medical field, but as I mentioned, in all fields.  Our founding fathers did not intend for the government to solve all of our problems for us.  They never wanted it to run our lives and control us to the extent that it does today.  They were very wary of the government having too much control over us and many of them said so many times and in no uncertain terms.  Where did we start to lose it, then?  Little by little, just like the Swedes.  It's the parable of the frog being boiled in the water, again.  He doesn't realize that he's in trouble because of how gradually the heat is being applied, until it's too late.  I only hope that it's not already too late.  Yes, stand for something.  Champion something.  Fight for something, but make sure that what you stand for, champion and fight for is based on correct principals.  Then, don't give up even though the odds look to be stacked against you.  We have been told that those who the Lord has standing with us are far more and greater than those who oppose us, even if we cannot see them.  Discouraging?  Yes, but I'd rather lose fighting for the right side than win fighting for the wrong side.  I believe that our votes cast for and against causes and candidates, are tallied not just here on earth.  I know that we must answer for our actions and inactions.  We must do our best to get the right people to represent us and the right issues on or off of the ballots,  but after we do what we can, no matter how bleak the outcome, we must still vote for the best choices that we are able to.

Sooner,

Badger Bill

Wouldn't you know, I talk about turning stumbling blocks into stepping stones, acting like an all wise know it all, and what happens?  That's right, I get a bunch of rocks!!   Oh, well, as I said, it's all part of the package we all signed up for to get a ticket to come down here.  The great part of the picture is that if we are doing what we are supposed to, or at least trying to, then we get to have the help of others in our labors, to see if they also will use these experiences as building blocks in their own lives.  In my case, I have been given some fabulous kids who have, for the most part, married fabulous partners and who now usually help out when needed.  Such was the case this weekend.  About mid-week I was informed that our washer had gone on strike.  After a bit of serious negotiating, the strike turned into a full blown refusal to work at all.  So much for minor negotiation skills.  My wife decided that even though the budget is totally shot, we needed to get a new (new for us, at any rate) washing machine.  She also informed me that while we were at it, we might just as well get one that had a matching dryer as the one we were using was about to join its friend, the washer.  Since they came as a pair, worked as a pair and were obviously going as a pair, my options were somewhat limited.  Besides, I may be a bit slow in some areas, but I learned a long time ago that its usually to my advantage to agree with my wife in such matters.  Long story short,  with the help of my kids and some other lucky breaks (code for "blessings") we are now back up and running in our family laundry endeavors.  THANKS, KIDS!!!

Well, after thousands and thousands of Saints and friends and admirers of President Hinkley filed through the
Assembly Hall in Salt Lake City to pay their last respects and honors to him, his funeral was held (being broadcast, from what I understand to hundreds of t.v. and radio stations throughout the world), and then President Hinkley was laid to rest next to his wife.  The media has had several hours of programming paying homage to this great man and telling many stories about incidents throughout his life to show how well he lived the life that he encouraged all of us to live, and how he has affected the lives of so many millions of people in so doing.  I hope that you took advantage of your opportunities to watch and listen to these broadcasts.  I hope that they inspired you to take a fresh look at your own life and to reaffirm to yourself and to the Lord that you will try a bit harder to serve Him as we have covenanted to do. 

Sooner,

Badger Bill