4th installment

It's a little late in the evening for me to start on my 4th installment but I guess I'll do what I can. Before I do I just wanted to add that Clay has also gotten the African Cichlid bug. He has a 55 gallon tank and has the beautiful blue fish that Gail had posted a while back. This fish is called a Salousi and it started out yellow/orange like the fish next to it in the picture. When the male matures it turns blue and the female stays yellow. Cool huh! We've had quite a few babies from Clay's pair and even sold some of the babies to the pet store in Cortez. Also in case any of you are wondering why Gail hasn't posted you may think it is because I'm always on the computer but it's not. At least I don't think that's the reason. Ever since she went to the doctor in Provo she has been more sick than she was before she went. While she may not be allergic to any food or other things besides pet dander, dust, pollen, etc she is constantly coughing. She took the Prednazone and thought she was getting better and then she came down with bronchitis. Her cough now is deep in her lungs and she has even stayed home from work several days so you know she is really sick when that happens. Now she's also starting to get a sore throat. Please keep her in your prayers.

31. As a teenager I enjoyed going to the dances. (My dad loved to dance before his polio and according to my mom and his sisters he was a very good dancer.) I don't know that I'm all that great a dancer but maybe enjoying dances is genetic. Most of the dances I attended were at the Moose Lodge in Lead which were every weekend in the summer. I also went to Spearfish a few times and to dances at the county fair. While I did go to a few church dances, most were community dances and the only bad thing about them was all the drinking. Everyone at school knew that I was an Mormon and that I didn't drink, but they thought it was their duty to make sure that I was given plenty of opportunities to join them if I so wanted. (I never did.) I might add however that I have been in most of the bars in the Black Hills and surrounding area but never partook. To this day I have never taken a drink of alcohol. (Except for NyQuil that is.)
32. I should maybe explain why I have been in lots of bars. Dad used to advertise for rodeos, dances and other community events and my job was to put up fliers and posters. I put up many a poster on a number of wooden telephone poles, in various businesses and in a number of bars, even though I was just a kid. The thing I remember and enjoyed about going into the bars was they were always air conditioned and going from the hot outside to the cold inside was quite nice. The bars were always dark and damp feeling almost and funny thing they smelled of beer. There was usually a juke box playing and people seemed to be having a great time talking or dancing. I can understand the attraction it had for some people. One experience I had when I was about 16 involved going home from the Butte County Fair with my uncle Freddy Glover. (He was actually my dad's cousin.) He had taken me horseback riding while at the fair and when I went to mount the horse I tried to get up on the wrong side. He thought that was quite funny so when ever he introduced me he would say that I was Tommy Glover's boy and that I was the only Glover who didn't know which side of a horse to get up on. He also knew that I was a wrestler in high school so he I and grappled a little and he decided I was fairly strong for my size. Well Freddy was a drinker and on our way to his place we stopped at the Nisland Bar for him to get a drink. He also bought a bottle of whiskey for the road. While in the bar he started bragging about how tough I was and this drunk came up and boasted that he could kick my butt from one end of the bar to the other. I was getting a bit concerned since I only weighed 100 lbs and while this guy was quite drunk I wasn't a fighter. Finally when this guy realized that it would be Freddy that he would be fighting and not me, he started talking a different tune. When we left the bar I was relieved but had a couple of new concerns. One was riding in a car with a drunk driver and the other was figuring out a way to politely tell Freddy that I didn't drink if he were to offer me one. Well we got to talking about what a good person my mom was and my sister Becky. (She had stayed with Freddy and Ester for several weeks during the summer.) Freddy was impressed with their joining the Mormon church. I explained that I was also a member of the LDS church as well and that I didn't drink. To my surprise he was quite impressed. The next day back at the Fair he would introduce me as the only Glover who didn't drink and who didn't know which side of a horse to get up on.
33. My Senior year it seemed like most of my classmates were drinking more and more. In the fall I went to a kegger (beer bust) with Pat Ryan and Rick Williams at an old barn 20 miles west of Lead, toward Pactolla Dam. Someone had bought several cases of Coors Beer in Wyoming and took it across the state line which was illegal and someone had poached a deer and they were cooking it on an open fire. There were about 60 kids all drinking and acting stupid. There were several athletes and members of the Letterman's Club and there were cheerleaders and lots of girls, even a minister's daughter, all drinking. There were couples up in the hay loft making out and it was crazy. We were only there for about 20 minutes and I wanted to leave sooner than later. Rick wanted to stay longer because everyone was so stupid drunk except us and he thought it was funny and quite entertaining. Since I was driving we left early. Shortly after we left, the police raided the party. and allot of people were in trouble. The attitude of those who were there was that if they got in trouble so would we since we were there. Rick was really worried because he was on the basketball team and thought he might get kicked off and Pat and I were on the wrestling team. We decided to call the County attorney and he wanted to know who bought the beer and who killed the deer. We told him that we were only there for a short time after the party started and we didn't know who did what. For a time we were quite nervous but nothing came of it but it did teach me a good lesson and that was to avoid even the appearance of evil.
33. I had great parents and grand parents. My Grandma Helma Saukko came from Finland when she was only 10 years old. She had come to the United States a couple of times with her parents to visit her aunt and uncle and for her parents to work. Her father died on the boat when they were returning to Finland. Her mother was pregnant with her brother at the time and didn't think she could manage alone so she sent grandma back to America to live with her Aunt and Uncle in South Dakota. Grandma Helma came through Ellis Island in 1904 or 1905 all by her self. She then rode the train to S.D. It was the same train that Teddy Roosevelt rode when making whistle stops while campaigning for president. Grandma Helma was a great cook.(For several years we thought that her mother had remarried and that her brother in Finland was a half brother but he was her full brother.) She married my grandpa Worthy and they homesteaded near Vale, S.D. She met him while helping to cook for the men building Orman Dam. I think he was a mail carrier as well as farmer. He died in 1940 at the age of 49. Grandma later married Matt Hafner and they lived in a big house in Newell. He was a widower and had 8 children. He was a rancher and businessman. I think he was County Sheriff for a time too. I'm not sure. He was a good guy and the only grandpa I knew.
34. Grandma Nellie Christine Holt was born in Johnstown, Nebraska 1887 I think. In the early 1900's she attended York College in Nebraska, which was founded by the United Brethren Church. My Great grand father William Elias Schell was the second President of York College from about 1895 to 1912. Grandama Nellie met my Grandpa Louis Schell there. She wrote him love letters while he served as a Christian missionary to the Philippines. She taught school in Nebraska and then followed Grandpa Schell to South Dakota where they were married. They had a farm about three miles southwest of Newell. Grandpa Schell died when I was a year old and Grandma Schell died in 1980 when she was 93. She was a great lady.
35. I loved going to the old farm in Newell. There was no electricity or indoor plumbing. Grandma drove a Willey's Jeep. She lived about a half mile off the gravel road and the road to the farm could get really muddy and slick from gumbo (clay mud) when wet. I loved playing in the irrigation ditch and playing on the old metal tractor that was broke down in the alfalfa field. Grandma had an old bunk house off the side of the farm house where the older girls got to sleep. Grandma also had her loom in the bunkhouse. She made wonderful rugs out of old rags. She had a cistern to catch rainwater for washing dishes and washing hair. I loved hearing stories before bedtime and using kerosene lanterns. It was always an adventure staying at the farm house. My love of golf started early. I found some old hickory golf clubs of Grandpa Schell's and would hit golf balls out on the prairie. I wish I still had those old golf clubs today. They would probably be worth something. But I cut them in half for the little kids to play with. It was on the farm where I first learned to drive. At first I would sit on dad's lap and he would let me steer the car on the half mile lane to the farm. He would always steer when we crossed the irrigation ditch.
36. Mom was a 3rd grade school teacher for almost 30 years. She had to retire from teaching when she was 59 because she had a stroke and later a heart attack. Mom recognized the truthfulness of the gospel when the missionaries came to our house so long ago. She had been searching for the true church and had gone to several different churches when us kids where small. She read the book of Mormon and knew right away that it was true. She received a witness of the spirit and she gave up smoking, drinking alcohol and coffee and joined the church and was faithful in her convictions to the end. For many years she was the main breadwinner of our family after dad's polio at the time when school teachers were truly under paid. Dad had dropped out of high school and was a farm hand and then went to work for the Homestake Gold Mine as an underground hard rock miner before his polio. Afterward he worked at an information center and was a desk clerk for the Homestake Club, a recreation center.(pool hall, swimming pool, bowling alley etc.) Dad also became an auctioneer and that is why he was called Colonel Tommie Glover. He had a sound system with speakers on top of his car and he did advertising for various events. He provided sound for the horse races and entertainment at the county fair as well as for the Days of 76 activities and the reenactment of the Trial of Jack McCall for the killing of Wild Bill Hickcock. He also learned to do bookkeeping, sold insurance and did income taxes. I was my dad's legs and resented having to empty his pee jar and run all his errands. One time I was feeling sorry for myself and had made a comment that I wished that uncle Don had adopted me. Grandma Schell heard me complaining and she gave me a good talking to and told me that my dad would give anything in the word to be able to walk again and do those things for himself. I knew that grandma was right and I felt ungrateful and ashamed for what I had said. I knew that my dad truly loved me but it wasn't until my mission that I truly appreciated all my dad had taught me and most of all, that because of him, I had learned how to work hard.
37. One thing about working for my dad that I did appreciate was being able to drive when I was only 14. I loved being able to drive. I could barely see over the steering wheel but I had a work permit to help my dad with advertising and with hauling junk for auction sales. I wish that I had learned to auctioneer. I love a great deal and that is why I love shopping at yard sales, Deseret Industries (D.I.) , second hand stores, flea markets and now shopping on e-bay. I think it is in my blood. I'm also very good at packing things due to my experience of loading and unloading trailers and filling storage sheds. I'm not sure but I think I was 15 when dad bought me my first car. Talk about spoiled. I had a used Volkswagen Beetle or Bug. It was a great little car but I was a little rough on it. I used and abused it like a jeep. It was gold with black fenders. One time I got the whole wrestling team, 12 people, heavy weight and all crammed into it. It was almost scraping bottom. I actually went through two VW's. I don't remember which was which but one had a sun roof and it was great for hunting antelope out on the prairie. Ed and I would take turns driving while the other rode shogun. We took the passenger seat out and rode in the back seat. When we got in a position to shoot who ever was driving would hit the breaks and then the shooter would stand up and shoot from the car. (Probably illegal then and definitely illegal now.) That's how I got my first antelope . It was running away form the car and I shot it in the butt at 200 yards and didn't ruin any meat. It was just a lucky shot but Ed and his brother Buzz were impressed. On one occasion I was chasing some antelope at about 50 mph and all of a sudden they dropped out of site and I knew I was in trouble. Before I could stop I came to a ravine and ended up airborne. When I landed the front end was bent into the front tires. We had to work at pulling the bumper back out. Later Ed was driving and he hit a big rock that was covered by the grass and it busted a hole in the oil pan. He thinks that I was driving but I think it was him. Anyway we had to keep adding oil to drive it home. Another time Pat Ryan and Jerry Mosley and I were hunting turkeys and I drove down the side of this mountain down an old road that was more like a mountain goat trail. We knew we were in trouble when we got to the bottom of this canyon and there were trees laying across the road. We had to move them out of the way to eventually end up at an old abandoned mine where the road ended. We got turned around and tried to drive back out, but the road was too steep and rocky. I ended up burning out the clutch and we had to hike out the bottom of the canyon and then hitchhiked to a phone to call for help. Ed tried to pull me out with his jeep and with his dad's Wagoneer but to no avail. Finally one of Ed's friends said he could pull it out and did for a fifth of whiskey.
38. The other feature with one of my Volkswagen's was that it didn't have a gas gage but it had a reserve tank. If you ran out of gas you could flip the reserve tank and then go another thirty miles or so. Well one activity that we enjoyed was spotlighting deer at night. One night after play practice, Pat Ryan, Linda Niesant and I went spotlighting. I had forgotten that I had flipped my reserve tank and we made it all the way around the loop to the top of Aztec hill when I ran out of gas. Luckily there was a full moon because the headlights didn't work when the car wasn't running. We had to push the car about a quarter of a mile before we could start coasting down hill back toward town which was about 5 miles away. We made it about a half mile from town and then the road started to climb and we coasted as far as we could. Then we hiked to Pat's house. Our parents were all worried because it was after 11:00 and it was a school night and no one knew where we were. A year later I was home from college for a visit and I got to visiting with Pat and Linda and we were reminiscing about our spotlighting adventure. Well we decided to try it again only this time I took an old ford and made sure the gas tank was full. We drove way out in the boondocks toward Rochford and we got lost going down some back road that petered out on us. I turned the car around and in the process got high centered on a rock. We had to work quite awhile before getting unstuck and then headed back to town. About five miles from the highway the car started jerking and eventually quit. Pat was really steamed because it was almost midnight and we were twenty five miles from town. We walked the five miles to the highway and could do nothing but keep walking. Finally some cars started to pass us and finally someone stopped. There had been a concert or something in Rapid City and people were driving back. They said they were nervous about stopping because I was carrying a guitar and they thought we were a bunch of Hippies. We survived the ordeal but Pat was still upset. Linda seemed to take it in stride. The next day dad and I checked out the car and when I put gas in it I discovered a hole the size of a fifty cent piece in the gas tank.
39. After I broke up with Janell I dated a variety of girls my junior and senior year. My plan was to date only a couple of times because there were very few LDS girls to date and I didn't want to get involved with someone who was not a member of the church. I also figured that if I only dated a couple of times I wouldn't feel like I needed to kiss them. This plan worked okay until this girl moved to Lead from Idaho to live with her aunt and uncle. Her parents had been killed in a car wreck so she and her siblings were taken in by their relatives. I found out she was a member of the church so I invited her to Mutual and we started dating. On our second date she kissed me and I'd never been kissed like that before. I kind of liked it and so we started to kiss more and more. We would go to the drive-in and take her little brother and sister and make out even with them in the car. I would take her home from Mutual and we would park in front of her house and make out. It was getting quite serious when I realized that I was playing with fire. She had shared some personal things with me about thoughts of suicide, trying drugs and about not being a virgin. I finally realized that I was enjoying the kissing way too much and needed to cool it before things got out of hand. When I came to my senses I was frightened about what might happen in our relationship and so I just quit seeing her and calling her. She was really hurt but I didn't know how to tell her my concerns. After that I tried to get back to my pattern of only going on a couple of dates. I even tried to continue this pattern at BYU, but then I met the love of my life, Gail Asay.
40. I graduated from high school when I was 17 and went right to BYU. I really enjoyed being in Provo. I met some guys from Monticello and Blanding at the freshman orientation. Bruce Adams, Greg Adams, Bruce Bunker, Mike Halliday, Jed Lyman and Grant Hurst. Sometime in July, Becky and I went to Billings to attend Youth Conference. We had a great trip. I met this really nice lady serving breakfast. Her name was sister Asay and when I told her that I was a student at BYU she told me her daughter was also attending BYU. To my surprise, who would be the first girl I met when I returned to Provo, Gail Asay. She and I were in Social Dance class together but had never quite met. I did however meet some of her room mates who were in the class and I had told them about my plans to go to youth conference. They hadn't mentioned anything to Gail about it until she was feeling homesick and sad about not being able to go home for youth conference. When they told her there was a guy in dance class that went, she was pretty upset that she hadn't known before hand. She thought they were joking when they told her my name was "Worthy". She thought it might be a little presumptuous to approach me and ask if I was worthy. I'm grateful her room mates told her about me and that she had the nerves to approach me before class and ask, "are you Worthy?" I was flattered to have this beautiful girl approach me. When I found out that I had missed the opportunity to take her to Billings I felt bad and agreed to make up for it. We danced and I offerred to take her for a ride on my Yamaha. Who knows but if she had gone with me she may have found out sooner what a weirdo I was and I may have scared her off.