Stories from my childhood: The fight that SHOULD HAVE ended before it started.

(by Michael)

I’m not proud of this, but unlike in the previous story, I did engage in some fights here and there throughout my childhood, even at a very young age.  The first brawl I can remember that involved someone other than my brother was when I was around 9 years old back in Jeaderville (as we affectionately called Jeader subdivision).  I had a friend named James who lived down the road from me about a mile.  Yes, we were friends, and no I don’t remember why we got in a fight.  I had another friend named James that lived next door to him (don’t worry, this won’t get confusing).  We were all the same age.  From what I remember, I was playing with the Jameses one afternoon in the yard between their houses when the fight started.  We were both punching each other, and after punching each other a bit we were ready to stop.  But James’ mother was not.  The fight had attracted the attention of all the neighbors, and people were standing around watching us.  They must have thought it amusing because I was a scrawny little kid, and James was obese, about three times my size (but the same height), which was odd because everyone else in his family was as skinny as sticks. 

His mother was mad that he’d gotten into a fight, and one of her rules is that if you start a fight you must finish it.  I thought we were finished, but apparently finishing a fight to her meant he had to “whip his ass!”  She would yell at him to whip my ass, and he would build up enough anger to try.  We’d swap licks for a bit and then stop again.  Then she’d start in on him again.  When he had really had enough he said, “I don’t want to, mama!” but that wasn’t good enough for her.  She said “I’m going to get my leather strip.”  Sure enough, she went in the house and came back out with a strip of leather about 2 inches wide that she used for disciplining her children.  I could not believe she would spank him to make him fight.  I guess it taught him a lesson.  She waved it at him, and he cried, “MAMA!”  He was really crying by now.  I was just wondering how I would get out of that situation.  She smacked him on the butt with the leather strip and yelled at him again to whip my ass.  That set him off again, and he came at me.  We wrestled around and ended up rolling on the ground.  He pinned me down and punched me a few times.  Then I managed to roll him off of me and get him down to return the licks.  We went through this motion a couple of times until I was tired of pushing his fat belly off of me.  I decided to just let him sit on my and punch me until he was done.  I realized it didn’t really hurt as long as I turned my head so he couldn’t punch my face.  When I did that, I noticed that my eldest brother, Brent, was standing in the circle of spectators waiting for the fight to finish.  By then it was dark outside.  He had come looking for me since I didn’t come home before dark.  We were fighting by street light.  I guess James’ mom was satisfied and told him to get inside. I was pretty embarrassed.  I think he was, too.  I got up and we left for home. 

I don’t remember talking about it to anyone after that, except Brent might have asked me during our walk home why we were fighting.  James and I never fought again.  We remained friends, played ball together, had sleepovers, and so on.  That fight always stuck out in my mind as one of the bizarre events of my childhood.  We were just a couple of little boys throwing the weakest punches imaginable, and probably for the dumbest reason.  I’d say it was the worst fight I’ve ever been in, but I don’t really know if that’s accurate.  Anyhow, I’m just glad it really didn’t affect our long-term relationship.

Stories from my childhood: The fight that ended before it started

(by Michael)

Jeader subdivision was a rural neighborhood with dirt roads near the tiny country town of New Brockton, AL.  There, I grew up along with my two older brothers, older sister, and two younger brothers.  We had some friends in the neighborhood and walked up and down the roads often, or we rode our bicycles.  We also had some enemies in the neighborhood, kids who proved to be no-good punks.  We all rode the same bus to school.  We generally avoided trouble and acted as friendly as we could on the bus, but trouble seemed inevitable.  There were two boys in the neighborhood—step-brothers—who were bad news.  Well, their older brothers were bad news, and they followed in their footsteps.  They were bad kids.  My family tried to stay away from them to avoid bad influences, but sometimes there was nobody else to play with.  When I was about 13, Chris and Shane (the bad boys) were about the same age, maybe a year younger.  My brother Steven was 11, and my brother Robert was 8.  There was another boy named Gabriel, who was 12, who also had a bad older brother.   They lived by us.  Gabriel was good when he was around us, so we played with him a lot.

One day I heard that Chris and Shane were picking on Robert on the school bus.  I don’t think they did anything really bad to him, but they admitted to picking on him because they wanted to bully someone and wanted to pick a fight with me.  I’d had it with them lately, so I was ready to oblige.  I told them to meet me at the bottom of Red Clay Hill that afternoon to settle the matter.  They seemed happy to fight and said they’d be there.  I immediately started to wonder what I’d got myself into.  I knew they’d both want to take me on at once, and I was not an experienced fighter, except against my siblings, but somehow that didn’t seem the same as street fighting.  I felt like it was up to me to take up for my younger brother.  Steven was younger than me, and Brent and Craig stayed after school for band practice.  I was nervous as always about fighting, especially against two unpredictable punk kids.  I wish I could say that I agreed to fight out of concern and compassion for my younger brother, but I must confess I was more concerned about defending family honor and my own pride.  Plus, I just didn’t like those boys.

Later that afternoon Gabriel rode up to my house on his bicycle and said Chris and Chad were ready to fight.  I told him to let them know I am on my way.  He rode off toward where they lived.  Gabriel was also friends with Chris and Chad, but I knew that he was there mostly to keep it fair and to be a witness so nobody tried to change the story afterwards.  I felt like he was mostly on my side, because he knew I would fight fair and that Chris and Chad probably would not.  Anyway, it was on and I couldn’t back out or everyone on the bus would call me a coward.  I started to get ready by taking some deep breaths to settle my nerves a bit and come up with a strategy.  I put on a couple of extra t-shirts and a sweatshirt to make myself look bigger.  I was average height for my age, but quite scrawny.  I also put on my pee-wee football jersey over it all because I thought it would make me look tough.  I did about 20 push-ups to get pumped up and flex my muscles, and then I started walking briskly toward Red Clay Hill.

Red Clay Hill was a steep, narrow dirt road in our neighborhood.  It curved through the thick woods and was fairly dangerous if you went down it very fast, even on a bicycle.  I had to go down the hill to get to Chris and Shane’s house.  The bottom of Red Clay Hill was halfway between our houses.  By the time I approached the top of Red Clay Hill, word had reached Chris and Shane that I was on my way.  As I turned the corner to head down the hill, I puffed out my chest, bowed my arms, and marched down the hill at the same brisk pace.  I could tell by my shadow that I must have made a pretty daunting looking silhouette, although I was still nervous about the whole thing.  I could see people on bicycles at the bottom of the hill but couldn’t make out exactly who they were yet.  Gabriel met me halfway down the hill and said “They’re leaving. They’re scared!”  “Mission accomplished,” I thought to myself.  I would not have to fight them after all.  They had taken off toward home on their bikes, but Gabriel chased them down and grabbed Shane so he could not flee.  I really wished he hadn’t done that.  I was fine with not having to confront them face to face.  He could only hold on to one of them, so Chris got away.  He was willing to leave Shane to his own devices.

I stomped right up to where Gabriel had stopped him on the road.  Shane had a look of horror in his face.  Before I could say anything he frantically exclaimed “I’m sorry!  I didn’t touch your brother!” and stuff like that.  I said “are you going to mess with us anymore?”  “No, I promise!” he cried out.  By this time, Chris decided after all to turn around and come back.  They both promised not to pick on my family again.  I made sure to keep a mean face on the whole time.  We shook hands and went our separate ways.  As I went home, I was quite shocked about how everything turned out.  I had tried to look as tough as possible, but didn’t think it would work so well.  I didn’t tell anyone about that “fight.”  I didn’t have to.  Gabriel reported it to the kids on the bus.  Chris and Shane avoided the conversation rather than trying to change the story.  I was able to move on and try to forget about it.  I was thankful I didn’t have to actually fight.  I don’t know if I’d have won.

Sun Tzu in The Art of War says “All warfare is based on deception…. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”

Stories from my childhood: Playing with fire

(by Michael)

I'll confess I was a bit a pyromaniac as a child.  I don't know how hard my parents tried to keep potentially dangerous things like matches out of the reach of us little kids, but I always knew where to find a box of matches, and I often carried one in my pocket.  It's no wonder I enjoyed Boy Scouts so much... I was allowed to make fires without getting into trouble!
When I was about 5 years old we were living in rural Coffee County, Alabama, in a subdivision we called Jeaderville.  I remember one Sunday morning when I was all dressed in my Sunday clothes and ready for church.  I guess everyone else was still getting ready, so I found something to keep myself occupied outside in the meantime.  There was plenty of pine needles on the ground from the trees in our back yard, so I made 10 little piles of pine straw in one neat long row.  Then I took a little box of matches out of my pocket and lit the piles on fire one by one.  I don't think I finished lighting all ten piles before my dad came outside and spanked me.  He sent me inside with my bottom burning (with pain) while he stomped out the fires I had just made.  Can you imagine getting ready to go to church on Sunday and having to pause to stop your child from setting fire to the back yard?
Small piles of burning pine needles are easy to put out.
The next [unsanctioned] fire I started outside was too big to be extinguished with feet.  I was reminded of this while listening to Thomas S. Monson tell a similar story from his childhood during a recent General Conference talk (read or watch the talk).  When I was about 8 years old, I used to play with a kid who lived on the block.  I think his name was Josh.  He was a year or two older than me.  I could cross my back yard to get to his house.  There were a few junk cars in their back yard.  One day Josh and I were sitting in one of the cars pretending like we were driving around.  He was in the driver seat; I was in the passenger seat.  Since I wasn't driving, I decided to pull out the box of matches from my pocket and light one.  I just loved lighting matches and watching them burn.  Josh was captivated as well.  We looked around for something we could light on fire and found some papers in the glove compartment.  I struck another match and lit the paper.  The flame from the burning paper started getting too big for such close quarters, so we tried to think quickly about the best way to put it out.  I shoved it back inside the glove compartment and shut it quickly.  After a few seconds we opened the glove compartment to see if the fire had gone out yet.  When we opened it, a big flame bellowed out.  Startled, we scuttled out of the car as fast as we could.  The next thing I remember, the car was completely engulfed in flames, the fire department was there, and all the neighbors gathered around to look.  I didn't get spanked for that one.  I remember just standing there watching along with everyone else and thinking to myself, "cool!"  Within a couple of days, all the junk cars in their yard were removed.  I guess we were lucky that there was not more damage.  Come to think of it, I'm probably lucky I didn't burn my own house down at some point.
The next story happened when I was an adult.  This time I did not start a fire, but instead help put one out.  The fire was not started by matches, but rather a cigarette.  One hot, dry summer afternoon as I was driving the long, straight highway 167 between my home and Enterprise, I could see down the road a ways that on oncoming vehicle flicked a cigarette out the passenger window.  As I proceeded along I saw a flash of light come from the grass on shoulder of the road.  As I got closer I realized it was a fire and saw smoke coming from it.  I also noticed that each time an 18-wheeler passed by, it fanned the flames and made the fire bigger.
I pulled over near the fire, thinking it was still small enough I could stamp it out.  By the time I got there it had already grown to about 3-4 feet in diameter, too big for one person to stamp out, given the burning grass was over a foot high.  I looked around to think what could be done.  There were a few homes in the area.  One was directly in front of the fire, but the house was about 3 acres away.  There were two other houses across the street that were closer.  I ran to the first house, knocked on the door, and rang the doorbell.  The door was locked.  I didn't wait for an answer but instead ran around back to look for a hose or something with which I could put out a fire.  I figured trespassing would be tolerated in such an emergency.  I didn't find anything useful, and no one came out, so I ran to the next house and did the same thing.  I found a shovel on the front porch and grabbed it.  Then I saw between the two houses a long hose connected to a spicket.  It was definitely long enough, so I turned on the water and started unwinding the hose to stretch it out across the road.  By the time I got back to the fire it has spread to about 10 feet long and 6 feet wide.  There were some people in a car who stopped and started attacking the fire with machetes.  To my dismay, the water from the hose was barely a trickle.  "This isn't going to do the job," I told myself, and I ran back across the street to see if I could get more water pressure.  By the time I got back again, another car had stopped, and the driver happened to have a small fire extinguisher in his trunk.  With that, he was able to put  the fire out.  The fire had burned about a 20-25 feet stretch along the road and about 10 feet wide.
When things calmed down, I stood there in a bit of shock and thought about how quickly that fire could have spread across the dry grass fields and forests immediately surrounding that spot.  At least one home might have been burned up, along with miles of forest.  Thankfully, we were able to prevent that from happening.  Still, I think about it every time I see another inconsiderate litterbug throw their cigarette butt on the ground.  They say "if you play with fire, you'll get burned," but often times the person playing with doesn't get burned.  Instead, they can cause serious damage to someone else, sometimes without even knowing it.  Even our smallest decisions can have great consequences.  Today, I still know where to find matches when I need them, but I have since learned and practiced safety with fire, and I have also taught the proper use and control of fire to others.

Stories from my childhood: Scars

(by Michael)

We all get scars on our bodies over the course of our lifetime.  Scars are reminders of past events, and sometimes lessons learned.   They invoke memories in the mind of the beholder, even memories that we would rather not recall.  My mother has scars on her tummy from whence more than one of her children were delivered into this life via caesarian.  It’s not a pretty site (no scar is), but she is proud of it because of the joy that has resulted in having children.  As I share stories from my past on this blog, it is not my intention to dig up the negative things from my life (especially the ones I hope my son does not repeat), but to point out the positive things that happen amidst the negative, even if only to look back with amusement and remember how I got through it.  My point is that while our scars appear to be blemishes from our past, their stories often provide meaning and explain who we are.

I have many scars, including one on my right eyebrow  that's a result from running in church.  When I was about 7 years old, I had a tendency to run out of the chapel as soon as sacrament meeting was over and bolt to the primary wing (by way of the water fountain) for Sunday School.  One Sunday, as soon as the last “Amen” was said at the end of the sacrament meeting benediction, I jumped up from the row where my family was sitting and started darting through and around the many people who instantly filled the aisles.  Well, I tripped over Brother Thomas’ foot, fell forward, and bonked my head on the edge of the nearest wooden pew.  I got a gash above my eye, and blood streamed out.  I was crying, of course. My mother took me to the emergency room.  Brother Thomas felt so bad about it that he wanted to accompany us to the ER, but he had other obligations still at church that morning, so he sent his wife with us instead.  While we were sitting in the waiting room at the ER, I was shivering a little because the room was cool.  Sister Thomas noticed and gave me her knitted sweater to keep warm.  As blood dripped from my head onto her nice white sweater I could hear her say quietly to my mother, “Oh no, he’s bleeding on my sweater!”  I didn’t take care not to get her sweater bloody because I thought she gave it to me and wouldn’t mind.  Surely she knew I couldn’t stop bleeding, I thought to myself.  But then I started feeling bad about it.  I still do, but not as much because I know now that those are material things and it happened long ago.  So after all of that I got two stitches in my eyebrow.  The bleeding stopped, and the knot on my brow eventually went away, but the scar remains to remind me of that event.  It wasn’t so tragic, but I did learn to not run in crowded rooms with hard edges around.  Now, when I see little children running in church, I caution them to slow down, not because I’m a boring old man, but because I know how dangerous it can be.

I have another scar on my stomach.  It’s rather small now, but it used to be much bigger.  When I was about 4 years old, there was a tree that stood between our house and the next door neighbor’s house.  I don’t know how tall it was, but it was taller than the house.  I loved climbing things, especially trees.  The branches on that tree were not great big branches, but they were big enough for a 4-year-old to stand on (some of them, anyway).  One day, I determined to climb the tree.  As I climbed it I got so excited that I decided I would climb to the very top, and I did.  As I clung to the top of the tree, looking around and enjoying my accomplishment, the branch I was standing on gave way and I began to fall.  It seemed like I smacked into every single branch on the way down as I fell toward the ground in belly-flop formation.  After I landed on the ground I lifted up my t-shirt to survey the damage and saw several deep scratches on my torso that were starting to bleed.  I started to panic and ran inside to seek help.  The scratches healed, but left a long scar that extended from one side of my chest down to the other side of my stomach in a diagonal pattern.  Over the years the scar slowly faded away.  Now, it is barely more than an inch long.  When I got older I would crack jokes about the origin of the scar.  I claimed it was a shrapnel wound from back in ‘Nam, or a result of a knife fight (“you should’ve seen the other guy”).  As insignificant as the true reason for the scar is, I have other scars that are from even less significant scratches, like the one that resulted from a jagged edge of the metal sousaphone I carried in the marching band in high school.  The funny thing about that scar is that it crosses the other scar on my stomach to form an X.  Anyway, I guess I didn’t learn to not climb trees.  I have climbed many a tree since and fallen out of a couple, but I have gotten better at judging the reliability of the branch I climb on.  Sometimes, you can’t let tragic events keep you down.

I sometimes wonder if when we are resurrected with our perfect immortal bodies we will still have any of the scars we receive in this life.  I think of Jesus Christ’s scars, the nail wounds in his hands and feet and the spear wound in his side.  He purposely kept those scars in his resurrection to show them to us as a witness of the trauma he suffered for our sakes.  He said to us through his prophet Isaiah, “behold, I have graven thee on the palms of my hands….” (Isaiah 49:16)  The beautiful thing about Christ’s sacrifice is that we can be healed of all of our scars—both physical and emotional—through the power of the atonement and resurrection.  Isaiah also says in the same chapter, “the Lord hath comforted his people and will have mercy upon his afflicted.” (Isaiah 49:13)  He knows our afflictions, and we are ever present in his memory.  “Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?” continues the prophet, “yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee” is the promise of the Savior.  As we look upon our scars and remember their causes, let them also remind us of Jesus’ scars, even the tokens of our salvation.  May we find hope and comfort in what they represent:  our ability to be healed through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

John's life [thus far] in video...

Moving sonogram of John yawning in the womb.

Welcome to the world, John Spencer!  His first moments after being born in the Hutchinson hospital.

John seemed to have hiccups often while in the womb.  He kept this tendency after birth.  He must be used to it, but it still bothers him sometimes.

SOMEONE can't seem to leave John alone while he sleeps.  I guess it's because he makes so many different cute faces.  He seems to show the full range of emotions in this clip.

John has loved playing in his "play yard."  He likes kicking the keyboard to play the music, but he loves the dangling mirror most of all.  John just loves looking at himself and others in the mirror.

He loves the little frog toys (they make good teething toys).  This was the stage when John attacked everything violently with his mouth.  He gets a little frustrated when he can't get a good grip on it.

John loves the puppet giraffe, but is not sure what to make of the strange noise it makes.

John gets startled but cracks up at sudden loud movements (at least from mommy and daddy).  We like playing "Gotcha!"

John will play with just about anything you put in front of him, but he has developed a preference to certain toys over time.  It didn't take long for him to get to the "grabby" stage.

As you may notice from the most recent pictures and videos (by his chubbiness), John is a very good eater.  Here he seems excited about the food he is getting until he tastes it.  The look on his face is priceless.

John understands a few words, but he hasn't learned to speak any yet.  Still, that doesn't stop him from trying.  Here he is practicing his pronunciation skills, learning how to use his tongue and lips.

more to come...

174 Reasons (and counting) to Appreciate Birth Mothers

 On January 24, 2013, our lives were changed forever.  John Kimball Spencer was born and placed into our arms for the first time.  Each day since then has been a blessing.  We will forever be grateful to John's birth mother and to God for blessing us with parenthood.  There is no doubt we were meant to be together.  The adoption was finalized on February 28, and we were sealed together as a family for time and all eternity on March 30 in the Kansas City Temple.  We are delighted to share our story with you as it continues.  For many more pictures, videos, and updates, you can follow us on Facebook.  This has truly been the happiest time of our lives.  We are so blessed to have such a happy, healthy, and handsome baby boy.  Thank you to everyone who contributed to our adoption effort in various ways.  Your support is greatly appreciated.