Codename: Lehi: The Autobiography of Jonathan Daniel Beckmon

By Jon Beckmon

This book is the condensed version of my life. It contains the things I can remember most about what has occurred in my life. It is in effect the autobiography of Jonathan Daniel Beckmon which is my full legal name given to me by my parents Raymond Beckmon and Linda Helms (her maiden name) and assigned to me in the United States of America where I was born. At my current stage of life my only real goal is to get married. I have been looking for a suitable spouse for at least 15 years as of the time this book is being published with no luck. Its very hard to find a decent moral woman with the current state of our society and general lack of moral values in the United States of America. I honestly feel that had I been born in Russia I would have been married long ago. I had much better luck finding women there that were interested in my qualities and that were decent human beings. However I have only managed to make it to Russia once as it is beyond my current financial means to go there a lot until I find a wife. Since I refuse to lower my very high standards Ive lived out my life alone. It is better to die alone than to marry a wicked woman. You can read the book to find where the codename Lehi comes from.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781469114583

Jon Beckmon

My name is Jon Beckmon. I currently reside in Twin Falls, ID. I’m hoping to one day marry Sariah Kuosmanen even though she said “I’ll never be your Sariah, I’ll never be your Sariah” in Finland. But in Gooding, Idaho she said “I’ll be your wife as soon as you come up”. She better never lie to me ever again though. You can contact me via email at [e-mail]. Sincerely, Jon Beckmon

Book preview

Copyright © 2011 by Jon Beckmon.

Library of Congress Control Number:              2010908929

ISBN:                     Hardcover                     978-1-4535-2373-5

ISBN:                     Softcover                       978-1-4535-2372-8

ISBN:                     Ebook                             978-1-4691-1458-3

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Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Preface

This book is the autobiography of Jonathan Daniel Beckmon. All the events in this book really took place, and no names have been changed. Everyone’s real names have been listed in this book because what good is a history book if the information cannot be verified. If I listed false names to cover people’s identity, then none of the book could ever be verified against the truth, and this book may well outlast me by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years. This book may be read by my offspring millennia from now if I ever have any offspring. If I don’t ever have any offspring, then this book may be read by the offspring of others who took part in this story. If you have been left out and were a part of my life, then please forgive me as the book would be endless and I would never complete it if I wrote everything that’s ever happened to me. Of course, I can’t remember everything either, and the facts in this book are to my best recollection of the events that took place. I have a very good memory, and so they should be almost completely accurate, but I know things have been left out that I have long forgotten or in some cases many things seemed insignificant. Hopefully those who come after can learn something of the individuals who have been involved in my life from this book as those individuals helped shape who I am and what I know. As a poem I once wrote said, I am a collection of other people’s thoughts and memories as I am a part of them and they are a part of me. In Babylon 5 my favorite character who was a Vorlon named Kosh summed it up pretty well in one episode in which he said to Captain John Sheridan, As long as you’re here, I’ll always be here. I believe that what this meant was that within John Sheridan’s memories, Kosh would always exist and while he lived so would Kosh in his memories and perhaps John Sheridan could pass on those memories to others who would come after him. As long as this book remains and people take time to read it and learn from it, I shall always exist in people’s hearts and memories as will the people I have spoken about in the book. With that in mind, I dedicate this book to whomever my future wife ends up being and to any offspring that we produce in that union. If I never marry, then I dedicate this book to all those that read these pages to learn from them. In fact if I do marry, I still dedicate these pages to all who read this book including the future wife and kids.

Chapter 1

The Early Years

This is the story of my life, the life story of one small person in one small world, the story of the life of Jonathan Daniel Beckmon. For my parents Raymond Dean Beckmon and Linda Lee Helms, life began on these dates: Raymond Dean Beckmon, June 1, 1945, and Linda Lee Helms, July 4, 1948. At least that is what they tell me. For me life began on April 19, 1967, or so my parents and birth certificate tell me as I have no memories of these events directly. In addition that is when my life outside the womb began. Technically, I am probably around nine months older as that is when my life began inside the womb to prepare me to get bigger so I could survive easier. I was born in Caldwell, Idaho, United States of America.

I have no memories or very few memories of life before I was seven or eight years old. My grandmother Dorie Conrad (my mom’s mom) told me that they couldn’t keep me away from the Christmas tree and they had to put it in my crib with me. I do remember throwing all my clothes in a ditch once and running around naked around three or four years of age. I have a slight memory of hunting a cottontail rabbit with my uncle Rich Helms when I was very young. I remember my dad paying me to cuss, and I remember my dad killing cats. I now understand why he may have done that even though I love animals. I am deathly allergic to many cats, and maybe my dad was just protecting his offspring like all other species do.

I went to first grade in Nampa, Idaho, and I remember not being able to tie my shoelaces yet. I remember learning to count to a little above ten in Spanish in first grade. I can still count to ten and a bit above in Spanish to this day. I remember breaking a piñata in class. That is about the extent of my memories during this time.

My mom divorced my dad when I was seven years old. My sister Hannah Elizabeth Beckmon was born before this happened on April 12, 1968, not quite a year after me. My sister Angelina Mae Beckmon was also born before this happened on August 10, 1973. The year Roe v. Wade occurred. Luckily for my sister, my mom was not stupid enough to have an abortion. She obeyed God’s laws and did not follow Roe v. Wade. A horrible decision by a horrible Supreme Court since god is really supreme. My mom was born on Independence Day. Go figure.

I went to second grade in Jerome, Idaho. I can’t remember much about second grade though. Sometime around second grade, I was hanging out with a bunch of friends. I can’t remember the exact year, but for some reason we decided to bash the windows out on a van that was parked outside of a guy’s house. A police officer pulled up on the scene and pulled his gun on us. I don’t blame him as he didn’t know what he was getting into. When he found out it was just a bunch of kids, he put the gun up and took us to jail in the police car. We got a good scare that day, and I never looked back. This was to be pretty much my only major incident with the police. The police either at this time or a bit later showed us a bunch of drug paraphernalia and told us not to do drugs and I listened. I also remember around this time scraping the bark off a tree and putting honey on it to watch the bees come to it. I had a huge swarm of bees.

Sometime around second or third grade, I went with Mark Chojnacky’s family, and we went to the mountains somewhere looking for rocks or something. It was a very fun trip, but I ended up with a tick on me that I didn’t catch for a few days, and my mom put rubbing alcohol on it and drowned it in rubbing alcohol so it would withdraw itself from my body.

I went to third grade in Jerome, Idaho, at Lincoln Elementary. My fondest memory of third grade is that we all played army on the dirt hills at Lincoln. I was second in command to General Peter (can’t remember his last name). Also around second to third grade when we lived in an apartment complex, I met Shawn Sprenger and his sister Shelly Sprenger. We would hang out a lot. The thing I remember the most was we would use metal garbage pail lids as shields and practice warfare. Also my sister Angel rolled down a hill and broke her arm unfortunately.

I went to fourth grade in Jerome, Idaho, at Lincoln Elementary. My fondest memory is that I was promoted to general. I was now first in command, leading my troops to battle. My second in command was Mark Chojnacky who was an early childhood friend. I rode motorcycles at his house once, but my biggest memory of him was that he was my second in command. I do remember making up some story about laser guns or something though. I remember giving an order for our troops to do a full frontal assault while I went behind enemy lines myself to free the prisoners the other army had taken from us. I also slightly remember a guy named Andre that wanted to join our army. He had about three girls with him. That was unheard of. Despite objections from my men, I let Andre join the band because I liked the idea that he came with girls. Andre never seemed to do anything productive for our military, so I guess I should have listened to the men. It is possible that the name Andre may not be correct because I only slightly remember him. I do know for sure though that he came with girls, and that was a big novelty.

Sometime around this time either earlier or later or at this time, my sister Hannah Elizabeth Beckmon and myself also got into either my uncle Rich Helms’s or Uncle Robert Helms’s military rations and snatched a cigarette. We went out under a tree on my grandpa Herbert Helms’s farm and tried a cigarette. We started coughing, and I recognized that cigarettes were not healthy for you and never looked back. Hannah would later start smoking though.

In fifth grade my family moved, so I went to fifth grade in Wendell, Idaho, and this was where I had my first male teacher, Mr. Vaughn. He was the first teacher I can actually remember the name of. I really liked Mr. Vaughn (I liked all my teachers though), which might be because he was my first male teacher. I acquired some friends, Ronnie Phipps, Vernon Ray, and Jeff Carpenter. I also got to know their families—Ronnie’s sister Tina Phipps, Vernon’s sister Lynette Ray, and Jeff’s brothers Scott and Aaron Carpenter and their sister Theresa Carpenter. The only parents’ names I remember of this group of friends are Gail and Esther Carpenter because Jeff was to become my best friend for all time. I first met Ronnie because he lived in the same area I lived in. We became fast friends. John Irace built us a tree house in the tree out back. He was very nice. He had a son named Frankie Irace, and he was building the tree house for all of us. Later, he also had a son named Louis Irace. John and Dawn Irace owned the Golden Skillet if all my memories of names are correct. It was a restaurant in Wendell at that time. John Irace was also a college champion chess player and the first person to teach me to play chess, which still is an enjoyment. John destroyed me every time. I never beat him, but I learned a lot. It was good that he never let me win because it taught me persistence, and I never quit chess but kept getting better. Two other college champions would later teach me as well.

John and Dawn Irace also lived in the same area as we did, and that’s how I met them. The story of how I met Vernon Ray is a different one. Ronnie and I were walking home after school, and I don’t know what started it or prompted it, but he and Vernon got in a fight. Vernon was big, and his punch would surely put Ronnie down who was small, but Ronnie was very fast. A punch is no good if you can’t land it. Ronnie ran circles around Vernon and crushed him and then we left. Ronnie and I were playing in the back of the small apartments he lived in and the small house I lived in that was right next to the apartments. Vernon was walking by with his bike. I don’t know why, but somehow we just started talking to him. Ronnie, Vernon, and I all became friends that very day. The same day Ronnie and Vernon got in a fight is the same day we all became friends. I can’t remember when or how we actually all met Jeff, but he became our friend as well. Our friendship broke apart later though because Ronnie’s mom was growing marijuana in her house. I had heard or seen it somewhere before, maybe from the police, and so I recognized the plant in his house. Ronnie and Vernon had decided to do drugs, and I refused and walked out, and Jeff walked out with me. That is how Jeff and I became best friends because we would never hang out with Ronnie or Vernon ever again after this day. Instead we would hang out only with each other after this. Before this happened, I do remember all of us going into the Wendell graveyard a few times in the middle of the night, and this would become a recurring theme for me in my lifetime.

We would also play at what apparently used to be an old penitentiary in Wendell, Idaho. At least that is what some people told me, but it was all broken down on the outskirts of Wendell at that time. We would walk this long ledge standing probably twenty feet off the ground and balancing ourselves. No parents were ever around, so we just played wherever we felt like playing pretty much, and many of those places were not very safe places to play.

Around this time I was also swimming in canals and rivers. We were swimming in Hagerman in the Snake River, and I dog-paddled out (because I didn’t know how to swim). I got tired and tried touching the bottom of the river to rest. I yelled out, I can’t touch the bottom! A girl named Ruth who was swimming with us said, Of course not, it’s about fifteen feet deep there. Then I yelled out, I don’t know how to swim. Ruth then swam over to me and carried me out of the river on her back. I could have drowned there and almost did. Luckily, Ruth was there. There were no adults anywhere around as all the parents were always working. Ruth was the oldest one of us. I think she was around sixteen. I will always be grateful to her for saving my life. At least I hope her name was Ruth. It has been a long time, and I didn’t hang out with her that much, so I’m pretty sure that was her name.

I was also hanging out with friends and catching pigeons at old warehouses around this time. I had a pigeon cage and had a lot of pigeons in it. We also drank a lot of Kool-Aid as it was cheap and we didn’t have any soda. I would drink more soda pop as an adult, but eventually I would quit it cold turkey.

Another big event that happened in fifth grade was that my friends and I were playing in an area that we should not have been playing in. It had no trespassing signs that we ignored. I don’t know exactly what it was for, but there were two large pipes. I had my left hand resting on one of them, and then I backed up and accidentally hit the Go button (there was a green Go button and a red Stop button), and the top pipe came crashing down onto the bottom pipe, smashing my hand between them. The pipe immediately bounced back up, so I was able to pull my hand out, and I ran home screaming to my mom. There was blood all over my hand, and all my fingernails, except for my thumb nail on my left hand, were sticking straight up out of the fingers. Either I called my mom or she was home. I think she was home, but it was a long time ago. My mom immediately threw me into the back of her car and drove to the emergency room of the hospital. They sedated me there, and the doctor—I’m assuming while I was out—removed all my fingernails because when I woke up, I didn’t have any fingernails left. I am very grateful to that doctor for healing me. It was all bandaged up, and sometimes I would have to remove the bandages to replace them, and I went to school in a sling. Lots of kids in class were asking to see my hand, but I refused to show anyone. Then Jolene Bodily, the girl I had my very first crush on, came and asked to see my hand, and I couldn’t resist showing her. She looked at it, and then lots of people were asking her what she saw. She said, Nothing, there were just a lot of bandages.

Either in fifth or sixth grade I acquired many friends. Darren Bartlett was to be a very good friend over my early years. I also became friends with many of the popular kids such as Richard Schraft, Jolene Bodily, Jill Chandler, Brett Thackery, Dawn Pope, Kendra Jenkins (or Jenks), Sherri Stockham, Bryce Olsen, Eric (can’t remember how to spell his last name, Weinmeister or something I think). I can’t remember everyone’s names, so please forgive me if I left you out of my autobiography. Tim Fiscus was another person who would be a good friend for a few years. I also ran some lemonade stands around this time. I was pretty much always an entrepreneur. One thing about my name that is curious is that my full name is Jonathan Daniel Beckmon and my best friend’s full name is Jeffrey David Carpenter. In the Bible, Jonathan is Saul’s son, and his best friend is David, and that equates to me and my best friend since my first name is Jonathan and his middle name is David. My middle name of Daniel is the great prophet of the Old Testament who survived even in the lion’s den, and concerning my best friend’s name of Carpenter, it was said that Jesus was a carpenter. Where my last name of Beckmon and his first name of Jeffrey apply however is most curious and unknown to an extent though I will go further into my last name later on.

In sixth grade, I was still in Wendell, Idaho. The first poem I ever remember writing was in sixth grade. I can’t remember exactly the contents of it nor do I have any idea if a copy of it even exists anymore. There was only one copy. I remember something about beware of the man with eyes of diamonds in the poem, and that is about all I remember. I remember showing the poem to Richard Schraft, and he liked it, but I don’t remember if I showed it to anyone else. In sixth grade while we were playing baseball in the school yard, I remember getting hit in the nose with a baseball, and I wonder if that was when my nose got a big bump on it. Since I don’t have many pictures taken, I’m not sure if my nose was smaller before that incident or not, but I never went to a doctor for it. Either in late fifth grade or sixth grade, my mom married her second husband Tom Gabriel. I acquired an older stepsister (four years older I think) named Staci Gabriel. She was very nice, and I have very fond memories of her. One day I decided to look up Jolene Bodily’s phone number and call Jolene on the phone. I told her I had an older sister that played volleyball (Staci) but didn’t yet reveal my name. She couldn’t place who I was and was very curious because I don’t share the same last name as Staci Gabriel. We talked a lot, and eventually I revealed my name. I went by Jonnie back then.

Everyone around that time was doing something called going steady. None of us really knew about dating or anything, and I’m not quite sure I even understood going steady, but I asked Jolene if she would go steady with me. She said she would think about it. Within the next week, I had asked her about it at school, and she finally said no. I was crushed by my first crush, but life goes on. I danced with Jolene at a Mormon church in Wendell in sixth grade, I believe. I definitely danced with her but not sure if it was sixth grade or seventh grade. I went to the church for Cub Scouts. Walt Stockham (Sherrie’s dad) was our scoutmaster. I loved scouts. We went camping in the snow and had to dig out the snow to pitch our tent. We went snipe hunting (for all you scouts out there that recognize this, ha ha). Some scouts and I climbed up pipes on the Jim Bridger trail to reach the top of the cliff and walked back down another way while the scoutmasters wondered how we got up there. We went tubing a lot. One time when I went up into the high mountains with the Cub Scouts to go fishing, I found that the river up there was so shallow since we were so high up that you could simply just wade out into the water and the red salmon fish were swimming all around you. You could look at the clear water and see salmon everywhere, and all these guys were baiting their fishing poles and dropping them into the very shallow river. I looked at them and thought what a waste of time that was, and I got out my fishing net and just waded out and scooped the little fishes up. There was a limit back then of fifty-five fish per day or per trip (can’t quite remember whether it was per day or per trip), and I quickly caught my fifty-five fish limit and then decided to go and do something fun like hiking and exploring instead of wasting all my precious time fishing. Some guys fish for sport, but I was fishing so I could eat. I don’t normally like eating fish for the most part, but I took them over to my uncle Bob Helms’s house so he could smoke them up as I like smoked salmon. I felt it was silly to waste time fishing when it was so easy to just scoop them up with a net so you would have your food supply and then could go on and do more interesting things. I think it was my uncle Bob Helms who also took me ice fishing once. Since I had never been ice fishing, it was quite an interesting concept as you had to cut out a hole in the ice and then put your fishing line into the hole. It was definitely a lot different from normal fishing. I used to like fishing a lot as a child, but then when I grew up, I hated living the rough life and not being in a place to take a shower and clean up, and I quit camping and fishing altogether. My uncle Bob had also taken me pheasant hunting on my grandpa Herb Helms’s farm. My grandpa John Conrad would take us fishing as he was a huge fan of fishing like my other relatives. My grandpa John Conrad also was a huge fan of horses, and he would judge quarter horse shows since his brother Howard Conrad owned many horses, and they would show them. I shared my board games with my stepsister Staci a lot. We got along great, but Staci did not get along well with my other sisters. I got to fly radio-controlled airplanes with my stepdad Tom Gabriel. He was a very good stepdad though I didn’t always think so.

My mom taught me how to drive around this time. On the back roads between Wendell and Jerome, we would go as a family to collect aluminum cans as we were very poor. I would also pick asparagus for my mom and flowers. I hated asparagus, but my mom loved it, so I would pick it at canal banks and such for her.

In sixth grade I also had taught Danny Ferguson how to play chess and had taught David Hansen some things and played a lot against Archie Knutson who was a friend. They ended up having a single-elimination tournament in sixth grade for us. The bracket I was in was very tough. I barely beat Archie Knutson in the first round, and then I think I met David Hansen next. As it turns out, his little sister Laura, who was apparently very good at chess, had taught David a few new tricks, and David barely beat me. David went on to become the champion for our age range, beating the final guy in four moves. Obviously the other bracket was a lot easier than the bracket we ended up in. I think Swiss rounds or double elimination would have been better. David told me that I was his toughest opponent of the tournament after it was over.

Around sixth grade or close to it, I and my friends would hang out around the Sue Bee Honey plant. They had a lot of beehives there, and one time my friends dared me to walk between the beehives. There were beehives on both sides and thousands if not hundreds of thousands of bees going back and forth between them constantly. I took them up on their dare and walked right between the two groups of beehives with bees flying all around me. I never swatted at the bees, and they didn’t sting me, and I made it through just fine.

Another good friend I had was Ken Hansen, and I stayed the night at his house a few times. He taught me how to play Stratego. I liked his strategy so much that I adapted it a bit. I beat him on the second game I played. I still have not found a strategy I like better, and I’ve played Stratego within the last few years.

I also stayed the night at Darren Bartlett’s house a lot, and we would catch tadpoles in the pond by his house. Of course, we also used to shoot BB guns at each other until his brother Eric almost got hit in the eye, and we decided it was time to stop. He also had a sister named Dion and another one named Chantel.

Sometime in these early years though it long escapes me, my family was friends with the Rushing family, and their kids were Ken, Karen and Kurt with Ken being my age and Karen being Hannah’s age and Kurt being around Angel’s age, so it was pretty interesting that our ages matched up. Angel and Kurt though they were but toddlers, really decided to get married, and they had a fake wedding ceremony and were pronounced husband and wife. The marriage was of course never consummated.

Around this time or a bit later, I also began selling jewelry door-to-door and also metal social security plates. I made a little money this way. The companies I was selling these for showed me some business concepts early. I would charge $3.00 for the metal social security plates as they stipulated and keep $1.50 for myself as they stipulated and send the rest to them. I would always deliver the merchandise when I got it in from the company and never ripped the customers off. They always got what they paid for.

My best friend Jeff and I also started a lawn mowing business and would go door-to-door to generate customers. Then we would get a weekly mowing list and go back to mow our customers lawns either once a week or once every two weeks. We even watered one guy’s lawn for a week for $10. I was always an entrepreneur.

Around seventh grade or a bit before or later as my memory escapes me on the exact timeframe, I had been watching many movies about Native Americans or Indians as the nickname is since Christopher Columbus had thought he had found another route to India instead of a New World or America. I talked my best friend Jeff into becoming my blood brother according to Indian law or the mixing of blood between two people. I think we actually only picked off scabs or something instead of actually using a knife to cut our palms, but we did mix blood, and so I have a blood brother as well as a best friend. He is my only blood brother though we don’t share any parents in common according to ancient Indian or Native American customs.

While living with Thomas Gabriel my stepdad sometime around seventh grade, I put some notes on some helium-filled balloons that I had that said, If you send the note back with your address, then I will send you a prize. I only received one note back, and it was from a Danelle Winder (now married with the last name Holt) who said that her dad had found it in his field, if I remember correctly, and told her she should probably mail it. I didn’t honestly expect any balloons to be returned, so I found an M&M necklace or something I had lying around the house and sent it to her and made up a story on what the letters stood for or something like that. Danelle was in the same grade as I was, so it turned out I knew her. It was the only balloon returned, and it was very interesting that a girl returned the balloon. I always keep my word even when I was a youngster, and so I had to get her some kind of a prize.

Sometime around seventh or eighth grade, I was jumping up and down on my bed, and I slipped and fell and landed on my face. I now have a permanent scar next to my left eye that was left by this incident. I also cracked one of my front teeth in this incident and went to the dentist to repair it. He put what he called a Band-Aid on my front tooth to make it whole again, but I was supposed to go back and get the Band-Aid taken off at some time. I never went back, and the Band-Aid part of the tooth turned yellow, but the rest of the tooth stayed white. Eventually, a part of the Band-Aid fell off, and now my front tooth is more white than it was while the entire Band-Aid was on, but I have a yellow streak where a small part of the Band-Aid remains holding the tooth together.

I was still in Wendell, Idaho, for seventh grade, my first year of junior high. Either this year or next, I bought a BB gun. I almost won a BB gun at Simerly’s shooting at a turkey target. Garon Kelly (if I remember his name correctly) had gotten in a fight with me either this year or in sixth grade. I didn’t do anything wrong as I was just walking through the school playground, and for some reason he just knocked me down and started punching me. I had to fight back and punched him. I don’t remember either of us winning though. At Simerly’s we were both shooting to win the BB gun. Everyone had shot but me if I remember correctly. On my first shot, I hit a bull’s-eye. The guy said, Keep shooting like that and you will win the gun. I hit a 9 on my next shot and then another bull’s-eye I think. After all was said and done, the guy showed me the scorecard, and he told me I missed the target completely on one of my shots. I showed him where it looked like two BBs went through the same hole in the 9 slot, but he said, Nope, you missed the target. I have a hard time seeing myself missing the target when all my other shots were all in the same region. Going by his way, I ended up scoring 39 out of 50. Had the shot been the way I claimed it was, it would have been a 48 out of 50. The hole I was claiming I shot through twice was a bit bigger than all the other holes and more torn like another BB had hit it. Anyways because of this, Garon won the BB gun with a 41. He told me afterward I was the only one he was worried about. I also remember dressing up as an Indian chief as I had a fake bear claw necklace, headband, and the shorts that Indians wear, and I put on war paint, and when the doorbell rang, I went and answered the door, and it was the next-door neighbor girl named Sue Strickland. She was a year or two older than me, but I found her extremely attractive. She seemed to smile when I answered the door in my Indian outfit, but I can’t remember why she came over to the house. She was very pretty.

Sometime around seventh grade, my friends and I would be out shooting our BB guns in the desert or just wandering around the desert, and we ended up stumbling upon a rattlesnake. The snake was right in front of me, and I could see it and heard it shaking it’s rattle as a signal to leave its territory immediately or risk being bitten by it. I ran the hell out of there as I was smart enough to know not to mess with a rattlesnake. It was the only time I’ve come face-to-face with a rattlesnake in the wild. We also found baby bunnies in the wild but decided to leave them there for their mom to take care of them. We would also find caves in the desert and go into them and examine them though we picked up after ourselves, and we found some in where people had left trash lying around. When the winter would first start and the canal water would be shut off, we would also wander around the canal, and we found small ponds of water that were left in the canal, and we caught a bunch of catfish and took them home and put them in water. Unfortunately, we didn’t really know how to take care of the catfish, and they ended up dying. We also would swim in the canals a lot during this time as we didn’t really have the money to go to the city pool or anything, and we didn’t really even stop to consider that it might be dangerous to swim in canals as none of our parents were ever around to teach us it might be dangerous since a lot of us were from single-parent households, and the parents were always at work. One time I got leeches on me, and it was awful.

In junior high Danny Ferguson was always going around and pinching the girls on the butt and trying to get between their legs when he pinched them. I didn’t really understand what he was doing, but he was pretty much being a jerk though he was my friend. I never did anything like that myself however, ever. Scott Baird was also a good friend of mine, and he had this weird thing he would do with his arms and voice, but I can’t remember exactly what it was anymore.

It was exciting for me in eighth grade because I had been forced to take choir all my years of grade school because I could not afford an instrument to be in band. The only elective choices we had in grade school were band or choir. I was very pleased to have a new choice of home economics finally. I know mostly only girls take home economics, but I was very happy to have something different from choir. I learned to cook and sew in home economics and had a blast. I also had my own hermit crab, and I brought it to home economics for show-and-tell. All the girls wanted to hold it (as the girls outnumbered the guys in home economics severely, which was a big benefit in and of itself) and I let them. My hermit crab would not come out for any of them however. It would only come out to my own smell when it was in my hand. I guess it felt safe and comfortable with me since I had never harmed it. One day though, it just disappeared at my house, and my mom said she thought maybe a mouse ate it. In sixth or seventh grade, I also got to go on a hayride at Walt Stockham’s house with Sherri, Jolene, Jill, and some others. I showed them how to make a flute out of crabgrass that they enjoyed. I owed this to my friend Tim Fiscus who taught me how to make the flute out of crabgrass. Also this year Bryce Olsen invited me to a slumber party. It was going to be a coed chaperoned party with only the guys staying the night. I accepted. Jolene Bodily, Sherri Stockham, Jill Chandler, Kendra Jenks or Jenkins, Dawn Pope, Richard Schraft, and others were there. I remember they played spin the bottle, and I remember when it stopped on me once the girls were talking about having me kiss someone but said he won’t do it (which I wouldn’t have but that is a future story). I can’t remember what they had me do. The girls left, and all of us guys stayed up playing pool. We decided to have a contest on who could stay up the longest. By the end only Bryce and I remained, and neither of us went to sleep all night and into the next day. I left, and apparently when we talked about it, Bryce won by a little bit for how much longer we stayed awake. This was the first time I remember staying up twenty-four hours straight and more. While I was staying up and I went home to Tom Gabriel and my mom’s house, I invited Jeff Carpenter who was and is and always will be my best friend over and we were playing a little chess game. He told me after I had lost my queen, What is wrong, Jon, I’ve never seen you play so bad before? The next thing I knew I woke up hours later with my face in the chessboard as apparently I simply fell asleep and fell into the chess set because I was so tired and exhausted from staying up from the get-together for so long. I don’t know when Jeff left, but he wasn’t there when I awoke. Tom mentioned something to me, but I can no longer remember what it was. This was the first and last time I’ve simply just fallen asleep while doing something active. I fall asleep all the time doing passive things like watching movies and such, but usually interactive things like video and computer games, board games, role-playing games, miniature games, and other such things keep me awake even when I am exhausted.

One of my friends talked me into chewing tobacco around this time. I tried Copenhagen and Beech-Nut and other chews. I liked the flavor of some of them, so I ended up chewing tobacco for about two weeks. My stepdad I know saw because he said to my mom, That looks like a can of chewing tobacco in his pocket. But they never did anything about it. Luckily, I quit after two weeks as it might have messed up my life forever.

I became friends with Scott Beach and his sister that lived next door to my stepdad’s house (my new house), and we used to play kick the can a lot. I had other friends like Miguel (can’t remember his last name) and Terry Fabela. Terry and I traded some toys and I remember getting a creepy crawler toy from him.

Sometime between seventh and ninth grades, I also became a member of the FFA or the Future Farmers of America and went to their events. I was taking a hands-on class though I can’t exactly remember anything we really learned at this current time. Since my grandfather Herbert Helms was a farmer, this seemed to be quite an interesting class. However, I never ended up becoming a farmer, and though farming is a very necessary job, it’s not really for me. I remember how hard my grandfather had to work and how we had to get up so early in the morning, though we did go to bed a lot earlier than I go to bed these days. I work very hard myself, but it’s a different kind of work than my grandfather Herbert Helms did. I do not envy farmers’ jobs at all, but I am glad they do what they do so we don’t all starve to death.

Around eighth grade or earlier maybe even as low as second or third grade as my memory escapes me, I won a Shetland pony from the church we were going to. It was an Assembly of God church if I remember correctly, and I won the raffle for the pony. My grandpa Herbert Helms took care of him on his farm, and I remember riding and loving that animal. It was the only horse I ever owned. We went to a lot of different churches with my mom. I also went to churches with my friends and attended a Catholic church, Mormon church, Presbyterian church, Episcopalian church, and too many other churches to mention right now though I will mention more later on in this book. I was baptized by water however after attending a Bible Baptist church camp and returning home. It was my stepdad Thomas Gabriel’s church, and that is what we attended while living with him. I was baptized by water into the Bible Baptist church.

I went to eighth grade in Wendell, Idaho, junior high as well. I believe this is the year that a new girl named Andrea Bailey moved to Wendell or it was seventh grade. Anyways, I thought she was hot, so I put a note in her locker asking her out. I was very shy and not much has changed. I put on the note to circle yes, no, or maybe. Well, she circled maybe and gave it back. Nothing ever came of it however for some reason. I danced with her at school dances, which I went to many in seventh, eighth, and part of ninth grades. I danced with many other girls, including I believe Jill Chandler, Jolene Bodily, Brenda Bunn, and tons of other girls I can’t remember right now. I danced a lot during those years. It would take me awhile to get up the nerve to ask, but I did ask eventually. I remember one time when it was a fast dance and I was dancing with a girl next to Richard Schraft dancing with a girl and other guys and they egged me on to do a whirling spin, and I did it, and I did pretty well if I do say so myself. I developed a very unique way of dancing on fast dances, but I certainly preferred slow dances all the time where you could actually touch the girl’s body even if it was just your arms around her waist and you would be very close to the female and could smell her wonderful smell and feel the wonderful sensation of touching a girl.

During these years my friends and I would sometimes ride our bikes to my grandpa Herbert Helms’s (my mom’s dad) house to explore his farm and ride the three-wheeler he had. I remember a friend named Terry. He hurt his foot because a rock hit it while he was a passenger while I was driving. One guy (I think Terry) fell on the electric fence, and everyone was afraid to pull him off, so I had to yank him off quick, and I was farther away so had to hurry. Eighth grade I believe is when I got my driver’s license. I showed up late and got Mr. Larue (not sure of spelling) who was the easier guy, so I got lucky. The other driver’s education instructor was Mr. Yogi Behrens I think. I remember when we went test driving at the gymnasium that he just said, I figure you all know how to drive already anyways so hop in and take off. We had four cars going at once with no driver’s education instructor in any of them. He told us not to play music while we drive, but we paid no attention. As soon as we took off, we cranked up the tunes. Around one corner, Rod Riddle told me to burn out so I did. The driver’s education teacher flagged us down when we got close to him and just said, Slow it down a little, okay? And so we did. I guess he wasn’t paying attention that we had the tunes cranked. When we finally hit the real roads, the driver’s education instructor had to be in the car. I remember Toddi Ferrenburg driving down the wrong side of Main Street and the instructor having to correct her. But he passed everyone in the class.

I’m not sure whether the following incidents occurred in seventh or eighth grade, but I think they were in eighth grade. I had a teacher in seventh or eighth grade that if I remember correctly was named Mr. Samac. I did a report for his class on Indians (Native Americans) as Indians were always my favorite. It was a very long report, and I interviewed the mayor of Wendell at the time for the report at the suggestion of one of my teachers. I had Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, Geronimo, Chief Joseph, and many others in my report.

I also had a teacher named Ms. Muscat whose name would later be changed to Mrs. Toone when she got married. I was very fond of Ms. Muscat, and she was gorgeous. Anyways, I had always pretty much stayed out of trouble and got good grades in all my classes. One day when Ms. Muscat was gone and we were playing games in class, for some reason I got mad at one of my friends named Mike, and I hit him or something. When Ms. Muscat got back, she said, I can’t believe my best student did something like this when I was gone. She paddled me hard with a wooden board with holes in it. Teachers were allowed to discipline the kids in their class back then. I feel now that she paddled me properly, so I have no problems with her and didn’t at that time. The teacher I did have problems with was the PE teacher because in either seventh or eighth grade, I got paddled with another wooden paddle with holes in it for not showering with the boys in PE. I feel this was an inappropriate use of discipline and still do today. Probably why they took discipline out of classes. Do I look like I’m gay? Why would I want to shower with other guys? Now I am looking forward to showering with my wife one day, but that’s another story.

Another time I’m sure in eighth grade, the guys were boxing on the playground, and they wanted me and Mike to put on the gloves since we were about the same size and go at it. We were both reluctant since we liked each other, but they talked us into it. Then we just stood there not doing anything. The guys egged us on, so finally I just threw the first punch to his face and knocked him down. He was very upset and got up swinging. I kind of felt bad for throwing the first punch, so I didn’t put up much resistance. At the end they called the fight a tie since I landed a knockdown blow with one punch but didn’t do much the rest of the fight. Mike and I remained friends because after all this was just boxing with gloves.

In ninth grade my mom and stepdad divorced, and my mom moved to Jerome, but I wanted to stay in Wendell since I had many friends there, so I moved in with my best friend and his family. I lived with Gail and Esther Carpenter and their children—from eldest to youngest, Jeff, Scott, Aaron, and Theresa—for the next six months. I liked living with them. They had a pool table in their basement. I remember once Esther told me, I wish my kids were more like you. You come home and get all your homework done and then play. Her kids would come home and then play, and she would have to yell at them around 9:00 pm to get their homework done.

Around this time I got my first stereo and my very first cassette. It was either Queen’s The Game or AC/DC’s Back in Black. I went to the first half of ninth grade in Wendell and then moved to Jerome. My mom did not have room for me at her house, so I moved in with my grandpa Herbert Helms and uncle Robert Helms on the farm. Sometime around this time or maybe a few years earlier, my grandfather wanted me to try Budweiser since he drank it. I tried one sip, and luckily, I didn’t like the taste, so I never touched alcohol ever again. I would try to keep up with my grandpa drinking Budweiser drinking my Dr Pepper but could never keep up. I helped my grandpa on the farm feeding the cows, taking care of the cats, chickens, Smokey the dog, and helping him bail hay and buck hay, etc. I would also go out into the fields to play with Smokey the dog, and I would climb on the old tractors that were out there, and Smokey would chase and kill rock chucks as grandpa taught him to do by grabbing the back of their neck and shaking it until it killed them. I also would pick a bunch of grass sometimes and throw it in a ditch and watch it float down the ditch while I followed it. I imagined that these blades of grass were my navy, and I watched to see how their performance was. There was also a pond where Smokey would swim out in and scare the ducks sometimes. A large fish one time ended up somehow getting into the ditches for the irrigation system.

I drank coffee for the first time here. My grandfather liked his coffee black, but I drank mine with lots of milk and sugar. I liked coffee with lots of milk and sugar. I went into my first bar with my grandpa as well. I was too young to go in, but the guy just said, Here hide behind this curtain so the cops won’t see you. I remember my