This Time Last Year

We've happened upon a dreary and rainy London this spring, although everyone from the BBC weather people to persons on the street will say the UK is still in a serious drought situation.  Whereas last year we had cool but unseasonably sunny weather, with a total of three or four rainy days, this year in six days we've been here, we've had rain every single day.  Yesterday afternoon around Leicester Square, where we went to see Noel Coward's Hay Fever, we waded into a sea of multicoloured umbrellas held up by hundreds and hundreds of people--just down the street from the stage revival of Singing in the Rain.

London Calling

Squared Away is back in the saddle after a long hiatus on the occasion of another spring to be spent directing BYU's London Theatre Program.  Keep up with our activities on my daily posts.

Two Wannabe Cowboys

"Men work together," I told him from the heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."

Robert Frost
"The Tuft of Flowers"

The Littlest Viking and Indiana Jones

Whenever any combination of our 8 grandsons comes over to play, they always head for the newly renovated boys' room and its cache of costumes, toys, and weapons. Miles (2) and Luke (5), pictured here, have spent the most time with us lately because their parents, Travis and Heidi, have been extremely busy with the triathlon season. Miles tends to choose the Viking costume, complete with a horned helmet and a double-bladed axe, while Luke favors the Indiana Jones look, with the addition of a sword or two. However, Miles has been known to play Indiana himself on occasion, most notably once when Luke was in time-out: Miles put on the famous hat and, rotating his hips from side-to-side, mocked his incarcerated older brother with "Jo-o-nes, Jo-o-nes!"

They all have Jack to thank for the plastic armory he's put at their disposal. It helps to have an uncle who was preoccupied with medievalism during his childhood (although I suspect it will be a long time before Jack's willing to share his Playmobile castle and figures). Even Travis had a couple swords during his childhood, named Naegling and Hrunting after the famous Beowulf blades, with which he would defend his sister's, his mother's, or his blankey's safety whenever they were threatened by me.

Thus, the brave comitatus tradition continues because, as the Beowulf poet observed long ago, "Wyrd oft neareth unfaegne eorle thone his ellen deah."

France Belgium Mission Crepes

The Salem 12th Ward Relief Society invited me to do a crepe-making demonstration for a midweek activity a couple weeks ago, and, because I owe them big time for a long history of gracious acts of support for me and my family, I was very happy to comply. I'm not Emeril Lagasse or Wolfgang Puck or one of those Food Network celebrity chefs, but I do have a certain charm and facility in the kitchen, so the activity went well.

Because the sisters don't have my intuitive je ne sais quoi savoir faire with crepes, initially developed over the course of my two-year mission to France and Belgium, I had to come up with an actual recipe for them. They published it in their weekly newsletter, so I thought I'd publish it on my long dormant blog. There's nothing like a little French cooking to resurrect something.

France Belgium Mission Crepes
Elder Snyder

1 Cup Flour
2 Tablespoons Sugar
Dash of Salt
1 1/2 Cup Milk
2 Tablespoons Oil
1 Egg
Vanilla to Taste
[Almond Extract to Taste]

Mix dry ingredients together with hand mixer. Then add wet ingredients. Mix well to avoid lumps. Heat crepe pan over medium heat. Add a bit of oil and use a paper towel to distribute oil in pan. Add ½ cup crepe batter (depending on size of pan), moving pan with circular motion to distribute batter evenly. Use just enough batter to cover pan. [Add a bit more milk to batter if it doesn’t flow smoothly.] Hover. As crepe cooks, lift sides all around with thin spatula. When crepe is ready for flipping, use spatula to lift crepe enough to grasp gently with fingers. Lift crepe with fingers enough to slide spatula under crepe. Flip crepe. Crepe should have a lacey, light brown look. [If it’s too dark, turn down heat; if it’s too light, turn up heat.] Cook other side of crepe, but it won’t get that same lacey, light brown look and doesn’t need to cook as long. Place cooked crepe, good side down, on plate. Fill with whatever you wish. [Purists prefer butter and powdered sugar.] Roll and eat. Use oil-saturated paper towel to re-oil pan between crepes. France Belgium Mission crepe-eating record: 45 crepes by Elder Austin in March 1973. Bonne chance!

March Sadness

For the first time in decades I'm facing a March without any madness whatsoever because my beloved Tarheels finished an unspeakably horrific season without their customary invitation to the big dance.

True, my second favorite team, BYU's Cougars, have a 7th seed and a first round game with Billy Donovan's Florida Gators, but, after losing in the Mountain West Tournament yet again to UNLV (and I don't care that they hold the tourney on UNLV's home court--the Cougars still should have prevailed because they're a much better team), BYU just doesn't seem poised to get past the first round for the first time in nine (yep, nine!) tries. But, then again, they might just surprise me and lots of other doubters; at least they earned the chance to try. Go Cougars!

What a difference a year makes. Last year I was contemplating the return from injury of Carolina's jet (no offense, Kenny Smith!) of a point guard, Ty Lawson, and a run toward the national championship with a truly outstanding basketball team. It turned out that the Heels had a relatively easy time dispatching the pretenders they faced on the way to the title game, which turned out to be a rout of Michigan State. It turned out to be the most dominant tournament the Heels ever played to win the national championship. And a perfect finish to the incomparable college career of Tyler Hansbrough.

This is supposed to be the point where I wax philosophical about the ebb and flow, the ups and downs, the wins and losses of life--and perhaps throw in a nice quotation from, say, Rudyard Kipling about "meet[ing] with Triumph and Disaster / And treat[ing] those two impostors just the same."

Instead I think I'll simply count the blessing of not having to spend the rest of the month in my usual gut-wrenched, overwrought state of madness. I'll be able to watch games without pacing the floor, driving my family crazy with my negative nervous energy, and startling the cows next door with my cheers every time the Heels make the great play. I'll also have time to consider whether watching the Heels should continue to be an ontological exercise for me, a matter of life and death. Maybe I'll emerge a calmer and brighter Tarheel fan in time for next year's tournament and truly believe, for the first time, that it really doesn't matter whether they win or lose.

Seriously doubt it.

Go Heels!

Arch Madness

"I'm on intimate terms with this prairie."
True West by Sam Shepard

I'm not sure how many times I've been to Arches National Park over the years, but every time I return there I feel the presence of all the other visits and the people with whom I made them.

My most recent visit was a few weeks ago when I took my Western American Literature and Culture class on a field trip. We were reading Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, once a part-time ranger at the park and now its patron saint. I thought that the students would understand the text much better if they had a chance to spend some time in Abbey country. In fact, whenever I teach a course on Western themes, I like to get my students out and about on field trips--riding horses, touring ranches, visiting museums, taking some hikes, and so forth--so they can get a corporeal feel for the West.

We had a great Saturday with perfect weather, but it was also in the middle of a Utah public school holiday, so the park was more crowded than I've ever seen it--hundreds and hundreds of people scattered all over the trails and slick rock. As I surveyed the scene while racing the BYU van toward the parking lot at Devil's Garden to get a parking spot ahead of the hoards behind me, I imagined Abbey (wherever he's buried in some secret wilderness spot known only to a select few of his ecological compatriots) spinning in his grave at the fulfillment of his dire predictions regarding the rise of "industrial tourism."

Despite the crowds, we had a fine but tiring one-day visit. We started with the Devil's Garden hike past Landscape Arch and on to Navajo Arch, Double O Arch, Partition Arch, and the rest. Then we made the pilgrimage to Delicate Arch and hung around the Windows area before heading back to Provo. Of course, my students were enthralled with the park. On that long drive north I thought about how cool it's been for me to be the one who introduced so many people to Arches National Park--family, students, ward members, and so on.

My first trip to the park was in connection with a Utah Humanities Book Group discussion I was doing with the Senior Citizens Center in Moab on Ivan Doig's Dancing at the Rascal Fair some time in the early nineties. Travis went with me. He earned the trip by reading the novel himself. We stayed at the Comfort Inn (the first of many stays there). As a boy, Travis loved the motel life with fast food, swimming pools, and color T.V. with cable. It was worth reading a big novel and hanging around a bunch of old people while his dad led a literary discussion for a chance at the easy life for a day or two, not to mention getting out of school for a couple days. Actually, I think Travis even contributed a comment or two to our discussion himself.

On our way home the next day, we decided to visit Arches. It was a cold winter day with flurries, but we had the park virtually to ourselves. We could spend only a few hours there, but we made good use of our time and saw most everything. We did the Delicate Arch hike in record time. I even walked the snow-encrusted path cut out of the side of the rock to get to the top and, for the first and only time, stood out under the arch itself. (As most of you know, I'm not too fond of heights.)

Standing there with my son taking in the majesty of a truly unique landscape spread all around us, I had only one thought, which I articulated to Travis the best I could: "Travis, if you so much as touch me, you'll have to walk home, so help me. I'm not kidding."

Of course, he immediately reached out with his index finger and touched me . . . and he got exactly the response he wanted from me, the details of which I'll keep private, but I was so grateful to get safely back across the bowl and down the icy path that I let Travis ride home with me and even bought him some lunch and the way.

That was the beginning of Arch Madness for me.