Travels with my kids - Our Lady of Awesome

Ever since I heard the challenge this past weekend to ensure that I don't let popular culture diminish my role as a father, I've been pondering what I've done as a father.  I like to think that I didn't let pop culture diminish my role and I think I'm right.  At least I hope so.  So as I've pondered that challenge, I've been thinking about my children and what we've done together as they grew up.

I traveled an obscene amount when the kids were younger.  The stunningly patient and mighty fine SML and I calculated that one year I was on the road and gone six full months.  This when the kids were all under seven.  Yikes.  No wonder Our Lady of Awesome's kindergarten teacher thought I was a pilot.  I wasn't.

Anyway, that travel did allow me to take the kids on the road from time to time.  I remember the first time that Our Lady of Awesome and I took our first trip together.  It was 1993.  I wanted my first-born to meet her paternal great-grandmother, my Grandmommy, who was living in North Carolina under the care of my amazing aunt Robin.  So I found a free weekend and I booked a trip for the two of us.  Just me and my three-year old.  Suddenly I was the passenger who made me freak.  One parent traveling with a child.  A young child.  Aargh!

We flew USAir (this was way before they morphed into what they are today - Great Satan of the Skies).  Full meal service that you didn't have to pay for and movies.  Our Lady seemed to like her Child's Meal (yeah, this was when you could order special meals).  I remember she was awesome on both flights.

Our weekend with my late Grandmommy was wonderful.  I have in my mind's eye a picture of Our Lady of Awesome on her great-grandmother's hospital bed, as Grandmommy showed her great-grandaughter one of the little pieces of jewelry she'd created.  I'm betting it was one of the pins she made from a discarded lens from a pair of glasses. 

Our flight back was memorable.  It was packed but I was prepared.  Knowing that the flight was during Our Lady's regular nap time, I knew the nearly five hours from Philadelphia could get dicey.  The answer?  Drink chits.  Yep, I'm not proud of it but I passed out free drink chits to everyone around me.  This made all the difference.  The guy sitting next to us was an older man who had an enormous, fading tattoo (this was before tattoos became the heinous, soul-crushing plague that they are today) of a tiger on his forearm that frightened/captivated Our Lady.  She was wary of at first.  But as a couple of drinks brought down his level of tension, he seemed less scary to her.  He didn't seem to mind that she was more interested in his meal than the tots that came with her child's meal.  He then got the brilliant idea to start flexing his flabby old arm to make the tiger move.  Our Lady laughed and laughed.  Captivated her for hours.  I was never so grateful for a tattoo, can I just tell you?

That was eighteen years ago, at least.  That was just one trip.  It meant a lot to me.  I had a chance to connect Our Lady with her family.  I'm fairly certain she doesn't remember it.  But I do.  I'm glad we made that trip. 

Post-Conference Thoughts

Typically, after a weekend of General Conference, with my inadequacies and short-comings on display in stark relief, I find myself just a little, well and I hate to say this, depressed.  Not this time though.  This past weekend was amazing.  It was a weekend of learning.  I also felt myself challenged but not in an insurmountable way.  The challenges I heard were ones that I feel like I can get through...with work, but I can get through them.

Here's some things I heard (maybe not new things in every case but things I needed to hear):

• "God's greatest desire is to help us reach our full potential." - President Uchtdorf
• "Repentance is a desire to change, to strive to overcome." - Elder Christofferson
• "The Book of Mormon is either word of God or of Satan.  Read it and find out." - Elder Callister (way to boldly throw down the gauntlet!)
• "Don't let popular culture diminish your role as a father." - Sister Dalton.  That made me think long and hard about the kind of father I've been to my children, especially my daughters.
• "It is never too late to begin to choose eternal life." - Elder Bennett

I couldn't help but laugh a bit to myself when I heard the "choose eternal life" reference.  Every time I hear anything remotely referencing "choose life," as someone who came of age in the early 80's, you know where I go - that video.  That Wham! video.  You know the one.  Flourescent colors.  Entirely too short shorts and oversized sweatshirts, boldly proclaiming "Choose Life."  So I had to work quickly to get that tune right out of my head.  Fortunately, I was victorious.

It was an excellent weekend of learning.  I'm eager to listen to the instruction again.  I can already start reading the talks now and so can you.  Go here to read more.

Conference Memories

This Saturday and Sunday, October 1 and 2, a veritable herd of, or whatever you want to call 100,000 give or take, Mormons from around the world will descend upon the Mother Ship, Salt Lake City, for the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  This will be the 181st semiannual instance of Conference and it's an amazing opportunity to feast upon the counsel and guidance of those we believe to be prophets and apostles.  Their counsel is timely, thought-provoking, and challenging, especially for those of us who make mistakes with some degree of frequency.  To read a better description of Conference, read this from the Washington Post.

Conference played a huge role in my life growing up.  My parents went every year for as long as I can remember.  As a result, when I was a child, Conference weekends in the spring and fall meant baby-sitters, some cool, some not.  My parents would often have newly-married couples stay with us, giving them a peek into the world of having children.  This usually did not end well for those couples, but that's another post.  When I turned 12, I got to go to Conference for the first time - kind of my own first Hajj (well, not really).  My friend Adam went with me.  We flew to Salt Lake City on our own on this airline:

NOT a banana!

My parents met us in Salt Lake City and we stayed here:

The Hotel Utah

What a place the Hotel Utah was!  Steeped in history and you could sense that history in every step through its halls.  At that time, it still had the toilets with the tanks half-way up the wall of the bathroom.  Cracked me up.  What did not crack me up was sitting in the Tabernacle on the old wooden pews for one of the two-hour sessions of Conference.  My twelve year old can would have much preferred to be sitting on a cushion at that point.

When I was a freshman at BYU, Conference was a great weekend to impress the ladies - I was usually able to score tickets, good tickets, through my dad and it was pretty cool, or at least I, in my awkward, deluded 18 year old head, thought it was to take a date.  It probably wasn't.

My first weekend in the mission field after two months in the MTC learning Spanish was Conference weekend.  It was a little disconcerting to walk out of the Saturday afternoon session of the Hialeah chapel to see two alligators sunning themselves on the lawn of the church.  That was the same weekend I was introduced to the magic of the all-you-can-eat Cuban buffet at King Yayo's on W. 49th Street.

Fast-forward to 2007...I'm the father of a son who has just turned 12 and it's time for three generations of Lyons' men to meet for Conference.  The Boy and I flew out to Salt Lake City and met my Mom and Dad.  We took Dad down to BYU and spent some serious quality time together.  The highlight was the Saturday evening Priesthood session where the three of us would attend together for the only time, as Dad would be gone two years later.  Conference was a powerful source of spiritual food and rejuvenation for my Dad and it was an honor to be there with him and my son.

So Conference weekend is here again.  Take it in if you can.  It's open to all.  Go here to find out how to watch it or listen to it.  And if you happen to be in Salt Lake City and have some spare tickets, the Middle-Aged Mormon Man is looking for some.  He'll be the guy in a white shirt and may or may not be pulling a handcart. 

On Pan Am

Pan American World Airways.  Pan Am.  Ah, what the mere mention of this fabled company's name inspires!  Although the original Pan Am hasn't graced the skies since its agonizing, final flight in December 1991, just say "Pan Am" around any airline enthusiast/dork today and you'll see their eyes get a little glassy.  There will be a little catch in their throat when they respond reverently, saying, "Oh, yes, I remember Pan. Am."

How do I know about these reactions?  Because I am one of those airline enthusiast/dorks.  And Pan Am is THE Holy Grail of our kind.  We love this legendary carrier.  As a child, I remember whenever I saw a Pan Am 707 or 747, I wondered where it was going, because it was surely some place exotic.  Pan Am was America's "Chosen Instrument."  Sure, there were other airlines carrying the U.S. flag (TWA, I'm talking to you), but none could hold a candle to the mighty Clippers of Pan Am.  I was obsessed with Pan Am.  After growing frustrated with some of the decisions of their management, I applied to be their CEO.  I was 12.  No lie.

I only flew Pan Am twice, back in May 1984.  Like so many others, Pan Am would take me to Europe for the first time.  I'll never forget the excitement I felt when I got the Pan Am's storied "WorldPort" at JFK for my flight to London Heathrow on the fabled Flight 2.  I was two rows behind "Clipper Class"-Pan Am's fancy-pants business class and it was then and there as I watched the service unfold through a slit in the curtain that I decided my days of flying in the back were numbered-and I was enthralled.  Pan Am's glory days were behind it at this point but it didn't matter.  This was Pan Am.  I'm quite certain I didn't sleep the entire flight.  Several weeks later, I flew back to JFK from Frankfurt on Pan Am's Flight 73.  Another 747-100.  I remember being disappointed that Catering in Frankfurt had loaded far too much sauerkraut for lunch and I'd had it with sauerkraut after several days in Germany.  I also remember the river of wine that poured down on several rows from the overhead bins.  Some genius packed too many bottles of wine in their bag which shattered in turbulence over the north Atlantic.  Again, it didn't matter.  This was Pan Am.

So, why all the Pan Am nostalgia?  Because tonight a new television series called "Pan Am" debuts on ABC.  It's supposed to be about four Pan Am "stewardesses" (try calling one of the flight attendants on your next flight a stewardess - let me know how that works for you) in the glory days of flying in the early '60's.  It looks ridiculous and soapy.  I will, of course, be watching it.  TV shows are notoriously bad about their authenticity when it comes to air travel.  For instance, they'll show a picture of the plane flying and it'll be a 747, for instance, but the cabin shots are all single-aisle aircraft.  It just irritates the airline dork to no end.  So, knowing that the planes should be 707's, I'm going to be, well, displeased tonight when the cabin shots are of a modern-day Airbus or some such foolishness.  At least, "The Amazing Race" starts tonight.  Yeah, I'm kind of excited.