I think I owe my friend Mark some kind of life debt. Back in the dark days of junior high, I was so blinded by the malaise of puberty that for a time, I was neck deep in a top-40 pop music habit. At one point, things got so rough that I actually had a poster of Paula Abdul on my wall. Luckily, sometime in the eighth grade, Mark introduced me to two things. The first was carpeted gyms, which wasn’t really relevant to this story, but feels significant. The second was the music of REM, Midnight Oil, and INXS. What the BMG music service called, “Modern Rock.” With Mark’s help, I got my musical footing at Centerville Junior High, and over the next several years enjoyed a dynamic friendship that covered pop culture, sports (gratefully, not every chapel in Centerville had a carpeted gym), and eventually even employment as we both bagged groceries at Dick’s Market in high school. I even remember getting some manual transmission lessons from him on his family’s Honda at one point. We stayed in touch through our missions and into college, then contact became more fleeting once Mark got married and pursued a more grown-up state of existence. Luckily we’ve been able to get together here and there, to watch the odd college football game or grab something for lunch near his downtown office at FJ Management (though he works in the Maverick building, he insists that he does not personally own the Maverick Center). When we met up last November, it was fun to catch up on old times and mutual friends, and swap London stories. I don’t know what music was playing on the PA at the Robin’s Nest, but when my lunch project inevitably gets turned into a big budget action-comedy, I’ll make sure to get a little INXS on the soundtrack.
There was a time when it seemed like I was subconsciously arranging my travel plans by wherever my friend Spence was living. This paid some dividends, and led to memories of long boarding in Huntington Beach at 1am midway through an epic coastal road trip, and going medieval on some crustacean entrees at the Bethesda Crab House on my first visit to Washington DC. I should have gone for the hat trick after Spence moved to Australia for a couple of years, but sadly, I missed that window. Fortunately, we were able to snag a slightly more narrow window for lunch last year, at a spot close to our old academic stomping grounds at the University of Utah. Still fresh off the mission, and heading into my junior year, I met Spence when I joined the Institute Network News team, and as we penned and produced the first of our weekly broadcasts, we launched into the first of many exploits over the coming years. Whether we were filming a news sketch, crashing our way through David Kranes’ play construction class, or co-writing an off the wall humor column for a monthly Institute magazine, Spence’s enthusiasm and talent was always fun to be around. That enthusiasm might have been part of what inspired me to go to grad school, after Spence gave me the heads up on a program that directly led to a master’s degree, and indirectly led to almost two decades of teaching experience. We stayed in touch through that phase and beyond, as Spence bounced around the world for a few years before picking up his own grad degree, settling into the marketing game, then getting married and starting a family in Texas about ten years ago. With the added distance, I don’t get to see my old friend as often as I used to—including him in last year’s project was an unexpected surprise—but I’m sure we’ve got another crazy collaboration waiting for us just over the next horizon.
Funny enough, I don’t remember meeting Chuck, because I was four years old at the time. But we’ve logged a lot of good memories in the years since, and our story arc has recently taken a brilliant turn. Chuck was one of the kids my age in the Bountiful 19th Ward, so we criss crossed paths often throughout our childhood, from Cub Scouts and SDSA youth soccer teams, through to Boy Scout summer camps and junior high classes. I even worked on his family farm (Chas W. Bangerter & Son) for a summer. But of all those activities, the basketball court became the true crucible of our friendship. For the better part of a decade, Chuck and I ran the backcourt as teammates on a string of ward basketball teams, squaring off against opponents throughout the Bountiful North Stake. I wanted to think of myself as the Pippen to his Jordan, but most of the time I was more of a John Paxon with glasses. For a time, basketball was set aside as we served missions (he was called to Brazil), then soon after we returned Chuck got married and I wandered off to singles ward land. While I was bouncing around northern Utah, Chuck spent some time in the Pacific Northwest, then returned to Bountiful to work on the farm. Five years ago, I returned to the ward to find my old friend serving on the stake high council. We caught up on old times, and even teamed up on the basketball court again. Then, about 18 months back, we were called to teach the primary kids. So far we’ve taught three different age groups, starting a run with the 3-year-old sunbeams this last January. It seems kind of poetic in a way, passing the torch to the next generation in the ward. As Chuck observed when we grabbed lunch late last year, we’ve always been good teammates.
