Halloween

October 30, 2005
Dear Family,

It’s been a lonely week without Kaaren at home. There are no flowers in the house, clothes are all over the floor, can’t see the countertops for all the dirty dishes and food left out. Just kidding.
Not kidding about missing Kaaren. But we talk each day and she is having a good time visiting and touring a little and helping Paddy and Terry re-organize their lives to better take care of Paddy - they were looking together at a house boat and now are considering a flat in Chichester with a "warden" for added safety for Paddy who needs someone around for help now. Saturday she and Terry and Paddy drove up to Cambridge to visit her aunt Daphne, who is now 88, and some of her cousins. They very much enjoyed their visit and Daphne was sorry to see Kaaren leave. It could be the last time Kaaren sees Daphne again - Kaaren is one of her favorites.

This week I finished painting our bedroom wall and am bringing in shelves and reorganizing our bedroom. It’s actually a lot of work and I probably won’t finish before Kaaren returns. She comes home Tuesday night and goes promptly to work Wednesday morning. Whew! She is teaching at Marylhurst University, Wednesday, a special class for art teachers sponsored by Young Artists, I believe. I don’t know quite how she is going to get through that first day of work with jet lag.

Monday I visited briefly with Amy and Clay. Clay went to the church to practice - he’s been called as a ward organist - and I helped change and put children to bed. Eli cried needed extra hugs. Amy said he got the time with her only because he cried the loudest. She is stretched too thin and we -Pixton Family have talked about this and are rallying to provide more one-on-one time with each of the children. Its not enough yet but we hope to improve our presence in their lives.

Last Tuesday I stopped in the Stake Center for an hour or so to listen in on the choir rehearsal for the Portland Mormon Choir and Orchestra. They are preparing a Joseph Smith memorial program for presentation on December 9 and 10 - the same days our West Linn Community Chorus is presenting our first two concerts. I have really enjoyed directing the West Linn Community Chorus because it affords me an opportunity to direct and sing music that for the many previous years I could not present in Sacrament Meeting. But last Tuesday evening I saw something I missed - singers singing from their hearts, worshiping with all their fervor, joined in the spirit of Zion. It was very powerful. Their music director is a woman who directs in one of the Portland Metro area high schools and she is very, very good. I took lots of notes and hope to use them in my rehearsals.

Midway through the rehearsal I left and went to Club Sport to work out a little. I rode a bike and lifted some weights and walked on a treadmill and watched news, showered and soaked in the spa and came home refreshed.

Bryce has been working in my office. He is much help, quite effective and devoted. Although there are down sides to having a relative working in the office, there is nothing quite like family working together - Bryce and Skye understand me and want me to succeed and with lots of things that go on in the office, they just "get it." Bryce is growing in his capacity, I believe, increasing his computer skills and work ethic. It is a pleasure to have him around and to see him take on responsibility.

Wednesday night was a WLCC board meeting. Lots of business to conduct to keep this organization rolling along. So many with so much talent and skill want to make this a good experience for all.

Thursday rehearsal was at a Lutheran church pastored by a former bass in our chorus - John Rutter-Harrah. He is a natural pastor - deep empathy for people and an effective counselor. His church was hard for me to find, several were quite late and the acoustics were difficult. But we make progress and auditioned an additional ensemble that will perform for us when we have so many requests for concerts at smaller locations. Now we have only 5 more rehearsals before our concert and I am feeling some pressure and wonder if we have taken on too much. We will be working really hard in the coming weeks. The chorus is really a huge part of my life.

Friday evening I went to Atacks to spend the evening with Logan and Caden while they went to a movie. We watched Dumbo - I hadn’t seen that in many decades! It was fun. We sang a song and brushed teeth and changed Caden and fed them more food again and read stories and I tried and tried but Caden was still awake when Courtney and Jason got home at 10:30.

We rented the Holmes Cottage across the street from Clay and Amy’s house. A young couple will move in next week and stay ‘til end of June. I sold the ventless fireplace today. We have been storing that in the shed for more than a year.

Saturday was a work day - painted the bedroom, shopped at home depot, did laundry, cleaned house a little and helped some down at the ward "Fall Festival" with the Trunk or Treat in the parking lot. Some pictures are attached. Olivia and Eli and Addison came dressed as little cows (brought by Clay while Amy was working at the restaurant in Willamette) , Logan and Caden were bears, I think. Some ward members were dressed very cleverly or really outrageously (for Mormons at a church event) and it was pretty fun and successful. I stayed to clean up and turn out the lights , then went to a Chinese place in Willamette to get some dinner about 9:30 pm and finished watching a movie I rented "The Chorus (Les Choristes)" about a reform school in France where a prefect created a chorus to organize and temper the unruly boys - the chorus became quite good a well known, a true story. I highly recommend the film if you can find it.

Today was a pretty good sabbath. Ryan Lewis gave his missionary farewell talk. He was very rebellious in his youth and pretty much dropped out of the church - tried to drop out of his family for a while. But when he and his girlfriend were looking for a church to join, he happened into a Mormon sacrament meeting and rediscovered his roots and his faith. His farewell talk stunned me with his eloquent and scholarly treatment of his subject matter. I hadn’t realized that he was such an intellectual and now with his life organized and given direction, he has become a very powerful servant. I am so happy for him and for his parents who flew in from Denver, Colorado to be here for his farewell. To see your son or daughter mature and take on responsibility in this way is one of the great rewards of being a parent. You children have all made me proud as well, over and over. Thank you.

After church I test flew a Cessna 182 I have been considering as a replacement for our Butterflyers LLC partnership. My partner and I both agree we should sell our 172 and purchase this faster, more powerful, safer airplane (yes, I know its just a big guy toy, but doesn’t that sound better?) An interesting thing about this plane that I had forgotten over the years: being heavier, it is more stable in the air, not as prone to turbulence as the "Butterfly" I now fly. It has been approved for auto gas and so will cost about the same or less in gas to operate and the investment will be about the same for me. We will take in another partner or two. So, any buyers for my airplane out there? The seller is a nice guy who is seriously interested in singing in the West Linn Community Chorus. His wife was steaming grapes today and bottling the juice, just like we used to do years ago. He keeps the plane in his hangar attached to his house. When we landed, we simply taxied up the road and into his driveway. What a life!

This evening I carved a pumpkin with Bryce (Kyrstyn was on the phone forever and missed it). A picture is attached.

I hope you have a fun halloween
love,

Dad

Pixton Family October Dinner

October 23, 2005
Dear Family,
Kaaren left for England Friday at noon and has by now spent a couple of busy days with her brother, Terry, and her mother, Paddy. The home and even the office and yard seemed very empty without her here. Kaaren called Saturday morning ( her evening) to say she wore Terry and her Mum out her first day there - they did some touring. She sounds well. You might know that Kaaren is there primarily to visit with her mother who has not been well for about 3 months with shingles - a form of childhood chickenpox that lays dormant for decades and then re-erupts usually in old age and can be miserable since its much worse than childhood chickenpox and takes a long time to heal. I hear she may be on the mend.
Last weekend Kaaren and I and Skye and Jared drove to Seattle on Friday, stayed with the Engstroms in Bonnie Lake, south of Seattle, and then enjoyed a day in a large old Seattle home with about 50-60 others at a Sunstone NW Symposium. We heard a talk on Mary Magdalene and her possible marriage to Jesus from Margaret Starbird, the author who inspired Dan Brown to write The Davinci Code; a talk on LDS blogs (wow! The world is changing!) , a talk on Mormon Mantras, a talk on the LDS church’s role in the defeat of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment in the ‘70's, a talk on The Vitality of Mormon Hymns, and a group talk - almost like a testimony meeting - on The Best Ideas in Mormonism. I gave the talk on hymns, with help from Skye and Jared (live) and Courtney and Clayton and Bryce and Brittany and Kyrstyn and Kaaren (on CD) and I have a recording and there should be an mp3 to download from http://www.sunstoneonline.org/ sometime soon. It was a good day.
The next day, Sunday, our family sang at a Stake Fireside of the best musical selections from each ward. Courtney sang "Give Me Jesus" very, very beautifully. Her accompanist was especially sensitive and supportive and stunning on the keyboard. They our family - at least Kaaren, Courtney, Skye and Jared, Clayton, Bryce and me, sang "Amazing Grace" with Ardeth Fullmer accompanying us on the piano. She was frustrated, she said afterwards, because we were not singing at an amplified mike (it was just for recording purposes) and because of the bad building acoustics she could not hear us. In fact there was some disconnect between the guys at one point in one verse and the piano behind us - we couldn’t hear it well either. Next time we need to practice in the hall where we will be singing - a lesson learned. Anyway, overall it was effective and I’m glad we did it. It bonds us to sing together. Not every piece performed was worth hearing, unfortunately, but it was good to be invited and to give something of ourselves. That was a busy week.
Yesterday, Bryce and I and Courtney and Logan and Caden gathered at Skye and Jared’s place to watch Notre Dame clobber BYU and eat popcorn and pizza. Bryce and I painted shelves and pretty much stayed home. It was a bright clear day, horizon to horizon. Today’s weather was goopy, hazy and overcast. I came home after Sacrament Meeting and went back to bed, feeling very fatigued. Much better after the nap. Met with Greg Stevens to talk about callings for the Activities Committee and rehearsed with a male chorus planning to sing "More Holiness Give Me" in church next Sunday. Clayton brought Olivia to the rehearsal. She is a doll.
I made dinner for our family dinner Sunday (today) and quite enjoyed making it: baked salmon in salza marinade, baked potatoes and butternut squash, the last of our garden tomatoes in white basalmic vinegar, Skye brought a green salad and I provided a cake (raspberry filling on white cake) with ice cream from Zupans and pumpkin pie from Costco with cream. Caden and Logan kept asking for more cake. It was good. Clayton and Amy and kids didn’t make it this time. Attached is a picture of us who were here today. We had a good time together and afterwards mapped out a plan for me to get my weight coming down. Think I’ll go finish off the leftover cake.... No music together this time except a song before dinner - "Popcorn Popping on the apricot tree". We just a had a nice, relaxed time talking and such.
My community Chorus is moving along nicely. Lots of work and lots of music yet to learn and polish but everyone is trying and wants to succeed. Next week we will rehearse in a Lutheran church pastored by one of our former basses - John Rutter-Harrah. While listening to some sample CDs music publishers send to me, I happened quite unexpectedly across a recording of one of the obscure Hannukah songs we are singing - Ocho Kandelikas. Now I understand it better and I will change the way we sing it, too.
Friday night our home was one of the stations for a youth activity race - like a scavenger hunt. They had to come to the house, sing a hymn for me (or in the alternative, put together the words from a sack of individual words cut up and jumbled. I had two overwhelming impressions with these 30 or so kids who came into my home. 1) I knew perhaps 3 of them by name and 2) I felt a wave of compassion wash over me for each of them in their struggle to be accepted and loved and learn about life. My teen years were so very traumatic and I suppose that is true for most kids. I need to get to know some of these kids better. It is hard for me to reach out that way.
The garden is going wild - as soon as Kaaren left, I think, the grass sprouted up from its summer dormancy all uneven, the roses have dropped their leaves, the beans are finished, the tomatoes are done and what’s left is rotting; things seem pretty much going to winter state. We’ll need to trim up and cut lawn and ready things for colder weather and then prune.
Kyrstyn drove her diesel chevy truck with a girl friend to Eugene where she plans to trade it for a diesel Surburban - trading one ugly vehicle for another more uglier vehicle, I guess, in pursuit of the one truly ugly but efficient diesel convert-able to used vegetable oil for fuel. Also camping at the coast. So she wasn’t here today.
Bryce started working with us in the office this last week. He is growing in his capacity to maintain focus and his interest in his computer and playing more music on his own and contributing his talent and gospel education and maturity to his calling in the Elder’s Quorum are all good evidence of healing and growth. I am very grateful to see this happening.
Addison and Eli and Olivia are turning 18 months in less than two weeks. There are very difficult to manage in church but were pretty good today. Olivia still doesn’t want much to do with me but she’s warming up a bit. I think I’m a pretty crusty old dude. Eli decided it was fun to pound his head on the pew this morning. Addy liked the idea, too. They are pretty funny and sweet and very good looking little kids. They are going to be a terror team.
Caden’s vocabulary is exploding and he challenges his brother, Logan, constantly. What a job Courtney and Jason have in front of them.
Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh. Shadows of the evening steal across the sky. Father, give the weary calm and sweet repose, with thy tender blessing may our eyelids close.
Goodnight.
Dad

Letter to Ted Strub

This is a letter to my high school buddy, Ted Strub. We share early October birthdays (pictures) and correspond with each other in October:

Thanks, Ted for you email and your phone call. It was certainly unexpected - a pleasant surprise. I appreciate the certain, though very thin and stretched, bond between old friends.

I had another very unexpected phone call a couple of weeks ago. Sid Henderson called me. I was riding my bike with Kaaren and we had worked so hard to find a time we could ride together so I just picked the phone out of my pocket and put it up to my ear without stopping and getting off the bike. We talked about a number of old times and made arrangements for my son, Forrest, to bunk at his house in Orem, Utah for a few days while he waits for his condo to be ready to move in while he had already started his fall classes at BYU - which was the reason for the call - he'd heard we had a need for temporary housing. Anyway we talked for about 20 minutes. He is recovering (he hopes) from prostrate cancer.

My cousin, David Tadje, who is my age has also had prostrate cancer. It is sobering. Given the state of my health, 100 pounds overweight (I still can't believe this and that is part of the problem) , I consider myself a walking time-bomb and want to get my life out of the mess it is in and on a healthier track - if I can just get the time... Anyway we finished the call and I was still riding my bike - at least i was riding and not sitting in a chair.

I envy your travels and interesting work. It sounds like a good life and a good contribution. Mine is a "kinder, gentler" law practice with a mission to give people security and peace of mind in their mature years. Most of the time it is pretty rewarding, too.In Darmstadt, where I served on a mission in 1967 and where Kaaren and visited again last June, we visited a famous artist enclave of cottages, perhaps somewhat like your friends in Chile. Kaaren was fascinated and inspired by all the art, mostly with an artist whose name I can't remember, who was a personal friend of Picasso and whose ceramic "pottery" looks like Picasso in three dimensions. It is wonderful stuff.

I'm late responding to your email because I've come through the most impacted couple of weeks I can remember. I had a number of time critical projects at the office, rehearsals Thursday night for the West Linn Community Chorus which I direct, I'm Activitees Committee Chairman for our local LDS ward with planning meetings going on at my house Wedbnesday in the evening, we just closed (Monday) the sale of a property we have fixed up for investment, then did a tax free exchange and just closed Friday on the purchase of the replacement property including supervising a construction project that had to be completed before close, drove to Seattle Friday for a LDS related symposium (Sunstone Foundation/Magazine) on Saturday where I was one of the speakers (I had been preparing this presentation into the 1 and 2 oclock am times - trying desparately for time to get this together and wondering if I was crazy to accept the invitation to speak). My topic was The Vitality of Mormon Hymns and in addition to my text, I needed to assemble onto one CD lots of examples of bits and pieces of hymns I wanted to play and discuss - including some by my kids and family and other groups - also had Skye and Jared come along to demonstrate and sing a couple of her hymn arrangemens which she does with guitar - you know...youthful, hip arrangements of otherwise old tired hymns that are inspiriting but could be expressed in a modern genre if we only have the courage. The next day (yesterday), our entire family - the ones present here in the Portland area anyway (Me and Kaaren, Clayton, Skye and Jared, Courtney, Bryce) sang at a special musical program - we sang an arangment of "Amazing Grace" with a little gospel rhythm and style (it was soooo fun) and that took a lot of energy. Also helping ysterday with another mens ensemble that rehearsed yesterday, and I rehearsed and played piano for Courtney in a performance she did yesterday, too. Spent Sunday morning in church dueling ("triple-ing?") with Clayton's triplets while he was up front taking part in a special program. Went to bed last night thinking, my word, that was the week that was...

Don't you think we're all too busy? I rented a movie 10 days ago, but of course, it is still sitting in the box. Is your life like this? I'll bet it is. Now when we are nearly 60 and want to LIVE our lives to the fullest and contribute and help and improve it is so hard to say no to people who ask for our experience. How do we balance our lives?

The presentation in Seattle, for example, was exhausting to put together but I loved it and I'm glad I managed to do it. These folks want me to do this again - to speak in Salt Lake City at the national symposium next August and I will probably do it. Ughhh. Incidentally, one of the speakers on the program with me was Margaret Starbird, the author who inspired Dan Brown to write The Davinci Code. Have you read any of her stuff? It is really fascinating. She mentioned that she felt like she was preaching to the choir - the notion of a married Jesus used to be taught among the Mormons a hundred years ago but now doesn't get much air time. After hearing/seeing her presentation about Mary Magdalene, I'm convinced this was the case.

I'm enjoying the colors in the trees. Out my window I have a panoramic view of maples turning all arounda church with a white steeple. It looks like a scene out of Vermont but of course, it also looks like Oregon at one of its best times. I took the plane up for a warm-up today at noon. I haven't had time to do that for many weeks. The land is really beautiful, especially vineyards at this time of year. I treasure my old time hobby; its a perspective that few of get. When we were young I assumed that when I was 60 there would be more and more airplanes and airports, but the opposite has happened. Now when I look at the price of avgas I'm not sure how much flying I'll be doing. I can fly my own plane to Santa Rosa for example for about $380. I can go commercial round trip for much less than that.

Well, enough rambling and jammering. It was nice to hear from you and I hope we keep "talking," even if only annually, for some time to come.

Regards,Tom
THE PIXTON LAW FIRM

Conference Sunday Family Breakfast

Dear Family,

After watching (or almost watching) 10 hours of conference this weekend, I am writing to say that I would indeed be ungrateful if I didn't appear before you this day and publicly .... publish some of the cool pictures we took this morning while some of you were here for breakfast.

Seriously, it has been a really nice day - a good sabbath for us. We had Bryce and Clayton and Amy and Olivia and Eli and Addison and Courtney and Logan and Caden over for breakfast while we watched the morning session of conference.

I think Jason stayed home cleaning up the mess I made in their house sloshing around buckets of backed up sewer water in the showers and tubs after their drain lines clogged up.

We ate bacon and french toast and pancakes and juice. After the grandkids went home, we almost placed a call to FEMA for what looked like gulf coast hurricane damage. Amy says she lives with this every day. The young kids are really cute and some of these pictures show you that.

It has been raining for a couple of days now. Our first real rain of the season. We are enjoying the rain - the gardens and lawn are ready for it. The roof is not leaking and we are dry and comfortable and warm.

Yesterday Kaaren and I painted part of our bedroom in between session of conference. We are slowly getting a new and improved bedroom. Our white wall is now a soft and peaceful green.

After priesthood meeting, our home teacher, Wally Glausi, took me and Bryce and Clayton to dinner at the restaurant where Amy works on Saturday night "to relax." She an energetic and good server. The place, Little Cooperstown, was jammed with sports fans watching the 10 television screens overhead. Amy fits right in. Obviously, I didn't fit right in, having not a clue as to who all those uniformed people were on the walls or why the teams on TV were dressed up in astronaut suits running all around fields chasing a little ball and beating each other up over it. And when some unfortunate soul stumbles with it or is so rudely taken down to the ground, why 8 more astronauts feel a need to make a brutal pile on top of him. Anyway, inspired by the high spirits of the sports bar/restaurant and feeling creative, I called on my entrepeneurial gifts and suggested that I start a choir bar and restaurant chain. We could bring in satellite feed of the best choirs in the country performing Bach and Wagner's greatest hits. We could provide stimulating variety with an occasional Buxtehude or Ravelle organ solo. We could play reruns of St. Olaf's choir's greatest musical climaxes and soaring obligatos and put pictures all over the walls of all the great bassos profundos, counter-tenors contraltos. We could hang the director's batons of the great choral conductors on the walls - Rutter, Shaw, Jessop, Pixton.... Well, the idea wasn't really well received last night.

Last Monday night I went with Kaaren to our AquaFit class at Club Sport. Kaaren loves it; she's really happy in the water. There we were in the water gently bobbing to the music and the call of the instructor. In the water were people all at that point in their life where they need gentle, low-impact exercise, if you get my drift. At one point the music picked up and the instructor called out for us to run in place in the water to the rhythm of the music. It went boom-chuck-a-boom-chuck-a-boom-chuck-a-boom and we all went flop-slosh-flop-slosh. No connection or correlation with the music whatsoever. I had to laugh out loud because we were all imagining that we were exercising. Some of the older guys and ladies like to just bob around in the water and talk to each other. Once in a while they pay attention to the instructor and change their position. It's a darn humorous class to watch from outside the pool. Funny thing though: at the end I had to admit that even for me the "workout" was actually pretty refreshing and enjoyable. So that is what it has finally come to.

I hope you enjoyed whatever portion of the conference you could get. Kaaren and I think that Elder Oaks talk on the relationships between priesthood holders and their families and strong women and their role and Elder Holland's talk about how the media have betrayed women were significant - benchmark - addresses. I noted Elder Uchtdorf's talk encouraging European members to stay and build up the church in their countries , that the members there are finally experiencing the blessing of multiple generations staying put and building the strength of the church in place. I always enjoy President Hinkley's practical approach to the current issues of church administration - this time announcing new temples and reporting on huge and well organized church involvement in hurricane disaster relief for the gulf states and not just for members of the church but all persons and he gave credit to the efforts of all the churches involved. I enjoyed hearing the choir perform Mack Wilberg's stirring arrangements of "Praise to the Man" and "We Thank Thee O God For A Prophet". I also enjoyed hearing for the first time in my entire (!!) life the song "The Seer, Joseph the Seer" from the old blue hymnbook - which was apparently sung as a personal favor/request from President Hinkley. I'm going to be playing and singing and talking about this hymn, among others, in my "paper" I will deliver at the Seattle Sunstone Symposium in two weeks. I wish you could all be there because it's going to be the talk I have always wanted to give in church but never could. It's going to be as much song with piano (they have a nice grand piano there I'll use) as spoken word if not more.

Well, this is enough for this evening. The pictures will tell a lot more of the great feelings we had here this morning at home for breakast during conference - a great family tradition we hope to continue.

love,

Dad