I’ve lived a rather unusual life, in numerous ways. I’ve experienced more than most people get the opportunity to enjoy… or endure. And it’s all been good and then some. I grew up on a mink ranch. The son of an outdoorsman and a mother who was an excellent musician. Mink ranching, by the way, was considered a respectable venture in those days before the truest and most eyil pandemic, liberalism, had begun to hammer the USA.
I grew up in Richmond, Ut. A small, almost exclusively Mormon community, during the years of my youth, of about 1000. I was playin’ piano by age 4, and I was huntin’, and fishin’, and runnin’ my own trap-line for mink, muskrats, and weasels, by the age of 8. My grandfather ran the local drug-store, Nivison Drug, which included an authentic, old fashioned soda fountain and large selection of candy which my Grandpa Bill was very generous with, making me a fairly popular kid. It also contained a liquor store, which made me an even more popular teenager (Grandpa Bill not being aware of my outlaw tendencies… yet…)
It was a pretty typical, small-town life. The school was local, friends were more like family. I had the same girlfriend from about age 5, that I expected to marry one day. Sally had a lot of the same outlawistic tendencies as did I. One day, however, at the age of sixteen, I opened the front door, and walking across the backyard of our next door neighbors, was the most beautiful specimen of human femininity that I’d ever seen. It wasn’t plot, nor a scheme, nor a daydream… That is gonna be mine!
At the time there were only two non-Morman families in town, mine being a very unusual example of a very firmly religious Mormon girl marrying a non-Mormon, from Kansas, no less. The home next door was the home of a very faithful, “our ancestors crossed the plains with Brigham Young,” LDS family. I was a young, outlaw, hippie (not the Marxist variety) who spent a lot of time working on cars and motorcycles in the front yard. One of my most used tools was loud profanity of the most colorful variety. Tools would fly, mother f-ing blah blah blah! I’m sure I wasn’t making a positive impression on Grandma Elda (who was a angel in truth). Plus our family get-togethers included alcohol, smokers (me included). I’m sure it wasn’t seen as a blessed event when I took an interest in Kimmie.
Kimmie was a far greater challenge than any I’d faced before, but I became friends with her mother and spent every possible minute with Kimmie and her family, which had moved to Cornish, Ut. early in this process. I managed to clear the hurdles and Kimmie became my bride.
Bacon wins again! Of all things in my life, the most spectacular and rewarding accomplishment, the pinnacle of which is my son and his family who also inherited the outlaw gene which is so strong in the Nivison bloodline, but he controlled it more positively than did his father.
Kimmie and I passed through some fairly severe thunderstorms over the years, the worst being the day I got hit by a lady going 70 mph in an SUV. I was on a 4-wheeler and was thrown 150 feet, they say, landing on my head on the asphault highway. In an instant I lost a leg and experienced “severe” brain damage. My sense of balance, which was my most remarkable physical characteristic till then, gone. Rock climbing, skiing, waterskiing, I’d started ice skating at 3 years old, and now I can’t walk across a front room without a cane. From Superman to Timmy Vulmer in one fell swoop. But there ya go.
This accident thing has been long, strange trip. Throughout which I’ve tried to remain positive. It’s been a bizarre regrowth. When I came home from the hospital I didn’t really know who I was. I had the emotional and mental capacity of a five-year old. I can only imagine what that must’ve been like for Kimmie… I can’t remember much of it. I ended up moving out of our home and living in my father’s liquor store. I really wasn’t capable of much in terms of a profession, but my father figured I could run the store, which I could and did. A man who had what by now probably amounted to the mentality of a 12 year old. Yes, I’m sure you can imagine the glorious time I had living in a liquor store. And oh the friends I made!
Fortunately throughout all this my drive remained in gear. Though I couldn’t ski, backpack or dance I could still pick up a challenge and I went to school, this also thanks to Kimmie who knew the wife of a handicapped teacher of a graduate class for student’s aspiring to work with the handicapped. I didn’t realize I was there as an example for the students, but I loved it and ended up enrolling at USU, in music therapy, which somehow evolved into creative writing, which is something I’ve always done. I earned a BS (appropriately enough) in creative writing and went on to get a MA in humanities (folklore). This, once again thanks to Kimmie, who had already graduated Summa cum Laude in business management. Yes, truly amazing lady!
The point of all this, it that I’ve always recognized the majesty of that lady. Her upbringing put her in a situation in which she had to exercise control at a very young age, and deal with adversities which should have been avoided. When we got together I felt like I was rescuing her. The truth is, she was rescuing me. My blessing has been her curse and I am beyond control.
Still, life is good! and I’m so grateful and wondering at why I’ve been so blessed. I rue the mistakes I’ve made but, still go on makin’ ‘em… Even when mired in self constructed anguish, I still love life! Sadly, I believe we’re all shackled by the chains of Hell. The spark of dissension, agitation and dishonesty… Satan’s tools being sharpened by the minds of his victims.
Now where’s my banjo?
ibaconi 