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Show Comments Free Press Wednesday, January There's no logic behind UVSC road ruling There is more than a little irony behind the fact that Utah Valley State College can't provide more to access to the north bound because the county doesn't meet federal air quality standards. Utah County has been ruled a area for federal air quality standards for years now, and we all live with the consequences. This includes the stringent emissions testing that accompanies our annual safety inspection for automobile registration. That extra test means extra p cost. It also means that during the winter months, gasoline sold in Utah County is "oxygenated." While we are assured that oxygenated fuel reduces the ozone pollution our cars generate, it also reduces engine performance. Again, Utah County consumers pay more because of our poor air quality. But the ultimate price we pay is that federal funds that would be used to upgrade some of our roads are withheld. That means our tax dollars are being spent to improve someone else's road system while some of our own roads are held hostage until the county cleans up its air. In a circumstance like that at UVSC, that is counter productive. Anyone who has driven near UVSC in the mornings knows that the budding college has a transportation problem. UVSC is becoming the college of choice for many Utah The college residents. County attracts recent high school graduates Since I couldn't sleep Saturday night. I spent some time watching the snow fall outside the window. How exciting it was to watch the big flakes come down, sometimes falling gently, other times swirling around with the gathering wind. Of course, I was safe inside, where I could control the temperature. I did not have to drive in the accumulation of what to me looked like pleasant stuff, given my vantage point. As I pondered the beauty of the snow, I did consider its counterpart the treachery of the aftermath, especially as I realized that I, too, would eventually have to venture outside. Suddenly. Mother Nature no longer seemed as glamorous despite her outward beauty. Lurking beneath the mostly-pristin- e surface lay an undergarment of ice waiting to send unwary motorists to and current high school students. It provides classes for people who work e and who want to continue their education while they work. And it reaches out to the displaced home-makand the employee who needs added training. It features a growing choice of classes and reasonable tuition for Utah residents. And it is attracting more students than can be accommodated by the d road system that encircles the campus. UVSC is working to expand the road system, but in the meantime, cars back up on the interstate, crawl through intersections and spew pollutants into the air at a much greater rate than would exist if the road system were more efficient. Part of this road work was to be a hook ramp which would connect College Drive to 1300 South, providing UVSC students better access to northbound ramp. the existing But when the engineers discovered that the hook ramp would cross a line, one which requires federal approval, the construction was called off. In a Catch 22 situation, by regulaFederal the tion, Highway Administration cannot give permission for that hook ramp until Utah County complies with federal air quality standards. And poor traffic patterns around UVSC will force drio vers into the kind of slow, creates more that pollution. driving It doesn't make much sense, does full-tim- out-date- unwanted locations. One such situation occurred that very night, when the ambulance crew was called out to located a vehicle that had exited the freeway prematurely. I listened to the saga unfold on the police scanner. The poor visibility that night, coupled with the fact that the driver may have continued operating the vehicle when it landed on lower ground, made the job difficult for the ambulance driver. In the end, the crew did come upon a car that may have been the target of the search (provided they could break the language barrier), but by then, the scanner came alive with the banter between the road crews of the county, who were attempting to clear the streets, a move many of them felt was futile because of the relentless snow. Despite their advantage over a compact car, for example, these drivers had their own sets of troubles, such as poor visibility The weekend snow storm had a lot of people griping Monday morning, as commuters slipped and slid their way to work over the snowy roads. Tliis seems to happen every year when the reality of living in the Rocky Mountains is brought home by one of the sizeable snow storms that are a part of winter. And I can never understand why people are surprised to find all this white stuff on their front lawn when they live in a state that bills itself as the home of "The Greatest Snow on Earth." One man who just moved into our neighborhood asked during a church meeting Sunday if it snowed like this very often. We all just looked at him, but I wanted to add, "Not often enough." Now, before people get all upset about how skiers are insensitive to the needs of other people, let me explain that I hate shoveling snow just as much as anybody else. And I shoveled my fair share of it over the weekend. And I dislike driving in this weather as well. I do okay, but I don't trust other people beliind the wheel after a big snowfall people like my new neighbor from California driver who is experiand that encing his first winter behind the wheel. But despite the drawbacks, there is something magical that happens when we get more than a foot of snow in north Utah County. It is a mystical transformation that changes the quality of light and sound. The air sparkles with the light flakes of snow. Snow piles up on tree branches like vanilla icing and all of the flaws of unkempt vacant lots are yards and hidden beneath a blanket of snow that covers all the imperfections. Familiar neighborhoods become unfamiliar, with new curves and a softer look, as mounds of snow subdue the harsh angles and sharp points of everyday scenes. Sunday night, Sharon and I decided to walk to choir practice rather than drive three blocks on the snow covered streets. Tiny flakes of snow were falling and the sidewalk which had been scraped clean a few hours earlier now seemed to be covered with diamond dust, sparkling in the street lights. The air was cold and crisp and it? This article is condensed from the research and writing of Richard Lloyd Anderson as published in the Ensign. Aug. Some paragraphs are 1987, pages weed-covere- 58-7- The Editor's Column - By MARC HADDOCK snowflakes collected on our hair and coats, threatening to cover us in a blanket of white as well, unless we kept moving. The everyday noises were muffled as the snow absorbed the harsh sounds that normally bang and rattle off our streets and houses. We couldn't hear the sounds of distant traffic that are so much a part of the air during the summer nights. All was silent except for the occasional car that shushed past us on a cushion of snow. That three block walk was like a vacation into another world. When someone offered us a ride home afterwards, we turned them down for a chance to relive the experience. Monday morning I drove around looking for photographs to illustrate the effects of the storm. Nothing looked the same as it had last week. Not anywhere. The sky was as white as the ground, setting off in stark realities of trees contrast the and buildings and cars and people. A snow storm like we witnessed tins past weekend gives us a much needed change of perspective. It's inconvenient for some, dangerous for others. But it brings such beauty and peace to our overwrought world that it ought to be welcomed. Saturday night we canceled our plans and bundled up at home, taking the opportunity to slow and catch our collective breath. It was a great night. We will live with the inconvenience of our weather for the next several weeks, and the magic of the weekend will wear off. But to my new neighbor who wanted to know if we often get storms like the one we experienced this weekend, I still have the same answer: "Not often enough. Not often enough at all." day-to-da-y taken verbatim from his article. At Joseph Smith's first visit to the Hill Cumorah on Sept. 22, 1823, he was told by Moroni (from all we can ascertain) that his brother, Alvin, should accompany him at their next yearly visit. Perhaps this honor was offered to Joseph's eldest brother because, as his mother says, "Alvin had ever manifested a greater zeal and anxiety, if it were possible, than any of the rest with regard to the record which had been showed to Joseph." It was Alvin who was sent to bring his father so that Joseph could fulfill Moroni's command and tell him of the angelic visit. It was Alvin who proposed that everyone should work hard enough the next day so they could quit an hour early for Joseph to tell his story to the rest of the family. When the Smiths moved to New York in 1816, Joseph Sr. had to go ahead and leave Alvin his family behind. Then and Hyrum "followed their father with a heavy heart some distance." Later, Both Alvin and Hyrum were beaten by their callous hired escort because they complained of his treatment of young Joseph, making him walk as many as 40 miles a day on his still mending leg. As the eldest son, Alvin took it upon himself to help care for the family. It was by his individual industry that the mortgage on the Smith farm was paid during the years immediately following Joseph's first vision. His goal was to finish their new frame home, of which he said, "I am going to have a nice pleasant room for (my parents) to sit in and everything arranged for their comfort, and they shall not work as they have done any more." Alvin was then 24 and Joseph was 17. Clearly, Alvin was Joseph's role model in loyalty, labor, and love. He was "the noblest of my father's family" who "lived without spot from the time he was a child," wrote Joseph. Less than two months after Joseph's first visit to Cumorah, Alvin became painfully ill. Attacked by stomach cramps, he probably had severe appendicitis. The family's regular physician could not be found, so a substitute gave Alvin calomel, a chalky substance later found blocking his intestine along with gangrene. To the Smiths, the heavy dose of the purg- - it's the same old new year There are so many things I want to do during 1997 that I am making a list that I will grade myself on in 1998. 1 hesitate to call them resolutions because they are things I should have been doing right along. I hope some of you will join me in my effort to wipe out these continued annoyances that are creeping into our lives. Many of these aggravations only exist because we do nothing to discourage their growth, and as time goes by, they just get worse. Let's look at telephone solicitations. I am going to be as rude as possible to solicitors who announce their purpose by calling me Leo. While Leo is my first name. I do not use it and it only appears on legal documents that the state, the government or my attorney must be selling to these electronic pests. When they ask, "Is this Leo Boland?" I will answer, "No, we are here repossessing his furniture and belongings before he declares bankruptcy." Very shortly after this exchange, I'm sure I will get a dial tone. I absolutely refuse to buy, read, listen to or look at anything that has the name Madonna on it. Twenty years from now. when her kid is writing a book called ."(fill in the "My Mother The blank yourself), we will all feel bad that maze, you are running up a telephone bill. In many cases, it would be cheaper to hire someone to go to the library and look up whatever you are trying to find. While I hate to give up the evening news, I will just pass on listening to the parts that start with the words, "The White House denies... " In fact, I shall confine myself to international news, where truth seems to be a little more prevalent. When it comes to sports news, I will try not to laugh when one of our greats fails his 19th urine test and is given another chance because the team owner was dumb enough to sign the guy up to a contract when he came out of rehab Finally, I will request that my column be reprinted in Ebonics in the state of California. I would type it in Ebonics, but every time I try, my spell check kicks in and I get a bunch of sounds that make me reach for my beeper. I just don't understand how people born into a language and are unable to speak it will be able to learn another one. And, when you stop to think about it, they will just end up talking to each other, and we will still be in the same mess we are in now. Happy 1997. good-size- Dick Boland 1997 Creators Syndicate, Inc. e we ever supported her. Of course, we are the same people who turned Michael Jackson into the same kind of tasteless superstar. It's only recently that we have come to understand why he grabs his crotch so much. I am hoping these two will hit the bottom of the charts in '97. I am afraid we are stuck with the Internet. No matter what you want to know, you can find it on www.some-thing.coHowever, I refuse to tackle the web until it becomes a little more Most everything you need to know is well hidden, and as you mouse your way through this electronic user-friendl- 4 8jl Daly Planet The By RUSS DALY made worse by inadequate defrosters or windshield wipers that, even if in good repair, could not keep up with the accumulation of ice. The view from my window, coupled with the exact opposite told through the reports from the scanner, made me contemplate how many situations in life carry that same concurrent antithesis. A few months ago, I wrote of a friend who describe sending her son on a mission as a "bittersweet" set of conflicting emotions feeling a sense of loss, yet feeling elation for him in having the opportunity. I didn't appreciate her feelings until this week, when we had a missionary from our family go out. (In fact, you may be reading this even as we are at the MTC seeing him off. ) Up until today, I have been telling people how exciting it is to have him go to the Ukraine, but it will not prepare me for the void that it will leave in our lives for the next two years. Perhaps these are the same feelings that people have when their children leave for college or get married. The exhilaration of seeing one's offspring mark a rite of passage is tempered by the knowledge that these kids are no longer children, but are becoming adults in their own right, and are leaving home permanently. Even the mundane tasks of life carry this dichotomy. Take gardening (and you can have it), for example. All of the tremendous work preparing the soil, planting, weeding and watering pays off in the end with beautiful flowers or a bounteous harvest of fruits and vegetables. I admire anyone and everyone who can make it successfully past those milestones in order to reap their rewards. I, on the other hand, am like a child who has a hard time waiting for the shoot to spring up from the seed in the paper cup my impatience hampers my impatiens, or any other plant that requires continual care. A paycheck from an employer evokes a bittersweet reality of life when one examines the money withheld for taxes. Since the two are inexorably linked, and the end result of the absence of either one is undesirable, we put up with the conflict every two weeks or every month at payday. Buffets are a miserable reminder that we can quickly learn to hate that which we thought we loved. It would be fascinating to know how many people eat much more than they should simply to get their money's worth in the buffet line. Say the buffet is $7.99 for all you can eat. Do you set a goal, either knowingly or subconsciously, of filling and emptying a certain number of plates in order to justify spending that kind of money? When the wallet determines the number of trips to the buffet line, the waist line suffers. Fortunately, we have the power to decide whether we focus on the positive or negative aspect of any situation, even if we have conflicting emotions. Like the proveror bial glass that is either half-fuwe can choose the dominant feelll half-empt- ing. And when all of this beautifully treacherous snow melts, I'll have a glass that is half full of water. The poignant story of Alvin Smith stop-and-g- Snow provides a change of perspective 997 beautiful, yet treacherous Winter wonderland Editorial 1 15, 1997 - Page 2 five-ye- d Looking over the Obvious By BRETT BEZZANT ing agent was unforgivable medical malpractice, and their family physician agreed. Yet his regular doctor may not have been able to save him, either. Treating a ruptured appendix was beyond any medical skill of the time. Alvin faced death with courage and control, using his last moments to express love, to urge Hyrum to finish the house and to encourage Joseph in preparing to receive the plates. On Nov. 19, 1823, at age 25, Alvin Smith died. His passing was a "great affliction" to the family (See JS-1:56). Years later, Joseph wrote, "I remember well the pangs of sorrow that swelled my youthful bosom and almost burst my tender heart when he died." Mother Smith described how the community shared the family's grief at the loss of this young adult "of singular goodness," and how one person "felt our grief more deeply than the rest a lovely young woman who was engaged to be married to (Alvin) shortly after the time in which he died." Tragically, however, at least some of the community soon turned against the family with an almost unimaginable invective. Having heard about Joseph's instruction to take Alvin to Cumorah, vicious gossip started circulating that the Smith family (or others) had exhumed Alvin's body, presumably for Joseph's visit to Cumorah. Apparently the gossip included stories of mutilating or dissecting the corpse. So persistent were these rumors that Father Smith eventually felt' compelled to publish a notice in the Wayne Sentinel verifying that Alvin's body had not been disturbed. This notice was first published three days after Joseph's first annual visit to Cumorah, Sept. 25, 1824. After Joseph's marriage in January 1827, Emma was designated as the person who should replace Alvin in accompanying Joseph to receive the Book of Mormon plates. In addition to the hurtful gossip about Alvin's burial place, Calvinistic theology was not broad enough to allow such a person salvation, as younger brother William reports: "Reverend Stockton had preached my brother's funeral sermon and intimated very strongly that he had gone to hell, for Alvin was not a church member, but he was a good boy, and my father did not like it." Apparently the true doctrines were not given to the prophet immediately. He and the rest of the family always kept Alvin close in their hearts and minds, while showing great faith in the Lord's, as yet, unrevealed purposes. Nearly 13 years later, in a meeting of church leaders and while Father Smith was giving Joseph a blessing, the prophet beheld the intense glory of the celestial kingdom and in the midst of that glory saw that Alvin, though unbaptized, had been (or would be) rewarded with a celestial resurrection (See D&C 137). With the restoration of sealing authority by the hand of Elijah two months later, the answer was nearly complete. Finally, in 1840, Joseph taught his ailing father the newly revealed doctrine of baptism for the dead. With Joseph as proxy for his beloved brother Alvin; Hyrum performed the ordinance. Although Alvin lived only long enough to see the very beginning of the Restoration, he believed deeply in Joseph's prophetic calling. Recalling her eldest son's parting words to Joseph, Mother Smith confirms Alvin's total faith in the Book of Mormon: "I want you to be a good boy and do everything that lays in your power to obtain the records. Be faithful in receiving instruction and keeping every commandment that is given you." In his fading moments, Alvin had strengthened his younger brother for coming trials. In turn, a sheet, "in memory of Alvin Smith" was inserted as the flyleaf of the first volume of Joseph's Smith's 1838 manuscript history. This dedication was intended to honor Alvin's commitment to the truth of the Restoration. d Letters to the editor PSC appointee is poor choice Editor: Once again the Governor has shown a blatant disregard for utility consumers in Utah with the nomination of Lorena for Riffo as the sole candidate of the Administrative Secretary Committee of Consumer Services (CCS), the agency which represents consumers, small business and farmers in utility matters. The Governor's office has perverted the process by usurping the power of the Committee and presenting an unqualified candidate to the Committee. I believe Governor Leavitt has made this nomination in clear violation of Utah State Code section which states: "The governor shall appoint, with the concurrence of the Committee of Consumer Services, a qualified person in the field of public utilities who may carry out the policies and direc- tives of the Committee of Consumer Services." My only objection to Lorena Riffo is her total lack of expertise and education in the field of public utility law or public utilities accounting. This appointment is tantamount to hiring someone to perform brain surgery without the benefit of medical education and training. Please contact your Representative (Christine Fox) or Senator (Howard Stephenson) and let them know we consumers need a skilled and qualified person for Administrative for the Secretary Committee of Consumer Services. Remember, the large utility companies would never send an untrained lawyer to do their battle with the PSC. Richard Smith UWSA Utah County and Lehi Deerfield wants to bypass input high-pitche- d Editor: What a great idea the Deerfield developers have. They want to "facilitate" the approval process by "empowering" a single council member with decision making authority. Translation: Quickly ram this project by the city council bypassing the public input process. As the tumbleweeds blow through the r Micron dustbowl, it is evident what promises from developers can result in. Let's not forget the traffic nightmare and jobs Micron left us. The city council needs to put up the stop sign and hold developers accountable for their actions. Jeff Goodwin |