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Show Guardian of Your Community News ^entmel WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2009 • A3 There's no place like home Lie After Birth Janene Baadsgaard My daughter Aubrey was doing some scholarly work at the British Museum. She asked me to meet her in London and accompany her for some site-seeing trips when she completed her research. My ancestors are from the British Isles and I had sometimes wondered if England was my true home. I'd often dreamed of visiting all the places I'd only read about — perhaps even living in a thatched roof cottage and writing novels like Dickens, Austen or Hardy. So this invitation was like a dream come true. After a trans-Atlantic flight I found myself using quaint red telephone booths, riding the tube and visiting Westminster Abbey, Piccadilly Circus, London Bridge, Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square, the Tower of London, Greenwich, Kensington Palace, Stonehenge, Oxford and Cambridge. I'd studied British history and literature all my life and now I was really there where it all happened, breathing in the damp air and walking the misty mores. I was beginning to wonder why my ancestors left. On the way back to the airport at the end of my vacation, I sat in a train next to a middle aged woman. She'd been to London to see an exhibit. She watched me as I stared wide-eyed out the window noticing every quaint row house or manicured rose garden. "Oh, it's so beautiful here," I said. "There's so much history every where you look, and it's so green. Don't you just love living here?" The woman lowered her eyebrows and answered, "Oh my dear, everything is so old here — musty, rusted-out or broken. You can't find a good man to repair anything — so you're always in a pinch." Then she asked me where I lived. I told her my home was out west in the United States on two acres in Utah. She became animated and asked me several questions. "Oh, I've always wanted to live in the States, especially in the West. Everything is so new there — wide open spaces and endless possibilities — sunshine almost every day." I realized she longed for what I had but couldn't see what she had. I wondered if I was the same way. As I listened to her, I pictured my great-grandmothers and fathers standing on the docks waiting to board a huge ship bound for the colonies in America. Then I imagined other ancestors as they left behind their lush green gardens and farms in Nauvoo, 111. My people gave up the easy life to find a place where they could live according to the dictates of their own conscience. Their lives would have been so much easier and safer if they had stayed, but they left ... for me. I would not have the rich life I enjoy today without their courage. Now, at long last, I could finally appreciate their gift. Later that day as I looked out the window of the airplane, I watched the great Rocky Mountain corridor come into view much like the castles or palaces I had just left behind. I was going home. I was not looking beyond the next hill or bend in the road any more. What I had was enough. Life was no longer greener on the other side of the world, only different. If we never see what we already have, we never find our way home. Janene Baadsgaard is the author of many books including 15 Secrets to a Happy Home, Families Who Laugh - Last, On the Roller Coaster Called Motherhood, Winter's Promise, Financial Freedom for LDS Families and The LDS Mother's Almanac. Read her past columns at www. janenebaadsgaard.blogspot.com Disneyland vacation brings new perspectives My Unintentional Life Rosemary Jarman , A few months before winning the cancer lottery, I actually won a trip to Disneyland for my family. Winning that trip came to feel like the universe's way of apologizing for the tumor. We headed for Anaheim about a week after my first treatment. My husband thought I should have a wheelchair or motorized something to get around the parks in. I wasn't so sure that was necessary and suspected his motive wasn't so much to protect my fragility, as much as it was to get free access to the front of the lines. But as the vacation unfolded, it turns out it was !not only necessary, but also a stroke of genius. The following entry from my journal tells the story: I am sitting in a beautifully appointed hotel room, overlooking ... trees. Lots and lots of trees with lots and lots of birds. Beautiful. Beneath those trees is Disney's Grizzly River Rafting ride. Right now, if I didn't know Madison's Avenue any better, I could think 1 was in a mountain lodge, listening to a majestic river running by. In a couple hours, when the park actually opens and people start screaming on that river, in regular, predictable intervals, it will sound more like I'm next to a natural disaster, or perhaps ... a Disney theme park. Yesterday, day one on wheels was bittersweet. Getting to zoom to the front of every line sure changes your Disney experience. Stress is gone. Everyone knows they'll get to ride what they want to ride and when they want to ride it. Of course, as happy as that makes you feel, it never leaves your mind that you're alsofirstin line for other things; things like pain shooting up your femur every time you stand, waves of nausea the instant your medication wears off, and irritated glances from those who don't quite know what to do with sick people wheeling around "the happiest place on earth" reminding them that pain and suffering is unavoidable. Without the chair, I would have probably made it about 90 minutes in the park, with the rest of the day spent on Mr. Oxycodone's Wild Ride. So, I'm a more humble Mouseketeer now. I used to be impatient with people in personal wheeled vehicles — they always went so slow. But now I understand that slow means you don't run over people. That's a good thing. (Not running into things is a good thing too — especially the docking fence at "Small World" — going full throttle — it's not such a small world anymore when hundreds of people are wondering what's wrong with you, including the girl with the microphone. Maybe she didn't know it was on.) To all those people I bypassed yesterday and will bypass today, who are tired, who have whiny little kids, who would like to go to the front of the line too, I say this: I will gladly stand in line for you for a week if you will go through chemotherapy for me once. Now they've turned on the lyrical, gentle country guitar background music in the park. I'm liking this. Rosemary Jarn\an / The Sentinel Anyone for another great WHEELS IN DISNEYLAND: Rosemary Jarman enjoys riding through the theme park in day at Disney?! her motor cart. by "Big Al" and Tarnzy" GymCheetah Dancewear, Shorts Leotards & Gifts j Soccer ' Clearance All soccer shorts & socks "Daddy,... when you were dating Mom, did you take her out to cool restaurants like CHUCKY CHEESE? ~W?v 428NSR198 Salem • Service • Furnace Replacements • A/C Add Ons • Green Sticker • Financing OAC NE of Chevron behind Papa Kelseys T & Th 4-7 Sal 10-2 25% Off ©2009 Madingo L L C , Allan Olson and Darren Femes HEATING & AIR CONDITIONING Sec our store at bryant GymCheetah.com Muting * Cooling 6yst«ma THE SENTINEL Covering what matters most WHATEVER IT TAKES' 798-1700 |