Music for your ears:

Duane, Dick Davis, and Denis Sorenson performed as The Three D's, a music and comedy trio. They recorded for Capitol Records, traveled throughout the United States and abroad. Their music and humor, now on CD, are still in demand. Below is a display of CD's we have available. Denis has other CD's available from his web site, http://www.phoenixrecords.org/inalbums.php.

Two ways you can order the music listed below:
1. Print and mail the order blank Just click here
2. Give us a call at 1-(801) 225-1094

Ideas for your mind:
Below these CD's find semi-occasional commentary by Duane.

Thanks for stopping by our home--home page that is.
Drop us an e mail if you get the time Just click here

To order CD's by The Three D's, The D's, and by Duane, click HERE

LISTED BELOW ARE SOME THINGS I'VE WRITTEN OVER THE YEARS FEEL FREE TO BROWSE

Great poetry set to music

Songs and stories of pioneer history

Songs for children

Songs and stories from the Old Testament

Songs and stories from the Book of Mormon

Songs and Stories of Porter Rockwell

DUANE AND SHARON HIATT

Duane E. Hiatt was Director of Communications for the Division of Continuing Education at Brigham Young University. He has been a writer of "The Spoken Word" for broadcasts of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, is the author of the book Overcoming Personal Loss and composer of the Primary song "Follow the Prophet." He is listed in Who's Who in American Writers and Poets, Who's Who in Entertainment, Who's Who in the West, and Personalities of the West and Midwest.
For 16 years he was a professional entertainer, performing in a musical and comedy group known as "The Three D's." They traveled extensively, and recorded for Capitol Records. He lectures and performs on the subjects of family and personal development, western folk history and folk songs, and Abraham Lincoln.
Mr. Hiatt holds a master's degree and is a member of Phi Kappa Phi scholarship honor society. He was president of America’s Freedom Festival at Provo, and under his direction the city received the George Washington Medal of Honor from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.
He served twice as a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and twice as a high councilor. He served a mission in the Tonga Islands. He is an Eagle Scout. Presently he serves as a Sunday School teacher.
Mr. Hiatt and his first wife, the late Diane Robertson Hiatt, are the parents of fifteen children, ten sons and five daughters. He and Sharon were married in 1988.
Sharon J. Hiatt was graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in music education, was a member of the university's renowned A Capella Choir, and has performed in musical theater. Mrs. Hiatt was listed in the book Outstanding Young Women of America. She taught piano for eight years and was a special education teacher in the Alpine School District previous to her marriage to Mr. Hiatt.
Mrs. Hiatt served a mission to Central America and has served in numerous callings including stake Relief Society president and ward Primary President. She presently serves as stake Primary president.

DUANE HIATT in his native habitat

Commentary on the Caribbean (and other observations)

Hurricane Shake Down Cruise
Hurricane shake down cruise; that’s what we called Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of this week. We have been storing water and food in case of a hurricane. The season used to be considered as June to October or so, but last year it continued until November.
The experts recommend at least three days of water and food. We haven’t seen any hurricanes yet, but we did see a letter to us from the city utilities department that amounted to the same thing at least in terms of water. They calmly informed us they would be shutting off the water to our part of the city for three days to replace some big pipes.
We had collected what we supposed was an ample back up water supply in plastic gallon jugs. It turned out we had enough, but not by a big margin. We were conservative and probably a little gamy by the end of Sunday, but even so we were always cracking open a new jug. We learned that rinsing dishes takes a lot more water than washing them does. You can bathe acceptably in a pan of water, but not wash your hair, especially if you are a woman.
The water hog is, of course the toilet. Grab a jug in both hands when you head for the facility. The mission office where we work when we are not on the road was also in the dry par of town, so being responsible citizens we took a trunk full of jugs to work with us and took home the empties.
Packing your own water isn’t so bad when you’re camping, but when you are trying to maintain a civilized city demeanor and you don’t have Mother Nature’s rocks and bushes in which to answer her calls, it is more complicated.

Speaking Spanish with my face

We have given a presentation of songs and stories from the life of Jesus for a number of years. We are happy to bring it to the Caribbean. The challenge this time is to do it in Spanish. I am not yet up to speed—literally—in the language, so we are adding visuals and will be doing some of songs about Jesus that are in the hymn book and the children’s song book in Spanish. This will help the people stay on track when I am presenting in English. Sharon will be dubbing in Spanish where we need it. I will also be counting on what the little lady in the Dominican Republic said after our training session there. She said, “I don’t speak English, but I understood everything you said.” As I mentioned earlier, I told her, “My mouth doesn’t speak much Spanish yet, but my face and body do.” Sharon translated this to her. She smiled broadly and affirmed, “Si.” I’ll be counting on good facial and body language to cover the gap between what I mean and what I say. Mostly we will be counting on the Spirit to give us all the gift of tongues both for speaking and for hearing.
One thing we missed when we first came here was the classical music we enjoyed on KBYU. One night driving home from the office we idly punched a button on our car radio and came up with WIPR Puerto Rico public radio. They play well chosen classical music. We enjoy it greatly. Part of our work here is making friends with newspaper, radio and television people. We wrote a fan letter to the station, and put it with a CD of Tabernacle Choir music and descriptive material about the church. We took our national media person Maria Pomales and visited the station this morning.
Sharon charmed the receptionists with sincere compliments about their appearance and their cordiality. I expressed my sincere admiration for the deep and resonant voice and smooth on-air delivery of one of the announcers who happened to be passing through. He blushed and reached for an appropriate response from his limited English vocabulary. He came up with. “I love you.” That worked for me. I am looking forward to the day I can speak and understand eloquent Spanish. But I also find a deep communication can flow between people who are sharing messages and feelings beyond their language abilities. I rely on that a lot right now. We gave the folks at the station our fan letter. I took pictures of us all. It was a minor fiesta.

The Bridges of Curacao

In addition to instruction and providing some materials, a big part of our training the saints in public affairs is to cheer them on for their efforts. One way we have found effective is to give them a fireside that helps them see the value and methods of building bridges with those outside our faith. We use slides, music, and examples from the scriptures and church history.
Two unique bridges span the deep water channel that is the island capital’s main street. One is a graceful steel structure silhouetted against the sky. Anchored to two peaks at the back of the channel that leads to a protected harbor, the bridge easily arches over the tallest ocean ships. The other is a floating foot bridge that connects the two sides of the city. It swings free from one end and opens like a gate to let the big ships pass in and out. Obviously these symbols of Curacao had to become symbols for our presentation on building bridges. The locals loved having their own bridges be two of the stars in the show.
Hooray for digital photography. We can shoot and instantly (well fairly instantly) add them to the show. I photographed the members as they prepared and presented the open house and at church Sunday.
At the fireside we talked and sang to them about the pioneers. The members caught the connection when we told them the pioneers had to struggle. Sometimes they seemed to fail. Crops froze out. People died on the exodus west. Corrupt politicians robbed us of our possessions. But the pioneers kept trying, and we are the beneficiaries of their labor.
We said to them, “One day people will look back at the pioneers who began and built the Church of Jesus Christ on Curasao. Who will they be talking about?
I put the slide show on automatic, and Sharon and I played pioneer music as the beautiful faces of these faithful saints happily doing their duty filled the screen.
The only scene as moving was earlier in the presentation when we encouraged them to be united within and also reach out to those of other faiths. We sang, “As I have loved you, love one another.” The children spontaneously joined in from the congregation, so we invited them up to sing for us. None of us got through that segment dry-eyed.

Every member a friend

I think sometimes we also underestimate the good that people of other faiths can contribute to building and sometimes saving the kingdom. I have told the saints here about four important occasions. In the days of the Old Testament Israel was conquered by the Babylonians and carried to Babylon in captivity. Seventy years later Cyrus, king of the Persians conquered Babylon. He was impressed with many of the Jews. He became their friend and helped them return to their homeland and rebuild their temple. Cyrus never became a member of the House of Israel, but the Lord referred to him as “my servant.”
In New Testament times the wise men from the east saved the life of the child Jesus by not telling Herod where he was. They returned home another way. So far as we have record the men from the east never became official disciples of the Christ.
In pioneer times a United States army was descending on Utah to make war on the saints. Thomas Kane, of Philadelphia was a friend of the Saints and Brigham Young. He had important connections in Washington. Though old and sickly he came to Utah and negotiated a peace. He saved us from a bloody war. He served the kingdom so well we named a county in Utah after him though he never joined the church.
In our day we were facing stiff opposition to our proposed temple in Atlanta Georgia. The typical NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) tactics were being used. But one city council member stood against the opposition. She said, “What you are saying about the Mormons is not true. My best friend Pat is a Mormon. We raised our children together. She is one on the best people I know. If Pat wants a temple pat can have a temple.” It isn’t Pat’s temple, of course, but without her friendship with a good person of another faith it might not be standing on the site it is.
Because the active members here are so busy, we don’t want them to feel they are being laden with another burden in Public Affairs. Rather we would like them to feel this is a joyful work to just reach out to their friends of other faiths and help them make their lives better in whatever way they choose. So we are introducing Cada Miembro un Amigo by way of fireside programs of music and stories, (mostly translated stories until my Spanish improves.) It is the “Songs and stories” format we have used in our presentations over the years.

Speaking in actions more than words

I am still a work in progress. In this training I spoke mostly spangLISH. I’m working to convert that to SPANglish, and eventually to SPANISH. I think there is some lemonade in this lemon however. A prime principle of communication is that you have to get and keep the attention of your receiver. My splintered Spanish does that pretty well. My audiences are so busy trying to figure out what I am trying to say, and helping me when I talk myself into a corner they don’t have much time or energy to think about anything else,
Meanwhile I am stretching my head to keep my information well organized, make my points clear, my illustrations relevant, and my delivery interesting. I also think hard how to involve our audiences. The chapels we present in are not air conditioned so our audiences can sometimes get a little warm and drowsy. At the Dominican Republic we were training among other things, about the need to measure and report our efforts. The folks here are like everybody else. Planning and reporting are not high on their list of fun things to do, Maybe the only thing less exciting is to hear somebody talk about why and how to do planning and reporting,
Anticipating this could be a boring part of our presentation, I prepared a little audience participation. I bought a small tape measure and stuck it in my pocket. I told them how we used to practice high jumping in high school. I said that if we hadn’t had a cross bar to measure how high we were jumping the game wouldn’t have been much fun and we would never have known whether or not we were making progress.
By this point in the afternoon the group was warm and sleepy. The priesthood leaders were looking dignified in their repose. I decided to abandon my demonstration, or just do a couple of little jumps myself and move on. But then I figured, (prompted by the Spirit I’m sure) I’ll give it a shot. I said, “Would any of you like to try a jump and we’ll measure you?” Elder Castro sprang out of his chair. He gave it his three best shots, and we measured them on the wall. He did a little better each time proving, as President Monson recently said, “Performance measured is performance improved.”
A stake president from the San Francisco (Dominican Republic not California) area next gave it his all. He was shorter than Elder Castro so didn’t reach Area Authority altitudes, but he improved with practice and measuring. By his third try he was pooped and didn’t match his second effort, but we cheered him on for noble efforts.
By now Santa Domingo Stake President Fortuna was champing at the bit and figuratively pawing the ground. He added a couple of running steps to his native athletic ability and slam dunked the ceiling. We renamed him President Michael Jordan. We also noted that by measuring observing and studying our past performance we had figured out better ways to do the tasks i.e. the Fortuna running leap approach. The brethren and we their cheer leaders had a great time. The slumbering audience was aroused, and significant training was accomplished. This might not have happened if I could speak Spanish well enough to drone on interminably.

The Lord watches over his missionaries

The Lord loves his missionaries and looks out for them. Who knows how long he prepares to bless and help them.
Last Sunday in a small branch in the interior mountains of Puerto Rico a new elder stood in the shaded porch area in front of the chapel. He was a handsome brown youth but his husky build was slumped, his face was solemn and his eyes downcast. He was trying to greet people as they came to the church, but his Spanish was halting, and he was shy and uncomfortable. His senior companion was happily bantering with people in smoothly flowing Spanish.
The new elder carried a double burden. Other new elders and sisters were struggling with their Spanish, but they could fall back on English in a pinch. Nobody spoke this elder’s language. Nobody in the world at least that is how he felt right now. He was an island boy, but not from these islands it was obvious.
A tall grey-haired gentleman approached him, shook his hand and said, “Malo lelei.” The elder’s eyes snapped open wider. His handshake firmed up, and he responded automatically, “Malo lelei.” Where you learn to speak Tongan.
I told him.
I had been briefed on Elder Grewer’s situation. Fresh from Tonga, he had to spend extra time in the MTC so they could teach him English so he could learn Spanish. He is laboring mightily with both languages.
Last night we returned to that ward to train them in public affairs missionary work. Elder Grewer and his companion were there. During our presentation I asked him to come up and join me in an old Tongan song I learned on my mission. He was shy, and said he didn’t sing. I told him that as a Tongan man he could convince me that he couldn’t breathe easier than he couldn’t sing. His companion prodded him up to the front. We sang with gusto, forgot some words and faked it (who would know?) We got a big applause at the end. Better than that, the sun broke through the clouds in Elder Grewer’s face. He smiled, gave me a big hug, and several more before the night was over. We talked Tongan and about the Tonga I knew which was ancient history to him. He was smiling when they left.
Did Heavenly Father plan half a century ago to send me to Tonga so that, among other things I could one day be a substitute father (or grandfather) to another missionary who needed help on another island in another ocean? I don’t know how much our Heavenly Father micromanages our affairs, but I do believe in what Elder David Bednar called “tender mercies from the Lord,” and this seemed like one of those.

Lovely young woman who loves to learn

A young woman, Clara Cruz, 17 from a ward near here in San Juan was honored by the local Lions Club for her scholastic achievements. Since part of our calling is to help get achievements of our members into the news media, we went to her home to interview her. I asked her mother and father (he teaches English in the local high school) how they motivated their children to love learning. They read with them from The book of Mormon. At age four Clara observed that her older brother got to say words from the book, and she didn’t. She asked her parents to let her read. They helped her along, and soon she was part of the reading circle.
“What then?” I asked. She went to her room and came back with a stack of copies of the book of Mormon.
“This one I read when I was 12.” It was in English.
“This one I read when I was 14, I think.” It was in French.
“This one at 15.” Portuguese.
“This one I was 16.” Italian.
“When President Hinckley asked us to read the Book of Mormon last year I was already into this one so I decided to keep reading it. It is harder. It’s in German, but I will get through it.”
Clara has uncovered some gems in her multilingual study. She even found her own middle name Leticia (letizia, meaning joy) in the Italian translation. (2 Nephi 1:21, 8:3, 11.) She found that while the Nephites and Lamanites often wander in the wilderness, in Spanish they have to wander in something else because the word wilderness doesn’t translate directly into that language.
“I decided I wouldn’t have any copies of the Book of Mormon I can’t read,” Clara said. Interesting since her bishop just gave her a copy of the book from his shelf. Since she accepted it, she will be reading it. Which means she will be learning not only new words but a new alphabet. The book is in Russian.

Land of many peoples

We spent a good part of last week training the Public Affairs councils in Trinidad and Guyana. Trinidad is among the southernmost of the Caribbean Islands. Guyana is on the northern coast of South America. Like the rest of the Caribbean, the population is a colorful mix of customs and cultures. I expected a large population of descendants from the slaves from Africa. But I was surprised at the number of Indians from India. They were brought in as indentured servants after slavery was abolished. I saw a large population of them in Fiji decades ago on my first mission. They got there the same way. They are generally bright and motivated people. They pretty well took over Fiji. They are also successful in the Caribbean both in their business and church activity. Many are leaders in the church. Good people, I expect we will see them in a higher profile one of these years especially if the missionaries can go to their homeland some time.
Guyana means “land of many waters.” Sounds like the Book of Mormon doesn’t it? There is actually a river there name the Marani if I remember correctly. The mission president told us they are more receptive to the gospel than the islands in his mission He feels it is a heritage and homesickness for the days when their people had the gospel. That certainly squares with Book of Mormon prophecy, that at some time the Lord would remember the descendants of Lehi and bring the gospel they lost back to them.
The entire Caribbean seems to be waking up to the message of the gospel. In this Puerto Rican mission where we are headquartered baptisms are up 95% over last year. The Dominican Republic is headquarters for the church in this area. They are growing in strength and numbers. Maybe you know this, but the first presidency has just made the Caribbean a new area. A new area hasn’t been created for almost twenty years, so apparently the brethren see a bright future for these islands. This is a fascinating time to be in the islands. We like to think that the work of public affairs is helping to change the image of the church and playing a role in the growth and success of missionary work here.

For additional commentaries click HERE

Science and the back
Not to knock science. It has given us dinosaurs, black holes, and the radio you are listening to. Now science has come up with another stunning discovery. Herta Flor, a German scientist at the University of Heidelberg has just presented her findings at the annual conference of the Society for Neuroscience. Ms Flor said her research indicated that if a married person has back pains and the person’s spouse gives the person sympathy and attention, the pain gets worse. If the spouse downplays the problem, the back recovers quicker. “It’s as if the spouse has become a stimulating cue for the pain,” Ms Flor reported.
As a public service, we will now analyze and critique Ms. Flor’s scientific findings.
First lets define our terms. When we say spouse we of course mean the male spouse. Female spouses don’t report their back pains. When the female spouse does have a pain, it is the male spouse. Even if the female spouse did have back pains, the number of male spouses or technically speaking, male spice who would show sympathy is so small they would not show up in a scientific study.
So basically we are talking male spouse back pain here. The study apparently found that when the female spouse said things like, “Your back hurts? Tough luck. Call your golf buddies and tell them you can’t make it.” The male spouse back began to feel better.
But when the female spouse said things like, “Oh, poor baby. Where does it hurt? Here lie down and let met rub it out. I’ll call in sick for you. You just stay there, and I’ll get you something warm and relaxing. Here is the TV remote.” Surprisingly enough, scientific evidence tells us the back pain continued longer.
Scientific evidence also indicates that most people prefer cheesecake to chopped liver.
The experiment didn’t explore the third option. What happens to the male spouse back when the female spouse shows too much tough love? When she brings in, depending on the season, the snow shovel or the lawn mower. That can send the male spouse back into spasms that won’t stop until the season changes.

Guaranteed
Back before most of us can remember your guarantee when you bought something was the handshake from the person who sold it to you. If his or her word was good you had a guarantee. If it wasn't you were just had.
But today the guarantee is an industry itself. If you enjoy mystery novels, I guarantee you can’t beat a guarantee for mysterious reading. To begin, what is the difference between a guarantee and a warranty? One of them starts with a “W”. Remember you heard it here first.
How about the limited warranty on materials and workmanship. How limited? What materials? Does it mean, “We built your new TV out of stuff we found in the dumpster, but we did a good job of gluing and taping it together.”
I like this phrase, “Guaranteed to perform under normal conditions.” Does that mean if 70 degrees is normal for this time of year and it goes up to 75 my guarantee is void?
How about the guarantees that say “Return to Shanghai in the original carton.” No problem. I rent a warehouse to keep all my original cartons in. And postage to Shanghai can’t be more than a hundred bucks.
Then there is the extended warranty that you pay extra for. This is a guarantee
that the regular guarantee isn’t worth the paper it is written on. But if you want to keep making payments on the thing you just paid for, they guarantee you can do that. I bought one of those once. Just once. It was a cordless telephone. When it died not too long later I said, “Hey, no problem. I’ve got extended warranty.” Turned out the telephone was guaranteed but the store wasn’t. They were out of business.
Car guarantees are helpful. I figure they know what they built better than anybody, and if they say it is a worthless bucket of junk after so many miles, I will believe them. I have a muffler on my car. It has a lifetime guarantee for the original purchaser. That one I take seriously. If that baby starts to go down it may take me with it.
I replaced part of the plumbing in our house not long ago. It was what in polite society they used to call “the facility.” Way deep in pardon the expression the “bowels” of this operation is a wax seal that keeps the whole thing polite. It costs 93 cents. If it ever goes down at the wrong time my social standing will go down the toilet with it. Also at the going rate for plumbers I will have to refinance the house to get it replaced. But I sleep peacefully because on the box is a guarantee that I can get my 93 cents back.

The skinny on skin

You could cover a fair sized wall with what you are walking around in. Twenty one square feet of skin separate your insides from the outside world. Your hide is your biggest organ by a couple of yards. It is also one of your best tools to tell what is going on around you.
Skin can send an incredible amount of information with just three basic feelings; pressure, pain, and temperature. For example, if you think you feel wet, you don’t. What you really feel is cold and pressure. To check this out, close your eyes and have somebody press a cold smooth metal object on your forehead. It will feel like your face is dripping wet.
Put a little pressure on your skin and your brain translates it as a tickle. A little pain is an itch. And when you scratch it makes another irritation on the skin that takes the brain’s attention off of the itch. All this skinny on the skin is from Joel L. Swerdlow writing in National Geographic.
Skin is our blanket in the cold, our air conditioner in the heat, our armor against the bugs and wee beasties that want to get inside of us.
It is also a billboard we carry around of how many smiles, frowns, and calories we have experienced. These are engraved in the lines, creases, bulges and sags that we accumulate as we struggle up the road of life. Some of us don’t like the looks of these footprints of our travels, so we spend a goodly fortune on our skins to smooth out the wrinkles. .
Which brings up a deep thought. Philosophers ask, “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” You’ve heard that one. How about this, if we get face lifts, tummy tucks, and Botox shots to smooth away our years of experience, what else goes? If we erase all traces of our past, have we really lived?

Holy rolling of the dice
First let’s settle one thing. Gambling is not a problem in America. In fact there is no gambling in America. It is gaming. That’s what the gambling industry renamed it. Is that because they are ashamed of what they do? How about we rename car theft “Auto Recycling” and drug dealing “Pharmaceutical distribution?”
Maybe it’s not gambling or gaming. Maybe it is religion. Did you know that more people go to Las Vegas every year than go to Mecca during Haji, the annual Muslim pilgrimage?
But, you say that doesn’t make gambling a religion. Au contraire my friend. Mr. Webster himself lists one definition of religion as “any object of conscientious regard and pursuit.” Now if spending four days inside a dimly lit building pulling the handle of a slot machine is not “conscientious…pursuit.” Then it must be religious fanaticism.
Furthermore, most religions encourage people to give their money and material possessions to others. You take a poll of people coming out of the casinos, and I’m guaranteeing you, they have all given, some until it hurts.
But, you say, there is no striving to reach up and connect with a higher power in religious gambling. Look again at the suffering souls at the Keno table and the roulette wheel. Few church goers are so rapt and focused in pleading for the powers beyond themselves to smile down on them.
Admittedly redemption is a little thin in this religion. Almost nobody redeems his poker chips for as much as he paid for them. But then again, religion is about sacrifice.
And, of course Las Vegas practices its own golden rule, “He who has the gold rules.”
But is this true authentic religion? Certainly, just as authentic as the Venetian Gondolas, the Egyptian pyramid, and the New York skyline in Las Vegas are authentic.
Does the religion of gambling include an eschatology--that is, what Webster calls, “The branch of theology dealing with last things” Surely this is an area in which the gambling religion of Las Vegas is pure prophecy. For if the trends in the city of sin continue, the end of the world may be closer than we think.

To read additional commentaries, click here