I have to confess I have prayed that prayer either directly, or by inference more times than I would like to admit. It’s a shaky prayer at best; a bit like the letters I used to send to Santa Claus. The pony never appeared under the Christmas tree, but what the heck, it didn’t cost anything to ask year after year.

I have also prayed the prayer of hope for success without paying the price for it. Those are my “Wizard of Oz” prayers. Like Dorothy and her friends Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, I want to be somewhere else, or have some ability or character trait I don’t now possess. If I can just get the ear of the Wizard, he can give it to me. In the case of Dorothy and her needy friends, it turns out they had the things they wanted all along. They just had to find their gifts inside themselves, and, one supposes, continue to develop and use them. .

Other reasons for the difference between requests and results in my prayers include: The timing is not right, or the Lord has something better in store for me. Not surprisingly, my narrow view, short term horizon and his omniscience and exalted perspective often come to different conclusions. As he reminded his prophet Isaiah, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8)

Some people lose faith in God when he doesn’t seem to come through for them. They say in effect “I gave him a test, and he failed.”  We need to remember that it is not God who is being tested in this life, it is us.
All these and other incorrect assumptions can create static in our communications to heaven.

But there is a “no fail” prayer we can all send up with total confidence.  This message to heaven will be answered if it is wrapped in humility and a willingness to do our part. The concept is not new. I have heard it all my life. It abounds in the scriptures. But for some reason when I read it again a few weeks ago, it hit home in ways that it never has before. I have repeated this concept more often lately in my prayers, and it always works. I feel an answer whipping back to my consciousness immediately.

One of the reasons it works so well is that we don’t have to persuade the Lord to our request. He already wants it for us at least as much as we do, probably more. He wants us to be stronger and better. The best way we can accomplish that is to face challenges, work through them, and grow in the process. We may stagger, fall, and lose some skirmishes, but if we make sure we get up one more time than we go down, we are guaranteed ultimate victory. He will always be there with infinite resources and support.

So what is the prayer?

It has been pronounced many ways. Years ago I read it beautifully stated by Phillips Brooks, a 19th century minister. Rev. Brooks wrote, “Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.”

Later directors, most notably D.W. Griffith turned the camera, editing booth, and later the sound track into powerful tools to capture our minds and emotions. Their system is so universal in film and television today that we hardly notice it, and can barely imagine a motion picture presented in any other way.

The basic grammar is: start the scene with a long shot to orient the viewer, cut to medium shots for interaction between the actors, go to tight close ups for intimate thoughts or words. Use music to change scenes and set moods.

For breaks in the forward movement of the story, or big changes in scenes, go back to the long shot and start the process again.

I wanted to try that approach on stage.

However, instead of panoramic scenes, multiple camera shoots, post production editing bays, special effects, symphony orchestra backgrounds and a “cast of thousands” mine would be a one man, one guitar spectacular. This was a disadvantage. But the advantage was this show would be presented in the finest performance hall in the world, the theater in each person’s mind.

Star of the show was Porter Rockwell, AKA, “Ol’ Port, frontier marshal, body guard, and personal friend to Joseph Smith and later Brigham Young. Feared by outlaws, appreciated by law abiding folks, and one of my personal heroes.

For ten years or so, I took the show all over California and many other cities in the United States. Port was always an audience pleaser. After the show lines of people came up, women to talk about the aesthetic nuances of the presentation, men to tell me their favorite Porter Rockwell story.

Part of the appeal was Ol’ Port himself. He was known to dip into the “valley tan” home brew, but was not the drunken hired gun portrayed by his enemies. He was an ally to the threatened, and a good neighbor. But when they murdered his boyhood friend Joseph Smith, he swore justice on any law breakers, and he used his skills to track, relentlessly pursue, and when necessary, close the deal with hot lead to fulfill his oath.

Ol’ Port’s adventures, colorful character, and personal challenges fired the imagination of the audience. They willingly leaped into the saddle and rode with him. Folk songs and ballads about him, some of them I wrote, moved him from one scene to the next. Voice characterizations and body language placed other people in the scenes. Guitar chords occasionally punctuated the dialogue, or added a sound effect. But these were only suggestions to launch the individualized story playing in the imagination of each audience member.

Ol’ Port is one of the most enjoyable and successful performances I have done on stage. His long gallop over the years would indicate that a lot of folks enjoyed riding with him.

This is Dan, Duane’s son.  I work with dad in filling orders, producing CD’s and trying to keep the website up and running.  We have had several people ask if our music was available on itunes and other online music services.  I looked into it and we decided to give it a try with our best selling CD, the Three D’s “Mormon Heritage” CD.

After some work, we got it up on itunes.  The tracks for the different songs split out wherever there is a break on the CD, so some of the individual songs come out in kind of strange places.  I think it might work best to purchase the whole CD rather than individual songs, although some of my favorite songs like ‘The Iron Horse’ and ‘Lonesome, Roving Wolves’ and The Three D’s rendition of ‘Come, Come Ye Saints’ are nice to have to play separately.

But just so you know the CD is there for $19.99, it is also on sale at another site (called CD Baby) for $14.99.  We can’t set the pricing for itunes, but set it for CD Baby and since we don’t have to pay for shipping or producing CDs, we wanted to pass the savings on to you.  The link to CD Baby is http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/thethreeds

Let me know if you have any comments or problems downloading either of these CD’s.  Thank you for listening and for your support!

Dan Hiatt

For the uninitiated, Family Home Evening is a Mormon practice where we gather our families on Monday evening for instruction, activities, and a treat. It has been described as an evening of argument that begins and ends with prayer. We have our share of differing opinions, but they are usually handled amicably, and a good treat at the end supersedes all problems.

Every family experiences challenges, even the families who sit shiny and spiffed up on the church benches and those who send you those Christmas letters filled with glowing accounts of their successes the past year and those with bumper stickers extolling their children’s accomplishments— (Our Christmas letter was usually a post card, “Survived another year.”)

Like most parents, we faced stiffer crises than controlling the wiggles, pokes and jokes for an hour until the weekly treat rode over the hill like the U.S. Cavalry to save us.

I remember the larger crises best by the tag lines with which they were brought to my attention:

“Let me tell you first that we are all still alive”

“You can still shut the door if you use both hands.”

“I wondered why they weren’t eating as much.”

The first of the above lines was spoken to me by one of our sons when he and a few other siblings joined us a bit late for a family gathering. It was a festive occasion, so he opened with the good news. Since I generally assume our family members are all alive unless I hear differently, my fatherly sense told me there might be more to the story.

There was. Our barn is up a hill from behind our house. The truck hauling hay up to the barn was spinning its wheels on the grade so our son hooked the tractor to the truck’s front bumper. His younger brother was the designated driver of the truck. Older son jumped on to the tractor seat, revved engine and popped the clutch. The tractor leaped forward. Chained to the truck it couldn’t go forward, so it rotated on its back wheels like a rearing horse, launched its nose into the air and performed a back flip on to the hood of the truck.

Cat-like reflexes he didn’t even know he had launched older son off the rising tractor seat safely to the ground. Younger son froze in fright as the somersaulting tractor crashed down inches from the windshield. Younger son flipped open the unsafety belt holding him to the seat and flew out the door to join his brother on the ground.

And speaking of car doors, they are not the best tools for knocking down trees. Diane, my first wife, discovered that while backing up near a tree. She was looking over her right shoulder out the back window with the driver’s side door partly open, then totally open, then partly folded between the tree and the front fender. Her opening line to me was, “You can still close it using both hands.” A rump bump also helps we found later. Full disclosure, I did something similar to the right rear view mirror of another car a few years later.

Egg production was slipping day by day in the hen house. I went to check. One possible reason was the chicken bones I found littering the coop. Some varmint (we’re suspecting a badger) dug up out of the ground every morning, enjoyed a chicken breakfast, and went back down his hole until the next day.

I asked a busy and oft distracted son whose chore was caring for the chickens about this. He answered, “I wondered why they weren’t eating as much.” (The chickens I assumed, not the badger.)

Family calamities; some tragic, some funny; often the difference is how long ago they happened.

Part of the reason for Switzerland’s comparatively comfortable financial position is wise money management for which the Swiss are internationally renowned.

An equally important reason showed up recently in an Associated Press story by John Heilprin. Labor unions in Switzerland lobbied for a law guaranteeing at least six weeks annual vacation so they could be like Italy, Russia, Germany and other nations. Government and business leaders warned that the vacation extension would raise labor costs and put the economy at risk.

The public looked at the alternatives, did the math, and rejected the proposal by a two thirds majority. Hans-Ulrich Bigler, head of a business association said the vote “clearly shows that the population continues to focus on individual freedom and responsibility of citizens.” (2)

Freedom may be the most beloved word in any language. Responsibility is her drudge sister in the minds of many people. But they are a package. You can’t dance with freedom without ultimately paying the piper, responsibility.

How can we help the debt ridden peoples of the world and their leaders understand this? Perhaps a home study tutoring program from the Swiss to citizens and government leaders of the poorly managed nations would help. The financially strapped and economically ignorant foreigners could learn from the Swiss how fiscal responsibility brings prosperity and freedom.

I suggest the first country to enroll ASAP should be the United States of America.

1. (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_eco_ove-economy-overview)
2. (Deseret News, March 12, 2012, p. A10)

I have written many commercials and advertisements as a radio salesman and announcer, freelance writer, and communications director. I have won some awards. And I wish I had written that milk sign.  It was nailed on a board at the entrance to a New England farm.  I would buy milk from those people.  I believe I would trust them with my wallet, credit card, even one of my children.  Without formal training, or probably even thinking about it, those farm folks landed on the most powerful persuader in the world, the truth.

It seems no compliment to our culture that we have the common phrase that is the title of this offering.  I don’t hear that one so much any more, but it’s still around along with its synonyms, “actually” “I’m telling you.” “I kid you not,” and “Read my lips.”  If we have to announce that our next statement is true, does that make everything we say without such a declaration suspect?

Maybe so.  Certainly we as a people have become so adept at spotting overstatement, hyperbole, slanted and biased messages in the media and elsewhere that we don’t even know we are doing it.  Phrases like “New and Improved” “Better than ever”, “World’s most…” , “Free”, “and “If I am elected,” Those claims zip past our eyes and ears without pausing at our brains.  We tune them out automatically.

Sometimes I think the truest word left in advertising, public relations, and much more in the media is “Unbelievable” as in “Unbelievable Value!”  You’re right. I don’t believe it.

We are also wise to most of the “weasel words” such as “may,” (increase your gas mileage, improve your complexion etc.) the ambiguous awards and achievements, (voted #1, preferred by more…, 35 percent more effective…) And yet for all our cynical and street wise sophistication, this stuff must wear our resistance down a little or it wouldn’t still be circulating.

It isn’t all the communicator’s fault.  Often we don’t want to hear the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts, and we don’t like to hurt.  We prefer the sugar coated words of slick talkers like the man of whom it was said, “He was so smooth he could tell you to go to hell and make you look forward to the trip.”

The brilliant Hugh Nibley once titled an essay, “The Rise of Rhetoric, and the fall of Everything Else.” Rhetoric is an old fashioned word that means to speak persuasively. I think he is right. The persuaders seem to rule today. In the courtroom, on the political stump, in the media, those who can sway opinions rule.  Even the stalwart Abraham Lincoln declared, “In America public opinion is everything.”

There’s nothing wrong with skill in persuasion if the content is true. How can we tell if it is?

I just finished one of the wisest books I have ever read.  Like the New England farm fencepost sign the book is unpretentious, small, not bound in leather, no high powered endorsements from famous people on the back.  It even has a few typos to attest that the message is more important than the packaging.  Titled Think Independently, the book presents unvarnished, unapologetic straightforward truth about the most basic questions human beings have asked throughout history and still do.  What is the purpose of life?  Why do good people suffer and sinners prosper?  What is not just good, but best?

The author Chauncey Riddle is a Doctor of Philosophy from Columbia, one of America’s prestige universities.  Of his academic credentials, this philosopher told me once, “The only reason to get a doctorate is that some people won’t listen to anybody who doesn’t have some letters after his or her name.”

Of truth, Dr.Riddle references scripture, saying that truth is a knowledge of things as they were, are, and will be.  That immediately places it beyond the reach of the most brilliant mind working solely with its own resources.

That makes sense to me. We don’t even have a full knowledge of things that are in our everyday world.  Our senses can deceive us.  Our Minds can play tricks on us.  Our biases and prejudices filter the incoming data.

How much confidence then can we have in histories, archaeologies, geologies of the past?  How reliable are prognoses of the future?  Yet the experts speak with finality on these subjects as if they knew.  I like the story of the museum guide telling the visitors, “That dinosaur  is eight billion and 14 years old.”

A visitor said, “That’s incredible.  How can they date it with such precision?”

The guide replied, “When I started working here they told me it was eight billion years old, and I’ve been here for fourteen years.”

Fortunately, so we are told, we don’t have to depend on authoritative pronouncements today because we have science.  We can examine the research and test the experiments ourselves to assess the truth of the claims.  This works great if you happen to have a hundred mile circular atom smasher or a billion dollar medical research lab.

Oh, and it also helps if you know how to operate that stuff.  Science and authorities are valuable, yea verily (truly) essential in our complicated world and so we trust the experts and hope they are telling us the truth.

Dr. Riddle’s contention is that we have a conduit to pure truth from a source that never lies, and who is anxious to share the truth with us.  In these mixed up times I am heartened to know that such a source and system exists.  And actually, I kid you not, to tell you the truth, I’ve tried it, and it works.

A mad woman exploded from a house nearby. “I haven’t seen one of those for decades!” she shouted. Out her gate and down the side walk she galloped. “Can I tune it for you?”

“Sure.” I don’t argue with crazy people.

She twisted the pegs, stretched the strings, cocked her head, twisted some more, then burst into a sunshine smile as she flogged the strings with her thumb and launched into “Five foot two eyes of blue…”, “Tiger Rag,” and several other classics from the basement of her memory. She handed it back to me, “Not a bad tone. I’ve never seen one made of plastic before.”

She cruised back to her house in her imaginary 1922 Bearcat Roadster, dressed in her imaginary raccoon coat, frolicking with her old college class mates and humming “Five foot two…”

“Let me know if I can help you learn to play it. You’ll love it,” she called back over her shoulder.

A ukulele will do that to you I found.

A couple of ukes later I was in a tent in the Idaho panhandle deep in the Kanicksu forest, miles from the nearest road. My uke and I were singing, “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “The Last Waltz,” and “The Lovesick Blues,” while my fellow laborers, young men from the south, tapped their toes, hummed along and wiped their eyes. Nobody ridiculed them. For one thing the group included The Golden Gloves heavyweight boxing champ of Oklahoma; for another, a ukulele to tired men on a quiet night can turn the most sophisticated jazz fan into a melancholy country boy.

In the 1940’s and 50’s my mother and every other mother in America except maybe those whose hearing aid batteries had gone weak, would never think of starting their day without the companionship of Arthur Godfrey on the radio. Frequently the high point of his low key homey talk and music show was Arthur, his baritone voice and baritone ukulele musically sauntering through “The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.”

Meanwhile at the junior high and high school assemblies my friend Dick Davis and I were knocking them dead with Homer and Jethro’s country takeoffs of current hit songs. This was high society hill billy at its finest. Great lines like these from the country version of “Kiss of Fire.”

“I touch your lips that’s when the trouble starts abrewin’

I cain’t resist the brand tobacco you are chewin’”

And this saga of a love sick sheep;

“He followed her over the mountain to see what he could learn

But she disappeared in the bushes. He didn’t see that ewe turn.”

Our rendition of Stan Freiberg’s take off of the country classic, “Dear John” reflected more innocent days. Neither Dick’s crumpled army hat, nor my comely wedding veil nor Freiberg’s lyrics stirred up a moral indignation backlash or a backside full of buckshot from the National Redneck Association (I assume there is one.) The lyric ended with:

“I have always been your best girl, but tonight I’ll wed another.

I couldn’t wait, so I have married your father.

That’s all for now, love mother.”

Our ukuleles got us invited to lots of parties where we met lots of cute girls.

On the home front our kitchen rang with ukulele strums and family harmony. My Dad particularly enjoyed singing the ballads he had courted Mom with.

Golden age two of the ukulele passed into history alongside the flappers and gold fish swallowers of the 1920’s. Dick and I added two more strings and graduated to guitars. My siblings and I married and took our music with us.

But good things never die. My cool dude grandsons, seniors in high school just got ukuleles. Recently my wife, Sharon and I taught a fourth grade class of 35 enthusiastic ukulele wielding future balladeers including Marcus, another grandson. My charming, stylish, yoga-teaching sister Jeanie is shopping for a ukulele. Racks of ukes are appearing in the music stores. Sweet, hot and happy strings are flavoring music again on radios and I pods. The ukes are rising again.

I am certain we will see a corresponding drop in sales of migraine and ulcer medications. So here is my invitation to lower your blood pressure and lift your spirits. Get a ukulele, learn three chords, and join us in strumming for a happier world.

The announcer uttered the president’s name.     The welcoming applause was predictably thunderous from an audience with so much self interest at stake. The sound crescendoed to its peak, struggled then slipped as hands grew weary of clapping, whistling lips dried, and enthusiasm seeped away.

Meanwhile his Excellency the president ambled toward the microphone arriving several seconds after silence had replaced the jubilation. Sagged expressions replaced smiles on the faces of the audience members, all of whom considered themselves experts in stage technique. Across the table I heard one potential starlet of the circuit say to another, “He just doesn’t get it.” Her companion nodded.

What they accurately predicted was that any person who didn’t ride in on the applause of his or her introduction and use it as a launching pad didn’t know bean one about show business. Not a good omen for the proposed theater circuit. Not surprisingly the project never got off the ground. It was like asking a garden club president to race stock cars..

“You only get one chance to make a first impression,” as the saying goes. On stage, when the curtain opens, your chance to soar or face plant is multiplied by the number of people in the audience. Start off right and you are halfway to a standing ovation. Stumble, and immediately feel the flop sweat begin to seep into your shoes.

Sometimes the deck is so stacked against you it’s like having a hangman for master of ceremonies. I once performed for a national organization of university educators. Like many intellectuals, they considered the expanding world population a curse on the future of the earth.

The master of ceremonies meant well. He laid on the usual accolades, but finished with, “And he is the father of fifteen children.” I felt like a Christian being introduced in the coliseum by Nero. The silence was deafening. The stony faces and smattering of applause told me I was a ham sandwich in a synagogue.    Introductions on stage are different only in degree from personal introductions. If we are introducing someone to another person or small group, consider beforehand the good things you know about that person, and particularly those things that might link him or her into the group. Introducing ourselves is a bit different. We obviously don’t want to open with a list of our accomplishments, but a word or two about who we are is certainly appropriate.

The next difference between public and private introductions is even more important in my opinion. On stage or at a podium or pulpit it is expected that we will deliver the presentation we have prepared. People would be confused if we immediately asked for questions from the audience or launched into a sing along.

But in private introductions I have found that after a brief statement of my identity, the best thing I can do is listen. If the other person doesn’t fill the silence with his own opinions or observations, a non threatening sincere question may break the ice.

The mechanics are also important, a firm handshake, eye contact, and a smile almost always open doors to communication. I have a pet peeve about people who want to dominate an introduction. A university president I met a few times was known for his hand shaking style. Particularly if you were taller than he which many people were, he would grab your hand and pull you off balance to let you know up front who was in charge of the conversation. I admired the man as a mover and a shaker. He didn’t need to try to intimidate me with hand shaking theatrics. I have a friend who instead of pressing palms grasps just the fingers of your hand and crushes them to one up you. An introduction should be an invitation to discourse, not a call to arms with verbal light sabers.

The Three D’s received many introductions over the years. Some were grandiose, some simple. My favorite intro of all time was from a scout leader introducing us at a Jamboree.

“Welcome The Three D’s.” He said, “Boys, we have a real treat for you tonight. The Three D’s will entertain us. And I want to tell you. I would sooner hear these guys sing than eat. (pause)

Because I have heard them eat.

“Welcome The Three D’s.”

I was considered an athlete in my youth: captain of our high school football and basketball teams; all region, and second team all state in basketball; and played for a year on Brigham Young University’s j.v. team.

I believed that good opinion of my athletic prowess up until the seventh grade. On the football field I was tall enough to catch passes over the defense. On the basketball court I was in my native habitat. For years my favorite pass time had been shooting hoops by myself or joining pick up games wherever I found them. I had some fairly good moves for a twelve year old.

Then spring came and with it a stunning shock to my all-American-athlete self image. The phys ed teacher introduced us to gymnastics. My long, smooth graceful (in my mind) body was now supposed to tuck into a tight ball and roll across the mat or fly through the air. Tucking for me was like trying to turn a grass hopper into a roll up potato bug. My tight tuck was a bent spine with elbows and knees sticking out in several directions.

Jay Brown, Mr. Cool in our class, was not built for football or basketball, but he was Bolshoi Ballet material on the tumbling mat.

Track and field, tennis, and other field events were more of the same for me. Even baseball where I had sometimes had modest success in the sand lot leagues despite my skinny arms and wide strike zone. These challenges convinced me I was not an all around athlete. They also made me grateful our little school didn’t have a golf, soccer, lacrosse, or broom polo team. I longed for autumn, winter and what I considered the real big time sports.

My new hard won humility brought with it a small shaft of insight. People have different gifts and talents. The key to happy relationships is to notice what others do well, encourage them in it, and find joy in their success as well as your own. Nobody is good at everything, but everybody is good at something. I believe that if you could design your own Olympics competition, you could capture the gold. In my case it would be a cross country race up the mountain behind our house where I jog most mornings, and know the trails well. In my Olympic run you would get additional points for each year of your age, how many children and grand children you had, if you took size 14 shoes and your left foot was longer than your right. If I needed to I would award more points if you could play “Malaguena” on the guitar, write left handed, and flip your left thumb out of joint. I think I would have a good chance of taking home the trophy in that race.

“That’s a stupid race,” you might legitimately say. True, but is it more stupid than hitting a boxing glove with a broom, throwing a ball into a fruit basket, or madly sweeping a broom ahead of a rock sliding on the ice? (The beginnings of baseball, basketball and present procedure in the sport of curling.)

But back to the point of this diatribe if there is one. Sports can be entertaining, participating can be healthful, but contrary to my seventh grade perspective they are no measures of the importance of one person over another.

Beyond the enjoyment and the health benefits of sports, are the skills one learns of any practical value? What is the real life usefulness of putting a ball in a basket nailed up on a wall when the basket has a hole in the bottom? How about carrying an inflated pigskin across grass while being pummeled by a stampede of human flesh. How about hitting various kinds and sizes of balls with various shapes of bats, clubs, or rackets, only to have to retrieve the balls or have someone else hurl or swat them back to or at you? Except for fighting through a Black Friday Christmas shopping crowd like a fullback driving for yardage, or sweeping your house clean in 23 seconds if you are a champion curler, most athletic skills don’t seem that practical.

But there is one sport that can be very useful in certain situations. The sport is gymnastics. The situation is when a car with a total idiot at the wheel (a.k.a. an 18 year old male driver) is accelerating like a drag racer down the straight away so the people hanging on to the side of the car will be afraid to jump off.

Fortunately the sport of car hanging has attracted only a small following. To participate you need fingernails of steel, white knuckles, skill in judging speed, and the intelligence of a retarded mealworm. Who would do this and why? Who? Jay Brown and me. Why?*

This is gymnastics on steroids. Procrastinating your jump a nanosecond too late as we did incurs a penalty. Jay hit the ground, took two giant steps across a field, snapped into a tight front roll, spun like a tumbleweed in the wind, and jumped up dusty with only a scratch on his nose. I flew off the driver’s side, took one giant step, made a five point landing on the pavement and skidded to a stop. I picked gravel and tar out of my hands, elbows and one hip bone for weeks.

As every athlete knows, it’s hard to win on the road.

* See Steve McQueen observation