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An autobiographical note

An autobiographical note

Last updated on: September 1, 2017 at 9:03 pm by Dan Peterson

An autobiographical note 2017-09-01T21:03:00-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The City of the Angels (Wikimedia Commons)
The traffic court to which I was summoned was near Los Angeles City Hall, which you can see in the lower right quadrant of this photo, with a pyramidal roof. (Wikimedia CC public domain photo)

This is one of the most wonderful translation failures that I’ve ever seen:

“Hotel tried to label meatballs in English but ended up killing a man named Paul”

(Thanks to “Chet Chareth Cutestory Manly” for bringing it to my attention.)

***

I’m obviously not a Catholic, and I don’t aspire to be one. But I’m a sympathetic outsider, and something of a devoted observer of things Roman Catholic. So this article caught my attention:

“When They Take the Catholic Statues Away”

As did this one:

“Jesuit university caves to LGBT activists angry about marriage conference”

For several years now, one of my concerns about Brigham Young University has been that it might become less distinctively Mormon. When I first arrived, I would have thought such a change essentially impossible. I no longer think so. And that troubles me.

Like many who are connected with the University, I want it to become better and better and better, academically speaking. But I don’t want it to do so at the expense of its Mormon identity, nor to the detriment of its vital character-forming and spirituality-molding role.

***

The indefatigable Robert Boylan provides a number of links to reviews of the work of one of the most prominent advocates of the so-called “Heartland” model of Book of Mormon geography:

“Reviews of Jonathan Neville’s Works”

***

Meanwhile, Tarik LaCour takes a look at the teachings of the excommunicated former Mormon Denver Snuffer:

“Snufferites– The New Reactionaries”

***

Further notes toward an autobiography:

I can’t recall whether I’ve told this story here before, or not.

I obtained my California driver’s license when I was sixteen, and graduated from high school when I was seventeen. Between those two events, I managed to garner two driving tickets.

The first came when I was driving home from, of all places, the local public library. I was minding my own business, happy with the books and records that I’d snared, when a carload of idiots from my high school roared by, hanging out their windows and yelling and waving. Curious what they were yelling about, I sped up — foolishly — to catch them.

I was given a speeding ticket for that little episode. And so were they. The judge suspended my license for a month.

Shortly after I received my driving privileges back, I was out on a Saturday night date with my principal high school flame. We were headed home, she was sitting close, and I changed lanes to get off of the Golden State Freeway and onto the San Bernardino Freeway. (In those days, we — or, at least, my family and I — didn’t typically use freeway numbers. We used names. But to translate it into the vernacular, I was preparing to leave the 5 Freeway for the 10 Freeway.)

Unfortunately, whether because he was in my blind spot or because, with my girlfriend cozied up to me, I didn’t turn around to look well enough, I changed lanes in front of a California Highway Patrol car, and was given a ticket for an unsafe lane change.

This, I knew, would be serious. I might lose the right to drive for a significant length of time.

When the appointed day of doom arrived, my father went with me to the traffic judge right downtown in Los Angeles.

We met with the judge in his office. He was a stern type who looked — and this will mean something to older folks who lived in Los Angeles during the appropriate era — almost exactly like the then-popular local news broadcaster Jerry Dunphy, distinguished white hair included.

After we spoke for a while, he asked me whether I could think of any reason why he shouldn’t take away my license. I responded that, no, I really couldn’t. I told him that I wasn’t actually a bad or careless driver but, well, if that’s what he had to do, I would have to live with it.

At that point, my then-still-inactive-Lutheran father spoke up.

He told the judge that I attended a daily church class every morning before my high school classes began. If I couldn’t drive myself to that class, he pointed out, I would either need to stop attending or else he or my mother would need to take me, which would be a significant inconvenience.

The judge looked at me and then said, “Alright. I think that we ought to be able to make an exception for a good Mormon boy.” (My father hadn’t identified the church.) He told me that he didn’t want to see me back again, and that I should drive more carefully. And he expunged the second ticket from my record.

I came out of the building thinking to myself, “The Church is true!”

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