Wander With Wayne

As a child, I remember a book made with a wooden binding. I was drawn to the book every time I saw it at my Goodworth Grandparent's home. This year, my mother brought it out and showed it to me. The book was created by my grandmother, Elena Goodworth and her sister Elizabeth Goodworth Lefler. They typed up the poems of their sister Elaine (who passed away a month before her 30th birthday) and presented the book to their parents. The book also contained artwork by my father, David Goodworth, as well as his brother Richard, and sister JoAnn. My son, Tanner, and I thought about ways to share the book with family (online). We considered photographing each page, but that would be a large number of photos. Instead, we decided to video each page, with the hope that they could be paused on each page and read. The video shows up fine on my phone, but uploading it to YouTube (even in HD), the quality is poor. Here are the videos. If you have suggestions to improve the quality of...

"Dad, next year I'm going to run in the triathlon." Tanner stated matter-of-factly.  A few days later he stated, "I'm going to do the triathlon this year." Payson High School does a mini triathlon each year. Tanner is a 7th grader and competes against 7th, 8th, and 9th graders. Most of the students form teams of three to do the triathlon together (one swims, another bikes, and another runs). Tanner decided to do the entire triathlon by himself. The swim section is 125 meters, followed by four miles of bicycling, and ending with a 1.3 mile run. While I've had many worries, Tanner's only concern has been that he didn't want to be the last person to cross the finish line. During recent weeks, Tanner has been riding his bike up and down hills. He even spent some time swimming. Today he competed and finished in 10th place of about 30 entries (remember, most of them were teams with each competitor doing only part of the race). He finis...

Deer Under Trampoline 1/29/17 Pheasant & Deer 2/9/17 This morning while I was eating breakfast and studying my primary lesson, Tanner walked into the kitchen and pointed out, "There's a deer in our backyard." It is very common at this time of year to see deer in the backyard. We even see them sleeping under our trampoline. This morning was especially exciting. Next to the deer, was one of our neighborhood rooster pheasants. I love our home and the wildlife we witness.

On Tuesday afternoon Noell rushed from Diamond Fork Jr. High School, where she is a student teacher. Myranda came from the high school, and I left work early. We all met at the Payson Jr. High School to hear Tanner be judged as he played a trombone solo. From my perspective, he did exceptionally well. He played "Suprise Symphony Variations." After he played, we had the opportunity to listen to about six other soloists. There was certainly a variety of quality levels. Some of the students sounded like they began playing their instrument last week, and others sounded like they've been making music most of their lives. Tanner has been playing the trombone since September. Superior Pin Thanks to Myranda, we have the entire solo on video. I was so excited to watch, I didn't even think about recording. Evidently, I'm not the only one who felt he was excellent. The judges rated him as "Superior" (the highest rating). For a young man who began to pla...

For years Mom wore her "mother's-ring," which her children had given her, on the same finger as her wedding band. The mother's-ring and wedding band had been connected by a jeweler (for the rest of this written story, I'll call these two connected rings her "ring"). She wore her ring as if it were her wedding ring.  After her father's near-fatal car accident in 1995, she continued wearing the ring on her left-hand ring-ringer and added her grandfather's wedding band to her right middle finger. Her father had allowed Mom to give her grandfather's wedding band to David at their wedding. A ring on each hand, her wedding/mother's -ring on the left and grandfather's ring on the right symbolized the most important things in her life. One day (around 2010 or 2011) she was at Fred & Cherilynn's home giving piano lessons. As she was visiting in their kitchen, before saying goodbye, she heard a tinkling sound. Startled, she re...