Ed Ford Top Stories

 A Three-Way Tie for 10th Place! 1. Around the world in 17 days: Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Golden Gage Bridge, Great Wall of China, Beijing, India, Mumbai Gandhi, Israel, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Egypt, Cairo, Pyramids, Constantinople, Istanbul, Turkey, Chicago, then home. (27,000 miles--very expensive.) 2. Australia: 10 days - Salt Lake City to San Francisco, non-stop San Francisco to Sydney (14 hrs) on the Great Barrier Reef, swimming, tours, lesson in scuba diving, ant onto Ayres rock, the largest monolith in the world. Getting there is like flying to Kansas City in the US. Australia is the size of the US with a population of 30 million. Perth is the other side of Australia. Olympic games in Sydney and Melbourne.  3. China: 14 days - Beijing, Great Wall of China, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and many more stops. (A must see!) Been there and done that many times.  My consulting work in the United States, every major city several times, Canada, and 48 foreign countries has ...

 Some say I robbed the cradle in finding myself a wife. It’s not true. Jeanie was 12 in the 6th grade. I was 14 at my 8th grade graduation. :) We didn’t kiss until she was 13 and I was 15 (so there). My parents were married when my Mother was 14 and my Dad was 16. They were married for 75 years. Both died at age 93, one year apart. I can still remember the night, the location, the three kisses, and the songs that played on the radio the first time I kissed Jeanie. When I got up enough courage to put my arm around her shoulder then kissed her, it was incredible. For our first kiss, the song playing was “Love Letters in the Sand” by Pat Boone. The large picture of us dancing on our fist date is hanging on the wall in our home in Saint George, Utah.  For the record, the picture was taken with Jeanie closer to the camera giving the illusion she was taller than me. I was 5’2” in the 8th grade and Jeanie was 5’1”, the same height that she is today. If you want more detail, notice th...

The Definition of “Pure Love” and “True Love” 60 years later, empirical evidence proving serious conflict with marrying my High School Sweetheart that required considerable Psychological Treatment and was diagnosed as PERSEVERATING!  How after 60 years, could old letters discovered, cause such an emotional upheaval that as being insane by psychological prognosis.  The Death of “Pure Love”   I have fallen in love all over again with my sweetheart from our High School days, going to college together and when the babies begin to come into our lives. It has been intoxicating to fall in love again, just to be in the same room again, to feel her breath, and to feel her walk close by me. Pure Love as defined throughout the 800 pages double sided, 150 stories and pictures by the hundreds. I love being in love all over again except…   I have been very slowly over several years, falling away from love with my vision of what a great marriage looks like! What the hell ...

The most exotic, romantic, incredible, enduring, once in a lifetime, never to forget, most expensive, luxury vacation. Deluxe cottage, exclusive butler and maid, food you have never tasted before, banquets on the beach, dancing, deep sea fishing every day, tours of the island, river rafting, golf, hiking, Jamaican music, staying in your memory for years after, unlimited drinking (if you so chose) water skiing, ziplines, hang gliding, you name it.  $10-$15,000 a week. Phone calls you can make to anywhere in the world. All paid for by the O.C. Tanner Company in SLC.  This trip exceeded anything you can imagine: flying on the Concord to Europe, a Chateau in Switzerland, staying in a Castle in England, Deluxe Accommodations in Morocco, North Africa and Malaga, Spain, Monia Kia, big island Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Princess in Acapulco. All of the above and more! [photos from Jamaica]

SCUBA Diving with Dave In our sophomore year at Oregon State University, Dave Moore and I qualified for our SCUBA (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) Certificates. We had made several normal dives in the Pacific Ocean near Corvallis, Oregon.  We felt we were ready for a deep dive of 150 feet. We prepared by studying the diving charts on how much oxygen we would have left when we attained that depth. We anchored our rubber raft so it wouldn't drift, and we attached a 200 ft rope to the raft. We took it down with us to give us any indication of drift while being at a depth of 150 ft. We also brought a good medical kit and a phone to call for help.  We had an extra tank to leave in our rubber raft if we needed to use it in an emergency at that depth. Air embolism was our main concern. A brief explanation would be when you breathe about 6.5 quarts of air in and out every minute. Based on the depth and the time going down you can calculate the air you have left in your ...

Why My Dad Never Attended the 8th Grade My father (age 14) was helping his Dad and brother loading raw onions on a rail car and asked for time off to register for school starting in the 8th grade. The land owner told him he could not until they finished the entire job. Dad bought new clothes and showed up to the school for what would be his 8th grade year (14 years old). He was told he was two weeks late and would have to wait until next year!  Instead, Dad went north in Idaho to the Forest Service and signed up for the CC Camps claiming that he was 16 years old. The CC Camps formed all over the Nation to help keep young men (ages 16 – 21 years) off of the streets and helped them earn money for their parents and grandparents. It worked and he soon discovered his propensity for driving small trucks and other equipment by hauling off cut trees and brush form the new trails mostly in National Parks. He also learned in these CC Camps that he was a natural boxer and over the next 4 year...

Bears This is a story about how I really feel about bears and hunting big game. They are magnificent animals. The grizzly bear can be fierce and dangerous, but in reality, they try to avoid humans as much as possible. We have killed 95% in the last 200 years. During the time of the “great herds of buffalo” (30 million) in the 1800’s there were estimated to be over 100,000 Grizzly bears that roamed over the most of the western states. From Alaska and part of western Canada down into the states of Montana, Idaho, California, Wyoming, southward into Mexico. Most were and still are in Alaska and Canada. Grizzly bears are competitors for most food valued by humans. Between the 1800s and 1900s settlers killed an estimated 95% of their original range. Unregulated killing of bears continued through most places until 1950. Now Grizzly bears are found only in remote areas and are regulated as an endangered species act in 1975. Like deer, elk, and moose. Endangered species act regulated hunts in ...

Two lifelong friends decided in high school to go to Europe after their 2nd year of college, come hell or high water!  Little did they know the dangers of working their way for passage on a 9,000-ton German Coal Freighter in January. The Atlantic Ocean stormed 14 of the 17 days. Some days we never made headway against the giant waves and the horrific head winds that would cover part of the ship!  In rough weather, the captain was on the deck both day and night, watching for the largest waves coming. He would steer the ship to change course and put the bow straight into the wave to avoid rolling the ship on its side, causing the coal to shift. The captain, as we docked in Bremerhaven, Germany, was quoted as saying that in his 40 years of being Captain of small ocean-going freighters, this trip we were on was the “most dangerous” in any crossing. (A crossing that on the average was only 10 days!) We heard some of the crew members were quitting because of the rough voyage!  ...

Part I Jeanie and I dated at Halfway High School over 4 years, going steady my senior year.  Jeanie was a sophomore and I was a mighty senior! It was spring and we were planning to go on a picnic in a couple of weeks. We agreed on a beautiful location we had been to before. I was excited as always to go on a picnic with the sweetest girl in the world. (I really had it bad.)  One week before the picnic, I was picking wild blueberries for my mom to make homemade blueberry pies. I am highly allergic to Poison Ivy intertwined with the blueberry bushes. In just three days, I was breaking out everywhere I didn’t have on clothes. Luckily, the wild blueberries had thorns, and I had worn long sleeves and gloves.   What’s the worst thing that can happen? YUP – it was all over my face. Big blisters, the poison oozing out of my face that was caked white from calamine lotion. It oozed right through the dried white lotion making me look, well, like a walking zombie. I didn’t go to...

The Beginnings Our first dance was at my 8th grade graduation. (Ed, 14 yrs, 5'1"; Jeanie, 12 yrs, 5', 6th grade) Senior Prom. Ed (18), Jeanie (16). We were very much in love after going steady for an incredible 4 years. Jeanie wanted to go to college, so we broke up for 3 years. We wrote over 200 letters to each other and saw each other twice a year. She dated her senior year (too much!), wrote a missionary, and was valedictorian. She went to BYU on a scholarship. From Our 1960 High School Annuals Jeanie,   In January of 1960 I will have known you for four years. Since the first day I met you, you have been very special to me. In a few years, we can look back on all the places we went and all the fun we had. I would like to see the person who could count all the dates we had. You will always stand out in my mind as the girl I at one time tried to forget but couldn’t. After I graduate and leave, I will still think of you and remember you as the “sweetest girl” I have ever k...

 Major Activities: Trip around the world Jerusalem/Jesus Christ Cairo, Egypt/Pyramids China/Great Wall Alaska trips Australia/Great Barrier Reef Istanbul Meetings in New York, Chicago, New Orleans Favorite Songs: Could I Have This Dance (Anne Murray) Wind Beneath My Wings (Bette Midler) On the Road Again (Willy Nelson) The Old Rugged Cross (Mom) I Know That My Redeemer Lives (Hymn) Spiritual Experiences: Testimony, baptism Marriage, temple Vision, Washington, D.C. Temple Children's Blessings (sickness) Healing my father (cancer) Favorite Books/Activities/Cruises: Carl Sandburg - Abraham Lincoln, unabridged 6 volumes. The prairie years/the war years. Same problems with impeachment as in 2019-20 with Trump. James A. Michener - The Covenant, Space, Caribbean, Mexico, Alaska, Texas The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck Geography of the Book of Mormon The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley: Volume 5 Ronald Reagan's Diary Alaska Cruises (2) Jerusalem (17 days, around the world) O.C. Tann...