Unposted Blog by Rex - Written October 2008

I've been trying to "hack" Dad's accounts, and by knowing one password, I've been able to change all the other passwords that I didn't know. I thought I'd share some of the "Blog Drafts" that Dad wrote but never posted...




"In my dream, I'm in public and not wearing pants..."



Well, it's not that bad a situation I find myself in...
but if the next time you see me...
...and I'm not wearing any pants...
...but AM wearing a nice white long sleeve shirt and tie...
It'll mean I didn't get this problem resolved yet.

I hope, when you see me it's not in public, or where considered rude, weird, or indecent.

I promise... I can explain.

And...

Please... don't be shy, ask ...if something seems amiss.

I'd be grateful for the warning.

I am in a bit of a jam.

One I don't fully understand yet.

It's not Alzheimer's.

It's a skin condition on my hands.

I am sitting here at my laptop typing this stupid thing out.

A couple of my fingers can still work, just not for what I need them to do...

...which is....

Unbuttoning the top button on my white shirt (which is a bit tight)

...and the two little ones which give "a button-down collar" it's name is a real challenge.

This is my evening...

These tiny buttons are always a bit tough.

My dexterity is really hampered... today.

Well... everyday.

But, more so today.

There are small cuts and cracks on my fingers that are extremely tender.

I think it was caused by a chemical cleaning agent I used to shampoo some auto upholstery.

If I were a housewife, I'd blame it on doing too many dishes.

I'm not a housewife... and use paper plates like all self respecting divorced guys.

I'm surprised though, that I got the buttons fastened this morning.

Very little trouble.

This evening I sit here at a computer, shirt and tie on, ...no pants...

...well, correction...

I'm wearing "jogging pants" or "warm ups"... an activity which the said garments have yet to experience.

Like a poodle awaiting it's first bear hunt. Not ever gonna happen.

I don't jog. I don't warm up.

I'm a bit worried that there's little chance this shirt and tie will come off until my fingers heal.

Sure, I could grab a steak knife, look in the mirror,

and start sawing at buttons.

But since I'm still wearing the shirt...

sawing near my neck with a sharp edge,

keeping in mind ...the need to reverse-translate the exact opposite...

...or is it backwards view in the mirror?

...from what my eyes see?

This might prove deadly. Or, at least ruin my best white shirt.

I could slip and there'd be a nasty stain to remove.

I forget... does tomato juice get bloodstains out or is that just for skunk smells?

I'll Google it later, but well before I get woozy from blood loss.

A steak knive at my throat?

I am pretty darn good with tools.

Unless you start counting my fingers.

Or start counting the scars on the remaining fingers.

It just so happens I have fewer fingers than most people.

It's not a genetic thing... because when my daughters were born, I counted.

My beautiful daughters all have ten fingers. (but I just now thought that maybe it skips a generation. If so, I apologize to all my future grandkids.)

My right hand is visual evidence that in 1981 there was a brief moment when I lost my focus...

...and three fingers. One of which was re-attached.

That finger, I nearly broke off on a gate latch before the stitches were even out.

It's still crooked.

The hand is quite entertaining to young children.

My carelessness is their delight.

I make up stories about how and why it happened.

****** obedience to adults.

We won't go into the locations on my body...

where I've shot nails out of nailguns,

driven screws with screwguns,

Blackened countless fingernails,

ruined perfectly good pairs of pants with skilsaws.

Twice.

Got stitched up from a chisel stuck in my thigh.

Broke my thumb with a 3 pound sledgehammer.

You know... the run of the mill stuff.

More stitched lacerations than I can count on one and a half hands full of fingers.

This is not some sicko fetish or hobby.

It is a tradesman who loves his work but isn't very careful with tools.

You know, now that you mention it, that does sound a bit sicko...

Maybe I can try Krisco shortening or softened butter to slide out of the shirt collar. I'd apply it liberally with something dull or a rubber spatula.

Or, maybe just wait it out.

If I lost some weight I could probably have less tension on the buttons.

But by that time, my fingers could heal and ...problem solved.

This could take days.

I'd be the best dressed carpenter in the shop complex.

But soon I'd also be the most fragrant.

Doing laundry while still wearing it has never caught on much, although Tarzan became quite well known for such things.

I feel like a chimp with it's hand stuck in a jar of goodies.

Greedily hanging onto the food inside,

Unwilling to give up the treat.

Unwilling to let go in order to free itself.

I'm sure you can see my dilemma. I'll let you know when I've solved this problem.

Seafood and Fudgsicles

Dad loved buffets.



He didn't really care what kind of buffet it was, but he was quite fond of Chinese food all-you-can-eat places. He'd even go alone if needed. We've been a buffet family from the very beginning in Modesto: Kings Table, Hometown Buffet, The Golden Dragon. Our family loved the variety.

When Dad would come to visit us once we moved to St. George, and if it was a Friday night, we'd all drive down to Mesquite, Nevada and hit the Friday Night Seafood Buffet at either the Casa Blanca or the Virgin River.

Dad's idea of a great evening was loading up his plate with as many peel-and-eat shrimp and crack-and-eat crab legs as he could balance while walking to the table to sit down. Then doing that a few more times. We'd all get tired of sitting and waiting for Dad to finish eating, so he'd finally give up and we'd all waddle our crab-filled bellies out to the parking lot for the ride home.

As we'd walk out, Dad would always mention: "If you add up all the crabs that we just ate, what would they look like all running across the parking lot?"

I always got a kick out of that.


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I remember as a kid, Mom worked for Doctors Medical Center in Modesto. Every summer, they'd have a big picnic for all the employees. We each got a bracelet which entitled us to "free food" and all the games they had there for kids. It was quite a fun time.

Dad decided that the free fudgsicles offer was too good to pass up.

Dad sat at our table and made us girls run and get him fudgsicles. After all three of us running up multiple times, the tally was NINETEEN fudgsicles. I'm not sure if Dad fizzled out at 19, or if we were just too scared to ask the popsicle guy for more. But that story has come up multiple times throughout the years as a source of pride and embarasment for Dad.

Letter From Dad: To Aubrey, For Valentine's Day

From Aubrey: I was going through some boxes of my memorabilia recently and found this Valentine letter from Dad. It has no date on it, but was probably written in February 2006. It was written in true Rex McBride style- in all caps and on yellow legal paper! :)

It reads:

HI BOOB-

CONSIDER THIS NOTE YOUR VALENTINE'S DAY CARD AND BOX... OF CHOCOLATES, HANDFUL OF FLOWERS... NO... A DOZEN ROSES... NO MAKE THAT 2 DOZEN ROSES AND A 5 lb BOX OF SEE'S CANDY....AND DINNER AT A FANCY RESTAURANT. SINCE WE'RE PRETENDING... 2 TICKETS TO THE OPERA AND A WEEK IN HAWAII. SEE HOW MUCH FUN I AM? I'LL BE JUST AS GENEROUS WITH YOUR SISTERS.

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH...AND WANT TO WISH YOU THE BEST IN LIFE. I LOOK FORWARD TO EACH AND EVERY CONTACT I HAVE WITH YOU.

YOU ARE MENTIONED IN ALL MY PRAYERS AND I'M PROUD OF YOU. DO YOUR BEST AT WHATEVER YOU ATTEMPT. YOU MAY ARRIVE AT THE CONCLUSION THAT YOU'VE DONE ENOUGH AND MOVE ON. BUT YOU KNOW YOU'VE RUN THINGS TO THE END AND DECIDED ON A COURSE CORRECTION.

YOU GIVE ME MORE OF A REASON TO FIGHT AND DEAL WITH MY OWN CHALLENGES AND SEE THEM THRU. I'M FAR FROM PERFECT BUT YOU MAKE MY LIFE MORE SO.

LOVE ALWAYS,
DAD.

Best Vacation Ever

I think it was about 1999. I had my own apartment and Dad brought a brown van and trailer load of furniture that he had saved from our Knoles Court House days. We filled my new place with old furniture, but had a doozie of a time getting the hide-a-bed sofa in the stairwell and into the second floor apartment.

We watched the movie Tombstone with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer. Dad wasn't one to watch the same movie over and over: if he was going to spend his time with a second viewing of a great movie, he'd rather wait a good five or ten years in between showings. But we watched Tombstone a few times that week he stayed at my new apartment. We hit Hollywood Video and rented an old movie My Darling Clementine about the gunfight at the OK Corral. It was full of errors in history, even Doc Holliday who was a dentist in real life, performed abdominal surgery in this flick. We watched it and laughed hysterically.

And we started planning...

We planned a McBride vacation to top all the Disneyland trips of our youth. We would take the brown van from St George and drive down to Tombstone, Arizona and see the OK Corral, the Bird Cage Theater, and any other sites a good Wyatt Earp fan cared to see.

We gallivanted through Southern Arizona, down to Tombstone, over to Nogales, Mexico and then headed back north towards Las Vegas. On the way home, we stopped at the Hoover Dam, but didn't have time to do the tour.

That trip taught me so much:

*It taught me that even when on vacation, you can always find someone who knows someone who knows where the nearest LDS chapel is to attend church. We went to Young Womens at some Ward in Benson, Arizona and they found it strange that we made the effort to go to church when we didn't know a soul in the area and were on vacation just passing through. It was that important to Dad to attend church as a family, broken as we were.

*It taught me that you don't really need air conditioning if you have pillow cases, an ice chest, and a little bleach-water. We also stopped at K-Mart and got some cool battery operated personal misting fans that Dad thought were must have purchases for $1 or so.

*It taught me that car trouble can be a learning experience - we all learned how to unpack a van full of junk, change a blown tire on the side of the road, repack all the junk, and limp in to the next town. I was most surprised that Dad didn't lose his temper or yell or curse at any time during that little fiasco.

*It taught me to give. We were at a gas station outside of Lake Havasu City. We had just seen the London Bridge and we stopped at a gas station. A middle aged woman, maybe 40 or 50 years old (she seemed older) was outside asking for money. Dad, always the boy scout, handed her a few cans of food that he had packed along and an extra can opener. The woman looked up almost in tears and thanked him. He handed her a few dollars too. She asked him how she could repay him. Dad gave his usual answer: "Some day, two young men in white shirts and name tags will cross your path. They have a message. Listen to that message."

*It taught me to think of others. We took a little day trip down to Mexico. None of us had been - Dad went sometime right after high school with some friends but wanted to take us. We parked at a McDonald's restaurant just inside the border. (Thank goodness Dad thought to bring several gallons of drinking water with us.) The whole time in Nogales, Dad kept urging us to let him buy us each one thing to remember the trip. We visited several shops and had young "Vato" salesmen yelling at us "We are cheaper than Walmart!" Aubrey got some genuine gold jewelry that turned her finger green within a few hours. (Heidi, what did you get? I don't remember.) I never saw anything that I just couldn't live without. Dad was also looking, but he was looking at things that he would hate. I didn't see him needing a flower pot, or a terra cotta rooster. I finally realized that he was looking to get something for Grandma. She still has the rooster he brought hundreds of miles back to Saint George, then hundreds of more miles to Sonora.

We made it back home, a little sunburned, and a lot closer as a family unit. It was much less expensive than a trip to Disneyland. We went to grocery stores and bought loaves of bread and canned goods to eat. We didn't hit every drive through. We stayed in a motel a few nights, but mostly drove through the night in "the little brown van that could."

I really enjoyed that trip. I still enjoy the memories we made with Dad. That was my best vacation ever.