Underground Car Guy

As early as I can remember, I loved spending time with my Grandma and Grandpa Hatch.  My sister is jealous of this because, when I was 8 and she was 3, my Grandpa Hatch died. So I have more memory of him them she does.  But all those stories are for another day. It the summer of 1974, and my sister birth was coming soon.  In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the children of the church attend Primary, until they are 12 years old.  So one of the Sundays before my sisters birth, I was sitting in Primary singing and listening to the lesson being giving that day.  The person giving the Lesson that day was Vie Polk, or as I knew her, Aunt Vie (Not really my Aunt but a good friend of my moms).  I don't really remember the detail of the lesson, Vie ask me a question.  The question was, "Billy, you will soon have a special person coming to you home.  Who is it?" With out giving it any thought, my response was,  "My Grandparents com...

Thanksgiving was an interesting day for me this year.  It was the first time I have every worked on the day, and had to figure out what I was going to do, with my best friend not being in town and my dad moving to Chino Valley.  One of my roommates offered to have me over to her parents house, as well one of my ex sister-in-laws also invited me over.  Not the ideal way I wanted to spend my Thanksgiving. Work was slow and quiet.  Not a lot of people there.  Because I have  been in training for the Elite Desk, they took us out of training for the holiday and put us on the phones, just answering basic international calls.  Lunch was catered by Boston Market, and was good.  After a few houses of work I was released to leave.  Off to dinner number two at my roommates parents house.  It was not to awkward, because her parents are friends of my Dad and Bert.  Food was good.  Pork sausage wrapped in bacon is to die for!!! O...

Looking over my blog and I missed the whole month of August.  I am sorry, but them again, I have no idea who really reads this anyway.   Another Birthday day down.  Spent the day before at my dad's. Went to work and had my birthday at my buddy Del Mar house.  His son Dalton made be a card, and Emily cooked my a good Steak dinner.  The big surprise of the day was spending an hour an half with my ex wife, just talking. My dad and Bert are moving to Chino Valley, Arizona, near Prescott.  I will be the only in my family left in the valley after 37 years.  Not really happy about it, but nothing I can do about it either. Work is going good.  10 months down.  Going into Acorn training next week, which will train me on the AA side of reservations. No relationship news and do not know if there will ever be.      Need to catch up on the Tie of the Day. Finish my second book this week.  Decision Points by Presi...

This week I got the sad news that my great uncle Clarence Ramsay had die.  I did not know my uncle Clarence very well, other than he was my grandmothers only brother, a twin, a farmer, and when I went on my mission in 1988, he sold a calf to help pay for it.  But I hardly saw him except at family reunions and funerals. I did get to meet with him, this past August, when he was down in Arizona.  He wanted to come down and visit here one last time.  We had a family gathering at Mattta's, and meet with cousins I have not seen in years or even ever.  I got to talk to Uncle Clarence for just a brief moment, but I was surprised that at 90 year young, he remembered coming down for my farewell.  With his death, this is the end of a generation.  All of my grandmothers siblings are now gone.  I still have a lot of my grandmothers journals and pictures, berried deep in storage.  Looking back on those pictures before, they are memories of my grand...

As you get older, the Birthdays really do not mean that much anymore.  I think once you reach 25 you don't really have parties for the birthday until it is the big ones.  Like 30, 35,40 and so on.  So for me I did not really want to turn 45.  As I look at my life, I am no where were I thought I would be. But all that being said, it was not a really bad day.  The way things works out, everyone in my families birthday this year, falls on a Sunday. So being a person who is religious and tries to keep the Sabbath Day holy.  I did not take advantage of the free stuff for the day.  I got up and went to church.  I talked to my sister a few days before.  She was going to be up in Heber with some friends for the week and also visit my Mother's grave.  It was OK, because we made plans for the next weekend.  My dad also called and went to visit him this morning. After church I went over an visited with my ex wife's sisters family...

Me and my Nephew at his Baptism. I have not really been a fan of ABC's "What Would You Do?".  I think at times the things they come up with are just to bait people into reacting, and sometimes do not tell the whole or complete story in the set up. But this one hit home.  I have a nephew who has Autism.  We use to go out to eat as a family.  I know at times that there were people that would giving us dirty looks because of the funny sounds or the fits that my nephew would have.  Lucky no one every said anything. I am glad to see that people are general good.  That they can except others for who they are. When I go out with my nephew now, He just want to play with my phone and watch YouTube videos. But I always wonder if there will be someone that will say something unkind.

I know that some look at Facebook as taking up to much of our time.  To many people post senseless stuff about themselves or memes that have no point to your life.  And lets not get into the political stuff.  People have lost friendships because of Facebook.  But then you have to really ask, if they were true friends, than they would not unfriend you for difference of opinion. But I am thankful for Facebook.  It has reconnected me with family and friends.  I always tried to get my mom on Facebook, but she did not want her stuff out there on the Internet.  She saw it as a waste of time.  When she died, I wish she would have had a page.  It might have been a way to reconnect with friends in Boise.  And maybe some of those friend would have known when she died.  I know she had a lot of goof friends still there and I do not know if they know she died.  But then she did not want to reconnect with some people and that is what she ...

If you just read the last post, I had talked about my Pioneer Heritage and why Mormon's see the 24th of July as an important day for us.  But for me it has a special meaning to me.  If my mom was here she would remind me what today was.  Today in 1978, we arrived in the Valley of the Sun.  From this day forward this place has always been home.  We moved into the house next to my grandmother's apartments.  

This July 24th, mark the 167th anniversary of the Mormon's entering into the Great Salt Lake Valley.  This was there escape from religious prosecution.  This was also know from this time as the great gathering of Zion.  Mormon's from the Eastern States, from the British Isles, and Scandinavia, came Utah to be with like minded people.  This was not an easy trip and many lost there lives on the sea and on the plains.  For me I had several that made the trip.  Here are a few stories. On June 15, 1850 the David Evans Company left Kanesville, Iowa (present day Council Bluffs), with 54 wagons.  There were 109 men, women and children is this company.  In this company was, Lorenzo Hill Hatch, my 2nd great grandfather.  He writes about his experience: We worked with Brother List three months, after which I bought him out and sent for Jeremiah. He came.  We worked through the fall and winter of 1849-50.  All that we mad was divided b...

I was checking out what was on some of my flash drives, when I saw this listing in the index that said, "Close Military Service".  Since moving out of the house, I wondered were in storage is this picture, and had forgotten that I had scanned it.  I do not know the year that this was in the Chattanooga Newspapers.  And I did not know that all of my grandfather's brothers served as well.  It really was not talked about.  I did know that my grandfather did serve and he did tell me some things when I asked.  He is the one, bottom middle if you had not guessed.

This Father's Day is  little bit different for me this year.  I have had a falling out with my dad and he does not really want me around.  He sees me as someone who is ungreatful and lazy.  I just want a father to love me for who I am.  But I do not think that is ever going to happen. My dad did not have an easy life.  When my dad was born in 1947, both of his parents were older.  I know that him and his father did not get along.  He told me at one time he had gone out and bought a car and was going to fix it up.  His father did not approve so he went and sold the car. It did not get any easier when he joined the Air Force, and w hile stationed at Mountain Home, in Idaho, he meet my mom.  Before he was being transferred to Germany.  He decided to marry my mother, and also change his religion.  His parents flew out and and stopped the wedding.  But lucky they were married a week later. Growing up my dad worked in the...

Growing up, since I was 5, there has been one constancy in my life.  My sister.  That August before she was born, I was asked in primary, at church, that I would have someone coming to my house really soon.  My answer was my grandparents.  The real answer was my sister. Over the years, I really did not know how to play with this person who was younger than I was and sometimes I just did not understand what she was saying.  But I needed someone to play with and I did not see any problem with putting you in a clothes basket and pushing down the stairs.  I thought it was fun, but she cried.  I still like push her in things.  Like my little wagon.  Still did not see why it was wrong to push it with her down the hill in the back yard, and into the woods. My sister was always more talented then I was at playing musical instruments.  I struggled to play the violin, when she was always competition for first chair.  I only played viol...

So lets call this a prequel of a Blog.   I was thinking back to all of my experience in racing.  And I really did not talk much about my brief experience in racing go-carts.  I did talk about it in My Roots in Racing Part 1 and My Ruff Times of Racing:  The Go-Cart Accident.   But there is a little bit of the story I left out. This all started in 1981 when were driving down Broadway, by Reed Park, and we see a few people driving a go-cart pretty hard in a church parking lot.  We turned around and starting talking to them about the cart and found out that they raced them.  My dad thought this would be a great thing to get me into and so with in a few weeks he had bought me a cart and we where zipping up and down the road in it.  We found out when the racers were and went out on a Saturday night to watch the races.  After that we decided this was what we were going to do. Back then to go racing you did not need much like you do today. ...

     The Ramsay Family Reunion Oct 9. 2010, Monticello, Utah     Charles Whipple and Bill Close, Sr. The Date had been set for the Ramsay Cousin Reunion for October 9, 2010 in Monticello, Utah.  This was the first reunion for the family since the 1990's when we had it in Chandler, Arizona.  In 1990 we still had 3 sister and Uncle Clarence alive.  By 2010, Uncle Clarence is the last of the Ramsay family alive. This was trip that my mom wanted all of us to go on.  Mom had to see the cancer doctor on that Tuesday before we were to leave.  We were hoping that the cancer was gone and for now no more Chemo.  But it was not good news, and my mom told use not to tell anyone.  So we packed up and head to Monticello on October 8.  We got there pretty early, so we checked into our room and headed to Moab to see Gracie Eastin.  We ate dinner there, and that was were my sister family was staying, and them le...

Sandta Close's Burial, March 22, 2011 I was talking to one of my friends in Ireland, she said that she was going to Boston to see a friend that was dying of cancer.  This brought back the memory of my mom.  One day to be told that you have weeks to live and then to be gone the next.  I think it was better for her to go the way she did, then have to wait days or weeks wondering when the day or time of your death is at hand. The Close family at my Graduation at ASU 2008. We found out about my mom's cancer Jan. 2008.  It was stage 4 colon cancer, they did surgery to take it out.  My mom started chemo for the cancer the week that I graduated from Arizona State University.  The chemo had been ruff on her and she made it through the 3 hours of speeches and hearing everyone's name called.  We watched her go through this process three more times before her death.  The second time around,  I spent some of those days down at the cance...

The Ireland Trip   In 2000 I was able to go back to Ireland since I finished my mission, in 1990.  And this was a trip that we went on with my parents.  The plan was to see the Island as I saw it as a missionary, so that meant that we focused the majority of the trip on places that I served.  We had mapped out our trip and had planned on staying at Bed & Breakfasts and two hotels why there.  We did get of the bitten path a little bit.  I chose to go the last week of May and the first week of June.  This would keep us out of the matching season in the North.    We flew on British Airways out of Phoenix right to London.  From London we caught a flight to Dublin.  We picked up our rental car and headed for our hotel room in Swords.  The Hotel had a restaurant called the Little Chef and that is were we had our first meal in Ireland.  Our plans were to travel up to Belfast for two days, so we arranged to leave the car a...

Last night was some what an emotional night for me, and some of you it might find it silly.  There were two programs on t.v. last night that made the emotions flow of not have my mother here.  One was the Amazing Race and the other was Pete's Dragon.  You are probably asking why does the Amazing Race, bring back so much emotion.  Well, this was the only reality type show that my mom liked.  We would watch the first episode and then call each other to find out who we like and did not like, and who we thought would win.  Then after that is was calling each other did you see that or what did you think about the team that was emlimited that night.  We called each other with in seconds of an episode ending.  We also did this with Lost.  So the last few seasons of the Amazing Race have been hard, because she is not there to call.  It was our show.  There is no one there to call to ask if they just saw that... Growing up, my...