I Believe – My Values

I was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division which was headquartered at Pleiku. Pleiku was on the Western side of Vietnam at one end of Number 4 highway near the Central Highlands, sort of a low mountain range. We flew from Cam Ram Bay on a C130 and then were bused out to the base. I remember an enlisted man who was riding the bus with us. We were packed on the bus like sardines and this GI could tell that we were all scared to death. He told us not to worry, if we started taking fire to just hit the floor. That was not very confronting since we could barely move. After we had been “in country” for a while we realized that there was very little risk of any kind of attack in that particular area in broad daylight and that he had just been playing with us.

We spent a couple of days just hanging out waiting for our assignments. I was assigned to Company C, Mechanized Infantry. My squad was headquartered on a Armored Personnel Carrier (PC). Each PC was equipped with a 50 caliber machine gun. We were squad 23. Our squad leader was Sargent William Taylor. And our PC driver was James Walker. They were the only two left in squad 23. They had been in an area near a village called Plei moran (sp) and more than half our company had been wounded or killed in battles. We sat by our PC for a couple of hours listening to “war stories” from Sargent Taylor and James and they told us how lucky we were that we weren’t a part of that. After a couple of hours we got orders to go back to that area. You talk about scared! We set up camp right outside of the village of Plei Moran. During the day we would do recon patrols through the jungle and then at night all of the PC’s would be parked in a circle facing out. Each squad would have one person on guard duty all the time. There was probably 16-18 PC’s in our company and 2 or 3 tanks.

The third night we were there, the Montagnard men came over to our camp with rice wine. I didn’t drink any because I was new in country and had been warned not to accept anything from the Vietnamese. When it started getting dark the village men left our camp and went back to their village. We had guard duty throughout the night and would take turns sitting behind the 50 caliber machine gun. My duty began at 4 AM. Of course we slept in our clothes but I had taken my boots off. When it was time for me to go on guard duty I just slipped my boots on and didn’t bother to lace them up. I can’t recall how long I was on duty when I saw an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) bouncing between the dark and my position.   Then all hell broke loose! I had been “in country” less than a week and I was involved in a full-fledged fire fight.  I began to fire my 50 caliber machine gun into the dark perimeter.  My decision to not lace up my boots came back to haunt me.  As I fire my machine gun the hot casings were kicking out the side of the gun.  A couple of the casings landed inside of my boot resulting in severe burns to my ankles. I never failed to lace my boots again after that night. A couple of days later my squad leader told me that I had been credited with three kills because there were three dead NVA (North Vietnamese Army) found in front of my position. He said he was going to put me in for a medal but I never heard anymore about it. Also the medic told me I was eligible for a Purple Heart because of the burns on my feet but I declined. Many times over the years I have seen my RPG bouncing on the ground in front of my position.  Thank God it was a dud! One of  the guards on the other side of perimiter was not as fortunate.  He took a direct hit killing him instantly. Our driver complemented me after the fire fight for holding my position. Some of the other new guys bailed out of their guard positions when the shooting started forcing a lot of the veterans to take over their position. And important lesson was learned by me  that morning.  I realized that the friendly villagers who were offering us wine and who we were there to protect where trying to get us drunk so he will sleep through our guard duty.  After performing a search and destroy mission through the the village the next morning we were pulled back to Pleiku and I was glad to go.

The information contained here was most likely repeated elsewhere in my history. This is intended to be a quick reference chapter.

EDUCATION (Formal and Informal) SUMMARY

Oakwood Elementary 1975 -1981

Jefferson Middle School 1981-1984

Preston High School 1984 – 1988

Brigham Young University 1988 – 1989 and 1989-1990

Forklift Driver Certification Course

Commercial Driver’s License Multilevel Test (knowledge and skill)

Toastmasters 2016 – Past 50 years of age (Toastmasters is an education club that focuses on public speaking and leadership skills.)

John Maxwell Certification 2018

International Fitness Professionals Association – Certified Strength Band Training Specialist 2019

U.H.K. (University of Hard Knocks…aka life) 1969 to Death…

Formal schooling is but a small portion of what life has to teach. Regardless if a person has chosen a path with a great deal of formal education, or a path of learning by experience, the following truth is constant: True education is achieved when a person takes responsibility for their own learning, and feeds learning by curiosity, study, and application.

WORK EXPERIENCE. What have I been paid to do from age 11 to 50?

Agriculture: Reed McEntire Farm – Farm Laborer. Duties: feed calves, clean barn, move pipe, mow yard, pull weeds, etc.

Custodial: Franklin County School District – Student Custodian. Duties: vacuumed, swept, dusted high school rooms after school

Agriculture: Parker Brothers – General Laborer. Duties: vacuumed, swept, dusted, mopped, cleaned tractors, refurbished and painted farm equipment for resale, parts running, delivered equipment

Agriculture: Navajo Sheep Ranch in Mink Creek, Idaho – Farm Laborer. Duties: moved pipe, built post fences, fixed wire fences, sprayed weeds, cleaned shop, bucked hay (meaning helped load it onto wagons from the field and stack it in the hay shed)

Nonprofit Retail and Employment Assistance for Disabled. Deseret Industries in three locations in Utah and Idaho – Truck Driver, Forklift Driver, Job Coach, Receiving Area Supervisor, Production Supervisor, Branch Assistant Manager. Duties: drove truck, drove forklift, supervised receiving area for donations, remodeled several receiving locations for improved efficiency, was job coach to help those with disabilities improve employability skills, also assisted in supervising

Construction Retail: Anderson Lumber/Stock Building Supply – Driver, Load Builder, Receiving Clerk, Inventory Control Specialist, Operations Manager. Duties: drive truck, build loads, check in products, verify inventory accuracy, oversee scheduling and efficient function of facility and customer service in all aspects except contractor sales team

Energy Retail: Suburban Propane – Driver. I delivered propane to homes and businesses. 

Construction: R&R Landscaping – Office Manager Duties: prepare and submit bids on projects, drive truck with plants and equipment to projects, manage accounts receivables, assist with on-site labor as needed

Construction: Grand Interiors – Office Manager, Appliance Sales and Installation. Duties: manage office calls, bids, accounts payable and receivable, order appliances, deliver and install appliances, assist in cabinet installation

Hospitality Support: HyKo – Delivery Driver, Store Clerk. Duties: deliver orders of cleaning and paper products primarily to restaurants and hotels, stock and tend to the sales floor, customer service and cashiering

Beverage Supply: Coca Cola – Warehouse Manager. Duties: order, receive, build orders for delivery, inventory control, safety, organization and cleanliness of facility, scheduling team

Oil Industry Support: Bar Over Hat – Dispatcher and Logistics Designer. Duties: dispatch trucks to service water needs of several oil exploration and extraction companies, design dispatch system

Administrative Support: White Ops Consulting/VIP Support Services (my own company) – Administrative, Personal Assistant. Duties: Help my clients with their administrative needs, keep them from needing to sit too much in front of the computer, help with state and federal compliance for commercial trucks, help with communication between financial institutions and debtors….whatever needs to be done that is helpful and within my knowledge and ability to accomplish.

 

LIVING LOCATIONS SUMMARY

Birth to age 18 – 1969 to 1988

687 North 8th West, Preston, Idaho 83263

Age 18 to 19 – 1988 to 1989

Provo, Utah. Brigham Young University, on campus Hinckley Dorm

Pleasant Grove, Utah. Lived with my Aunt DeVonna Hansen before serving a full-time religious mission

Age 19 to 21 – 1989 to 1991

South Africa: Pretoria, Witbank (two separate times), Roodeport (9 months), Welkom

Age 21 to 26 – 1991 to 1996

Provo and Orem, Utah

Orem, Utah. Lived with Aunt DeVonna Hansen in Orem until I married Marya Durtschi

Provo, Utah. Lived in a single-wide, two bedroom trailer close to work for about 18 months

Orem, Utah. Lived in a single-wide trailer that an extra room and garage had been built onto. Only lived there for six months. Probably would not have bought it had we known a work transfer was in the near future.

 

 

Age 26 to 29 – 1996 to 1999

Idaho Falls, Idaho. Lived in an apartment for a few months until our home in Rigby was built and ready to occupy

Rigby, Idaho. Lived in a three-bedroom, two bathroom home on an acre of farm ground

4257 East 100 North, Rigby, Idaho 83442

Age 29 to 50+ – 1999 to ?

Driggs, Idaho. Lived in the home Marya was raised in. The total square footage is near 5000. The original structure was built in 1947. A three story cinderblock house with two bathrooms and four bedrooms, and some smaller rooms that changed purposes. The basement is unfinished.

A log addition was built on in the late 1980s  which had a basement wood shop, one extra bathroom, and two large main level and upstairs rooms.

We didn’t move, but our address changed due to county alterations

8 South 275 East  to 2195 South Stateline Road, Driggs, Idaho 83422

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I realized as I was creating this personal history that I talked quite a bit about work related subjects, and not a lot about family. Why? Well, I think it is because work filled a lot of my time and energy, but also because those work experiences were unique to me. Not even my family knew what I did on a day to day basis.

But, I feel we had a good balance in much of our family activities. We work together, we play together, we learn together, we take vacations together. One tradition we have kept that is easy to overlook in its significance, is that we almost always ate one meal together around the kitchen table each day. Sometimes we talked about nothing in particular. At other times we had some involved conversations. The point being, we valued the time communicating with each other face to face, and meal time gave us that opportunity.

I thought I would just share with you a little about each family member and where they are and what they are doing in 2020.

Marya. She loves to bird watch. This love of birds gave rise to another hobby. She purchased a quality camera to take pictures with, and started taking pictures of tree branches, with birds photobombing most pictures; landscapes, and our children’s events. She was the unofficial photographer for Teton’s cross country and soccer teams for eight years, as well as many drama productions. This secondary hobby has given her opportunity to create books, calendars and slideshows to share places, memories, and events with others. She has even won awards and recognition in various publications for her photos. I tell people, “I am not much of a bird watcher, but I can be a good bird watcher-watcher.” She is currently serving as the Ward Music Coordinator and Funeral Director for her church calling, as well as playing the organ once a month in Sacrament Meeting, and enjoys the increasingly popular sport of pickleball.

 

Taylor. Taylor is very creative. He is good with his hands. When he sets his mind to creating something or doing a particular task, he does it with lots of energy and focus. As of this writing he lives at home and in many respects is trying to make up his mind which direction he will go in life.

Caleb. Caleb graduated from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington with a degree in Studio Arts. He is also living at home. Caleb loves running. He had such a positive experience with running in middle school, high school and college that he has now accepted the position as our high school’s head cross country coach, a position he shares with another Teton High alumni, Mindy Kaufman, who is also a second cousin, or first cousin once removed, something like that. He also works for the school district, right now as a physical education teacher and paraprofessional at the Tetonia Elementary School.

Sapphire. She studied at Brigham Young University – Idaho in  Childhood Development. As of this writing, she is still completing one “wrap-up” class and then will do her internship to receive the degree, but for all intents and purposes, she is done. She is very talented in working with children, and was before she even began her college studies. She has moved to Preston, Idaho and is living with my father to help him, and working in the Logan, Utah area as a nanny. Sapphire moved in with my parents one week before my mother passed away.

Crystal is in her third year at Grinnell College in Iowa. She is studying Biology with the intent of working for places like the National Park Service, National Forest, Fish and Game Management, or some place similar. She has already worked for the National Park Service for three summers. She loves playing soccer and was able to walk-on to the intercollegiate women’s soccer team at college.

Jade. Jade is now in her first year at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho. She is taking general credits at the moment, but she is leaning toward a career in creative writing or editing…something along those lines. She operates most of the time using the creative side of her mind with art and writing being her skilled and creative talents.

Crystal (Big Crystal) Hansen. She and her husband live in Teton Valley. She manages the local US Bank branch and loves spending time with her husband Scott and son Cooper, and are expecting their second son in the spring.

My work is going very well. I help take care of the state and federal compliance work for some guys that own trucks in the oil fields of North Dakota, and make sure the pay for the drivers is right. I spend a lot of time working on the computer, texting, emails, and phone calls. My clients are happy if I can keep them from having to sit in front of a computer because they are “hands on” type of men that like to build houses, fix things with an engine, etc. I changed my business name this year from White Ops Consulting to VIP Support Services.

I attend Toastmasters meetings regularly. Toastmasters has helped me to overcome my fear of public speaking. I have even been paid to speak for business and professional organizations. I have won a few speech contests. This organization helped me stop worrying about what was going on in my head…the nervousness, the anxiety….and focus on the message, and eliminate things I might be doing that distract from, rather than compliment a message.

Chris Harris is my best bud. We do things on a regular basis. We worked together at the construction supply store, and now we try to have a meal together regularly, and attend a few events. If I could choose one word that described Chris best it would be congenial.

Marya and I went out of the country for the first time together this last summer, in 2019. After taking Jade to college to start her freshman year we went over to the Vancouver area in British Columbia, Canada. We went to a botanical garden, a bird conservatory, and the Vancouver Temple. We then went to visit a friend, Cherié Scarpino, who lives about midway north in the BC province. We were able to help her insulate the skirting around her home, and we visited an old gold mining town called Barkerville with her and her daughter, Hannah.

How do I feel at fifty? Very good. My health is good. I enjoy my work. We have a loving family. We live in a beautiful area. I enjoy serving in the church. I am striving to live a life that positively contributes to those around me. My personal and business motto comes from a quote by Winston Churchill, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

This was an eventful decade. On the home front we added a new soul. Jade Mariah was born in 2001, bringing our clan up to seven, plus Daddy and Mama under the same roof. Living in this new location, we certainly had living space for Jade’s arrival as opposed to the Rigby house. The kids played with cousins that lived close by. They played  in the barn and roamed in the pasture. We chose not to have a television in our home most of the years, and our kids learned to read a lot, use their imaginations, and explore the outdoors.

 

The unexpected happened. Mama Durtschi passed away unexpectedly, and we were left to care for Daddy. We did have some help occasionally from nearby family, but, day in and day out, the responsibility was mostly on us. We did it for as long as we could before his condition became so bad that an assisted living center was needed. He was there for just over two years when he passed away in December of 2005. Us moving to Driggs was actually the only reason an assisted living center was not used before. The doctor had been recommending it even before we arrived, but Joan wanted to prevent that. Before Joan passed she had made the decision to give us the house because of our willingness to move in and help. Why us? Mama liked me, and she knew Marya would like to be back in the valley. Plus, other Durtschi family who already lived in the area had their own homes and families to tend to.

To this day, because of the sentimental attachments to the house, and the subjective opinions of whether we cared for and helped daddy enough to earn it being given to us, there is still an undertone of discontent among some of the siblings. I was asked once, if given the choice to move up and help, would I do it again. Yes. Moving in to help Walter and Joan was the right thing to do. The other stuff is just human nature at play. You never know what life is going to present, and you don’t have any control about how others might feel about it. We “rolled with” the circumstances that came along the best we felt we could. We did rent our home in Rigby for a few years and then we sold it. We came to realize that with another family member added, and the circumstances being what they were, we couldn’t go back to that house very easily even if we did move again.

During this decade I also served as 1st counselor in the Driggs 2nd Ward bishopric with Wayne Egbert as bishop, and Meredith Wilson as 2nd counselor. Just like serving in the mission field, this was a challenging and rewarding time. Here is a story connected with this time. Of course I was on the stand each week, and Marya bravely brought the kids to church. A sister moved into the ward and noticed Marya coming in alone with all the kids. She didn’t know us. She was disgusted that Marya’s husband would send all those kids to church with her every week while he was relaxing or off recreating. It wasn’t until several months went by, and she saw us together at a ward party that she finally realized I was Marya’s husband. Even though this sister had never told Marya about her feelings about her “slacking” husband, she felt a need to apologize to Marya for drawing unfounded conclusions.

Work wise…well, I kind of experienced an identity crisis during this decade. At Anderson Lumber I was promoted to Receiving Clerk before too long. In that job I was responsible for checking in all shipments and making sure the proper quantity was there and there was no damage. The work was good. Then some corporate changes occurred. Anderson Lumber was a small, regional chain of stores, and they were bought out by a national corporation. A new manager came on board. I could tell right away that we were going to clash. He was cocky and arrogant. He didn’t treat his team like equals. I was the first one to leave after he took command. He actually offered me a generous raise if I stayed. A raise that would have put my income above that of my supervisor. (I didn’t think that was a wise leadership move on his part either.) I left and went to work for Suburban Propane delivering propane and training as a technician.

With each of these companies I worked for, in my mind, I was sincerely striving to make it a career. I think this attitude came from the example of my father and mother. My dad had worked in the same building all my life (he did have different promotions, but same career.) Mom too, she was a librarian all her life. I thought that is the way it should be. Find a career, a company, work with dedication, earn promotions, and stick with THAT company. You take care of them, and they will take care of you. Well, I was learning that this wasn’t how the world was working anymore.

I was not with Suburban long. I received an unsolicited phone call and an offer from the owner of R&R Landscape. He wanted me to come on board as an office manager, and potentially buy him out of the company along with some of the crew chiefs that managed the landscaping crews. I could not let that potential opportunity go without trying. It seemed much too good to pass up.

To make it short, it didn’t work. The old adage was verified: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Again, I liked the work because of what I was learning and what I was able to contribute, but it didn’t end up being full time during the winter as promised. I hated drawing unemployment when I had been taught you get what you work for. The price he wanted for the company was more than any bank or private lender was comfortable with. And his method of financing was…well, let’s just say creative…and didn’t sit well with me. I was asked by local small suppliers and large corporations all the time when R&R Landscape was going to pay them on the past due amounts. I was not given control of the business checking account. He and his wife only saw those numbers.

What to do? Anderson Lumber’s name had officially changed to Stock Building Supply and the community was not fond of the new manager. He was not fired, but his position was changed, and he was transferred to another location. After he left as manager, I approached the guy who accepted the manager position, who knew me from before, and he welcomed me back. Again, changing jobs so much was really uncomfortable to me because I wanted to “settle in” and stay with one company like I had seen my parents do.

At Stock Building Supply I started from entry level again as forklift and truck driver. Then I went to Inventory Control Specialist, to Operations Manager relatively quickly. I was responsible for the smooth running of the retail portion of the store. The manager kept the office staff and outside sales team leadership as part of his duties. The yard foreman took care of forklift and truck drivers. This looked like the right track, but then a nationally-owned corporation started dictating changes that were not good for a small town lumber store. They wanted to let large stores, like Home Depot and Lowes, take care of the everyday-home-owner’s building and project needs. They wanted to focus on professional-contractors-only market; those companies who built homes for a living. They began dictating things such as closing on Saturdays because most contractors don’t work on Saturday. They wanted to get rid of some of our inventory because it was homeowner-needed items and not professional contractor items. Both I and the manager fought them on this. We repeatedly told them that their picture just wouldn’t work for a single lumber yard in a small town. They didn’t like this answer. We were not fitting their envisioned mold.

I could see the writing on the wall. I could see this was not going to end well. As much as I hated to do it, I started looking for work AGAIN. A few years prior, Larry Juarez, owner of Grand Interiors which dealt specifically with cabinets, appliances, flooring and interior hardware such as door knobs and lighting fixtures in new homes and remodels had approached me, and asked if I would come work for him. Even though that had been a few years before, I approached him to see if he still had a need. He did. I did all kinds of work for him. My main job was appliance sales, ordering, and installation, but because it was such a small company I also helped install cabinets, drove truck, and performed office management duties.

Incidentally, a year after I left, Stock Building Supply announced they were closing the Driggs location and many other locations that were not fitting their mold throughout the country. I am so glad I got out when I did. In this valley, being small in population, it was a bit of a challenge for all the employees there to find a place to go for work.

While working at the lumber yard, I was impressed with the character and work ethic of a man by the name of Chris Harris. We did not do much together outside of work while we worked there, but afterwards we started trying to go out to eat, play games, or watch a sporting event together. Chris became my best friend. It is a joy to spend time with him.

In 2008, due to unwise housing and real estate loan practices in the country, the real estate market took a financial nose dive nationwide, causing construction to slow dramatically. This ushered in a recession that had global effects. Grand Interiors was connected with the construction industry and things became troublingly slow there. I was able to do some part-time work on short-term projects for people in the valley when I was only working part-time at my regular job.

During this time my appendix needed removed. We did not have health insurance, but a very generous soul stepped in to pay the $10,000 hospital bill. I have an idea who it was, and no way of telling for sure without directly asking. Most anonymous, good-hearted souls like that don’t want to be known.

So, yes, this was a challenging decade on many levels. Yes, it can be argued that life always has challenges, and that would be true. This decade left me wondering what path I was supposed to take in life especially as a provider to my family.

Larry was relieved when I found a job in Jackson, Wyoming with Hyko. They sold cleaning and paper products to businesses, primarily hotels and restaurants. It was a good temporary job, but I knew it would not be a long commitment there.

This is going into the next decade, but since I am on the “job changing” theme… The next job was with Coca-Cola at their Jackson Hole warehouse as the warehouse manager. Which put me, again, in a leadership position. I was in charge of everything that went on inside the warehouse. The manager had responsibility for the outside sales team and the drink machine technicians. During this job I was in the best physical condition I had been in since high school soccer and riding my bike in the mission field. My mornings were spent taking inventory, ordering products, or unloading shipments of products that came from the bottling plant. Near noon, the orders started coming in from the traveling sales staff. These orders needed to be pulled from stock and staged on mobile carts ready to load that night to go out to stores the next day. The cases of canned and bottled pop were not heavy, about 15 to 20 pounds each, but we were moving hundreds and hundreds of cases each day. Bend down, pick up, lift, swing onto the wheeled cart, repeat. I left for work before the family was up in the morning, and arrived home around six in the evening. All of this left me worn out.

Even with all that was going on in our family’s life during this decade, we added yet another family member. Marya’s sister Beth would visit during the summer months from Texas to avoid the heat. One summer she brought Crystal Morgan, a 17-year-old young lady, with her to help out with her four children, but an alternative motive was to get Crystal (we call her Big Crystal to distinguish from our younger daughter Crystal)  away from an unhealthy home environment. At the end of the summer she did not want to go back. However, her grandparents, who had legal guardianship over her would not let her stay in Idaho. We told Crystal that when she turned 18 she was welcome to come live with us if she wanted to.

 

Her birthday is at the end of December. She hopped on a plane just a few days after, came to live with us, and graduated from Teton  High School. She worked at Burger King, and then a clothing store. She chose to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served in the McAllen Texas Mission. She had fallen in love with Marya’s nephew, Scott Hansen, and married him when she got home. So, she was semi-adopted by us, but then married into the family also. She is a lively, energetic person whom we love dearly.

Different line of thought…As I was growing up in Preston we camped regularly in tents during the summer. I enjoyed those times out in nature with my family. I thought I liked camping, but after moving to Teton Valley I realized I like being in nature, but not necessarily camping. Because Teton Valley is right next to the mountains, I found that I liked going hiking and enjoying time in a campground around a fire and so forth, but my own bed was usually only 15 to 20 minutes away from many camping areas. I preferred to go home and sleep, and come back in the morning to resume activities. I really enjoy hiking. One of my favorite hikes is up to Table Mountain, or Table Rock as it is known locally. I have done that so many times I lost track.

As I move into the years that include marriage and the arrival of children, there is absolutely no way I can include all the details of things we did as a family, with all the family and childrens’ activities, the vacations, the church involvement, and so forth. So, this is where my posterity will have to be forgiving that I did not include something they thought I should. If you are a reader that feels something should be recorded that I did not include, I encourage you to make the time to record those vivid memories in your personal histories. I talk a lot about work in this section because that is where I spent a lot of time, and my dedication to work directly affected my responsibilities as a husband, father, and provider. Most of the time I felt like I kept a good work and home life balance. I guess my wife and children are the best judges as to whether I succeeded at that in each of their memories.

Upon returning from serving a full-time mission, I was only in Preston for a few short days. I intended to return to BYU in the fall and I wanted to see if I could secure work down there as well. My Aunt DeVonna and her husband divorced while I was in the mission field, and I asked if I could stay with her in Orem, Utah. I paid her rent each month, but also helped with inside and outside chores. She was eager for the company and help. Staying with her was very enjoyable, and ultimately very life impacting.

The first place I looked for work was at Deseret Industries, the thrift store chain owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As mentioned before in chapter five, they also operated the humanitarian aid center that I had worked at for only three months before leaving on my mission to South Africa. That day, I walked out of the human resource department with disappointment. They said they did not have an opening for me. As I was leaving the building, I happened to run into Garret Davis, who had been my manager before. He couldn’t believe two years had already gone by. He asked me what my plans were. I told him the intent to go to school at Brigham Young University, and that I had just been told there was no work at that location. He said, “Come back tomorrow ready to work. I will have a job for you.”

He told me how he liked Idaho farm boys who knew how to work. I started there at $6.00 per hour as a forklift driver, which was pretty good for an entry level job at that time period. Garret was the congenial, cowboy-type, fleet manager. His team of drivers and dock workers respected him. He knew how to make people feel cared for, but also knew how to encourage and push them to grow and get things done. It was his suggestion that I get my commercial driver’s license so I could drive large semi, tractor-trailer trucks. My thought was, “I don’t need that. I am going to school to be an exercise physiologist.” Wow! I ended up using that CDL for decades in all kinds of capacities.

The Deseret Industries location had a cafeteria that all employees could eat at if they wished, including the humanitarian center workers. I was not aggressively looking to date ladies much. I was quiet and reserved in personality, but I did enjoy meeting new young ladies, especially in a casual, non-committal place like the cafeteria where we could just talk as friends with no expectations. One day I saw a gal I had never seen before, and asked if I could sit next to her. I barely got her name…Marya, before she got up and left.

Well, fortunately, the reason she left was because she was done eating and had to get back to work at the humanitarian aid center where she sorted clothes. Her quick departure didn’t have anything to do with me. We had many lunches together. I didn’t ask her out, because I had only been home from the mission field for a short time, and was not looking for anything in the terms of a steady relationship yet.

My Aunt DeVonna also worked at the humanitarian aid center. Well, this might be a news flash, but women tend to talk to each other about life. And before too long, DeVonna told me if I didn’t ask Marya out I was going to lose my chance. Marya and I had spent enough time together by that time that I knew I had feelings for her. I decided to act. And “The rest is history”…Let me think…I don’t remember the time frame exactly. I think it was June when we first met (when she got up and left). We started dating in August, and by October I had bought the ring. It was in my pocket the first time I traveled to Driggs, Idaho to meet her family. She didn’t know it. I felt ill because I was so nervous. On Saturday we went on a horseback ride up the Aspen Trail just east of her house. We stopped and got off the horses at a break in the trees, a good spot to see the valley, and I knelt down and asked her to marry me. She burst into tears, but she didn’t say yes. There was a slight complication. She had dated a young man quite seriously before he had left to serve a full-time religious mission. She had to make the final decision in her heart as to whether to accept my offer or wait for his return to see how their relationship might progress. That evening we drove up to a lookout point where we had a magnificent view of the Grand Teton mountains, and she said yes. We decided to get married after BYU got out in May. That was a loooong engagement, seven months. We were married in the Idaho Falls Temple on May 7, 1992, the same day as her mother’s birthday. (Under those circumstances, DeVonna was not sad to see me move out. She told people she was the one who played matchmaker because I was being so “chicken”. She was right.) Marya and I enjoyed a honeymoon to the Oregon coast. Not only because it is a beautiful place, but so Marya could also meet my family that lived up there.

 

Not long after I had asked Marya to marry me, Garret had convinced his up-line leaders that I would make a great addition to the more permanent team. Up to then I was paid by the hour with no benefits, but with Garret’s help I was offered a salary position as a supervisor over the receiving dock. This came with a pay increase, paid vacation, paid sick leave, retirement savings, health insurance, etc. Of course, I said yes. I had a family to start, and this seemed like a great blessing. (Garret cared for his people, and did what he could on their behalf.)

My Grandpa Byington helped us buy a small, two bedroom trailer home just down the street from my work. We paid him a reasonable interest rate on his loan to us. We were grateful for his generosity. It was a humble place, but it served our needs well. I could walk to work, which made our one car available for Marya to use during the day. We felt impressed not to wait to start a family. Just shy of eleven months after we were married, Taylor Durtschi Moosman joined our family. Marya didn’t like the huge Provo, baby factory/hospital, so Taylor, and, later, Caleb Christian Moosman were born in the Payson, Utah hospital. At that time, Payson was a smallish town on the edge of the populated areas of Utah Valley. (But not anymore; Payson is crowded now.)

 As a supervisor over the dock at Deseret Industries, I was also considered a job coach. One of the main missions of Deseret Industries is to help individuals with mental or physical disabilities, or work skills challenges, improve their abilities to be able to get jobs in the standard competitive marketplace. The more I fulfilled the duties of a job coach, the more I grew to love that work, and decided to make working for Deseret Industries, and with those individuals with disabilities, my life career. It was at this time that  I chose to stop attending college and put my efforts into my work and my young family.

I learned and accomplished so much with Garret’s support and mentorship. When I started, the donations were received mostly by drive-up donations by the thrift store, but had no method for real efficient handling before being put on the sales floor. There were piles of stuff everywhere in the receiving area. With Garret’s encouragement and mentoring, I redesigned the drive-up donation area, and implemented an organized system for sorting the donations. Within three years of my adjustments, the production department (who priced and cleaned items) was able to order boxes from my department of various types of things they wanted to process to put on the sales floor.

I also learned that you have to prove department needs to upper management by statistics, so you could get the manpower, and equipment needed to do the job well. I developed a method to count and track the number of cars that donated on a daily and hourly basis. It wasn’t a flawless system, but over time, patterns began to emerge to help gauge how to schedule my crew. An average of over 300 cars per day donated at that location. Week days, and winter was slower of course, but weekends and summers were crazy. Through these statistics we were able to prove we were the busiest donation location of all the Deseret Industries stores. Construction began on a new building in 1996 and I helped provide input on the design of the three-lane donation area and the square footage needed for a proper sort and storage area.…It was a good thing I was young, energetic, and healthy. It took a lot out of me.

 

 

I served in the young men’s organization in the Church ward in Provo. My favorite memory was hiking to Mount Timpanogos three times. Two of them were mostly at night, and we arrived on top to see the sun rise. This is where my love for hiking mountain trails started. 

We had always wanted to get back to Idaho, so I had turned my resume into the Idaho Falls Deseret Industries during one of our trips to see family. I was offered a lateral responsibility position as job coach and dock supervisor there. We moved to Idaho in 1996. I was able to make similar changes in Idaho Falls as I made in Provo, but it was not nearly as large of a scale, and with not nearly as much trial and error thanks to experience.

We rented a house for a few months in Idaho Falls while looking for a place to “put down roots”. I don’t remember how we found it, but we bought an acre of ground east of Rigby in the middle of farm country. We ordered a home that was assembled in Boise and shipped to the site. The term used for this type of home was a manufactured home. It was a nice little home for our little family. By that time we had both Taylor and Caleb. I’ll tell you more about the home later.

Side note. Caleb often didn’t go to sleep well at night. We would stay up with him and watch the news and then Star Trek: The Next Generation television series. Maybe that is why he likes science fiction so much now. 

Our ward in Rigby, Idaho, called the Shelton Ward, was amazing. There was a strong unity there, and we made many great friends. I served in the young men’s organization there as well. There was something unique about the group of boys there. Because of the location of the ward boundaries, the boys went to three different school districts, so when they got together during the week or on Sundays, it was new and fresh because they had not spent all week seeing each other at school. This dynamic seemed to help them NOT to take each other for granted as much as many groups in an area with a large Latter-day Saint population.

After about a year and a half working in Idaho Falls, the area manager asked me if I would accept a position as Assistant Manager in the Rexburg location. Yes! By title it was another advancement, but it was actually more of a lateral move again. Rexburg was smaller than Idaho Falls. My learning and duties expanded to cover the sales floor crew when Loren Rogers, the manager, was not present. He and I made a good team and I enjoyed working with him.

Again, I was able to help improve the efficiency of the receiving dock. When we moved into a larger location I was able to design the receiving area and production area from “bare walls” into an efficient donation processing system. I enjoy this kind of creative challenge.

Sapphire Dawn and Crystal Celine were born at the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls while we lived in the Rigby/Ririe area (we were about halfway between the two towns). Our little three-bedroom, two-bathroom home was now quite full. It was right around 1,000 square feet. It became obvious, if we wanted to grow more we either needed to add on to the house or sell and find something bigger.

 

I began discussing with Deseret Industries leadership the possibility of qualifying for the next advancement. After all, they had asked ME to become a supervisor in the first place. I did initiate the desire to transfer to Idaho, but again, they had approached me about taking the position as assistant manager in Rexburg. I was good at what I did. I was good with systems, and with few exceptions my crew enjoyed my leadership. The answer I got was that I couldn’t qualify for the next promotion without a college degree. Well, with my small family’s temporal needs, time, and emotional needs, how was I going to do that? (Ricks College, the closest college, was still only a two-year school at that time. Idaho State in Pocatello was the closest four year school. Online college degrees were not an option yet.) I still enjoyed my work, but I became a bit “put out” by the response I got. Please, don’t get me wrong, I feel a college education is a great way to get qualified in knowledge and skill to make a positive contribution to a work force and to a community you live in. My frustration is that so many seem to think it is the ONLY way, and they pass by very good candidates for that reason and that reason only; because they have no college degree. Some examples of why I thought this policy didn’t make sense was the manager of the Provo store had a degree in agriculture and another manager I knew had a degree in political science. Neither of those degrees had ANY application in the jobs they were actually doing. My questioning of wisdom in the practice of ONLY hiring those with college degrees started then and continues to this day. Why is so much emphasis put on that piece of paper by so many when often it doesn’t apply to the position needing to be filled and its responsibilities? In my experience, the important thing is a person taking responsibility for their learning whether it is formally obtained in a classroom, on the job, or through life experience. Those who take responsibility do make a significant contribution to most any environment they are in.

Anyway, at that point, I felt stuck career-wise. It looked like I would either need to change careers or figure out a way to find the time, and come up with the money, to go back to school. As much as I enjoyed working for Deseret Industries the pay was not on the generous side. After all, it is a non-profit organization. Supporting the needs of a family of six didn’t leave much wiggle room since we decided right from the “get go” we wanted Marya to be able to stay at home with the children.

Then something came “out of the blue”. Marya’s father, Walter, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and began to deteriorate physically and mentally. Her mother, Joan, called us and asked if we would move to Driggs and help her take care of him. The next day, she called and retracted the request feeling that it was too much to ask of us, but not long after she called again to ask for help.

We prayed about it and decided to make the move and see how it would go. We chose not to sell our home in Rigby in case it did not work out. We made the move motivated by the desire to help Marya’s parents, but our own family still took priority. On March 1, 1999 we moved into the main portion of the Durtschi house that was built in 1947. Our kids would be the 4th generation of Durtschi descendants to live in the house. Walter and Joan moved into the log portion/addition of the house that was built in the late 1980s, and our responsibilities to help care for Walter began.

 

I still commuted back and forth to Rexburg every day, but being away from my family with four young kids and a wife, father-in-law, and mother-in-law for 10 to 11 hours each day did not feel sustainable. I began to look for work in Teton Valley to cut off the two hours of driving time each day to and from work. During the summer of 1999 I was interviewed at Anderson Lumber Company and was hired on the spot as a forklift driver and truck driver. (Using that commercial driver’s license I didn’t think I needed.) Even though I was not a manager, or supervisor over anyone (it was considered an entry level position), I was offered a pay and benefit package that matched what I was earning at Deseret Industries.

I cherish the opportunity and experience gained while working at Deseret Industries. What I learned there has helped me in other employment and other life areas more than I can explain. And working with those who had disabilities was challenging, but fantastic. By the time I left it felt like it was time to move on. It was a tough decision at the time, but in retrospect of what life offers over time, it was the right thing to do.