Bruce Lindsay
   

Stories' Background Disclosed
by Author Bruce Lindsay
Special to The Progress

Bruce Lindsay
Bruce Lindsay


"Even though they are works of fiction, they do come from someplace," Bruce Lindsay affirmed to EvaDean Thiede, special correspondent to The Progress.

Asked if he would disclose the inspiration for his stories, the author offered the background below that lets fans of The Hometown Weekly know some of the rest of the story.




Sunbeams

The punch line from a woman undergoing a medical evaulation comes from a true story. Robert Armstrong, MD, of Manti, Utah, reported the experience. It actually happened to K.C. Tubbs. Tubbs at the time was a medical intern. The best part of the story is that some years later, Tubbs actually did become "a member."

A vow to exercise better judgment in exchange for deliverance from a roller coaster was something I heard my grandmother repeat more than fifty years ago as she staggered off the giant racer at the old Saltair amusement park on the Great Salt Lake.

I identify with several of Iola's personal challenges. ParleyBerry Pie in particular.

Cloby's Call

This story does not pick on high counselors! In fact (full disclosure here), I was serving as one when I wrote the story. Church callings stretch everybody beyond their comfort zone, not just Cloby. And it doesn't hurt to step it up a little.

After my own call to the high council I noticed that my name in the stake directory had grown by a letter that had not been attached to it before.

Another element of inspiration came from my wife's grandfather, Joseph Anderson. At the age of 80 he added a "W" to his name. It made him feel more comfortable in the ranks of his esteemed brethren for the next 22 years.

New Car

This story practically wrote itself right after my wife and I survived the experience of buying our first new car in years. Yes, I am LaEarl, as was my father before me.

But don't look for NonaRene in my wife. The disoriented gun-toting grandmother in a parking lot came from a news story in Florida.

Mother's Day

The major plot line of this story is an adaptation of the parable in the 15th chapter of Luke. Destry is the prodigal daughter and Vertis wants her to come home.

Insights into end-of-life veterinary care came the hard way from my backing over our blind and deaf 14-year-old dog.

The Mothers Day service in church is one I have attended. Many times. I know about the drum circle only from hearsay.

Beautiful Women

My wife and I had arrived at a wedding reception at one LDS meetinghouse after having just come from a viewing at another. While we were standing in line I began musing over what it would have been like if both events had been at the same location.

A backslider with an affection for drink once told me when he was quite well-lubricated that he did indeed hold an office in the Church. He said he was a pall bearer. That got me thinking about the requirements of the office.

Other threads of this story grow out of my profound respect for the on-the-ground work of the Relief Society, and from my own family's blessed experience with a baby later in life.

Games of Chance

In this story Cloby stands in for my own bewilderment over the morality of sweepstakes participation and for all the time I wasted completing the entry form.

Parleybration Dayz is the idealized continuation of the summer community/church celebration of my hometown that I looked forward to every 4th of July.

Matchmaker

This tale has absolutely nothing to do with my eldest son's bachelor status. (Since he asked.) Rather, it reflects my observation that a couple's happiness derives more from what they make of a marriage together than from what they bring to it separately.

Arzley Criddle, at age 100, was my last credible chance for a current Parley Grove link to a J. Golden Kimball story.

Lost Sheep Prize Lamb

BreeAnn and her lamb were inspired by a photograph I saw in a rural weekly paper. About that same time I heard a student high school graduation speaker tell a story of a child's glee over hitting the jackpot at a livestock auction. I don't remember the point of the graduation story but the point is seldom as good as a good story itself.

Amber and Vern were, I am quite sure, two of the people who paraded past our window on the oceanfront sidewalk of Newport Beach, California, during a week my family stayed there in a rented beach house.

Hanging By A Thread

This story owes itself to at least three sources of inspiration:

  • The front page of a real hometown weekly in Utah that featured a chart accounting for every vote cast in the county.
  • My years of anchoring election night coverage on television and naming winners in rural contests who invariably ran unopposed.
  • A sorry tale shared with me by an LDS Institute teacher who learned the hard way about running for office on the wrong ticket.

The Pumpkin and the Pillowcase

The grounded people in Parley Grove share a maxim that life don't have to be perfect to be pretty dang good. I believe it. And that truth seemed to fit with an experience my brother tells about a Halloween spent with two of his sons. One went trick-or-treating with a little plastic pumpkin to hold his loot. The older boy filled a pillowcase. Everybody was happy until they started to compare. Comparing generally ruins all the fun.

Yes, and some days it does feel like Bishop Thaxton and I are the last two men on the planet not hawking an exotic juice elixir from some tropical fruit.

Is Parley Burning?

Television news at its worst is such an easy target. So I will tread lightly, here. More than once a news story I have reported on location for television has been upstaged in the local paper by the secondary story that TV covered the event.