Kevin Hawthorne:
CLASS OF 1973
Viewmont High SchoolClass of 1973
Bountiful, UT
Kevin's Story
It's a cold, foggy morning in rural Colorado in a little town made famous by the C.W. McCall song “Wolf Creek Pass.” I'm enjoying a cup of coffee looking across the field at my nearest neighbor’s house about 2 miles away and thinking about what to write here. Had to crank open the propane tank & light the furnace again this morning although it'll probably hit 100 degrees this afternoon. Anyway. Lots of emotions and memories about growing up in far-away, long-ago Bountiful.
I’ve actually been avoiding this – writing this - for a long time. Posted a pic here a while ago and then got stuck. Realized I didn’t know what to say. Anyway, seems like we sure grew up in an innocent time and place. The Bountiful of our youth was stuck in time somewhere between the Mormon Pioneers and the turmoil to come.
Some things go right over your head when you’re young and only come into focus when you look back… the quiet little town we called home with all its drama and heartbreak and happiness... the awkwardness and discomforts of growing up… especially high school. What a trip to think back on it all!
Bountiful – actually – Utah - was a peculiar place. When I was about 13, I remember visiting my dying great-grandmother in a nursing home up on 11th Avenue and listening to her talk about riding in a swing while sitting on Brigham Young’s lap. “Uncle Brig,” she called him. Didn't think much about that for years, but then... later... putting it all together, yes, my grandmother’s maiden name was Young. Blows my mind to think she was only 2 generations removed from Brigham. And... yeah... I would imagine the “mommy/daddy” thing WAS a little confusing in the Young household on State Street... and rumor has it that Bountiful Junior High was the oldest school building in Utah... I went there... and that the LDS church on Main in downtown Bountiful was the oldest in the state? Any takers on THAT for a fact-check? Anyway... I'm sure many of us could have grown up with people who may have remembered the Civil War. Kind of fries my circuitry to think how fast time passes and how OLD we really are!
And how many of our moms and dads were in World War II or the Korean War?? How many of our brothers or cousins or uncles died in the putrid jungles of Viet Nam? I watched my mild-mannered bespectacled next-door neighbor (who was the principal at my little elementary school) turn into a radical anti-war protestor after losing a son in 'Nam. Then watched the country tear itself apart and wake up to the fact that wars were now being fought for Conoco instead of freedom...
Anyway… most of us grew a little bit spoiled by the relative calm of our particular time and place. Bountiful, Utah. The 60s and 70s. Putting the roof down on the Mustang and going to Pace's Dairy Ann on a summer night. Sitting in Arctic Circle on Orchard Drive for hours with all my buddies and driving the manager insane... hikes to the top of Mueller Park at night...
Oh… I got restless and thought about joining the military but I don’t think I would’ve survived a day. I have this thing about authority. Most of my memories of Viewmont are centered in the East Parking Lot, after all. Or sluffing. To this day, I have NO idea how I ever graduated.
Went to the U and studied Journalism & Mass Comms then went right into the world of audio/video & TV… I enjoyed running the audio board for Music & Spoken Word for decades, then had fun working for the Olympics in 2002… I think I’ve pinned a microphone onto the lapel of just about every President since Jimmy Carter. Worked with Sammy Hagar, Cheryl Crow, Brooks & Dunn, many bands and celebrities and CEOs. Made a lot of commercials in the studio and recorded a lot of musicians. Did sound for a lot of concerts. All in all, I've had fun. Played in a lot of bands and entered a lot of “restricted zones.” Been places I'd never have seen otherwise. I have no regrets. It’s interesting; you get right IN someone’s personal space when you’re clipping a microphone onto their lapel or running wires under their blouse & you realize that they have to trim their nose hairs and brush their teeth & button their shirts just like everyone else. You have to get past the idea that you are breathing the same air as a famous person. You can smell their breath. You test the water and see if they want to chit-chat… or not. And then you do your job. They’re just people. And it's YOUR job to make them sound good.
In the meantime, I still pursued my love of writing and recording music. There are a few of my songs scattered around on Yout...Expand for more
ube and other places. A lot of teen-age angst and unrequited love to sing about, after all. And then when you get a little older, there's death and alcoholism and suicides and things that don't go right. You never run out of material, in other words.
Although I married my high school sweetheart that didn’t last long. God Bless both our little silly hearts. We just didn't see what we had, parted and went our separate ways. That’s the thing about maturity… it takes a while to get it. Now, with wiser eyes and a kinder heart, I see young couples who are obviously in love and I always give them my unsolicited advice: if you’re in love, do everything you can to keep it that way and don’t let the Devil win. He’d love to see you torn apart and will do everything in his power to do so. Nothing pisses him off worse than real love between two good people. They just look at me like I'm a crazy old coot. But I hope somehow they take it to heart.
Anyway… moving on… I met a sweet girl named Lisa – sweet, my ass – she's a little red-headed barracuda is what she is. She worked at my drunk cousin’s hardware store on Ft. Union and 7200 South. She drove a red Chevelle 396 Super Sport (yeah… the really cool one with black stripes) and I used to park my '66 Mustang convertible next to it and we’d look out the store window and joke about what their offspring would look like. That kind of thing leads to marriage. And it did. That was like… 1978…
We’ve done a lot of cool stuff together over the decades. We adopted a daughter. We moved to China for a while. Then back to Salt Lake where we lived in one of those old houses up in the avenues around 15th and 15th. Good times, eclectic neighbors & all. When I wasn't riding my bike up City Creek Canyon, I worked TV & recording gigs & played Mr. Mom while she climbed the corporate ladder working for companies like Franklin (the Day Planner people) Pay ‘n Save (based in Seattle) and the Quest for the Gift of Life (culminating in that one-of-a-kind monument to organ donors in downtown Salt Lake right next to the main library), although she stayed close to her roots and continued building every sprinkling system for all the neighbors everywhere we moved. But as cool as the house in the ave's was, it was too close to the city, so we built a place out in the wide open spaces of Riverton to give the little princess a cul-de-sac to ride her bicycle. That was heaven until everybody else moved out there, too, sooooo, then... we moved to Colorado. Lived in a place with too many bedrooms in the burbs of Denver for a while til one day we looked at each other and decided to pack 40-something years' worth of stuff we'd been taking care of & dusting into a bunch of conexes and moved our butts into a little tiny place with a bunch of acreage in the middle of “Now Here” …. as in... “we're here. NOW what?”
Living in the middle of Now Here is an eye-opener. Had a friend once – Paul Van Dam. He was Utah's AG for a while. He also did voice-overs and narrations (which is how I met him). We used to sit around after recording sessions and talk about stuff. He had decided to go live off-grid. I always remembered something he said about it: you get so wrapped up in survival that you really don't have time to do all the things you THOUGHT you were going to do when you move away from civilization. Now... 40 years after he & I had those conversations, I realize he was right. It really IS that way out here in Now Here. But it's nice. The sunsets are incredible. It's so quiet it makes your ears ring. You get to sight in your rifle from your own back porch and nobody gives a damn. The stars at night are amazing because... well... it's dark at night. REALLY dark. In fact, they just designated our little town a Dark Sky Area. You can hear coyotes outside the window while you're sleeping. And those damn skunks and the occasional deer. They just stop and look at you like what are YOU doing here?. It's an interesting life.
The trade-offs of giving up civilization, however, are immense. You can, for instance, spend the entire day playing with your grandkids and flying drones. Or, if you get disgusted by the way your mother-in-in-law is being treated in the expensive nursing home you're paying for, you can move her in with you (we did!). She spent 2 amazing years with us and died the way we all should - in her daughter's arms.
Political leanings: Ron Paul woulda made a great POTUS.
2nd Amendment: Hell yes
Basically, my philosophy? Just leave me the hell alone and I'll leave YOU alone. How's that?
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