Ought To & Can (A San Francisco Fable)

Part I: Ought To--Chapter 4

Like all good Mormon teens, Neil attended the Seminary class every school day. And like all good Mormon teens who don't happen to live in Utah, where buildings for the classes are built adjacent to high schools and you can arrange to go off-campus during a regular school class period to take Seminary, he had to attend class early in the morning, before school, at the church.

So sleepy Neil rolled through a December Wine Country rain shower this morning, with a few strings of all-night Christmas lights illuminating the way. He had to be there at 6:00, then sit for 45 minutes with 17 other sleepy kids.

Neil had known most of this group his whole life, and accepted his role within it: the quiet guy who mostly kept to himself, and maybe once in a while chimed in with some witty remark.

The boys were split fairly evenly between the jocks and the nerds, but Neil had scant interest in sports or fantasy/tech/comics. And no one else in the group was really interested in politics or history or talk radio or NPR or classical music, so Neil was an island inside of this island.

It annoyed him whenever people would say "Really, you're on the debate team? But you're so quiet!" Just because you're quiet doesn't mean you don't have anything to say, just that you don't waste time saying it until it needs to be said! is how he always wanted to respond.

Since his high school social life was mainly limited to this Mormon group, he also showed little interest in dating. He'd known the girls since he could remember, so they seemed like kin. To develop a romantic interest in them would feel...unnatural. And he only saw them at church-related activities, when his thoughts were supposed to be pure, so he felt guilty even contemplating romance of any sort.

He figured he'd bide his time, go on his mission, then set up shop at one of the campuses of Brigham Young University and find his eternal companion there.

Heavenly Father, we are gathered here in this sacred building to learn about the gospel and the righteous path we all must follow. We ask that you enlighten our minds and open our hearts to the truth—Neil Cannon, Seminary class opening prayer.

Brother Pettibone (his first name was Shea, but they hardly even knew it), their Seminary teacher, loved talking about how wonderful marriage was and how it was important for a young Mormon to make themselves worthy to find a mate, but he was laying it on extra thick today.

Brother Pettibone fancied himself as a dynamic speaker, peppering his classroom talk with catchphrases, jokes, references to Star Wars and The Sandlot, and memories of his days as a wrestler on BYU's club-level squad. To help stay awake, Neil would play a mental game of "public speaking cliché" bingo with Brother Pettibone. Loud voice? That was in the B column. Jazz hands were at the bottom of I, raising his index finger at the top of G. Quoting women in a Mickey Mouse-sounding voice was the middle of O. The Free Space was "You're killin' me, Smalls!"

This morning Brother Pettibone had written this on the whiteboard:

SEMINARY->MISSION->INSTITUTE->TEMPLE->ETERNAL MARRIAGE->RAISE A FAMILY-> ETERNAL LIFE

"Some people say you picked out your companion in the Pre-Existence. That's not official doctrine, but if you keep the commandments and love your Heavenly Father, I think he guides you to the right person, whether you picked them way back then or not. It's like your own personal TomTom, with Yoda's voice on it: 'Left, you must turn. Your perfect companion for your journey, meet you will.'"

Strained metaphor and bad voice impression. Neil was just an N away from a BINGO.

On he went, stressing the importance of marrying a faithful Mormon, quoting former church President Spencer W. Kimball on the "sorrows and disillusionments" and "unhappy situations" of "interfaith marriage." Then Pettibone summed things up: