April 19 - 25, 2010

Fortie Family Flyer
April 19 – 25, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,
A half a page filled with words to describe my week didn’t happen this time around. I spent too much time in training for the Census Bureau instead. As a Crew Leader I had to learn how to fingerprint so I went to a large training session at the U of U where I fingerprinted several people, then another session down town and, you guessed it, more fingerprinting. Then, to top it off, a few small training sessions, once again getting my hands covered in black ink fingerprinting dozens of people to make sure they are not criminals or nutcases trying to get a job with the government. I remember one moment of revelation as I went into the restroom at the Herriman City office building, after doing some fingerprinting, to wash my blackened hands off. After pushing on the soap dispenser I looked up and saw a nice fingerprint on the push bar of the dispenser. It’s funny how I had never thought about it before but it hit me like a ton of bricks that we leave our fingerprints everywhere we go and because we can’t see them we don’t think about them. I guess that isn’t that important (to those of you who are saying, “so what”) but it was a strange thing to see my fingerprint there (I suppose because you always associate fingerprints with crime).
Anyway, I am writing this several weeks late and the memory of any non census stuff is gone. I read my manuals all week in preparation of next week when I will be teaching my enumerators from a rather large manual (that I have to read verbatim) for an entire week. Most of the other Crew Leaders are getting their classes combined so they can team teach but my group is large and my room as small so I am on my own. I have to say that usually I don’t have a problem teaching a class in church but this is all new to me so I am a bit nervous. Hopefully all will go well (as long as my voice doesn’t go out).
Well, since I failed to write when this was fresh I am all done and I’m sure it is none too soon for all you poor, poor readers who have put up with this so far.
Well, you don’t have to start wearing gloves everywhere you go, just remember to keep yourself clean so you don’t have to worry about where you leave fingerprints.
Ken and clan

P.S. A few weeks into the census, word came out that there were two people who didn’t pass the FBI fingerprint check and they were going to be let go. My crew got word of this and one of my guys (one of my best enumerators), said, when I called him about something else, “it’s me isn’t it.” I said no, then he told me he did some dumb things as a teen that he regrets and thought the FBI was on to him. We had a good laugh about it and learned a great lesson about how dumb things you do when you are young can haunt you all your life and sometimes catch up with you. It was obvious he was a changed man now and we became good friends.