May 3 - 9, 2010

Fortie Family Flyer
May 3 – 9, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,
Another busy week with the Census and helping sick people recover. I have come to the conclusion I will have to sleep in the millennium.
Tami and other sick people are recovering so things are looking better on that front, at least for another week.
My Census job is to meet with my 14 enumerators individually every day to check on their progress and take the questionnaires they have completed. If they are having a hard time getting someone to answer the questionnaire then I decide if we should send someone else, go myself or take some other course of action. I am amazed at how many people treat census workers so poorly. They act like we are conducting some casual survey that is unimportant or even a nuisance that they don’t have to participate in if they are having a bad hair day or just don’t feel like it. What happened to “We the People.” I also have to go with my enumerators for a few hours to see how they are doing. At one door a lady (in her 30’s) reluctantly started answering questions about names and birthdays and halfway through she asked us what this was for. I was shocked she was giving this information out without knowing what it was for, but then when we told her it was for the census she asked what a census was. Wow, public education at work. We have had several people refuse so I have to go see why. One lady just slammed the door in my face. I sat in my car out front for about 10 minutes filling out the form about her and deciding where to go next and just as I pulled out of her street a police car pulled in. I didn’t stay but I’m sure she had called the police on me. I should have gone back to let her know that the police support our efforts. I even have a letter with me from the Census Bureau to show people that if they don’t comply there is a $500.00 fine. In fact, one of my enumerators went to an apartment complex where the night manager wouldn’t give him any information, she said he needed a court order. We talked to the main manager who acted rather rude and said we needed a court order to get any information. She called her supervisor over all the apartments in Utah and she said we needed a court order. All along we told each one we did not. The supervisor, rather belligerently said she was going to call the corporate attorney. He told her she was required by law to help us out. Well, she called the manager who then told us (in a rather embarrassed tone) she would help us with what ever we needed. People just aren’t informed about the importance of the census. The first census was conducted during George Washington’s first year as President. It was important then and still is. It helps us plan for everything from schools to retirement centers. It helps with fire stations, libraries and community centers and even law enforcement.
And while I’m on this soapbox, it is too bad more people didn’t mail their census questionnaire in. It costs the government something like (I don’t remember the exact numbers) $30.00 to process a mailed in census form and something like (again don’t remember the exact number but it was big) $2,500.00 to drag the information out of people by training a bunch of people to go knocking on doors until they find people home and talk them into giving up the information. Some of the hardest people to get cooperation from are probably the people who talk most about wasted tax money in other areas of government. I saw an email that some nut was sending around, telling people not to give out information to the “evil, controlling government”. Once again it is no longer “We the People.” Too bad we let people like that influence us.
Anyway, I had one of my enumerators go in for surgery this week and instead of a few days of recovery as he was expecting he has 2 months of recovery so he had to quit and give me back all his census stuff. I will have to fill out the paperwork to reassign it to someone else.
They don’t believe in days off with this job so I tend to work every day (on Sunday I ignore them and just collect pay sheets in the morning and run them to my supervisor’s house so I don’t have to go to the meeting at night). Most of my people don’t work on Sunday even the non LDS people realize the culture here wouldn’t like it. I tend to work about 4 to 5 hours each morning, meeting with the crew members who are busy at night, and 4 to 5 hours at night meeting with the people who are busy in the daytime (much of that is just paperwork). I do that 6 days a week and there goes my week; around 50 to 60 hours of it anyway.
Well, enough census talk. For Mother’s Day I felt that Tami would like a new set of dishes (the old set is missing some of the pieces) so I got a set I thought she would like for her for Mother’s Day and she and the girls thought they were perfect.
After church we headed over to Curt’s for a Mother’s Day dinner. There was, as usual, some great food and great company. Of course Curt and Mary Kay were there, Facil and Susan and Facil’s son, Brent and Emily and kids, Mike and Linda and kids, our crowd and grandpa and grandma. Spencer was so excited about Curt’s broken 4-wheeler out back that Curt got out his working 4-wheeler so we could all take turns going around the yard giving Spencer a ride.
We even had a birthday for grandpa at the end (for those who couldn’t come last week) and we set up a few more displays of 75 things for that (like 75 dominos in the shape of the number 75). A good time was had by all and we got home late, as usual.
Well, that’s my week as far as I remember (and the memory seems to be one of those things that is slipping away) must be the pesticides (I just heard about a report that there is a strong link between pesticides and autism… interesting).
Stand up and be counted.
Ken and clan



From Elder Fortie:
So uhm, Well I just talked to you yesterday, so I dunno there's probably not a lot to say... uhm, This past week has been alright, it's been a bit rainy... The work here still needs... well... work... But I'm running out of time to do it... I keep trying to put off things like packing, and sending off things etc. but I'll get around to it.... sometime... I really just kinda have no idea what on earth I'm going to do with myself when I get home... I just can't imagine where to start with things. There's like a month worth of things happening here in California like baptisms of people I've taught, and mission farewells of people I've taught, and people I taught going through the temple, etc, etc. that I'd love to come back for, but I don't think I'll be able to come back for all of them, but if I can't come back for all of them, which ones do I come back for? Especially since I won't know how much time I'll have depending on job situation, money situation etc. I just think I may pretend I forgot about my plane ride home and just somehow get stuck here so I don't have to deal with all that crazy stuff called life! But I know that's probably not a good plan... sigh... Well I think that's probably about all I have to say... so uhm, I guess I'll send you an e-mail next Monday to let you know whether or not I am going to "find" my plane... By the way do I have anything like set for me the day I come home? Or are we just kinda floating what floats the boat? Keep on keeping on!
Love, Elder Fortie