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I attended the North School in elementary, San Leandro Jr. High School and Wasatch High School. I played football, basketball, baseball and tennis for Wasatch High School.
As a youngster, I always seemed to find a away to get into trouble. I shot the neighbor’s coal bucket on the porch, and shot at their pigs. These were the Montgomery family. I broke all the windows in Campbell’s home and had to work for them in order to pay for the damage. I used to bury the milk check in the yard. I threw marbles through Jensen’s big plate glass window in front of his café. Some of us broke into the amusement hall and scattered slack coal confetti and put toilet paper all over the place. We would stand in the balcony and hang on one end of the toilet paper and see who could throw it the farthest without it breaking. This was one of the best mistakes I ever made as Squire Simpson was in charge of us to clean the amusement hall for about a year. He was a very wise man and knew how to handle us. When we went to work he would say, “Oh, let’s play basketball for one hour”. At that time he would say, It is time to clean up”. He never had any trouble with any of us and gave me a new direction.
If Uncle Cordon knew what I did when I was milking the cow, he would have beat me within an inch of my life. The cow wouldn’t hold still so I started to beat it with the milk stool and it ran and jumped the fence into the manure spreader belonging to Moultons. It then jumped out and ran on down through the field and jumped the other fence. Luckily for me it didn’t get hurt or Cordon would have found out about it.
Eva tried to teach me how to play the guitar but I had other interest and she had to give up on me. Many times I wish I had paid attention to her and learned to play.
When I lived with Lizzy and Royce, he got me a job working as a laborer where he worked. He was a very talented man and if he had gone with Bechtel Corporation he would have made lots more money but he wouldn’t leave Salt Lake. He also liked to work on automobiles. More than once Lizzy said she tried to adopt me, for some reason it didn’t work out. I really believed they loved each other even though they fought all of the time. When Lizzy was working in a restaurant in Heber City and Roy Rogers came in, he didn’t impress her at all. She said her husband was a lot more handsome than he. Lizzy always had little dogs. Some were very friendly and others quite vicious.
I remember when Ervin and Todd had a knock down drag out fight to see who was going to discipline me. Todd won the fight and in the end neither disciplined me.
Todd and Juanita would go to all the games I played in at Wasatch. I remember the fun we had when we all went out to Strawberry fishing. I remember the big trout Cordon caught. I also remember fishing at Deer Creek and catching a few trout and it was getting dark and Cordon hooked into a big fish and it took a long time to haul it in. He and the rest kept guessing what kind of fish it was-a brown, rainbow? When he finally got it into the boat it was a carp and I thought he was going to stomp the bottom of the boat out trying to kill it. He was so mad.
Radley Lewis and I went fishing in the fish hatchery and it got dark and Tony Mangum was quite a distance from us. He called in a gruff voice, “What are you guys doing in there?” I ran all the way home and lost my fishing pole in the river. Radley ran out into the field and laid down and then sneaked back to the truck and when they got in the truck another vehicle pulled up and Radley said to Tony, “Is that the game warden?” Tony had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. He didn’t tell us, for the last three months, it was he.
After I graduated from high school, I worked in an oil field for a while until I caught on fire and got burned pretty bad.
I went to BAC and played football. After my first year of college, I went into the service and spent my time in the army in Panama. Someone talked in ranks and they put us to cleaning a one-foot square window. The officer would take his finger and run it along the window and would say, “that isn’t dirty, it is filthy”. Finally after hours on one window I said, “It was me”, so they made me dig a 10 x 10 x 10 foot hole in the ground and about 2 or 3 in the morning they came to me and said, “I know you didn’t do it. I hope you learned a lesson from this.”
When I came back from service, I went to BYU. After I graduated, I got a coaching job at Altamont High School in Altamont, Utah. The first year we did good and should have won the league. The second year we won the league and it was the first time in the school’s history that they had won the championship.
After my first year at Altamont, I met and married Bernice Crook on 17 January 1958 in Salt Lake City, Utah. While teaching there, my first daughter, Brenda May, was born 19 January 1959 in Roosevelt, Utah. The next year we moved to Overton, Nevada, where I taught and coached. We won the league one year and took 2nd in the state in football and basketball. Laurel Marie was born 4 April 1960 and Grace was born 15 April 1961. Both were born in Overton. I then went to Henderson Jr. High School and taught and coached basketball. Jolynn was born 3 May 1964 in Las Vegas. I then taught at Jim Bridger Jr. High. We played for the Jr. High championship. Dale Radley was born 30 June 1965 in Salt Lake City. I then taught at John C Fremont Jr. High. Jeanette was born 2 December 1967 in Boulder City. Bryan Adolphous was born 1 July 1969 in Las Vegas. I then taught at Valley High School where I coached golf.
While at Chaparrel, I taught all of my children except Radley and Jeanette. Laurel played golf at Chaparrel. Radley was too much like me and was always in trouble and never finished school. Bryan was always good in art and so was Grace, Jo Lynn and Laurel. Bryan now works for Ballys as an artist on computers. Grace works at Silver State Credit Union. Brenda works for a mortgage Company as a loan officer. Laurel has been accepted into a nursing school and is working in a hospital. Jeanette worked as a beautician and is now working in a vet hospital. Jo Lynn is married and living in Virginia and is expecting a baby in April. Radley is living in Salt Lake City with his wife Nicole and is working in maintenance.
Jo Lynn served an LDS mission in Italy and Laurel served a mission in Korea.
I retired from teaching in 1989. Bernice has put up with me for 40 years and has worked in casinos as a cashier for over 20 years. She used to be a very good cook, but doesn’t like to do it much anymore. It hasn’t been easy for Bernice having to raise the kids while I spent hours into the night, coaching every day. She started a new career in Banking on February 1, 1999.
I still love to play golf and do every time I get a chance. I love to go up to Utah and play with my cousins. I can still hit the basket in playing basketball. I really love sports.
My sister, Ruth, who was raised by grandma as well as me, and I used to fight all the time but we are very close now. Ruth and Bob, Don and Reta, Donna Rae and Grant have come down the last few years and spent a couple of months in the winter.
I go to Utah several times a year, make the family reunions each August, visit family members when they are sick and always try to go to the funerals. Family means a lot to me and I am glad to have a good family of my own.
During the last few years, I have been called to do what I can to help bring the gospel to those in the prison in Las Vegas area. I have enjoyed this calling and working in the temple more than any other callings. I try to help them in the prison and also when they get out. There is so much one can do to help these people turn their life around. I work in the temple in Las Vegas twice a week as an ordinance worker and do initiatory and sealings. The gospel means so much to me. I have learned patience and Bernice has been such a good wife. We have a lovely grand daughter, Brenda’s daughter, Jennifer and a grandson, Cameron, Jeanette’s boy. They bring us a lot of joy. I thank God every day that I have an eternal family.
Dale is so good and so humble that it is hard to believe he was once a terror. He truly learned to overcome. He is an inspiration to everyone. We all know he truly loves all of us in the Sessions Family.