Oral History Program Leland Stout Interviewed by Amanda Rampton 29 November 2008 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Leland Stout Interviewed by Amanda Rampton 29 November 2008 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed Kelley Evans, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Stout, Leland, an oral history by Amanda Rampton, 29 November 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Leland Stout. The interview was conducted on November 29, 2008, by Amanda Rampton, in Provo, Utah. The interview concerns Stout’s recollections and experiences of growing up with an abusive father. AR: Okay, Lee, when and where were you born? LS: Born in Provo, Utah, on February 24, 1952. AR: Can you tell me a little bit about the first house that you remember living in? LS: It was down by the BYU animal husbandry farm, just north of the stadium in Provo. And it was a house made of cement with rocks in the wall. It was about ...the walls were almost two feet thick, and so it had giant windowsills and it was very well insulated. The way it was built is you put rocks in with the cement to take up the room so they didn't have to use so much cement. So this house was like a bomb shelter, it was just amazing. AR: How old were you when you lived there? LS: From my youth up. I was born in downtown Provo in a little duplex, and then we moved right up there immediately thereafter. And I lived there until I was eighteen. AR: Is that where the condos are there on the corner of Canyon Road? LS: Yes, yes. AR: Okay. When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up? LS: I don't remember having any aspirations. AR: You wanted to be alive? LS: I just never thought that far ahead. AR: Okay, what was Provo like when you were growing up, because it is different now? 1 LS: Oh, it was wonderful. You'd see people with their shotgun on their shoulders going to hunt pheasants in a field next to your house. And people would do target shooting up the Provo Canyon with their rifles getting ready for the hunt. And there was no political correctness of any kind, and there was no crime to speak of, of any kind. It was just this wonderful, wonderful place where you could come and go and do as you please, it was not a police state the way it is now. AR: What was it like physically, because now it is spread everywhere. Did you live in the boon dogs? LS: I was on the outskirts of town at that time. We actually moved up to a house later on that I live in now that was the very first house built in the county and we weren't even in the city at the time. You couldn't see any buildings from where we lived basically. We were so far outside the city, so. AR: Where you are now? LS: Where I am now. And that's only a couple blocks from the animal husbandry farm, so Provo has expanded dramatically. It's like Provo and Orem and Springville is all one big city. Basically now you can hardly tell the difference. My grandpa said when he was a kid he could see the fish swimming in Utah Lake. AR: Really? LS: And that when they were out there in the boat it looked like the boat was floating in the air. It was so clear the water was so pristine. How sad is that? It's so polluted now. AR: Did you do a lot of fishing and stuff, and hunting? LS: When I was a little kid we went to Schofield Reservoir almost on a weekly basis to go up there and go fishing. And I never caught fish, I went out shooting my .22 every time. And 2 cause fishing was boring. Plus I always had to go clean all the fish so I got to where I could get out of it by not being around the fish when we brought them in. We'd bring in like thirty of them and you'd have to clean them for two hours. So I got to be a pretty good crack shot from going out with my .22. AR: What kind of things did you shoot? LS: And we always jumped on the freight train and rode it into the little town there. AR: You did? LS: Yeah. AR: Who was it with you? LS: Well, the other kids there at the boat camp and I was a pretty bad example. And I'd say, "Hey, let's go jump on this freight train" and this coal train would come around the corner and we'd jump on it and ride it into town. AR: Is that into Schofield? LS: Yeah. AR: When did you meet Marc and all your friends? LS: I met Marc when I was ... oh, I was in cub scouts or something, and he followed me home one day. And he was this little, little funny looking guy with these big sailboat ears sticking out and really skinny kid. And I said, "Get away from me" and he said, "Oh, let me walk with you". Kind of like that little cartoon with a dog, with the little dog yapping around the big bulldog and he wants to be his pal. And so he just kept hanging around and wanted to walk with me and I said, "Don't let anybody see you walking with me because you're a wimp, I don't walk with any little nerdy guys". So it was really funny that we ended up being best friends. He just thought I was this great guy. 3 AR: How old were you guys? LS: I don't know - cub scouts. AR: So, just eight, nine, ten? LS: Something like that, so we've known each other forever. AR: Did you guys go to the same elementary school? LS: Uh, no. He went to B.Y. high, err no, not B.Y. high. I went to Farrer Junior High and he went to. . . AR: Dixon? LS: I think it was where the library is now. It was a high school? AR: That was B.Y. Academy. LS: Was it B.Y. Junior High then? AR: I don't know? LS: Anyway, he went there. AR: Okay. LS: Anyhow, we got split up; we only lived about three blocks away from each other. AR: Yeah? Is that where his parents are right now? Where he grew up? LS: Yes. AR: What about your other friends? How did you meet them? LS: Oh, Ken Dixon, same thing. Well, I met him ... I can't remember. Ken was Marc's friend. Ken was Marc's friend and so I met him that way, uh, I - met Bruce Jensen in junior high. And Tommy Addison in junior high. And those were my best friends. Most of my friends I met there. Bruce has gone away. Jeff has completely apostatized from the church. He's gone to be a polygamist somewhere. And Bruce Jensen passed away from breathing gas 4 or something. He had carbon monoxide poisoning in his house, and he didn't know about it, he just didn't wake up one day. AR: Was he that lawyer up in Salt Lake? LS: No, that's Jim Christensen. AR: Oh, okay. LS: Jimmy just called me the other day and we talked and laughed. AR: He grew up in Marc's neighborhood too, didn't he, Jimmy? LS: Yeah, he's great. His brother, Trent, he is living in Denver or something . . . AR: So, you went to Farrer Junior High. What elementary school did you go to? LS: Oh I went to, um, Rock Canyon Elementary first and then I went to Grandview. And ... I went to Farrer Junior High AR: So they had you right here by your house, and then they bussed you way out to the Grandview hill? LS: Yup. I ended up walking to both schools all the time, walking back and forth to both schools. I was notorious for missing the bus. I would miss the bus coming home because the teacher would hold me after class. So I'd have to walk home all the time because I was always in trouble for yapping. . . AR: You? Then you went to Provo High? I knew that because . . . LS: Yes. Then I'd get into trouble for more cerebral reasons, inasmuch as the teacher would call on me and I say things such as "Obviously you've mistaken me for someone with their hand up." And so I would be sent to the principal's office. But of course, the class gave me a round of applause, as I would leave, appreciating my humor. AR: I know you didn't like elementary school because the kids picked on you, right? 5 LS: Oh, I got beat up every day. AR: Why? LS: Well, I was fat. I ended up being 185 pounds in eighth grade so I was the fat boy at the school. I was the one that got singled out every day for a hazing, or a beating, or a ridicule of some kind. Whether I said a word or not, I would just stand clear off and they would come after me. AR: Did that continue in junior high? LS: Well, it would have I think, except that my very first class, my very first day of junior high, with Tommy Addis started hazing me because I was fat, and my homeroom class was music, a music class. And so he come out into the hallway, and continues ... I was at my locker, he come and started badgering me at my locker, and started pushing me and stuff. And so I reached out my hand to stop him from pushing me, and I accidentally caught him by the throat. And I pushed him back against the locker, and he uh, then I knew he was going to be really mad, so I got really scared and I pushed him real hard and squeezed his trachea so tight that he passed out and fell on the floor. The whole class was beating me up then because I was killing him. And so I guess I was pretty strong, it kind of went along with being that heavy. So, then I got a better reputation that I'd squeeze your head off if you messed with me. So, then I started fighting back after that and things changed. AR: And then you became a wrestler? LS: Not till Provo High. I was first-string heavy weight at Provo High. AR: And then nobody messed with you? LS: No, I was the boss at the school. It was wonderful. By then I was 250 pounds in high school. I was 6 foot tall and 250 pounds in high school. 6 AR: You grew. LS: I grew six inches after I graduated, too bad I didn't have that height then, and I’d have really been tough. But I was a pretty good size high school kid. AR: Who was your favorite teacher in high school? LS: Oh, his name was Jones. He was this little, tiny, kind of roly-poly choir-type type of a fellow. He taught speech. And, I would get an A in speech where I was basically failing all of my other classes, because I respected him so much, I wanted to do well. And, he was just this wonderful man that I just revered and did really good. And I did not like getting up in front of people. I had a little trouble with my oration, but I had to do it so that I could graduate. And so, all the written stuff I did really well for him and so he was my favorite. AR: Were you a good student in school? LS: Oh no, oh no. I was in prison. I was incarcerated for all those years to sit through a class. I suffer the same way in church now, to be trapped and not be able to get up and move. It's some; it's psychologically unnerving to me. To where I feel like I'm in prison and I hate every second of it. It's just torment for me to go to church each Sunday because I can't get up and leave. I have to sit there for three hours. And that's the way school was for me. It's probably the reason I don't like church, because of my bad experience in school. I couldn't concentrate, I couldn't memorize things, I was not interested in that kind of stuff. I could read a comic book and then read the whole thing back to you, I'd memorized it. Because I was interested in it, but if I was not interested in the subject it was pure torture to try to concentrate on it. It would put me to sleep. I would just, I would, like when I go to the dentist, I'm sitting in the office, in the foyer, and I start going to sleep because it's an experience I don't want to have. And so I have this defense mechanism where I start 7 falling asleep in an experience I don't want to be in. So that's what church is to me now, and uh, that's what school was for me. I did not want to be there because it was so, it was so uncomfortable being in a scenario where my daily routine was: no, I didn't do my homework, no, I don't know the answer, and yes I'm the dumbest one in class, are you happy now teacher? Thanks for calling on me and making me point that out on a daily basis. It's so nice to have you point that out to the rest of the class, everyday, knowing that I don't know the answer you still call on me on a daily basis. For what purpose that serves, I know not, maybe you're trying to get me to study harder, so that I won't be embarrassed. It's not working. AR: So you were miserable at school, and home wasn't, was even worse? LS: Well, home life started, I would come home from school when I was a toddler in elementary school. I'm dumb enough to leave the note on my shirt that says I was talking in class, it's pinned to my shirt, I'm dumb enough to leave it on my shirt, all the way home, cause I was told to leave it on or I would be in big trouble. And so, my dad sees that I was bad in school, so he gets out the belt, and he says "Okay, you get one more hit every day until you have changed your ways at school." So he gives me one big whap on the butt with his belt. And the next day I got two whips, and the third day I got three hits, after two weeks he was getting tired and my butt was getting raw. And he finally was convinced by my mother that teacher doesn't send a note home if the child is good, only if the child is bad. And so the beatings finally stopped, but needless to say, I didn't get any more notes saying I was bad. Corporal punishment worked, I think I had ADD and uh I misbehaved. I would do something like pick up a rock and throw it at a window, and why would he do that. Well, he has attention deficit disorder, so my father beat me for a long time, and then 8 I got all better and I didn't have ADD ever again because I didn't want any more beatings. So I figured that was a great... to me as far as my ADD was concerned. Maybe I needed a father like mine because I was such a belligerent soul, but I don't think I needed to have my eyes closed and be beaten in the face with his closed fist. And, I would do something like get some cherries off tire neighbor's tree and I thought nothing of it since the ground was covered with a layer of cherries. They obviously didn't want the cherries. So, to pick some cherries off the tree didn't seem like stealing to me at all because nobody wanted the cherries. But my father, in his drunken stupor, or drunken state, seen me coming from the neighbor's house with some cherries in my hand, and finding out that I had just picked them without permission. He pretty much closed my eyes with beating to the face and left me home for a week while he, at least I didn't have to go to school. So, everybody else was studying, I was watching . . . and getting further behind. It may have attributed to my getting further and further in school because I had to stay home a lot while my face healed. I could've been a handsome man, but this is all I'm left with. AR: Didn't teachers ever notice you were beat up? LS: No, I would get to stay home until I was healed. Till all the swelling would go out of my eyes and stuff. I can't believe that he never broke my nose. He must have hit me in the side of my face all the time. Cause I always had these black eyes, but my nose never got hit. He must of, been like round the house hits, not punches. Because I still have a perfect nose. But, my father was really good when he was sober. He just didn't want me around then. He just didn't want to admit that he had a son because that would've made him old. My mom got in huge trouble for having me, that was not the plan. He was the, he was in 9 one of the motorcycle gangs. In fact, he was the leader of the motorcycle gang in Provo at the time, or out of Salt Lake or something. And so they were more like the Sundowners or something, because we didn't have Hells Angels. But he was like the Sundowners leader of the pack as they were. And they're only supposed to take their wives with them or their motorcycle mama's or something with them all the time. But you don't see any babies on these motorcycle trips, and so I kind of ruined my dad’s, he couldn't take his wife with him, and he couldn't go basically because I was born and I ruined all of his plans. So, he hated my mom, he hated me because I was born. Basically, that's the way I grew up, knowing that he hated me. There was no doubt in my mind. He would tell me he would kill me if I ever got him in trouble with the law in any way. And uh, I believed him, and so I was a very, very good child that didn't get in any trouble. I would pick up the cherries a couple times, oh, I should say once, I never did anything wrong twice. I was cured immediately from doing anything wrong. But, I sure wanted to please him, that was a real sick thing. That on one hand, I carried around a .280 automatic bullet. Like a .30 . . . six shell, that I found on the ground once, and I carried it around, and I hid it on the window sill, forever, thinking that if my dad made me one bit madder, if he hit me one more time, I would use this bullet, and I could kill him with this bullet. I wasn't quite sure how, I was only in grade school, I wasn't quite sure how I would use this bullet. I thought maybe if I flung it at him and hit the back of it with a hammer. And, in that respect I would've been the one that was dead. He would've been fine, albeit that he would be haunted with the memory of a retarded son that killed himself with his own bullet. That would've got him. But, I did, I wanted him dead so bad. We would have to hide under the stairs when he came home. When I got older, my mom would, er, I would want to go on a date, and my mom would 10 just say no please, Dick's out drinking. Please don't. Because he didn't beat her if I was home. It started out he would come down the stairs when I was sleeping and he would beat me in the face while I was asleep. He'd usually get in two or three good hits before I'd wake up. But once I was the heavy weight wrestler for Provo High, I just come out of my bed one day and I thought that's it. I and I always thought if I ever fought back that he would kill me. But I thought, I'm tired out it and I don't care if he kills me. I'm not taking it anymore. I jumped out of bed, he hit me two or three times because I'd painted my car the wrong color, he didn't like it when he saw it so he come down the stairs to beat me. And, uh, I grabbed him, tied him up and pinned on the ground and I'm sitting on him and he just like, "get off of me" and he was like the devil and he scared me really bad and I jumped off of him. He got up and hit me again, so I pinned him again. And I'm sitting on him, and he "get off of me" and he's like just shaking violently fighting underneath me. But I'm just holding him there and I'm like eight inches taller than him and probably got him beat by 80 pounds by now. And, uh, so he finally realized that this ain't gonna work and so this time I said "quit hitting me then." He just "get offa me" and so I got off of him and he got up and left and went back upstairs and never came down to the basement ever again. AR: How old were you? LS: I was in high school, wrestler. I think I was a senior in high school the first time I ever fought back. And so he never hit me again, he never came down and hit me when I was asleep again. He never came down the stairs ever again. He's not stupid, he was just taking advantage of the fact that I had never fought back before, and so there was one time. I had parked my truck out back of the house so he thought I was gone and came 11 home. And he started beating my mom, and so I came on up the stairs and he had her in a headlock, and he had the old, he had the phone receiver, the old kind where its got the little hand set, that you hold in your hand. That's got the main part of the phone with the phone cord. He had the phone set in his hand and was hitting my mom in the face with it. And you could hear the bone clack with this thing, and she was just screaming and he was just pounding her face with this phone receiver. And so I come up, he saw me at the top of the stairs. This is very embarrassing; I'm in my little tightie whities, standing there in front of my mother, the shame of it all, and I had to come up and save her like she was being killed, and she was. And then he just dropped her. Dropped my mom and I come running across the kitchen at him, and I reared back my right hand and I was just going to knock his head clean off. And just at the last second, I could see my grandpa in my mind saying, when I talked to him about hitting my dad once, "oh, you don't ever hit your dad, no matter what, you don't hit your dad." So I don't know how I got that programmed into me that that was like a sacrilege to hit your dad. But, I didn't hit him. At the last minute I, if he would have cocked his fist at me, I probably would have gone ahead and hit him anyway. But he just stood there with his arms hanging at his side like a doe in the headlights, like, this is it, I'm dead. He didn't know I was there. And so, me and him kind of like, I couldn't slow down cause I was going that fast. I didn't hit him, but we both slammed into the fridge together, and I turned around and grabbed him, and spun around and grabbed him by the nap of the neck and I grabbed a handful of his pants, and I just like lifted half his leg up and ran him out the front door. He hit the screen door and busted through it. It didn't open, we just busted through the screen door with him. Then I was going to toss him, this is how fast your mind works in a situation like that with adrenaline. I was going to throw him off the 12 front step but I thought he might hurt himself on the cement. So then at the last second, I turned; I pulled him to the left so he would go onto the lawn. It's only like two steps up off the front porch, so he'd go onto the lawn, but then I thought that it wouldn't be good enough to just send him running on the lawn. So then I pushed down on him, I pulled up on his pants and pushed down on his neck and sent him right on his head onto the lawn. He dived into the lawn instead of just running. And I slammed the door and locked it and he knew he was no longer welcome in his own home. He never came back. AR: He never did? LS: Nope? AR: Was that when they got divorced? LS: No, I was on my mission when they got divorced. AR: Okay. LS: He went down and lived in a trailer down at Stout Corporation where a lot of times he stayed instead of coming home. Because he had a concubine that he would sleep with down there. It was like a big secret that nobody knew. Except, everybody except my mom. So that was like the best thing ever. When I was on my mission they got divorced, so that was the best news ever, while I was gone. AR: How many years was that, from the time that you kicked him out to the divorce? It was quite a few wasn't it? LS: Yeah it was because I was a senior in high school and I didn't go on my mission till I was 26. AR: So it was about ten years. Nine, ten years. 13 LS: Something like that. I ended up still working for him down at the truck company. Driving trucks for him. First I was fixing tires out in the shop. And I would throw them diesel tires around, and I was, I got so strong I was like a freak of nature, I could throw these ten hundred twenty-two mounted diesel tires like, I could lower them to my chest and throw them up onto diesel trailers up on top. It would usually take two or three guys to do that but I could do it myself. And they'd watch me, it would take two men to take a 55 gallon of oil and stand it up on its end when it’s lying down. So I got to where I would throw them up on there and one time showing off I bent down and rolled two barrels together and put a hand on the outside of each of them and rolled them together and balanced them and put two up at once. So I was like this famous freak of nature. Because I got so strong lifting tires, I was like Quasimodo lifting things all day. And so one day my dad's drunk he's in the office and he's saying I'm going to go out there and I'm going to beat Leland, I'm going to beat his butt. And so everybody in the office starts getting up to go look and he says, "where you going?" We want to see this. AR: How old were you? LS: I was like a heavy weight wrestler. AR: so you were still in high school then? LS: I think so. When I was a tire man. We want to see this, because they'd seen me lifting things. I was all in training as a wrestler and stuff so I was an animal. And so my dad thought about it for a minute and sat back down. And everybody . . . and laughed at him. He thought about what was going to happen to him when he went out and picked a fight with me. That wouldn't be real healthy. 14 So the Lord compensated me. He wouldn't let me be really big and let my mean dad be, maybe he just sent my mean dad a big son so it would straighten him out a little bit. AR: Did it work? LS: No, he never changed his mind. He could change his looks but he wouldn't change his mind. No, he wouldn't listen to the gospel for one second. You tried to say a word to him and he'd just say, "whatever" and he'd just get up and actually leave. You ask him anything about the church and he would just get up and leave. I think he actually knew it was true and didn't want to hear it. I guess if you were addicted to alcohol and things that would be really hard to know you can't go without the cigarettes and the alcohol. That would be the hardest thing to do. I don't know if he ever murdered anybody, but other than that, there's not a commandment in the book that he didn't break on a regular basis, so he would have a real, real hard time cleaning up that act. But he uh, like when I said I was going on a mission, "you see you can forget about any help from me, I ain't putting you on no two year paid vacation." So, that's why I ended up going so late because I had to save up and put enough money in the bank to support myself on my mission because he wasn't going to help. And so, I put it all in a bank out in Orem and I had them send the check to the mission home so that it would be transferred to the, they would just forward it to wherever I was. That way I didn't have to contact the bank every time I was transferred. And so my mission went really good until I had to get a car. They made me zone leader real early in my mission and I had to be the one with a car. And then my costs were a lot more than they said it would cost and I didn't have enough savings up so I had my dad sell my snow mobile and send me the money for that while I was out there. And then, he even started, he even sent me a couple of bonuses, like he sent me a hundred dollars a couple 15 of times. And I'm going; now there you go! That was like, that was the dang miracle I never would have expected. But it turns out he would go to the bar and brag about his missionary son. So it turns out there's nobody tougher than a drunk Mormon defending his religion. So, I ended up working for my dad for a long time until the day we were out on the lake, err, my dad, I borrowed his boat, he had a little cruiser. I borrowed his boat. And I took a girl out on a date on it. I brought it back and filled up the gas tanks and put it back and cleaned it all up. It was way, way better than when I borrowed it. I always make things better than when I took it. It was all cleaned up, all beautiful and full tanks of gas. So he takes his concubine out on the lake and they're both drunk, and they run one tank out of gas. They've got two fifteen gallon tanks. And he forgot to switch tanks, and he just, they paddled the boat off the lake with fifteen gallons in the other tank, cussing me the whole way because I didn't fill the boat, fill the one tank up. And since I left them with the tanks out of gas then he comes in cussing me for doing that. And I said, "I filled them both up." And he says, "No you didn't, one was empty." I said "no, I filled them both up." And I said, "Did you switch the tank?" "Yes I did." And so I said to the girlfriend, "Will you tell him I never lie." And she said "How do I know you never lie, you're lying this time." And oh that hurt my feelings bad because I liked her. Her name was Carol, I liked Carol. And so we were friends. We were both about the same age; my dad was always robbing the cradle. And so that hurt my feelings that he had convinced someone else that I was a liar. And that I would not fill the boat back up with gas after borrowing it. So I thought that's it, I quit. So I loaded up my stuff, I was living with him in his little apartment up in Salt Lake. Working, and driving his truck, and so I just basically come and lived there on the 16 weekends in between taking the diesel out. I was getting another load next Monday, and so I packed up and . . . and loaded up my stuff End of tape - side one AR: So you said, dad you can kiss my butt? LS: I told him he could kiss my butt, I quit! You don't call me a liar. Even if I was a liar you don't call me a liar. But since I don't lie, you really don't get to call me a liar. And so, I hauled ... I went and found a stick and went out there to the boat. In fact I even told him, I said well it was parked down there by the shop maybe someone siphoned gas out of one of the tanks. "Naw, you didn't fill it." So I said, "You’re not even gonna me the benefit of the doubt, fine." So I go off to the boat and one of the tanks is still clear full. I didn't go back in and say a word to him, I knew he'd discover that when he went to fill the tanks again, he'd notice only one of them needed filling and he'd go oh oh, oops. I said, are you sure you switched tanks. Yes, I switched tanks. But apparently he didn't turn the valve far enough, or something. And so it didn't let the gas flow because I mean, you're a genius when you're drunk. So it's probably what he did. But that was the end of working for my dad. AR: How old were you? LS: I was back from my mission then. I was driving his truck for him. So I was 29, 30, somewhere in there. I was 28 and something, 28 and a half when I got back from my mission. I got held back for being stupid on my mission, so. AR: Yeah right. LS: (laughs) I served two years, two months, and two weeks because I got some extensions because I still had stuff to do. 17 AR: What did you do between high school and your mission? Because there's a long time in there. Just worked for your dad? LS: I worked as a tire man, and then I ran the, I would move the diesels around in the yard so we could get them, so I could get the reach the tires so I could work on them, put the tires in the truck and stuff. And so they noticed I was driving the trucks around there, so one day they had an emergency, and says that they gotta get this load down at Geneva, can you go do it. I says, I don't have a license. We've seen you move them around, just go real slow, go out there and get that load. So I got in a diesel truck, having never driven one, and went out to Geneva and picked up a load of steel and chained it down and brought it back to the yard and didn't kill anybody. It was just really neat thing. So, then they wanted me to, they needed a donkey driver. That means ... so I ended up driving. That's cake compared to fixing tires. That's like working my guts out all day in the heat. Sweating and standing all day in all the tires and the dirt and the steel, and the climbing, and the loud noise. Instead I'm out there at Geneva waiting two hours, in line, so I can get in and get loaded. If I get out of line I have to come back and wait another two hours. So, I sat out there and read all day. They gave me a raise to do it. So, I was in heaven. That was the end of my tire changing days. I never was the best truck driver in the world. It was hard to give up being the tire man because I was the best tire man in the world. That's the only thing I've ever been the best in the world at. Nobody could do it faster, or better. I was stronger, I was faster, and I knew all about it, I knew the tires. I knew how far they'd go. They'd say, "I need a new a set of front ends." I'd look at them and say "how far you going?" "I'm going to Denver." "You're fine." They'd say, "I'm going to L.A." "Okay, I'll put some new ones on." "I need new ones 18 for Denver." "No you you're fine, get out of here." They'd go in there stomping and screaming to my dad and he'd say, "Hey, if he said you're good, you're good. Keep going." AR: So what kind of business did your dad own? LS: My dad owned Stout Corporation. Trucking, it was about fifteen diesels and thirty-five trailers. And all the shipping yards in Provo. He had to try to not become a millionaire. He had to just squander it when he got it. If he would have put the money back into the business, he would have been a millionaire. But he didn't. He didn't and so. All I knew were the tires. He would buy these old army tires and put them on the trucks and immediately would weigh on them, and there were cracks on the sides. The drivers would get to Vegas and would blow out a tire and would have to buy one on the road. It was just foolishness. Get these good retreads from . . . and put them on these trucks and run those and be smart and quit spending a dollar to save a dime. He wouldn't listen to me. He just kept losing money after me. He'd go buy all these tires at army surplus and stuff and run them on his diesels. And they just, all this down time. All the trickledown effect that cost him was just crazy. But he wouldn't listen to me. And I studied psychology later, and it turns out that he's the entrepreneur. He was just; he started several businesses that were successful in the beginning. Just a genius at coming up with new ideas for a new business. But he was not a manager. I had the skills of a manager. I could be put in a situation that's already into effect and then I could improve on it. I'm kind of like Japan. He's like America, and I'm like Japan. America comes up with the idea, and then Japan refines it and makes it better. So that's, I'm the manager and he's the entrepreneur. So we actually, if he would have listened to me when it came to some of these things we could 19 have done pretty good. And uh, then I got into a big fight with him. He fired me about five times. And each time he fired me when he was drunk, he'd call me up wondering why I wasn't to work the next day. "Well you fired me." "You're unfired, get back to work." The last time he fired me, I said that's it I'm tired of this. So I really quit him. And this time he gave me a pink slip and everything. So I said fine. I went up to the unemployment office. I just wanted to get unemployment and ride my motorcycle. But no. They sent me out to a site, this guy was impressed with me and he said he told the guys outside . . . said I know this guy’s younger than you, you don't take these young guys. But you need to talk to this guy. I'm really impressed with him. So he sent me out there and they had me try out and so they gave me a job and I worked for Savage Brothers and saved up enough money to go on my mission. That was great. AR: What kind of a company was Savage Brothers? LS: They uh, they hauled belly dumps, and end dumps, and gravel and cement, and stuff. And so it was wonderful. I was just local. We built the freeway when they did the extensions on it up in Salt Lake. When they widened it. We hauled fill dirt for some of these overpasses. Just as fast as we could, we'd fill trucks up with dirt and gravel and haul them back and forth and dump them out at belly dumps. Then went back and got another load. And then we were paid by the hour, which was just wonderful. Of course it wasn't as good as just sitting there waiting for a load out at Geneva. That was the best. I wonder why that ever went away. Oh, I remember. My dad needed a line driver. He needed me to drive the trucks from coast to coast type of thing. Instead of just driving donkey. I should have just told him no, I didn't want to do it. But it was all the prestige of being a real line driver and making lots more money. But of course those guys, they work so hard they 20 don't get paid hardly anything because if they get minimum wage for all the hours they put in it's a miracle. Because they don't get paid for when they're chaining down a load, when they're fixing a tire, for when they're doing paperwork, when they're sitting there waiting for a backhoe for two days at a rest stop, I mean a truck stop. They don't get paid for any of that for sitting at the scales, for any of the stuff they have to do. Unless the tires are turning, they don't make a dime. So if you figure out the hours that a truck driver does, they never make minimum wage. They work harder for their money than anybody. It was the only job I ever had where I had to suffer. Because when you have to stay awake, when you are bone tired, you like, slapping yourself, and singing songs, sticking your face out in the icy wind. Anything to stay awake, it is pure misery. I would rather be at the end of a shovel then try to stay awake when I'm tired. AR: You went to Indiana right? On your mission? LS: Yup. Yup. President Max Mortensen was my mission president. I just loved the man. I would have worshipped his feet. The man was just the best. Would not want to let him down. But he had a hard time with my sense of humor. We had to send in these letters of our goals every week. So these goals were like duh. You know, get up on time, go out and do . . . teaching, and try to get so many baptisms. So all these lame, my one goal that I meant, that I was serious about was. Number one goal was to keep the spirit of the Holy Ghost with me at all times. Because a missionary that is unhappy, or trunky, or carnal, or lonely, or pitiful, or anything. Does not have the Holy Ghost, he cannot do his job. And so he is failing in the calling he has if he does not have the Holy Ghost. So, my conclusion was, unless a missionary has the Holy Ghost with him, then nothing else matters. He's not going to have baptisms, he's not going to get up on time, he's not going to care about his 21 companion. He's not going to be worth anything. He's just going to be a detriment... So I put that down in earnest on my, on my weekly goals as number one. But then I didn't care about the rest of the stupid stuff because all of the statistics didn't mean beans to me. And so I'd put something like, for my second goal of the week would be to untie Elder Arnett and let him out of the closet. And so my poor mission president, he never knew how many of these goals were true, or if there was a problem. And so we'd have to write a letter, we'd have to write this big paragraph to the mission president. And I just, one time I just didn't have time for that. I'm too busy, I'm engaged in the Lord's work and this writing a letter to the mission president is basically to keep me in line. And so I didn't, I obviously didn't need that because I was the pain-in-the-butt, rule keeping missionary that anybody that got me as for a companion was like, oh no, you got Elder Stout. You don't get any D.A.'s. You've got to work every day, you never get to goof off at all. He'll work you to death. And all that stuff. I didn't really feel like I was worried about falling away at the time. So, I just told Brother Mortensen one time, I says, "You know Brother Mortensen, I think you've been overworked. I think you need a break. You've been reading all these letters of all these trunky missionaries, whining and complaining about their companions. Wishing they had a transfer, can they go home early? So I think you should just take a break on me. Just go ahead, put your head down on the table, just take a little PK5 on me." So he uh, then I wrote down, I just put z's, I just filled the whole letter up. Like the whole area was z's like he was sleeping. Then at the end I put in real light letters, "okay, start to wake up now. POP! Okay, back to work. Okay, sure love ya Elder." And uh, something else on there. And so I got that letter back from President Mortensen, he didn't write me a big long letter either. Like he has to do all the elders. And I told him, don't you bother writing me back. 22 You take this time to take a nap. You just write sure love you on my letter and keep up the good work. And so he wrote that on my letter. It was just empty, and I was just so pleased because I thought, okay. He knows me, he knows he can depend on me, he knows he doesn't need to worry about me. And that was that right at the first of my mission when we were just getting to know each other. And that was, I think that was my mistake, because he knew he could depend on me, so I ended up being this mission troubleshooter, right from the start. I got these missionaries that had problems. In fact my very first companion had beat up two of his companions in the past. He was really close to being sent home. And so I come out there all rippling and built and stuff and so huge and the mission president took one look at me and thought we're going to send him to elder so and so. Let him, basically like, elder so and so, here's your new companion, Elder Stout. Here you go, beat this one up! There's one way to train the boy not to be violent. I didn't realize that was the program at first until I realized that this elder was the worst guy in the world. He had no idea how to be a missionary, he was a total charlatan and fraud. We did nothing. I was just so upset that we were just wasting time. We would go read magazines, we would go to the motorcycle shop to look at motorcycles. He would not work. He would hang around with the members and just put on this show that he was this wonderful missionary. And he just smoothed them over and they would feed us, and fawn over him. And I thought, "you hypocrite, you worthless . . . hypocrite." He always tried to get me to fight with him but I just did what whatever he said because that was my job. I was the junior companion, I just did whatever he said. And it finally worked on him, he went home very apologetic for having wasted my first few months of my mission. Very sorry, and he sincerely apologized, he was really sucking, kind of like a death bed repentance because your 23 mission life is over. So like the day he was leaving he told me all of this. And I didn't say a word to him. He had no prayer to offer. He had ruined my life for two months. The man was so contrary, if he would have fallen in a river and drowned, his body would have been found upstream from that spot. That's when the mission president started giving me these companions that wanted to go home and were pouting and hated everything. Had carnal problems, And so by the end of my mission he was signing me up to, well there were two missionaries with a problem, and I lived with both of them until one of them would get transferred or something to deal with problems, and so, I was told later, by the office crew, that I was the mission troubleshooter. And so, that I was the most important missionary to President Mortensen, because all the missionaries that were just out there doing their work, that was just more important to those missionaries. But to President Mortensen he didn't want problems. He didn't want to send elders home. He didn't want to have to reprove them. So, if he could send Elder Stout out there, he'd get them cheered up or something. Then it was really good. And so, the success I had on my mission was parents writing me letters (crying) telling me how grateful they were that since they got me for a companion they didn't want to come home anymore. And they wanted to finish their mission. That was pretty neat. Because I'd tell them, look, just come with me. Nope, I'm going home. No, just, we'll kind of hit the pavement on the way to get here. I could've bought a motorcycle, come and go out with me so I can go out and talk to people. I won't make you bear your testimony, I won't make you say boo. I won't make you do any of the lessons, I can't go out alone. Well, they'd finally consent to do that. And I'd say, okay, if you do that then we'll go to the waterfall and we'll hang out, or something. We'll go swimming on Wednesday, or 24 something. If you'll go with me on this day. And the neatest thing was that these kids were so introverted and stuff, it was great. When they knew they weren't going to be put on the spot, and that they weren't being watched to see if they could tell the discussions properly - that's when we had to memorize them word for word - that they had a big chip on their shoulder and they weren't going to say a word, then it was like pretty soon, we'd be in a conversation with investigators. And pretty soon here comes Elder so and so bearing his testimony out of the blue. Then I'd have to tease him on the way home, "what was all that?" "Well, never mind." "I thought you didn't believe this stuff anymore?" And so, some of my best friends are some of these guys that were absolutely going to go home when President Mortensen sent them to me. So, I still felt kind of cheated by the end of my mission. And my mission president, I had a couple of months left, and President called me for an interview one time at a zone leader conference. It even got to be while and I was a zone leader. It was really funny, for my first area they gave me a car. When I was just a regular elder. They sent me by myself in my own car clear up to Tipin, Ohio from Indianapolis. Everybody was just freaking out, because that's just completely against the rules. But he was up against the edge, he had a problem. He didn't know how he needed a car up there, from what he told me. He needed a zone leader, and a car up there, and so he was going to have someone drive it up, and have someone come back on the bus. Or have two cars go up and bring the other person back. It was some nightmare. And since I was like 26 when I entered the field, I was the grand exalted pubah. President Mortensen took a chance on me when he said, "would you be real careful not to get in to any trouble if I just sent you by yourself in your own car to Ohio? I need the car to be up to a district leader up there. I was, oh, district 25 leader, on my very first day I got called to be a district leader, after my first companion. And then from my first area, I went to be a zone leader in Tipin, Ohio. And so I took my car. Everything was working out, but here's this guy driving his own car. . . But then I after I was a zone leader up there, President gave me this companion that was a zone leader having problems I found out. He was slipping away. There had to be two zone leaders, because you can't be a zone leader unless you were a really outstanding missionary type of thing. So this was one that was slipping away. So I was troubleshooting, taking care of him. So then when he went home, the President said now we've got a problem. I need to have you help me with this missionary, but I can't call him to be a zone leader because he's got real problems and everybody knows it. And I said, flush me back to district leader then. He said, well, I need to you to have the car, I need you to run the area. And I said, okay, call elder so and so as zone leader, and just leave the car with me and I'll give him rides whenever he needs one. He's says okay, it's going to look funny. I said, yeah, I can handle it. So he flushed me down to district, no, no, he flushed me down to a regular elder. That was it. Flushed me down to a regular elder, but I still had the car. And so it's like, everybody was going, what is, oh, "Elder Stout you got flushed, what did you do? Elder Stout make sure to keep." I'd tell everybody, "make sure to keep the guidelines, don't break the guidelines or else you'll be in big trouble." So I just tongue and cheek it. "What's going on, what's going on? How come you still have the car if you've been flushed?" And all this stuff, so I'm like teacher's pet. I've been flushed and so . . . because I had to be the babysitter. Then I had to, I always had to go open new areas and stuff because he knew I'd do that right. And get the right apartments and things. He liked having one old guy that would help him out. 26 That very last thing, what he said, when he was talking me about such and such. And I said, "President I just, I hate to complain. But I'm really feeling picked on. And I was wondering, is there any way, that maybe even just for a couple of weeks, maybe, a little while, could I have one companion that loves the Lord and wants to be here, before I go home? Just one?" And he said, "oh Elder, have I done that to you? I am so sorry." And I said, "Yeah, remember my first companion, elder so and so, that was my trainer." And went, "oh that's right, isn't it?" And so he gave me, he let me train Elder Gardner, Elder Shannon Gardner. AR: You still know him. LS: And he's my best friend to this day. And we tore up the mission field. And I caught up on all the baptisms that I didn't get all the rest of the time. So I could say I had all the baptisms as everybody else in Indiana, by catching up, just in that two-month period with Elder Shannon Gardner. That was really neat. So, I had to get extensions and stuff. Because President Mortensen wanted me there. He wanted me as assistant until he went home. And so that was interesting to find out what went on in the office, (laughs) AR: So you ended as an assistant? LS: We always, assuming that it was inspiration from on high when we got transferred, and it turns out it was the assistants would do all of the transfers. And they just bring them to the president for the okay. If I thought the AP's were sending me everywhere, I would have been so mad where all these retarded AP's were sending me. And then I thought when they met me at the airport, when we were picking up a new group of elders from the airport, we would get these blogs on them. This guy does this, this and this. He's . . . such 27 and such. And this guys a farmer and this guy lives ... so we pick and elder to attach to at the airport. You know the AP and office crew. And we'd all pick out an elder, and we'd act like, "Oh, we've been waiting for you. We need you. And you're the elder we've been waiting for." And pump them up full of sunshine and I remember, I remember when I got picked up. I bought it, hook, line and sinker. "Oh, you're the truck driver aren't you? We heard about you. We've been waiting for you. We've got a special place for you." I'm thinking, "Yeah, where the toilet?" I bought that hook, line and sinker. One day one of these guys that we picked up from the airport is going to be in the office. And he's going to go "Oh no! I was sucked in by Elder Stout. He told me I was special. I was not special." Don't play this tape to any missionaries that haven't gone yet. I want them to think there are angels coming down touching the mission president with a magic wand. Each time they transfer. We would sit and think "okay, this guy is having problems with this and he doesn't like this" or "this guy the same way. Maybe we'll put them together and maybe they won't fight." And so, that's basically, it didn't have anything to do with who was in the area that needed this missionaries magic spirit so they would get baptized. It was "which missionary will get along with this guy?" "How much longer does he have? Is this guy weak or is this guy strong?" It was like, basically, everybody; put a strong one with a weak one. You don't want to waste two strong ones because then they'll just, they won't be, they aren't used correctly. And you don't want to put two weak ones together or they'll end up in a brothel somewhere. AR: So you ended your mission as an assistant to the president? LS: Yeah, we just, we were just hanging out together. What I did was at the end was I went around and gave talks. Just went with the mission president to these conferences. He 28 wanted me to go talk to and stuff because I gave all of these . . . talks and get all the missionaries riled up and stuff. Get them thinking. Because he heard me give a talk at a zone conference once. The title was, "vote Lee for AP" because I was a district leader. And so, I looked at the mission and I thought everybody is just campaigning to be district leader, and campaigning to be zone leaders, and campaigning to be AP. And so they could have their egos fed. And so I got a shirt and I pinned a sign on me that said, "Vote Lee for AP." And I'm walking all around zone conference with this one, because I had given a talk about how everybody's campaigning and how ridiculous it was. And that we should really stop doing that. Don't compete; don't try to get zone leaders in trouble so that if they flushed you might get moved up a notch. Don't do that stuff. Help them out. Nobody wants to go home and be the bishop. Think about it. They have more responsibility. Be glad you're not in their shoes. Leave this ego stuff at home. Then after that I wore this sign the next day, "vote Lee for AP" and all the, everybody's dying laughing and stuff. So, the president said he had a whole bunch of lives that he had changed. Because that was 6,600? 600 missionaries? 60, 60 missionaries. That was when . . . was the arm wrestling champion of the mission. And we'd have arm wrestle offs. And uh, he said he got letters from these guys that were really sorry that had said such and such about somebody. That they were riddled with guilt by Elder Stouts talk and stuff. So, he liked the way I gave talks and so that's why I got that calling at the end. He didn't want to have to, I was supposed to go home two weeks before he did. So he asked me if I would stay another two weeks and go home with him. So he wouldn't have to bring in another AP to train. AR: So, what year did you come home? 29 LS: uh, 80? 1980? AR: Okay. So what did you do after your mission? LS: Oh, I was so dead. I was a man without a country. I would get in, I had a baby face back then. You couldn't tell that now. I caught up. But I had a baby face back then and so I would put on my mission suit and my tag and I would go over to the Mission Training Center and I would infiltrate. Because they had apostles in there every day. And I would go in there and listen to them. And I would, I was just like this big older missionary. But I still kind of fit in. And it was amazing I could still fit in at that age because I was 28 by then, when I got home. So I was a really baby face. And so I really got bold one day. I heard that the new class was just beginning for the Indianapolis Indiana mission was meeting in room such and such. I would just go in the auditorium and listen to the big talks, then I would go home. But this time I couldn't resist and I filed into this room, and I sat down. And so, here are all of these missionaries in there. And everybody's wide eyed and everybody introduced themselves. 30