Autobiography Of Kim Barney Poem by Kim Barney

I am father of four, grandfather of eighteen, and great-grandfather of seven.

I like to play chess, checkers and other games of logic. I have written logic problems and sold them to Dell Publishing Company.

Fourteen poems that I have posted on this website have been chosen as Poems of the Day. I used to list them here, but no longer do that. Instead, I offer a reward of 200 U. S. dollars to THE FIRST POET who can come up with the names of twelve of them. [See my 'poem' called 'Contest Rules' for restrictions.]

By the way, there are still at least two other ongoing contests that have never been solved. Those contests are worth $100.00 each.

Other Poems that have won prizes or honorable mentions, etc. in poetry contests are listed in my 'poem' called Prize Poems, which will be updated from time to time.

I was born in Richfield, Utah, United States of America, but grew up in Annabella, about six miles away. Virgil Carter, 'The Blue Darter' [Google it! ] was born in Annabella.

I'm not sure of the house in which Virgil was born. There were no hospitals in Annabella back then, and still there are none.

When I was a kid, I used to play baseball with Virgil and others, and he was really good at baseball. I never dreamed at that time that he would later become a star athlete in a totally different sport!

I loved baseball back then, and still do. It took me a couple of steps to get up to full speed, but once I got going, I was very fast. When I was batting, if I got to first base and the outfielder had not yet picked up the ball, I ALWAYS tried for second base, and usually made it.

Once I even hit an inside-the-park home run. My sister has it recorded on 8 mm film.

I went to Annabella Elementary School for grades 1 through 5, and then the district closed that two-classroom school and I went to Monroe Elementary for grade 6.

My teacher, Garth Beecham, was also the school principal. Soon he chose me and another student, Brent Johnson, to count the lunch money every day. We each had to count the money separately, and if our totals did not agree, then we had to count it again. Our totals did not disagree very often.

Years later, at South Sevier High school, Brent was valedictorian and I was the recipient of the Bausch & Lomb Science Award. With that award, I was offered a scholarship to the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, but I did not accept that scholarship. Annabella was a small town of only 177 inhabitants at the time. I had never been away from home, and I knew that I would be homesick in a city away over on the other side of the country.

Instead I started at Snow College, a junior college only about 60 miles away from Annabella. It was a perfect fit for me, as I made many friends from other small towns in Utah, and even some who came from as far away as, believe it or not, New York State!

Garth Beecham was one of my professors during my second year at Snow College! (Moving up in the world.)

I had been on the wrestling team for two years at South Sevier High School, but never earned a letter. Frankly, I was not very good. I was built more for basketball, but never tried out for the team because I went through what I considered a clumsy stage my sophomore year.

I used to scare my wrestling opponents 'to death' (as the saying goes) because I was always taller than they were, until I took off my sweatshirt and they saw how skinny I was.

My junior year at South Sevier I won two matches and lost five. My senior year I improved slightly. Again I won two and lost five, but I also had two draws.

One of those draws was against a Navajo boy from Richfield High School (our bitter rivals) , who had beaten me twice before.

I was so pleased about finally getting a draw against someone that had beaten me twice, that I wrote a paper about it for my English class at Snow College.

One day, Bob Stoddard, the wrestling coach at Snow, showed up at my zoology lab and said to me, 'Kim, I hear you're a wrestler.' (I think my English professor must have talked to him.) Wrestling had been going on for a few weeks, and I had not tried out.

I said, 'Well, I like to think I am, but I'm not.'

He said, 'We're kind of weak in the lower weights. Why don't you come to practice and see if you can beat the guy in your weight class? '

So I went to practice, beat the guy easily, and was on the team from then on.

That first year at Snow, I had another losing season, but still earned my letter, because I represented the school at the conference tournament at the end of the season, where I took third place and got a bronze medal.

My second year, I told myself 'I'm going to be a winner this year! '
And I was. I started the season well and was elected co-captain of the team. I finished with seven wins and only two losses and again took third place in the conference tournament at the end of the year. I expected another bronze medal, but that year they only gave out ribbons!

Of course, I earned another letter that year. If at first you don't succeed, keep on trying!

One of my childhood heroes was Gene Fullmer. He was a native son, born in West Jordan, Utah. As a professional boxer, he won 47 fights, lost 6, and had three draws. He was middleweight champion of the world and is in the Professional Boxers Hall of Fame.

He won his first 29 fights,19 of them by knockout, and beat Sugar Ray Robinson three times, only losing to him once. Sugar Ray is considered by many to be the greatest middleweight boxer ever.

I was a pretty good boxer in my youth and at one time considered going to West Jordan and have Gene's trainer, Marv Jenson, train me. My mother discouraged this, as she didn't want boxing to scar my pretty face and give me cauliflower ears like Gene's.

After two years at Snow College, I offered my services to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as a missionary. I expected to be called to Germany or Austria, because I had studied German for a year at Snow and had received straight A's.

Instead I was called to the Brazilian South Mission, which consisted of the three southernmost states of Brazil: Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul.

I soon discovered that there are MANY speakers of German in southern Brazil, so I got to use my limited German a little bit. One of the cities that I worked in was Novo Hamburgo, which means 'New Hamburg'.

Another city with many German speakers was Blumenau, in Santa Catarina, where there was a little deli that had the BEST German cheesecake I have ever tasted in my life!

By the way, in case you are unaware, the official language of Brazil is Portuguese, while the official language of most of the rest of South America is Spanish. So I had to learn to speak Portuguese after I got there. These days, LDS missionaries undergo intensive language training for several weeks before leaving on their missions, but back then there was none of that.

My mission call was for 30 months. At some point during my mission (I think I had been there about a year) , the mission president was concerned that some of the missionaries were not very proficient in Portuguese, so he sent some of the zone leaders around with a written Portuguese test. They also brought a young Brazilian native around with them to test our speaking ability.

Word soon got out that I was the only missionary in the whole mission to score 100% on the written test. Actually, in my mind I did NOT score 100%, because I left the circumflex off of a word were it should have had one, or put one on where it didn't need one, or something. But they overlooked that and said I had scored 100%.

Then, after I had talked with the young Brazilian, the mission leaders asked him how I had done on the spoken part of the test. The young man blurted out: 'Esse rapaz fala melhor que eu! ' (This guy speaks better than I do!) That was an exaggeration, of course, but it still made me feel good.

[To be continued later when I get around to it...]

[Meanwhile, while waiting for this autobiography to be continued, read my 'poem' called 'The Cool List'. It tells about many 'cool' things I have done or seen, and is therefore really part of my autobiography.]

(Autobiography updated 28 February 2024.)