1 All I ever really needed to know

School has started again. Hints of fall are in the air. Some years ago, when we still had children at home, I started a tradition of reading the following piece by Robert Fulgham, entitled "All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" (first published in the Kansas City Times, Sept. 17, 1976), before each new school year began. It contains as simple and as fine a summary as I've ever come across about how to get along in this old world as decent, Christian people. As has become our tradition each end of summer, we share it here as the introduction to the Cleverly Newsletter.


Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands be­fore you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Re­mem­ber the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup—they all die. So do we.

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: look. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sani­ta­tion. Ecology and politics and sane living.

Think of what a better world it would be if we all—the whole world—had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

2 Quote of the week

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives.  I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.  

~ Abraham Lincoln

3 This week in our family

Thurs, Sept 2: Barbara born 1937 [Lyle]
Thurs, Sept 2: Catherine's birthday [Lyle]
Thurs, Sept 2: Michael's birthday [Dean]
Fri, Sept 3: Brock's birthday [Kay]
Sat, Sept 4: Eugene DeMartini's birthday [Ray]
Sun, Sept 5: Peter Halverson's birthday [Dean]
Sun, Sept 5: Melanie Duay's birthday [Gail]
Mon, Sept 6: Labor Day
Tues, Sept 7: Makenzie Reher's birthday [Ray]
Tues, Sept 7: Next issue of newsletter

4 Bits and tidbits

Kay's family
About a week after they reported their mission to Peru (which did on Sunday, July 11), Kay and Karen took a major cross-country trip to visit Karen's aged mother in Oklahoma and then Kay's son Brandon and family in Indiana. And various other places across this vast country of ours. Kay said they put more than 5,000 miles on their minivan.

Dean's family
This summer for Dean and Claudia was all about travel, some by car, some by plane. There were two separate trips to California (one to watch Pete, Anna, Vince, and Mary do the Camp Pendleton 10k mud run in June; a second one to see her nephew Stuart Lange married in the Newport Beach Temple the last day of July); a trip to St. George to hear Kay and Karen report their mission on July 11; a trip to Lava Hot Springs in southeastern Idaho in mid-July; a plane trip to Houston to spend a week in late July visiting with Paul, Eliza, Peter, and Aaron (who were there from Atlanta); and a trip to Everett in early August to visit Chris, Camilla, and Sam (with visits in Nampa going and coming).

Dale's family
Perhaps the biggest single piece of family news over the summer was the marriage of Kira Lee Cleverly (Dale and LeAnn's daughter) to David Michael Asay (son of Jeanice McEwan and Marcus Asay) in the Mesa Arizona Temple on Friday, July 30. A reception is being held to honor Kira and David next weekend on Friday, September 10, from 7:00 to 9:00 in the evening, at 4036 North St. James Loop in Nampa.