Well, here goes the best story of all ever for me.

Well, here goes the best story of all ever for me.
I was a senior at BYU and one day I was lurking in the Fine arts center looking for a date. I had had some great dates the last few days but was without one for that night.  I was perched high up on a stairway and was surveying the girls that walked across the floor below me.  Mine eyes caught a very lovely young thing walking across the floor below me like a trucker. She must have been in a hurry.  I hurried down and caught her and asked her name. She said “Marsha”. I asked “What is your last name? She said Green. Well I was happy then because I knew how to find anyone at BYU when I had both first and last names and I wanted to find this girl. I went to the dorm and did a little research and found where she lived. She was in Deseret Towers. Well I asked her out and she accepted.  Later, I learned that the only reason she said yes was because of a dare from her roommate Nan. Since BYU prohibited beards and I (being the rebel I was) had a full beard. Nan had dared her to go out with me. When I asked her out I asked her if she’d seen a certain play.  She told me she hadn’t so I asked her to go with me.   What she didn’t volunteer was that she had a date that very evening for that particular play.  I remember that I really liked her. I had dated a girl named Marilyn the night before and called Marsha Marilyn all night. What a dufuss.  But even with that, she accepted when I asked her out again.  We dated for about six weeks, and I asked her to marry me. I am sure her dad thought it was much too early, but he gave his consent when I asked him for Marsha’s hand in marriage.  I was headed for San Francisco to go to dental school at USCF which was considered one of the best schools in the country. I had been accepted there and at Oregon. Well, we were married in the Salt Lake Temple and that night headed for San Francisco to start a lifetime, no an eternitytime (probably not a word) adventure. It has been a wonderful journey filled with many experiences - joy and happiness mixed with some trials and sadness. But, by far, the joy and adventure and love has been much greater than the trials. With 12 wonderful children and now some wonderful spices (spouses) it just gets more and more interesting.
So, the journey continues and will for all eternity. How exciting.     
Love Grandpa Willy

One of the things I really like to do is hike

     (translation below)

     One of the things I really like to do is hike, and one of my favorite places around here to hike is round valley. About two miles from the start is a trail called Hardy Canyon Trail. I ride my bicycle about four miles to the entrance of round valley and then ride two more miles to the start of the trail. Thin I hide my bike I the bushes and trees and start the hike. It is a strenuous hike and I push it a little but just enough to get my heart rate up where it should be for a good workout. When I get to the top, I sit down and eat an orange as I look at the beautiful views all around. On a clear day I can see all the way to the Sierras. After a little rest, I hike back down and ride my bicycle back to the car. What great exercise. The round trip takes about three hours. I haven’t done it for awhile but I am going to start again soon, if I am not too lazy :).
The old man as some of my dear children call me at times :)


Bill 2006

Cowboy Willy

Cowboy Willy
I was about 14 when my dad got a job herding cattle for the local cattlemen's association in Salina, Utah. Well, since my dad had the job, he had my brother Jack and me help him heard cattle. We spent most of the summer in the mountains in Salina Canyon herding cattle. We got to come into town on weekends. It was so exciting to come to town for me after a whole week of only talking to cattle. Salina was a town of about 1100 people, give or take a few.  Now I can't imagine why it was so excited to get to town but I was. I drove the old pickup as fast, well faster, that the road could allow. We were on two wheels often as the truck rounded sharp turns much too fast. It is amazing we didn't tip over.
    Well, one day, Dad asked Jack and me to take a bunch of cattle and move them from one range to another range that was on top of a mountain. We started out very early in the morning and started to drive the cattle. Soon it became apparent that they DID NOT want to move to the top of the mountain. It took all day to get them up there, and it was so hard that we thought we were going to keel over and not be able ever to move again from exhaustion. My legs were rubbed raw and bloody everywhere the saddle touched. It was terrible. Worse than terrible. After we finally got them up on top of the hill, we rode to camp after dark and told Dad what we had done and how hard it was. Well, he was somewhat amused and surprised about our experience because the hell we drove them up was the wrong hill and they had never been there before. Cattle are evidently among the most stubborn creatures on earth and every step of the way, they fought us. They had never been on that hill and did not want to be there.  If it had been the hill that they go to every other year, they would have herded themselves eagerly with us just following them. It would have taken just a few hours and been nice and easy. I will never forget that cattle drive. It took quite awhile before I could want or sit because of the open wounds from the drive.
Dad

Little Willy Break Bone

Little Willy Break Bone
This is the true story of my broken bones. When I was eight years old I was climbing an old tree by the side of my home in Salina, Utah. I was probably 20 feet up into the tree when I grabbed a too small limb and it broke off and I fell to the ground. I got up and notice that my arm was twisted in an odd shape. I walked across the street to the hospital where my mother was working and she and the doctor set my arm without any anesthesia. It hurt a lot especially as he twisted the bones to try and get the arm straight again. He succeeded in part but my arm is still crooked. Good it was my right arm since I am left handed.
My next broken arm came when I was twelve. I was riding my bicycle down a steep rocky hill when a little kid ran across the road right in front of me. I slammed on my brakes and the bike flew out of control and I few off of it onto my face and skidded to a stop many feet down the hill. At least I didn’t hit the little kid who probably deserved to be hit for running right out in front of me. Anyway, I don’t remember how I got to the hospital that time, but again my mother and Dr. Noyes set the bones. This break was in a different place that the first one. Well, I got the cast off in 6 weeks and was riding horses out in the country with some friends. Two of the friends had very fast horses and both claimed to have the fastest horse in the county. A race was proposed but the rider of one of the horses did not dare race him , so I volunteered to ride him in the race.. We started to race and it was wildly fun and exciting and frightening. I had never ever been on a horse that could run nearly as fast as this one. Both horses raced like lightening down the road head to head . Finally my horse started to edge slowly into the lead and the other horse must have not liked it at all because he started to veer into my horse . I tried to stop my horse but he totally ignored me. I was pulling on the reins to stop him as hard as I could but it didn’t effect him in the least. Well in a few strides my horse was off the road and stepped into a ditch. Both horse and rider(poor little me) went head first down the graveled road. By ;the time we stopped skidding I was just a bloody mess from the gravel. My little metal boy scout match holder was shoved into my side and through my stomach wall. My arm was twisted and broken again and we were hours from anywhere. After what seemed like an eternity someone came. The only thing I remember as hurting was my little finger which had had the tip rubbed off a little by the gravel. The person that came took me to the hospital where the doctor could not be found. I was given a shot of morphine for the pain while they looked for the doctor. I remember lying there hoping they would never find the doctor because I was feeling so good from the shot. But he finally came and set my arm again.
About 5 weeks later I was playing baseball with my cast on and slid into home plate with my broken right arm down. ( I only broke my right arm every time, never my left) I still had my cast still on . I had modified the cast quite a bit by removing pieces so that I could play baseball and do everything else as normally as possible. Well, I broke it again in the cast and in a different place than any of the other times. So in to the hospital I went again where my mom and Dr Noyes again set it.
The last time I broke my poor little right arm was when I was riding on the back of a horse that a girl was riding. The horse reared up for some reason and off I went onto my arm and broke it again. All of these last four breaks were when I was twelve.
My last broken bone was when I was in a fight with a bigger guy and threw a wicked haymaker and missed his head and hit a locker in the band room. I only broke my hand bones this time so I didn’t even go to the doctor. By this time my mom and the doctor were tired of me anyway.
Old Man Willie

Fishing in Alaska

Fishing in Alaska
A few years ago, Marsha and I went to Alaska. It was a great two-week vacation. I especially enjoyed fishing there. The first fishing experience was on the Kenai. It was a dreary cold and rainy day. We chartered a boat for a half a day and went out with four other people and the guide. After about an hour, I caught a nice 45 pound King Salmon that now lives on our library wall. As soon as I caught it, the guide made me put my fishing pole down - even though Marsha had not caught anything (and wanted to trade her turn over to me so I could continue fishing). I could not touch the pole the rest of the day. No one else in the boat even got a bite the entire time. It was quite disappointing not to be able to fish anymore. I just had to sit their miserably, in the cold drizzling rain.
A few days later we drove to an area a few hundred miles farther northeast that had a river called the Klutina. As we were driving by a convenience store, I saw a pick-up truck with a sign on it about fishing tours. It so happened that the driver of the truck was in the store. I asked him about the fishing, and he told me it was much better than the fishing on the Kenai. I wanted to fish again, so I made a fishing date for a few days later when we would be back through the area. Well, the day arrived and it was only the guide and me that went out in his boat. The river was much more beautiful than the Kenai. I caught fish after fish until he said, “that one is a nice big one, you should keep it.” We had only been fishing for a couple of hours and I was disappointed. But it was big and I kept it. I sat my pole down and he asked if I did not want to fish anymore. I told him about my experience on the Kenai. He grinned and said that all of the fish police were all on the Kenai and that none ever came over where we were and that I could fish until I wore out. Well, I was really excited and I did fish until my arms wore out. I caught about 18 huge King Salmon and lost about that many more that I had hooked because they were tougher than I was. What a great fishing trip. We then traveled to a beautiful town and got a motel room. It was about 11PM after I put Marsha to bed, and since it was still light, I decided to go fishing for pinks (A different type of salmon) from the bank of Valdez bay. Guys were lined up along the bank shoulder to shoulder fishing for the pinks. For some reason I was catching a lot. They were each from five to ten pounds and were great fighters. I caught one nearly every cast. I caught over 30 of them and gave them all away except for the limit which was five. I remember that I was fishing next to a retired M.D. who wasn’t catching any. He was retired because he said that he’d heard of Viagra early on and borrowed $100,000.00 and invested it in the company that put it on the market and made a fortune. So he quit medicine and started to play. He couldn’t fish very well, though, so I gave him some of my pink salmon. I brought my five fish back to the motel room and proceeded to clean them on a few newspapers right there on the carpet. Marsha woke up at 3AM to the smell of fish guts and my big bright grin and was eager to listen to my fishing adventure.
Another of the fun fishing experiences happened a little south of Anchorage. We were driving down the road and I looked over and saw a bunch of people fishing along a river. So I pulled over and jumped out to see what they were catching. I took Marsha to Anchorage and then came back to the river (in the middle of the night again) to fish. I started fishing but no one (including me) was having any luck except one little round faced, short guy a little up the river from me. He caught a few and then started home. As he was walking past me, I asked him what his secret was. He grinned and held up a beat-up old strange-looking lure and said, “you gotta have this.” I said do you want to sell it to me? He said, “no, but I’ll give it to you.” I said, “no, I don’t want you to do that, let me give you $3.00 for it.” He said, “no, $6.00”. “Nah,” I said, $3.50. He said, “okay”. I gave him the money and he gave me the old beat up lure. He grinned again and then said, “but it won’t do you any good unless you know how to use it.” He then proceeded to show me exactly where to throw the lure and exactly how to retrieve it. It was a little different and tricky. He told me that he was a full blooded Alaskan Eskimo and that he could fish anywhere anytime and catch as many as he wanted without a license. That made me jealous. He definitely looked like an Eskimo. He walked off and said, “good luck”. I cast out just like he told me to as best I could, and caught three nice big silvers one right after the other. That was the kind of salmon that these were - in three casts. Three was the limit and I left. No one else caught had caught a fish. That’s it, dad.

Of Ants and Minnows and the Ends of Worms

… Of Ants and Minnows and the Ends of Worms
As a little boy, I would spend hours watching ants fight and fishing for minnows. About the ants…. In Salina we had some fairly fearsome ants. The big red ones were the toughest. I would take two big ants and rub their heads together until they were really mad at each other and then watch them fight. It seems to me now, that I would spend hours and hours watching them but it may not have been that long.
About the minnows…. Minnows are tiny little fish about the size of a small feeder goldfish. Salina creek (pronounced crIck) ran about 60 feet behind my house. It was a small stream with some small fishing holes about two feet and six feet across full of minnows. I would take a two or three foot willow and attatch a very small hook (about 1/16 of an inch) to the end of the three to four foot piece of fishing line and add a tiny piece of an earthworm that I had dug up, to the hook and fish for many hours. I would catch many little fish and put them in a jar of water. I would feed some to the cats and put the rest in the horse trough (a 50 gallon metal drum cut in half lengthwise full of water for the horses to drink out of). I would keep them alive there for as long as I could so I could feed them to the cats. I don’t know if the horses drank a lot of little fish or not. I was probably six to nine years old when I did these exciting activities.

The Famous Fighting Career of Wild Willy Nielsen

The Famous Fighting Career of Wild Willy Nielsen
When I was a kid I had about seven fist fights, but I can only remember four of them. Here goes a short account of them.
I was probable around 10 or 11 and was being picked on by a kid a little bigger than myself but a whole grade older. One day in the winter with snow all over the ground I decided for some reason now unknown to be to try and beat him up in front of my house. Every day after school he would walk past my house on his way home. I put an a big heavy coat and waited for him. When he came along I went out and we started fighting. We were pounding each other for all we were worth, but neither of us hit the other in the face. They were all body punches, and since we both had heave coats on neither felt much. The fight ended and he walked home. He never picked on me again.
Fight 2 was also when I was about 11. I had cut my right arm very deeply along the bicep pulling a paring knife out of a spool of thread (for which I still have a 6 in scar) a few days before I had my arm in a sling and was playing on the asphalt playground at the grade school. Lloyd Euells hit my arm and I thought he did it on purpose. I don’t remember what I did or said ,but he got really mad at me and rushed toward me as fast as he could swinging his fists. I waited until he got right up on me and I quickly, with the speed of a mongoose , stepped aside leaving my foot out to trip him. I also smashed a powerful blow to his face as he stumbled over my foot and went into the asphalt face first and skidded to a stop. He was very hurt . His face was a mess and the fight was over.
Number 3 was when I was in high school. Melvin Andersen was a year younger than I . He was a real dork who when we were kids had hit me in the forehead with a shovel and caused a cut which scared. I got a shovel and hit him back in the same place and he ended up with a scar also. So there was no love lost between us. Well , a few years after the shovel incidents, good old Melvin was in his living room playing with a rifle and ended up shooting the television set to pieces. The story went around and we started calling Melvin, Wyatt Earp. He of course hated it but he was a dork so the name stuck. One day after band , we were putting our instruments away in the band room . The closets were metal and we each had our own. I don’t know what Melvin did but I called him Wyatt and he started to throw punches at me in those very tight quarters. I was very strong by now because of hard work in the hay fields and I pounded his face into a pulp. After a short time I notice that I couldn’t hit him any more with my right hand without pain. The fight ended and my right hand started swelling. Evidently in the wild meeley I had missed and hit the metal locker and broken my hand below the index finger. The next day his face was a real mess, but my hand was twice its normal size and broken. I think I lost that fight
My last fight was the one that convinced me that fighting was not a good idea. Wayne Christiansen was a mean bully about 6’ 4” tall and 220 pounds and liked to push his weight around. He wore rings on each finger for the purpose of cutting up his fight victims. One day in the lunch room , I was sitting across from him when he said to a couple his mean partners in badness something about the truth. Being the bright boy that I was, I said to him. “You wouldn’t know the truth if you saw it.” I left the room and walked over to the locker room at the school. He came in and hit me as hard as he could in the face before I knew what was happening. Then , as I was stunned, he proceeded to pound me to a pulp over and over with those rings. Finally he quit as I was helpless lying on the floor. It was my last fight and I had not even thrown a punch. Wayne got drunk a few years later and wandered onto the train tracks and was run over and killed. No great loss.
So Wild Willy’s fighting career came to an end with a record of 3 wins and 1 loss, except the broken hand incident probably made it 2 wins and 2 losses.
William Martin Nielsen

It had to be a world record

It had to be a world record
When I was a kid my parents took my brother Jack and me up into the mountains back of Fish Lake for a fun day at a place called the Frying Pan. The area is beautiful. It probably took a few hours to get there. We would go there from time to time to look for puff balls. Puff balls are a type of mushroom that is new snow white in color and round with no gills. They are delicious to eat but they also have a counterfeit toad stool that looks nearly exactly the same. I can’t now remember the differences but if you were careful you could tell. And we could always tell. I was searching for the puff balls back in the woods and had found a few. They are usually about one to two inches in diameter and nicely round in shape. I got quite far back into the dense woods when I came upon a monster puff ball. It was bigger than a basketball. I couldn’t believe what I had found. I checked it out and sure enough it seemed to be a puff ball. I picked it up and went back to find my mom and dad. They said that it was a puff ball. Well the Frying Pan was a huge tall fireplace type structure with an opening for fire in the center in which you could cook stuff. I don’t remember cooking that day but we probably did. We took the monster puff ball home and I stored it in the shed with the root cellar. After awhile I got brave and sliced it up to eat. The whole puff ball was over 3 feet in diameter. The slices were too big to fit in our biggest frying pan. I cut them up and cooked them in butter ( I don’t remember quite how I cooked them but it must have been the same as I do now) and ate them. They were as delicious as the small ones. I have never since seen or heard of a puff ball that huge.