Keith Snippets

Snippets from the Life of Keith (25 Dec 2024)

Keith front and center in an Idaho Christmas photo.

This Christmas message is for our favorite nieces and nephews, their spouses, and now their children. I’ve been further from your lives than I would like to be, but by all accounts this has been a banner year for your family- congratulations, and Merry Christmas!

This year we decided to give a little back-stage info on your parents. Unfortunately, the investigative team investigating your mother didn’t come up with much worth sharing. But below are some goodies from the life of your dad that he may or may not have shared with you. All of these stories are based on first-hand experiences and mostly unaltered:). 

Team that investigated Keith’s background.

To start off I’d like to reference a photo which unfortunately I was unable to dig up- the epic photo of your father holding up a big, round bale of hay (supported by the tractor). Now, some might suggest it is not a great idea to stand under a thousand pounds of hay supported only by a tractor with a “fairly” good hydraulic system, even if it was a perfect photo op. Some might even say that doing so was an indication that our frontal lobes were not fully developed. But I can assure you that was not the most dangerous thing we ever did on the farm. Standing on the back of the tractor, sitting in the front bucket of the tractor over bumpy roads, driving a large dump truck with little to no brakes are just a few things that come to mind. But fortunately, and probably with angels working overtime, we survived to tell the tale.

Speaking of tales, Keith may have told you a few tales of the farm that included manure. My favorite being the time he caught fresh, warm manure exiting a cow so that he could rub it on a doorknob to “get” Ronald's hand dirty the next time he opened a door. An ingenious plan! But did your dad also tell you that he practiced sharing many of those tales in the hallowed classrooms of the Provo Missionary Training Center? There are not many stories more inspirational than a good manure story, so if your dad hasn’t shown you the pictures drawn by his inspired MTC missionary students recently, you may want to request a viewing. 

I don’t deny any of the manure tales your dad has shared. Unlike fish stories where the fish grow longer with each telling, I am pretty sure the manure stories we tell are almost exactly true to life. To make matters worse, we often felt certain cows deliberately exposed us to the worst they could offer. If you’ve never experienced the slap of a wet, slimy, warm, manure-coated cow tail at 4:30am, you may never understand the disdain we held for some cows. Sometimes this led us to overreact. Did your dad ever tell you about the time he was so fed up with a cow that he wound up to land the punch of a life-time? Keith was a dedicated push-up doer during his high-school years, over one hundred pushups every single day if I remember correctly. So this was going to be a doozy of a punch. Unfortunately a stainless steel bar stood between Keith and the cow and absorbed the blow. I understand that Keith’s hand was in pain for weeks afterwards.

We enjoy seeing the occasional updates we see on each of you. From these updates, it appears that sports, competition, and physical development have played a big part in each of your lives. Some of your competitive nature may have rubbed off from your dad. You of course know about his current biking, running, and other athletic achievements. And you probably even know that he played sports at North Gem High School. He might have even told you about what some Bancroft locals might refer to as his legendary senior season of football at North Gem. I remember the season well as the little brother awed by an elder brother’s prowess on the field. I still remember our neighbors, the Rindlesbakers, bringing a television over to our home so we could watch Keith be featured as the “Athlete of the Week” on the Idaho news. I seem to remember that someone even made a highlight video of Keith’s greatest plays and gave it to us. Some might say that Keith was about as famous as humanly possible for a high school student in Bancroft. Then came the Idaho state championship tournament. As I remember it, North Gem was not expected to win their semi-final game vs the defending champions, Council, but came out victorious after a hard-fought, low-scoring game. 

That win catapulted North Gem to the state championship game, which was exciting for me as a pre-teen because it meant I could go to another football game at what was then called the Mini Dome at Idaho State University to run around, and up and down the stairs with my friends. At some point, maybe because I kept hearing my last name being spoken over the loudspeaker, I realized there was actually a game going on and I started to pay more attention. Somewhere, someone might have clippings of the newspaper articles highlighting your dad’s ~333 yards of rushing and 5 touchdowns that helped the North Gem Cowboys with the championship. One title I remember was “Greenwood Runs Rampant”. 

Eldon schooling Keith in the art of ping pong.

But did your dad ever mention his wrestling matches with Eldon where your grandmother stood on pins and needles praying they would not break anything too important? Or the chess games with Wayne which after the first loss, suddenly they were playing 2 out of 3, then 3 out of 5, then 4 out of 7…?

Uncle Roger supervising Keith and Wayne’s painting.

Keith may have also mentioned the great work he did on the farm. He may have even mentioned the time he and Wayne painted the trim on our home. I actually remember being quite disappointed that I was not considered big enough to paint with them, but I remained close by in what I considered a supervisory role. All this work was important to help your dad develop his physique and the fantastic tan. But did he mention the “Hi” he painted on the roof for passing aircraft? 

Your dad may have mentioned that his dedication and kindness towards ward members and those he home taught resulted in him receiving many gifts, like knitted sweaters and even a brand new BMW (turns out it was a matchbox car)? But has your dad mentioned the typewriter lessons he gave to me and Lyle? 

I am grateful this photo is fuzzy, allowing both Keith and I plausible deniability that we are in it.

To be fair, Keith was pretty protective as brothers go. My skin gets red quite easily and one evening when I was elementary age I was playing with friends at a basketball game. At one point, one of my friends noticed that my neck had some red spots and promptly informed me that I had a hickey on my neck. Since I did not know what a hickey was, we sought a trusted older person to inform of the dilemma. Eventually we found Keith who responded simply, “that’s not a hickey”. Just like that, the drama ended. There were benefits to having well-respected older brothers.

Keith, like all his older siblings, disappeared for college and a mission soon after high school graduation. He returned for short periods to visit family, but never remaining long enough to be considered part of the official farm work crew. Those visits provided Keith the opportunity to share life lessons he learned along the way, including President Neil Anderson’s oft-repeated question, “Are you happy? Now, I would never admit to having been a grumpy teenager, but if I had been, maybe this and other sage advice Keith passed on may have even been helpful. But of course I never did like it when on those visits he offered that “Roger and I will do dishes” after dinner. Nor did I get over the disgust of him telling me he “borrowed” my toothbrush because he forgot his, then finding my toothbrush still wet from that brushing. I blame Keith if I didn’t brush my teeth those nights. 

I admit that these memories, like all memories, may have shifted slightly over time, but even if your dad disagrees, I will vouch that most of them are mostly true. Unfortunately I don’t have time to share all the stories I would like to share, like when he pulled the harrow in the driveway, got a perm, or got stuck with the blue truck when we cut a Christmas Tree from the forest. But hopefully these stories have shed a small bit of light on your father. And if you need more, just ask! Merry Christmas!

Love,

Roger and Marci Greenwood Family

We loved seeing some of you and your parents on this delightful visit to St. Anthony.