Thomas Jay Kemp

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

This is the way

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

I asked a mechanic in a grease-stained shirt how he was doing at 6:30 AM on a freezing Monday.

He was kneeling on the cold concrete, holding a heavy wrench, covered in dark oil.

He didn't complain. He didn’t sigh. He looked up, adjusted his cap, and said, "Living the dream, brother."

I spent three days contemplating his words. In my language, such a phrase spoken in such hardship would be deep, bitter irony.

Then I watched him finish replacing an alternator, wipe his hands on a rag, and look at the running engine with a quiet, fierce pride.

He was not being sarcastic. He was stating a fact. He had a job, a set of tools, and a machine that obeyed his hands.

Yesterday, a man asked me how my morning was going while I was shoveling snow in the freezing wind.

I stopped, looked at my shovel, and said, "Living the dream, man."

The man smiled, gave me a thumb up, and kept walking.

America does not wait for a perfect life to be happy. It looks at a hard morning's work and calls it a dream.

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

Sacred

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

The sign outside said PANCAKES.

I thought it was a restaurant. It was a fire station in Pennsylvania.

I asked for a table for one. The big man at the griddle said "we ain't a restaurant, bud." He was not joking and I did not know that yet.

Six dollars. I tried to pay more. He pushed my hand back three times.

There was a jar of pickled eggs by the register that nobody bought all morning.

Then every pager in the room went off at once.

I stood up. I thought I had done something wrong.

The griddle man ran. The coffee man ran. The boy at the register, nineteen maybe, ran.

I ran too. A woman caught my sleeve. "Not you, hon."

Nobody else stopped eating. An old lady said "that'll be the Hendricks barn again" and buttered her toast.

I had been served breakfast by the fire department and I had not known it.

My grandfather used to say a man who cannot put out the fire can still carry the bucket. I am fairly sure that is not what he said. I used it anyway.

So I washed dishes.

I tried to count the plates. I lost it somewhere after sixty.

Then I found the big black pan. It was filthy. Twenty minutes of steel wool and it shined like a mirror.

I was proud of it. I want to be honest about that. I was proud.

They came back an hour later smelling like a burnt house and I held it up with both hands.

The nineteen year old looked at it and said "oh, buddy."

The chief looked at it a long time. Forty years, he said. It was his father's.

Then he said "well. Guess we're doing it tonight."

We.

Eight of them stayed. Oil, oven, smoke, four times over. Somebody said something and the whole room laughed and I did not understand any of it and I laughed too.

At two in the morning I said thank you in Japanese by accident. The big man said "amen to that, bud."

They gave me a department shirt. XXL. It fits me like a tent.

635,100 volunteer firefighters in this country. In Pennsylvania, 97 percent of them. It costs more than 35,000 dollars to put one in the gear. Six dollars a plate.

December 7, 1736. Philadelphia. Franklin and thirty men signed the first company, and every man had to bring six leather buckets of his own.

Two hundred and ninety years later, eight of them stayed up until two in the morning fixing a pan for a foreigner who broke it.

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

Back in the day we had a kid.
Then we had that kid’s brother.
They mowed the lawn and shoveled the driveway.
Both are now on the other side of the country with kids of their own.
Now we have a lawn service that arrives with 2 to 3 guys and heavy equipment.
We pay the new service the same amount as we paid those kids 20 years ago.

This is the way.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

I needed my lawn mowed. I asked an American for the name of a company.

He said, "Get a kid."

A kid. Not a service. A child.

I asked which kid.

"Any of 'em."

I asked where one obtains a kid. There is no directory. There is no listing.

He said, "Ask around."

I asked around. Two days later a fourteen year old named Cody was standing on my porch.

He did not bring a mower. Nobody told me this part. The kid uses your mower and your gas. He brings arms.

I asked his rate.

He said, "Whatever."

Whatever. A negotiation had opened and the other party declined to attend.

A blade drawn against no opponent must be returned to the sheath in silence.

I put my wallet away.

So I conducted research. I asked four adults what the correct amount was.

Four numbers. Twenty. Forty. Twenty five. One man said he gave a kid fifty once and could not remember why.

There is no rate. There has never been a rate. An entire national labor market runs with no published price and every participant is somehow satisfied.

I looked up the state minimum wage. I timed the work. I arrived at a defensible figure and I paid it.

My neighbor watched this from his driveway.

Later he came over and told me, kindly, that I had underpaid.

I said the amount exceeded the legal minimum.

He said, "Yeah, but he's a kid."

THE PRICE IS NOT THE PRICE. THE PRICE IS THE PRICE PLUS SOMETHING NO MAN ON THIS STREET WILL SAY OUT LOUD.

So I corrected. I overcorrected. Sixty dollars for forty minutes.

The same neighbor came back over.

"Alright. Don't ruin him."

There is a floor and there is a ceiling. Neither is written anywhere. Both are enforced by men standing in driveways with their arms folded.

The samurai who cannot read the room dies in the room.

I have been dying in this room since June.

Cody was thirsty. I did not offer him water, because he had not asked, and a warrior does not name another warrior's weakness.

My wife told me he is fourteen and it is ninety one degrees. I now leave a bottle on the step where he can take it without being seen taking it.

I asked my neighbor why the whole street does this. Why grown men pay a boy more than the work is worth and then pretend not to have noticed.

He said, "You're not buying a lawn."

Then he went inside, because apparently that was a complete explanation.

Cody has cut my grass eleven times. He is saving for a truck. I know the exact figure because he told me, unprompted, in August, sweating, holding my own mower.

Last week a family moved in three houses down. The man came over and asked if I knew anybody who cuts grass.

I said, "I got a kid."

I heard what that sounded like. I did not correct it.

He is nine hundred dollars from the truck.

A mountain is not asked to be smaller. A mountain is walked around, at night, quietly, by a man with a truck payment he intends to make on someone else's behalf.

I have started mentioning him to people.

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

Service

[Latter Day Boomstick @LDSBoomstick]

I've gone down a rabbit hole on serving. I was encouraged to read a talk by President Clark called To Them of the Last Wagon. It was really good. That led me to find other talks that reference it or teach the same thing. I found Elder Bednar's In the Path of Their Duty from October 2023.

In that talk Elder Bednar quotes President Hunter where he talks about serving behind the scenes. Much of what we do goes unnoticed. It can feel lonely. It can feel hard. It is worth it. It is no less valuable.

“If you feel that much of what you do this year or in the years to come does not make you very famous, take heart. Most of the best people who ever lived weren’t very famous either. Serve and grow, faithfully and quietly.” - President Hunter

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

And that boys and girls is how it is done

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

A farmer in the county died in September and his corn was still standing.

I want to give the number first, because the number is the story. He had somewhere over four hundred acres. One man with one combine takes roughly a hundred acres in a long day.

On the fourteenth of October, at seven in the morning, I counted twenty-three combines on the road.

They came from other farms. Some from other counties. A man told me one had come ninety miles, which I did not believe, so I asked the driver, and it was ninety-four.

They took the entire crop in one day.

Grain trucks ran to the elevator in a line. Women set food out on tailgates at the edge of the field, which I understood, and then a second table appeared with food for the drivers who had not stopped, which was carried out to the machines, which I did not understand until I watched it happen.

I asked a man at the edge of the field who had organized it.

He said, "Couple guys called some guys."

I asked whether the family had asked for help.

He said, "No."

I asked whether anyone would be paid.

He said, "For what?"

I said to him that twenty-three men had pulled their own machines out of their own harvest, during their own harvest, in the only weeks of the year in which those machines earn anything at all, and had driven as far as ninety-four miles to finish the work of a man who could no longer thank them.

He said, "It's not really a thing you decide."

The widow came out in the afternoon. She did not make a speech and nobody expected one. She walked down the line of trucks and put her hand on the door of each one. She did it to all of them. It took a while.

I asked the man beside me why she was touching the trucks.

He said she knew whose they were.

Every one. From the door.

The corn was in by dark. The machines went home that night, in the dark, in a line, and I stood on the road while they passed, and I counted twenty-three again, because I wanted to be certain I had it right.

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

@japan_nobunaga My 2nd fridge, full size, is in the basement. 2 car garage is full. I had a guy … Bob Newhart and Steven Wright … now I have Nobunaga - an import - streaming in my X feed

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

Reading

[Brian Cragun @cragun47]

New painting “Lost in the Good Book” 12x12 oil.
In the gentle light of a wildflower meadow, she loses herself in the pages of a book. The story is timeless and captivating—stirring thoughts and emotions, inviting the pondering of relationships and the deeper truths of life. The solitude of the meadow becomes a quiet sanctuary. Here, reading is both escape and encounter—nourishment for the mind and the spirit.

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

@japan_nobunaga Sal has a brother he never met.
My guy Steve. Identical service, different state.
Same dad too. Genetic.
Both were switched at birth.

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

@japan_nobunaga Mike Garage has a guy.
The guy has a guy.
Now I have a guy for stories.
The Second Nation grows.

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

Family
Quotes

[Jeanine Elsholz @JeanineElsholz]

“My beloved associates, far more of us need to awake and arouse our faculties to an awareness of the great everlasting truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Each of us can do a little better than we have been doing.

We can be a little more kind. We can be a little more merciful. We can be a little more forgiving. We can put behind us our weaknesses of the past and go forth with new energy and increased resolution to improve the world about us, in our homes, in our places of employment, in our social activities.

We have work to do, you and I, so very much of it. Let us roll up our sleeves and get at it, with a new commitment, putting our trust in the Lord.

We can do it, if we will be prayerful and faithful.

We can do better than we have ever done before.

The Church needs your strength. It needs your love and loyalty and devotion. It needs a little more of your time and energy.

I am not asking anyone to give more at the expense of his or her employer. We have an obligation to be men and women of absolute honesty and integrity in the service of those who employ us.

I am not asking anyone to do so at the expense of your families. The Lord will hold you responsible for your children.

But I am suggesting that we spend a little less time in idleness, in the fruitless pursuit of watching some inane and empty television programs.

Time so utilized can be put to better advantage, and the consequences will be wonderful.

Of that I do not hesitate to assure you!

Now, my beloved brethren and sisters, as we return to our homes, may we go in safety, pondering the things we have heard these past two days.

May we go with determination to try a little harder to be a little better.”

Gordon B. Hinckley
We Have a Work to Do
April 1995 GC

[MyHeritage @MyHeritage]

Name your 8 great-great-grandparents. Most people can't get past 3 names back. In 3 generations almost no one is remembered. Meet the ones who came before you: https://t.co/hfQmOv3Lum #FamilyHistory #Genealogy

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

Vision
Integrity

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

Genealogy

[Rudy W. Giuliani @RudyGiuliani]

Today, I returned to my roots, where my parental grandfather was born: Mariana, Italy.

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

Quotes

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Never forget how fragile the tiny candle of consciousness is

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Never forget how fragile the tiny candle of consciousness is

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

@MZHemingway Thank you, Mollie. Grateful for the visual reminder on the flash screen at convention.
A permanent LCMS biographical obituary page—detailing who these pastors were and what they accomplished—would be a lasting tribute for the whole church.

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

Genealogy

[XNews @XnewsOutlet]

He does the Shumate name proud. I am a Shumate too. All Shumates are related. We got the name from the British in Jamestown in 1703. We are French by name, De La Chaumette, and of course Jamestown was British, so our name was changed. Our ancestors fought in every war. My father was a highly regarded Director of Enforcement at the FDA in the 70s and 80s. I grew up in suburban Washington DC. I understand DC better than most people because of that. Very happy to see another Shumate step up and bring it. Very happy!

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

Families
Trauma

[Thomas Jay Kemp @ThomasJayKemp]

Flooding

[Chase Thomason @ChaseThomason]

Another reminder that Utah’s monsoon is far from over.

This video was taken yesterday at North Creek in Beaver, where heavy rain over the Cottonwood Fire burn scar sent a dangerous debris flow rushing downstream. You can see the mud, rocks, trees, and other debris being carried by the flood.

Burn scars are especially dangerous during monsoon season because the scorched ground can’t absorb water like it normally would. Even a brief downpour can trigger life-threatening flash flooding and debris flows.

If you’re recreating near recent wildfire burn scars, stay weather aware and never underestimate these storms. They can turn deadly in a matter of minutes.

📹: Kyra Maycock