The Mid-Length, Mostly Unhappy Life of Franklynn Carmichael

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Rumor has it another Bobberson installment is just a few days away.

Just sit tight!!

[_Tator]

Rumor has it another Bobberson installment is just a few days away.

Just sit tight!!

Everybody Wang Chung, you wouldn't be wangin' everybody's chang would you?

[_Gadianton]

This is good news. I heard that Bobberson had passed on. I am glad this is not true.

[_Bret Ripley]

This is good news. I heard that Bobberson had passed on. I am glad this is not true.

I was worried he was going all Salinger on us.

[_Bob Bobberson]

Part IV: Dylan Cross and the Two-Day Seminar

Brrring! Brrring!

Franklin looked up from his work at the ringing phone: it was probably Merlyn, reminding him about their upcoming meeting this afternoon. It rang again and he picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Carbuncle." The voice was low and drawn out. "I don't appreciate being stood up."

"Listen," said Frank. "I'm not playing any more of your games. I'm not putting up with your crap! Do you hear me?"

"Crap is your stock in trade, Dr. Carbuncle. You should have been at Lagoon. It would have been fun."

"Don't call here again. If you do, we're going to trace your call."

The person on the other end of the line was laughing as he hung up. He took a moment to regather his focus and train of thought, and then he felt a prompting of the spirit, and so he moved away from his desk and knelt down.

"Dear Father who art in Heaven, I come before thee with great humility. I ask thee for forgiveness for me weaknesses. I know I've done wrong, and that I've failed as a father, husband, and priesthood holder. Please, please help me to overcome this problem that I have, and I ask that thou would please give me strength at this time. Help me to understand why the anti-Mormons keep tasking me. Give me the strength to withstand their attacks. I'm so sorry, Heavenly Father. I'm sorry.... Please help me. I ask of thee these things in the name of thy son Jesus Christ, amen."

He knelt there for several moments longer, listening to the quiet in the room: the faint sounds of birds outside the window, the hum of the fluorescent lamps overhead, and the soft ticking of the clock on the wall. Then the calmness washed over him, and he knew that his prayer had been answered, and that it was time to get back to work. He got up, went to his desk, and sat down and resumed typing, and when he looked back up again, it was time for lunch.


Later that afternoon, Frank joined Merlyn, Howell, Herb McConkie, Nephi Clark, Marion Jorgensen, Mitch Findley, Spencer Ford, and the others around the long rectangular table in the Hinton Institute conference room. After an opening prayer, the turned to Howell and he slapped his hand down on the table.

"So," he said. "We've got Dr. Stoltz flying in from North Carolina tomorrow to host this 'New Avenues in Book of Mormon Studies' seminar. Now, I think you all know that I've got the highest respect for Hugh, but I think we need preparations for this. We need to think strategy, and how we might want to deal with whatever this winds up turning into."

Paul Fredrickson raised his hand: "Sorry. As someone new to this, can you give me a little more of a sense of what you mean?"

Merlyn rolled his eyes and Nephi Clark both rolled their eyes. Fredrickson, who'd been hired nine months ago, hadn't turned out as they'd hoped.

"All too often," Herb McConkie said, "this seminar turns into a breeding ground for fuzzy, New-Agey crap."

"What do you mean?" asked Fredrickson.

"Basically," said Merlyn, "they want to bracket off questions of the Book of Mormon's history."

"Pretty much the same things they've tried to do with the Book of Abraham," Franklynn added.

"I don't understand," said Fredrickson. "If the seminar is meant to explore a variety of diverse issues about the Book of Mormon, then why can't they bracket off the history?"

"Ppfffbbt. 'Diverse,' he says," muttered Howell, who had pulled his smartphone out of his jacket pocket and was now typing something into it. "Feel free to show me where in the Gospel is says anything about 'diverse.' That's a politcal-correctness watchword and nothing more."

"Hugh Stolz is an outstanding scholar with impeccable credentials. I respect him enormously, and I think he's doing a good thing by hosting this seminar. But you've got to realize, Paul, that there are some people who are more concerned about image than about integrity and commitment to principles of doctrine."

"We don't want this to turn into Sunstone Lite," said Nephi Clark, and several people chuckled.

Paul Fredrickson frowned. "Shouldn't this be a case of just letting the scholarship stand for itself? I mean, isn't Hugh or someone else running the seminar vetting the proposals?"

"You mean 'scholarship'?" said Franklin, making the quotation marks around the word 'scholarship' with his fingers.

At the end of the table, Howell had slipped his phone back into his pocket and he was drumming his fingers together, listening while Merlyn, Frank, and Nephi tried to explain it to Fredrickson. And then there was a knock on the door, and Mitch Findley got up to answer it: it was Teddie-jean, the administrative assistant:

"Dr. Fredrickson? You have a phone call. It's urgent."

He looked around. "Well, how urgent is it?"

Howell held up his hand: "Oh, don't worry, Paul. You better take that. We'll hold down the fort without you."

"All right," he said, and he stood up and left.

When the door had shut, Howell said, "Mitch, please lock the door."

Suddenly the room felt a lot more relaxed. "So," said Nephi. "We've got copies of the program here. I've gone ahead and annotated the relevant papers." The stack was circulated around the table amidst the clearing of throats, sights of disappointment, and bits of laughter.

"Look at this one: 'Homosocial Economies in Late-Period Nauvoo.' Can someone tell me what that means? 'Homosocial'? Where do they get this stuff?"

"I'm pretty sure they're just making it up."

"Why, oh, why can't Hugh do a better job of vetting this stuff?" asked Mitch Findley.

"You know why," said Howell. "It's for political reasons. You don't get to the level he's at without making some concessions. But he doesn't work for the Hinton Institute. We do. And so we're going to take care of what needs to be taken care of as far as this seminar is concerned."

"We probably need to make sure that we have a good showing at this one." Merlyn held up his copy of the program and pointed: he was on page 3. "Dylan Cross: 'Anaphora and Anachronism: What the Documentary Hypothesis Can Teach us About the Book of Mormon.'"

"A strong showing for that one, Howell said. We want people to ask serious, serious questions after this presentation. Brother Cross's work needs to be subjected to the highest level of scrutiny."

Marion Jorgenson, who'd been quiet up to that point, was frowning and shaking his head. "I don't understand what happened to Brother Cross. Married in the temple. Served a mission. What on earth would possess him to take his career in this direction?"

"It's complicated," said Howell, but he didn't offer up anything further in the way of explanation.

They spent another half hour discussing ways of dealing with Cross and the other problem presentations, and then Herb McConkie offered up a closing prayer, and the meeting was adjourned.



...To be continued in Part V: The Patient

[_Gadianton]

What I keep coming back to on this one is, what does it mean to take care of what needs to be taken care of?

Does it mean they are going to ask tough question? I mean, that wouldn't necessarily be bad. Scrutiny is a good thing. But I just get the feeling Howell means something more than mere scrutiny. Well, let's hope we don't have to wait to long to hear what happens at the conference.

[_Dr. Shades]

Well, let's hope we don't have to wait to long to hear what happens at the conference.

Forget the conference; I want to know what happens with the mysterious caller who refers to Franklynn as "Carbuncle."

[_Tobin]

Well, let's hope we don't have to wait to long to hear what happens at the conference.

Forget the conference; I want to know what happens with the mysterious caller who refers to Franklynn as "Carbuncle."

Copying my panda are we Shades?

[_Fence Sitter]

Bump for those who may have missed the latest installment.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Dear Father who art in Heaven, I come before thee with great humility. I ask thee for forgiveness for me weaknesses. I know I've done wrong, and that I've failed as a father, husband, and priesthood holder. Please, please help me to overcome this problem that I have, and I ask that thou would please give me strength at this time. Help me to understand why the anti-Mormons keep tasking me. Give me the strength to withstand their attacks. I'm so sorry, Heavenly Father. I'm sorry.... Please help me. I ask of thee these things in the name of thy son Jesus Christ, amen."

He knelt there for several moments longer, listening to the quiet in the room: the faint sounds of birds outside the window, the hum of the fluorescent lamps overhead, and the soft ticking of the clock on the wall. Then the calmness washed over him, and he knew that his prayer had been answered, and that it was time to get back to work. He got up, went to his desk, and sat down and resumed typing, and when he looked back up again, it was time for lunch.

Brilliant!

Bobberson's prose has an almost Hemingway simplicity, yet very evocative imagery.

I'm hoping at some future installment Carbuncle will finally make it to Lagoon.