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Chapter 11: University of Utah
In September 1938, my brother Sam left on a mission to Great
Britain. Gord and I were the lone children at home. It presented a nice
advantage to me I no longer had to compete with Sam to borrow the
family car for dates.
In junior high school and high school I had been plagued with
throat infections and sinusitis. At Sams missionary farewell, Dr. Rich
Bryner was present. I took the opportunity to ask him to remove my
tonsils using local anesthetic only. He agreed. The following Saturday I
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wards and I still had a hoarse voice when I enrolled at the University of
Utah a week later, but at least the tonsils were gone.
My Dad had always expressed great admiration for successful
business and professional men of his acquaintanceship who had lifted
themselves up by their bootstraps. Often these men had come from
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way through college. No one in the Holmes family ever doubted that
they would need a college education. While my parents had helped my
sisters and Sam with their college expenses, I was determined to make
it on my own. Living at home, my parents supplied food and shelter. I
was determined not to accept money from my parents for my college
education and I didnt ever.
In retrospect, it is clear to me that my attitude towards a univer-
sity education included a basic error. University courses in my mind
had little application to ones life work. To me, getting through the uni-
versity was like the obstacles a cross-country runner encounters in the
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me, life would really begin after graduation. Because I was always in a
hurry, I took 18 credit hours almost every quarter. This was the maxi-
mum allowed.
My tentative plan in entering college was to be a doctor (obvi-
ously, I recognized the importance of post-graduate studies and their
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