Services: In-Flight Service

by Liz Adair on Liz Sez
on yourLDSneighborhood Newsstands - 5 June 2008

My first commercial airplane flight was aboard a DC6, flying from Anchorage, Alaska to Seattle, Washington. The year was 1955 and I was fourteen years old. I wore a gray suit with pink accents—blouse, gloves, shoes and hat. Everyone dressed up to travel back then.

We walked out of the airport and across the tarmac to climb a flight of roll-around stairs where, at the top, the brilliant smile of our stewardess welcomed us aboard. Flight attendants were, by job description: female, young, pretty, single, and registered nurses. They were there to serve our every need. ~ Read More

Services: Thanks! Brother of Mine!

by Liz Adair on Liz Sez
on yourLDSneighborhood Newsstands - 2 June 2008

When I was 48, I had a revelation. It came about when I watched the interaction between my ten-year-old daughter and her eight-year-old brother. One day, as she tried to get this laid-back, happy-go-lucky boy to march to the beat she was insistently drumming, I realized this was a mirror of my childhood relationship with my brother. The one difference was that I was the younger sibling.

The next time my brother came to visit, I shared this with him. “I didn’t realize,” I confessed, “how I used to try to run your life.” His reply? “What do you mean, used to?” -- Read More

Services: Service Lessons

by Liz Adair on Liz Sez
on yourLDSneighborhood Newsstands - 29 May 2008

The Adair Clan welcomes every summer at our annual Memorial Day Campout (also called the Annual Memorial Day Deluge) and say farewell at our yearly Labor Day Campout (sometimes also called the Labor Day Deluge). We live in Northwest Washington State. What can I say? If you’re going to have all that green, you’re going to have to learn to go camping in the rain.

Memorial Day we spend at the Church property on the Stillaguamish River. The reason we camp there is because of the 25’ by 45’ covered area on the lower campground, an early addition as they started developing the property. -- Read More

Services: Ateer Teaches Clay About Perspective

by Liz Adair on Liz Sez
on yourLDSneighborhood Newsstands - 26 May 2008

If you read my last posting, you know my son Clay is in Cairo. He's been there all school year studying Arabic at the American University of Cairo. I asked him to be a guest blogger today.

Clay writes: A few weeks ago I had one of those good lessons that teaches about the important things in life and how attitude really can make all the difference.

A friend and I were invited to teach an English language conversation class at a local NGO (non-governmental agency) here in Cairo, Egypt. Our class consisted of 18- to 40-year-old men, all Sudanese refugees. After slight hesitation, we accepted and began to be excited about the project. ~ Read More

Services: Whitney Shares a Poem

by Liz Adair on Liz Sez
on yourLDSneighborhood Newsstands - 22 May 2008

I’d like to introduce you to Whitney. Whitney has been living and working in Cairo, Egypt since last September and has become good friends with my son Clay. (She's easy to spot--the only girl in the picture.) I asked both of them to write about an experience they had teaching English to a class of Sudanese refugees at St. Andrews Church in Cairo. I’m posting Whitney’s article first, edited to meet a length constraint.

She writes:

My first time to St. Andrews, I was new to Cairo, didn't speak the language, and was in full-throttle culture shock. As I sat down for my first tutoring session, I realized that I would be working with fellow ex-patriots, with two major differences – they did not choose to leave their country, and they’re unable to return to their homeland. -- Read More

Services: All That Jazz

by Liz Adair on Liz Sez
on yourLDSneighborhood Newsstands - 19 May 2008


It may seem strange to write about a jazz band on a blog about service, but hear me out.

I first heard Blue Street Jazz Band at Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. When we got there, we didn’t know there was a festival going on, but we met an acquaintance as he was hurrying off the ferry with a clarinet case in his hand. Blue Street had just lost their reed man and he was sitting in. This acquaintance had played with a lot of traditional—some call it Dixieland—jazz groups and was used to the wholesale improvisation that makes traditional jazz such a dynamic art form. But, he said, Blue Street was way out of his league, and we really needed to give them a listen. We did, and my husband, Derrill, and I became instant Blue Street groupies. ~ Read More

Services: Mother's Spirit

by Liz Adair on Liz Sez
on yourLDSneighborhood Newsstands - 15 May 2008

My mother died in 1988 at the age of 72. Since Mother’s day is this Sunday, I thought I’d write about how she taught me about service.

Mother was a great conversationalist and a spellbinding storyteller. She was careful to teach me the little unwritten social ‘dos’ of the mid-twentieth century: never wear blue and green together, no white shoes between September and May, don't eat the lettuce garnish under the chicken salad. And, when my brother or I had been disobedient or sassy, she could give a tongue lashing that would flay the soul and make us vow NEVER to do that again. You would think that with those verbal skills, she would have explained to me that service is a necessary part of living, but I don’t remember her ever saying anything about it. -- Read More

Services: Bloggin' On Service

by Liz Adair on Liz Sez
on yourLDSneighborhood Newsstands - 12 May 2008

How many different meanings of the word service can you name?

I’ve been thinking about that ever since Candace Salima asked me to blog a couple times a week on that subject. In ruminating about it, I’d mentally pronounce the word, let it hang, and see what came to mind. Here are a few things I came up with:

Service . . . station. I remember service stations when you really got service—or got annoyed. If no one came out promptly to pump your gas, or if he simply filled the tank and didn't wash the windows and check your oil and tires, it could blight your day. I may write one day about the transition to self-serve and what that means in the grand scheme of things. ~ Read More