Clark Boulton’s life could perhaps best be described as one enormous adventure. But those few words fail entirely to do justice to a lifetime of excitement, incident, and escapade, all interspersed with heartfelt commitment to family, friends, and work.
A clue to the contents of Clark’s captivating life story can be found in its title. The Life Stories and Adventures of Clark Raymond Boulton is the perfect summary of nearly 200 pages of the fascinating—and, occasionally, jaw-dropping—recollections of a man born in Provo, Utah, in 1954 as a “huge nine-pound baby” to a mother “who was just an itty-bitty little thing.”
Clark’s younger years saw him fitting various jobs around his schooling, while he often went fishing and hunting with his adored father. The adventures began early and have continued for more than seventy years. As he says so succinctly, “My wife always says I have lived the life of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn.”
Many people have great stories to tell from their life experiences but labor to get them written. That was the case for Clark, who admitted, “I wanted to write these stories down for years, but I never got around to it. Now this book has forced me to reflect on my life and remember the special stories I have always wanted to tell.”
Clark has far too many recollections to list them all here, yet a few stand out in particular:
- He grew up in a family home next door to his grandmother, Annie Boulton, who was known within the family as “Chicken Grandma.” She raised between 1,000 to 1,500 chickens each year to feed her children and grandchildren.
- Clark’s family dined on his grandmother’s chicken and other produce from their farm. Corn was a mainstay, and Clark devoured it to the extent that he was warned against overeating it. “If you did, let’s just say it would have an effect on you,” he says. You can check out the consequences of that on the internet!
- As a boy, he cut into the back of his hand with a ten-inch beet knife. Although his grandmother wrapped the wound in a bandage, a flap of skin didn’t heal, so Clark decided to cut it off himself using a pair of sharp scissors. He recalls, “I didn’t feel any pain at first because part of the skin was dead, but halfway through my solo surgical procedure, the pain started to kick in.” The hand became so infected that it grew to three times its normal size, and the swelling was only eased thanks to penicillin shots. “I still have a nice little scar to remind me that beet knives shouldn’t be played with,” he recounts.
- Later, when working in engineering, he was cutting huge metal plates for a sports stadium when he noticed that the hoses to the self-propelled cutting torch were tangled. He crawled underneath the torch to straighten them, but as he came back out, he backed into the flame and burned the skin from his arm. Rather than say anything to his boss, Clark wrapped the wound and went home. The next morning, a doctor took a scalpel and cleared away the dead skin—all without providing him with painkillers!
Clark met his wife, Jodie, while still in high school and was struck by her long blonde hair and tanned legs. Together, they lived life to the full, even building their own homes. During the early years of their marriage, they fostered up to twenty children in addition to raising five of their own.
Somehow, Clark still found time to fit in a long series of commitments, including serving as a Scoutmaster, being called to serve as a Seventy for his church for three years (“I got a short missionary haircut and shaved my mustache”), and helping to construct and renovate homes for family and friends. He spent most of his working life in construction, and away from work, he continued his hectic (and sometimes hair-raising) adventures. Among them:
- Hang gliding: On one occasion, Clark’s wing tip caught the edge of the mountain he was jumping from, and he skidded into the dirt on his belly. He recalled, “I couldn’t even stand up because I was shaking so much.”
- Parachuting: When the instructor taking him for his jump from a small plane asked Clark if he wanted an easy flight or a fun flight, Clark naturally opted for the latter: “We started doing flips, turns, and all kinds of acrobatics in the air.”
- Scuba diving: On a trip to Maui, Clark was below the waves when he saw a huge shadow above him. It was an enormous stingray, fifteen to twenty feet in diameter. He alerted the divemaster, who said it was the biggest stingray he had ever seen, and he had been diving “forever.”
- Fishing: It was no laughing matter, but Clark’s story of “the worst fishing trip ever” certainly makes you smile (or perhaps grimace). On a boat trip from San Diego, Clark became so seasick that he began contemplating that he was shortly to die, reflecting, “At least that would put me out my misery.” Sitting on a cooler with his head in his hands, he vomited so many times that he burned his esophagus and caused his throat to bleed. The blood drained into his stomach, causing him to vomit further. When the captain saw the blood and told Clark’s friend that they should turn back to get the clearly sick man treated, the friend replied, “No, he’ll be alright. We’ll keep going.” Clark lost twelve pounds overnight, and his throat took two months to heal!
There are far too many other adventures in Clark’s book to recall here, although he poignantly says of his “wonderful” life with Jody, “We’ve traveled to many exotic places and experienced incredible moments that you just had to be there for, but none of that compares to the thrill of raising our children and seeing them become five accomplished adults who continue to do remarkably well in life. My children are my dreams and my parents’ dreams come true.”
As his editor, working on his life story made one thing very clear to me: with Clark and Jody guiding the way, their children certainly had every reason to thrive.
Written by Stephen Pitts, LifeBook Memoirs editor
