The Parlor

     I was talking with Brother Larry Dahl, our fearless leader at the Joseph Smith Academy, at his home in Provo before he returned to Nauvoo for the Fall Semester following my time in Nauvoo.  He told me that when he received the end of semester feedback forms from us students he had expected much of it to be negative regarding the building.  But no; he told me that without exception, every one of us loved the building.  But then, how could we not?  Take the wallpaper: small circles textured with parallel line create the illusion of bubbles.  Bubble paper we cleverly called it.  One curious hole-in-the-wall room we used to play cards in, we dubbed the Bubble Cave.  The hallways twisted and curved, tunnels connected buildings, and windowed walls opened up onto the flats displaying old Nauvoo and the always incredible Mississippi.

      But perhaps the gem of the building, at least in our hearts, was the Parlor (capitalized to emphasize its gem status).  The Parlor sat just inside our primary access to the Great Outdoors.¹  It was papered with the same bubble paper and additionally held some exciting furniture.  A hodgepodge of old chairs, a dangerously shin-high table and some additional tables with the most amazing lamps on them.  The blue-green spackled lamps were slightly larger than average, but their shades were extraordinarily tall.  None of us had ever seen such things.  Were you to place such a lampshade upon your head, your knees would be immobilized.

      The Parlor immediately became a social spot because of the payphone located in one corner.  The phone booth had a most peculiar odor, but it was the only phone in the building for several weeks, and so long lines would arise in the Parlor as we waited for our turn to speak with loved ones far away.  Even if we didn’t feel desperate to call anyone, likely as not the Parlor is where we would be.  (Unless we desired abject loneliness, for the rest of the building was deserted.)

      After the Academy put in a few phones of the nonpay variety, the Parlor ceased as the Only Place to Be, but it remained a common spot for insta-congregations.  If I was going to walk down to the flats and didn’t feel like going alone, a trip to the Parlor would likely net me some travelling companions.  It was a blessed place.

      As was evidenced by the cross on the wall.  It was, I believe, what is called a formée cross, although, being a Mormon boy, I can’t say for sure that I am labeling it correctly.  At any rate, it looked like something the Kaiser would have had on his wall.  Except for the carved initials.  It was some Benedictine thing, I suppose.  The Academy, as you may know, was once a Catholic girls’ school, and while I was there, the nuns were still in the monastery half of the building.  Allow me build some quick suspense by telling you there will be more on this later:

      There will be more on this later.

      Someone once produced, apparently out of thin air, a gumball machine advertising Old Navy.  We all noticed that every time the lever was depressed, a different number of balls came out.  I determined to undertake an investigation and uncover the most efficient way to depress the lever, thus gaining a maximum number of balls upon each depression.  Fifteen minutes had passed when I reached the point were I regularly received nine to ten balls per depression.  I was quite proud of myself.  I was consistently obtaining either the record number of balls per attempt, or just one short.  It was really quite miraculous.

      Then Lindsi entered the room, decided she wanted a gumball, walked over, pushed the lever, and was rewarded with ten.  That irked me.  Stupid gumball machine!

      Before we settled on calling the place the Parlor, other names were considered such as, my then favorite, the Love Lounge.  I favored this name because the travel study honchos in Provo, who had signed us all up for Nauvoo and taken our money, assured us that we would see multiple marriages come out of our time in Nauvoo.  Being engaged, I interpreted this promise to mean that there would be ample opportunities for the armchair athlete to spectate.  And so I wanted a room that would cultivate such opportunities. Such a room begins with such a name.  But instead we called in the Parlor, and so all we ever did was parl.

      A number of my fellow students decided to walk around the temple grounds each night of their stay.  I often joined them, but not always.  It was a short walk, granted, but my toes were an issue all the same in January.  The walks began in the Parlor with a general invitation to walk with the regulars.  A few more folks would always suit up, and off they’ld go.  In this way, I suppose, the Parlor represents the Academy itself very well.  Every night, from the Parlor, people went to the temple.  If the Joseph Smith Academy is “successful,” then, like any Church-run institution, people will go from it to their Heavenly Father and their Savior, of whom, of course, the temple is symbolic.²

      Although I still can’t see how a Love Lounge wouldn’t fill that same need.