Picto Diary - 06 to 15 September 2025 - Charlie Kirk assassinated

Above: Iron Canyon, Park City, UT Lower garage. 06 September 2025.

Three of my four bikes all freshly serviced with new rubber.

2021 Ducati Multistrada V4. About 15K miles.

2012 BMW F800 GS. I've ridden this bike twice from Park City to Alaska and back.

2015 Ducati Multistrada V Twin. 45K miles.

The fourth bike is in Ivins. 2021 Honda Goldwing.

There is no reason, at my age, to have four bikes. I'm thinking of reducing the "fleet" to two bikes, one garaged in Park City, and the other stored in Ivins.

Above: Park City, UT. Old Town. Old Miner statue. 06 September 2025.

LSDM Walkers.

Bishop 'n TWO3.

Colors changing. A nip in the air.

Above: Slackline Park. Park City, UT. 06 September 2025.
LSDM Walkers.

Above: Slackline Park. Park City, UT. 06 September 2025.
LSDM Walkers.

Above: Slackline Park. Park City, UT. 06.
LSDM Walkers.
Everett V. Howell was one of the original Ski Geezers who skied daily together at Park City Mountain Resort, roughly from 1996 to 2006 when Everett Howell died I, then in my mid '60's joined up with the group circa 2000. TWO 3 and Mwah (sic) were apprentice geezers being some fifteen years younger than the original guys. Everett Howell had a Utah vanity tag, SKIGZR. My visiting Slack Line Park for the first time today was an experience of mystical coincidence which I learned of later that morning after returning home from our 3.5-mile LSDM Walker walk. See next Picto Diary entry.

Following is my entry into Picto Diary of 11 February 2020. Scroll past to learn of my telephone conversation with Ohl today. 06 September 2025

Above: (46) Ohl. Empire Lodge, Deer Valley. Park City, UT. 11 February 2020.

Ohl at 87.
Ohl. Last one still skiing of the original four PCMR Ski Geezers. Ev and Bob have passed on. Axe, now living in St. George, shelved his skis after a bad shoulder injury (requiring surgery) suffered while skiing last season.

Bishop and TWO3 joined the Ski Geezers 18 years ago as Apprentice Geezers. The Ski Geezers decided we early 60 somethings had to be over 70 in order to be bonafide Ski Geezers.

Was great to join Ohl skiing today. He apologizes for slowing down. I respond, "What??!! You're eighty-seven years old and you're out here skiing as well as you always have! No more apologies!"

Ohl.... that we all can sustain good humor, "joie de vivre," and skiing regimen as long as you have!

06 September 2025. Sitting in my lounger at home about 11:00 AM I received a telephone call from Ohl (John Brose). John and wife Sharon are retired, living independently at their home in Texas. John is 93 years old.
John: "Steve, I wanted to call you to let you know about my health condition. I have pancreatic cancer and am not expected to live beyond another month or so." Steve: "John, I don't know what to say. I'm very sorry." Our conversation shifted to talking about the good times we had skiing together. I mentioned that I hadn't seen Axe (Don Dowell) in a few years, though I understood he had returned from St. George back to the Charleston area where he had lived during the years we skied together. I noted that TWO 3 (Tom Oliver III) were regular walking and hiking companions.
The Ski Geezers was a special relationship. I was happy that John reconnected to update his health condition, tragic as that condition be. I told John that he had reached the apex of the human experience: a successful career in the oil business, married to one woman, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and a skiing retirement. I said I was honored to have known him.
It wasn't until later that I realized the mystical coincidence of visiting Slack Line Park, where Ski Geezer Everett's monument was, for the first time earlier in the day and getting John's call only a couple of hours later. John was an example of how to lead the retired good life. I will be ever grateful for having known John and Sharon Brose.
I can still hope for a miracle and John being with us a little longer than he has forecast.

Above: I-15 Road Stop, Paragonah, Ut. 06 September 2025.

2019 Freightliner branded Sprinter right where it belongs... with the Freightliner big boys. These days, since the 2022 models, Sprinters are only branded as Mercedes. All Sprinters, whatever the brand, have made by Mercedes in Stuttgart, Germany. I sometimes am criticized about getting a Sprinter with the uppity, fru fru, Freightliner branding, but I felt more at ease with the Freightliner brand when, as seen in the image, I hang out with the big boys. I would have been laughed off the lot by the big boys with the more common, pedestrian Mercedes Freightliner branding.

Above: Ivins, UT. 08 September 2025.
AM walk with Freddie.

Above: Cliffside Restaurant. St. George, UT 10 September 2025.

We spent the AM at home. At 8:30 AM, TIMDT and Mwah (sic) took Freddie for a walk around the Palisades subdivision in Ivins.

I spent the rest of the AM reading and snoozing in my armchair with Fox news on mute. I would occasionally glance at the TV screen, then return to a doze or to the book that I was reading: "Careless People," by Sarah Wynn--Williams. At around noon I looked at the TV screen and saw at the bottom of the screen, "Charlie Kirk shot at Utah Valley University (UVU)." I hurried to get TIMDT. I turned on the sound. Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz, in attendance at the Kirk UVU talk, was being interviewed. Chaffetz' demeanor was one of shock and discomfort. His voice wavered uncontrollably as he tried to describe the chaos going on around him.

TIMDT and Mwah left for lunch out at about 12:15 PM. Seated at Cliffside Restaurant, around 12:30 PM, I checked my smart phone and saw that Charlie had just been pronounced dead. It seemed impossible. A nationally known conservative, Christian figure assassinated in Orem, UT, the town just adjacent to Provo, the city where I was raised.

Thanks to Tik Tok I was very familiar with Kirk. Two or three times a week, while scrolling through Tik Tok, one of Charlie's well known college debate appearances would pop up.

We returned home to Ivins after lunch and noted that a man hunt for the killer was being pursued. FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino flew from Washington, D.C. to Utah to oversee the manhunt. Utah Governor Cox would periodically appear on TV to give updates.

Above: Beaver High School, Beaver, UT. 11 September 2025.

Flags commemorating the twenty-fourth anniversary of the attacks by Islamic terrorists on the World Trade Center in New York City and on the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Almost 3000 people were killed in those attacks. I was reminded on where TIMDT and Mwah (sic) were on that fateful day, twenty-four years ago. As we entered The Hotel Diana in Vence France around 10 AM we saw a dozen or so people huddled around a TV set in the hotel lobby. To our shock and surprise, they were watching a live broadcast of the toppling of the second tower of the World Trade Center.

News of the Kirk shooting yesterday seemed to crowd out necessary awareness of the 2001 9/11 tragedy anniversary today. One could be forgiven for believing we are living in an era where things are spinning out of control.

I, with Freddie along, was driving the Sprinter van home to Park City, just for overnight... I would return to Ivins the next day... when I captured this image of the 9/11 anniversary commemoration in Beaver. Most of the drive I was listening to the Audible rendition of the book I was reading, "Carless People."

I would occasionally check the news for progress on the apprehension of Charlie Kirk's killer. When I arrived home in Park City, around 7:00 PM, I learned of the alleged killer's apprehension. I had surmised, from the pieces of the reports I was able to put together, that the killer, part of some subversive group who had planned the assassination, had arrived by car from out of state. I feared he had escaped by car and by the time I had arrived home was well out of state. I was shocked to hear the alleged killer lived in St. George and had been turned in by members of his family. I was doubly non-plussed when it was reported that the alleged killer was a third-year student, studying electrical engineering, at Dixie Technical College (not the same as Utah Tech University, also in St. George) which was located just across the street from the restaurant, Cliff Side, where TIMDT and Mwah (sic) had lunch the day before. I mean what are the odds? The purported killer of Charlie Kirk comes from our own back yard.

The suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was apprehended less than 36 hours after the shooting after confessing to his father. The father arranged a low key turn in without SWAT present. U.S. Marshals detained Robinson in Washington County, Utah at approximately 10:00 p.m. MDT on September 11, 2025, following a manhunt aided by 7,000 public tips and collaboration between local, state, and federal agencies. This timing aligns with FBI Director Kash Patel's praise for the "historic" 33-hour capture and Governor Spencer Cox's press conference confirming the arrest. The announcement came shortly after through official channels, including a tweet from Patel at 4:21 p.m. MDT and President Trump's Fox & Friends interview at 6:00 a.m. MDT on September 12.

Above: Steve's Steakhouse, Richfield, UT. 11 September 2025.
The Monk (Dan Jorgenson) and Freddie. Two old geezer friends enjoy lunch together.

Above: Rusted Cactus Restaurant, Kayenta, UT. 15 September 2025.

Road Runner.

We enjoyed dinner with Elizabeth and Kent, new Ivins residents having recently moved from Boulder, Colorado. Elizabeth and her husband Bob (deceased) were Park City friends of ours until Bob died circa 2004 and Elizabeth moved to Colorado. Elizabeth soon found a partner, Kent, and she and Kent settled in Boulder. TIMDT and Elizabeth stayed in touch by FaceBook and email over the ensuing twenty years. When Elizabeth and Kent signaled their desire to leave Colorado, TIMDT teed up the Palisades development, in Ivins, as a possibility, and low and behold, Elizabeth and Kent are building a house there now.... five minutes' walk from our own Palisades home.