Errol's Blog

Officer Bagley & Mr. "B"

2012-02-12T09:01:00.001-08:00

Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2012 21:57:22 -0700

To my surprise today as I was waiting for my junior high students to load up Officer Jarom Bagley rode up on his bike. I did not know that he was working school security at the adjoining school. We chatted for a minute though the drivers window and then he came around to the bus door and boarded the bus. I didn't know what his plan was but I gave him the microphone to the PA system.

Jarom introduced himself as Officer Bagley and instructed my passengers to be thoughtful , courteous, and especially kind to Mr"B" as he wasn't as young as he used to be. My students were almost speechless. Jarom cuts quite as imposing figure with his broad shoulders bulletproof vest, shaved head, and police side arm. As he finished and was walking off the bus the kids gave him a big cheer.

I drove for a couple of miles and couldn't contain myself. I had to tell them that I had four other boys like him and three daughters to boot. They then gave me a cheer.

Got to love these kids..................................Mr. "B"

Priceless

2011-11-20T17:11:00.001-08:00

After six times on the operating table last year I had to leave my bus route rather abruptly before the end of school. The driver who took over was a "redneck" type fellow from Tombstone Arizona who was missing one front tooth. I was somewhat reluctant to leave my beautiful students in his care.

The first day of school each year is a notable event for students which sometimes involves new schools, new teachers and new bus drivers that they will be spending the next nine months with. As I approached my group pickups on the first day of school this year I could see the students straining to see through the reflective windshield to identify who the driver was. As they got on I could see some smiles and restrained approval that Mr. "B" was back. On my next to the last pickup the restraint was lifted as one of the junior high girls that had been on my route for three years gave a shriek of joy upon seeing me. At first I thought it might have been because of my rugged good looks. On second thought it was probably just because I was well groomed and had all of my front teeth.

After I got everyone on board I took the PA microphone and welcomed the students 20% of who were new to the bus. I told them I was called Mr. "B". To my surprise the bus erupted in cheers with fist pumping in the air.[ Now I'm thinking maybe it is because of my rugged good looks.] I went on to tell them that my bus rules were pretty simple. Stay in your seats while the bus is moving. Don't throw things and no jumping out of the windows at speeds over 35 mph. The new students seemed confused at the last instruction. The pay is still $12.50/hr. The cheers were priceless.

After a few weeks I decided that I would sing to them each Friday morning. I had much to sing about. I had lived through six operations. I had made it through a summer on The Sweetwater with John as my boss and I was looking forward to a Arizona winter with of my children and grandchildren. I doubt that when manufactuerers of "Thomas" buses mounted eight speakers in the rounded metal roof of a 40 ft. school bus they were thinking of the singing bus driver. The acoustical effects are quite remarkable.

The first Friday I selected the poem "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer that has beautifully been put to music. I told them to listen carefully to the words.

http://www.bartleby.com/104/119.html

As a second number that day I had them join me in singing from Disney's " It's A Small Small World". They were quite good at this one.

http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/d/disney6472/itsasmallworld512140.html

The next Friday I sang the version of " Ghost Riders In The Sky" made famous by Johnny Cash . This song too has a cowboy message.

http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/f/frankie_laine/ghost_riders_in_the_sky.html

The third week the PA system broke down so it was a "no song Friday" without explaination. To my surprise a half of dozen students asked me on the way off the bus why I hadn't sang that morning. Well that is all us "aging" transportation entertainers need is a little encoragement and who knows when and where we will be singing. I think Johnny Cash would be proud.

Coming up this week is a short song from "Oklahama"

Mr. B

Priceless

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Handcarts

2011-05-17T07:47:00.001-07:00

In the first picture of the handcarts are rickshaws so that the youth can pull disabled friends on the trek that may not be able to hike. The second picture is me moving picnic tables around the campground with the skip loader. The third picture is our 140 handcarts that we are getting ready to re-oil with linseed oil. I also got my spray machine out this week and painted the 24 new picnic tables that we built for a new campground.

This online album has 3 photos and will be available on SkyDrive until 08/15/2011.

http://www.dump.com/2011/05/13/she-takes-a-photo-everyday-for-4-5-years-video/

Dad

Women of the Church

2011-05-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

The two pictures are of Mom [third one in] on one of our women's pulls. This is part of all the treks to have the men and boys leave the sisters to pull the carts alone. You will notice that these carts did not have several hundred pounds of luggage in them. We then tell stories of how in former times and now the women of the church are called on to pull the load alone.

Having said that I would like to devote some time to Ashley's graduation with honors from collage. I had to remember back to our stake trek and the women's pull that Ashley was part of. None of the several women's pull sites here are as difficult as the one Ashley was on. It was a heartbreaker that our North Stake sisters thought they were going to die on. The men watching from the trees thought we were going to die just watching as the sister would block the wheels with rocks when they could go no farther. When they got to the top most just dropped to the ground and cried.
After they had rested, as leader of one of the groups, I instructed the girls to step away from the handcarts and told the boys to pull up the final non challenging hill. After going a short distance I looked back and all of the girls had disregarded my instructions and were back helping with the carts. We as men are lucky to have such women in our lives.

Ashley, Mom and I will celebrate with you when we get home. Rest assured that this accomplishment did not go unnoticed. Love Dad We are very proud of your accomplishment. I know the end was hard to get through as your interests were in other things, but you stuck it out, and as the years go by, you will be glad you did. we love and miss you all mom

Another Day on the Trail

2011-05-14T19:13:00.001-07:00

Today was another day on the trails with handcarts and telling the stories that we will tell the trekker youth. We were just telling them to the other missionaries. We are having some surprisingly sunny days even though we have to unhook our water hose each night so it does not freeze. Elaine is changing from four layers of cloths to three layers. Dad

Happy Mothers Day

2011-05-10T21:16:00.001-07:00

Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers in our family. We are so proud of you and miss you. Sunday we did our 120 mi R/T to the Cove for church. This was our second trip this week to the Cove. We have been hiking their trails and some of ours, over 10 miles this week. This is the "weeper" mission. There are so many stories that we have to learn and tell. John has told some of the stories dozens of time and still can't get thought them without emotion. Elaine and I have been called to be the" handcart wranglers" this summer. We will be in charge of getting the handcarts to the proper locations for the trekers. There are four locations within twenty miles. We use 3/4 ton trucks with long trailers. Sometimes we will have a trailer behind another trailer. After church we had a potluck dinner. So far there has not been a shortage of good food as these displaced mothers show off their cooking skills. E&E

The “catheter”

2011-04-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

FEBRUARY 1, 2011

2:00 P.M.

Scottsdale, Arizona

If any of you in the western states heard a wild scream at that time, it was me as my catheter was being removed. I had thought that these devices only went into the bladder. It felt like mine was being pulled from my throat. In saying that I must admit that I am a wimp and am against pain in any form. My day at the doctor’s office began with a large but pleasant young woman escorting me to the exam room. When she told me to drop my pants and lay down on the exam table I did just that. In this state of Le Grand Exposé she began by taking the staples out of my abdomen incisions. Given the fact that I am beyond ticklish this was a mixture of hilarity and pain. For some reason at this point another young lady comes in to ask the first one a question. Perhaps the second female was just checking up on the first to see if some new form of torture had been discovered for future urilogical patients.

The “catheter” in for five days, while annoying, had not been as troublesome as I had expected. You have a large bag for nighttime use and a small bag that is attached to the inside of your calf for day use. To empty the day bag you just put your foot up on the edge of a toilet or fire hydrant whichever is closer and turn the valve.

When the office girls got done with me, the doctor came in to explain that pathology had confirmed 20% of my prostate to have been cancerous. The cancer appeared to be contained to the prostate, which is no longer among my current list of internal organs.

Then came the “Talk”. The good doctor gave me some free Viagra pills with these simple instructions: “Use it or loose it”

With those encouraging words I make my way though the waiting room wondering if my diaper make me look fat.

Mr. “B”

Thanks for coming back Mr "B". Those relief drivers were scary !!

2011-04-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

Perhaps less than a dozen times in my life I have felt deep emotional pain/sorrow. I don't mean the lump in your throat kind. I mean the kind that originates somewhere inside your chest and you are hoping to find a switch to turn it off. The first time I remember this happening was just before Rob left home to go to BYU. I was driving at about Broadway and Country Club. I came at that time to the realization that once your children leave home they generally only come back as visitors. That of course is part of life's plan and it is a good plan. The last time this happened before yesterday was when I dropped Ashley off in SLC on her way to BYU Idaho.

Tuesday morning I had my first doctor visit since my surgery a week before. My post surgery week had been lousy. This had been my sixth time on the operating table in one year. While it was only a one hour surgery my body seemed to be rebelling from the intrusions that involved knives and anesthesia. I had started driving several days before the doctor visit. I would drive and come home and go directly to bed after each run. I wondered each morning if physically and mentally I should even be driving a bus. It was decided by me and my doctor that I should quit driving and apply for a medical leave of absence. This in fact was the only way that I was going to be able to come back to driving without losing my seniority #, good route, and good bus. I called dispatch and told them that I would be gone for the near future and I went directly to bed.

The next morning I realized what I had done and I had my melt down. I had been driving for three years arguably some of the best students in the school district to the Mesa Academy for Advance Studies. I was their Mr"B" and I knew them by name. When I came back from my numerous sick leaves I was always greeted with enthusiasm. Thanks for coming back Mr "B". Those relief drivers were scary !! I had been practicing my departure speech for a week and I left without even saying good by. Well there you have it. A crusty 67 year old bus driver with a heart of mush.

Mr "B"

"Do you wish to state a religions preference?"

2011-04-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I shared with you that I will be going in Monday morning for another surgery. The hole near my belly button where they took my prostate out did not heal up properly and left me with a hernia. It is an outpatient thing.

Friday night a lady called me from the hospital to ask me a long series of health questions. I don't like these long telephone inquires but I tried to make the best of it. This is how some of our conversation went.

"Do you wish to state a religions preference?"

"I'm LDS."

"Do you smoke or drink?"

"No , they don't let us".

"I know you are not suppose to but since I don't go to your church you could tell me ".

"Really I don't".

"Do you ever have any anxiety attacks"?

"Yes sometimes".

"When does it happen"?

"Usually when I am laying naked on an operating table".

" Who will be accompanying you to the hospital at 6:00 AM"?

" Either my wife or my girlfriend--whoever I can wake up".

Maybe I shouldn't have told her I was LDS. Actually we were both about laughing to tears by the end of our conversation. EB

To my Academy and Franklin passengers

2010-05-26T22:08:00.000-07:00

Note to my Academy and Franklin passengers; If any of you read my stories I do wish you all well. It has been an unexpected pleasure to be your bus driver at this point of my life. Mr. B

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My Only Concert

2010-05-26T22:06:00.001-07:00

If the walls of a home could absorb music and then reflect it back some day, the music in the walls of the Grover ranch house would be Franz Lists' Leibistraum.

Sometime in my last years of high school I took in upon myself to memorize this reasonably difficult piece. I have a good ear for music and I am all right at interpretation. Reading the music and transferring it from brain to fingers was an exercise that I had to work for. This work happened early in the morning sometimes even before Dad was awake and after school. I'm sure it made Mom happy as she had encouraged any of us who would pursue the piano beginning with my first piano teacher Ruth Clark. For the rest of this small three bedroom one bath household there would have been no escaping these endless drills on the Kimball piano.

Sometime after I had memorized this music someone talked me into performing it at the regional high school music contest at Evanston Wyoming. I think I only agreed to this, because I knew that was no real audience. The individual performers played only before a judge [A BYU music professor] and what few other performers happened to be waiting for their turn. The place for our performance was the LDS Stake Center and I was scheduled to play in the afternoon. Several of us wandered over to the stake center in the morning to see what was going on and the professor told us that if any of us wanted to play at that time there were openings. I didn't want to play ever but I was dying to get the anxiety cloud that was following me gone. I went outside ran around the entire stake center to calm my nerves, came back in and told him I was ready. To my surprise he gave me an "A".

This "A" came with a price. Those who got "A's" were then invited to perform at the closing music concert at Star Valley High. This was an audience of the entire student body, faculty, and parents. What was I thinking? My biggest audience to that point was playing the hymns occasionally for seminary class. In SVHS the guy heroes were athletes not piano players. Most of the student body didn't even know I played the piano and now I was the featured pianist in the closing high school concert. There was something wrong with this picture. At the appointed time that evening I left the relative comfort and anonymity of the trombone section and made my way to the grand piano. Apparently I was too ignorant to know that there was a very real chance of tunnel vision and complete black out setting in such a situation. With the exception of playing one part twice the performance seemed to go without flaw.--------Athletes of the high school eat your hearts out. Is it possible that the meek shall really inherit the earth?

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The Hospital

2010-05-02T12:35:00.001-07:00

Tuesday I entered into the bowels of the Banner Baywood hospital complex. Signs were posted around reminding those who entered that this was one of the one hundred best heart hospitals in the United States. Their billing department is one of the best also. By the time I left they had separated more money from my healthcare provider than my employer had paid me in wages for the past two years. The angiogram showed that I had extensive obstructions in my arteries. I would like to think the reason for this is 90% genetic 5% KFC and 5% DQ. That is probably not the case. Wednesday the cardiologist began the repairs.

The most uncomfortable part of the whole procedure was getting my upper legs shaved for the groin catheter to be inserted. I am so ticklish and sensitive that it was all I could do to stay on the bed while the male nurse did the prep. After this torture a husky nurse wheeled me towards the operating room. As we were passing a rest room she asked if I would like to make one last visit. At my age one should never pass that opportunity so I agreed. She helped me off the wheel bed while attempting to preserve my modesty. She said if we get a peek at this point it is called an I C U. Any humor was appreciated.

Upon reaching the operating table the torture began anew as a new male nurse began the sterilization of the insertion site. I suggested that I did not know how I would ever be able to hold still while the doctor gained access to the artery. The next thing I remember was waking up and the whole thing was over. Back we went to the room for, four hours of not being able to bend my leg for fear of opening the wound at the artery insertion spot.

The night nurses have many duties. First among these is the wake you up if you should ever be fortunate enough to fall asleep in this house of healing. They did this all night taking blood and checking your vitals. One of them would even make my bed if she ever happened to find me out of it. I would come out of the bathroom to find my bed make up in tight military fashion. This maneuver helped keep you awake longer as you tried to regain access to the inside of your sheets. The night I stayed there they decided to shampoo the hall carpets. They brought in a riding shampoo machine as big as a small tractor. I had never seen anything like it. What were they thinking? The only reason the death rate is so low in this hospital is because no one can find a peaceful time to die.

The next morning when my sleep depriving nurses finally told me I could go I gave one of them a hug and the other one a high five. They called for a young girl to give me a wheel chair ride out. By the time she found me pacing in the halls she looked up at me and said, " You would probably just as soon walk out wouldn't you?" " I'll escort you". Good girl……

Tonight I am home in my king sized bed. Elaine made some hot bread that gives a pleasant smell to the whole house. I have three new stents in my heart. No one is shampooing the carpets. L

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FW:

2010-05-02T12:17:00.001-07:00

From: eebagley@hotmail.com
To: eebagley@gmail.com
Subject:
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2010 18:11:44 -0700

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Memoirs of a bus driver

2010-03-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

Busing in the 50's and 60'

Having no new bus stories I thought I would recall some of my own busing experiences in the 50's and 60's.

My first bus driver was Roe Herrick. The bus was an early 50's Ford with a flathead V-8, manual four speed and no power steering. I think the flashing lighting system were exactly the same as they are today except the stop arm and door would have been mechanically operated. No one ever saw Roe smile. We threw some candy kisses on his dash board one day as we got off. Maybe he smiled later when he ate them but no one knows for sure.

In Etna we attended a four room school house with two grades to each room. An ice rink was dug next to the school and filled with water each winter. Our recesses and noon hours were filled with skating on the ice. Later a new elementary school was built in Etna and the bus would pick us up from the four room school which had been changed to a junior high and then go pick up the elementary students. We had wonderful teachers in those days but none that were particularly distractive because of their good looks. That was, of course, until Miss Gee came to town. I'm not sure where she came from or how long she stayed in Star Valley. I do know that some of us boys found it necessary get over on the school side of the bus as it stopped at the elementary school just so we could stare at Miss Gee as she walked her students to the bus.

The Etna Rebellion

It was decided by the school board one year that all the junior highs would be shut down and students would be bused to Afton. A group of parents in Etna [ the furtherest school from Afton] lead by Floyd Bagley decided that they would not be sending their students to Afton. We began that year holding school in the Etna church and were taught by some of the sisters in the ward. It may have been the only church school ever in Star Valley. This rebellion only lasted a week or so and we were indeed bused to Afton.

The Grover Years

The only other bus driver I remember for the rest of my schooling was Ervin Johnson. Making a living in Star Valley was not easy. Erv had a small farm, milked cows. drove bus and was cattle range rider in the summer. Everyone in Star Valley was Mormon. You were either active Mormon, inactive Mormon , or Non Mormon. Erv was the inactive kind who smoked. One time the stake hired him to take some of us to the Idaho Falls temple to do baptisms. I'm sure that was a long three hours for him till he got us off the bus and could go have a smoke. John and I were usually out doing morning chores before school started on the Grover ranch and Dad kept us out to the last minute. We knew our reprieve had come when we could see the bus coming several miles away across the valley. We would make a dash for the house, hopefully inhale a little breakfast and be out ready to catch the bus

Owner Drivers / Feeder Routes

In those days except for a few buses owned by the district all of the drivers owned their own buses and were were paid for the routes they drove. Since it was not practical to run the big buses up all the dirt roads for a few students the district paid parent who had students in these out of the way places if they would buy a station wagon and pick their students as well as other along the way. These station wagons would then meet the big buses in route or take the students directly to the schools. Otis Eggleston, our sometimes hired man drove one of these feeder routes. Otis & family lived up Willow Creek in the humblest of circumstances. In addition to a small farm they milked a few cows by hand, separated the cream, and hauled it to Idaho Falls every few weeks to sell it to the ice cream factory. Unfortunatley, they hauled the cream in the station wagon which always had the smell of spilt souring milk.

Heating the Bus

There were two heaters on the bus. One was up by the driver and another one was midway back under a seat. With lots of glass and thin metal walls a bus is not the ideal vehicle to try to heat in Star Valley winters with morning temperatures sometimes at "0" degrees. Unless you were very near one of the heaters the only difference between being inside the bus and outside was that the wind as not blowing. My cousin Dean Bagley [twenty years my senior] rode to school in a wooden camper shell built on the back of a pickup truck with the exhaust pipe running though the camper for heat. One has to think of the possible bad things that could have happened with this heating arrangement..

Walking boy/girl friend to the Bus

One of the tender scenes after each day at high school was the walking of ones girl/ boy friend to the bus. If you lived in Afton you didn't ride a bus so you were free to walk your "love" to the bus and just stand there waving good-by as the bus drove away. If both parties rode the bus then you had to decide who's bus you walked to first and then maybe wave to each other as the buses drove off. My time of having an Afton girlfriend walk me to the bus lasted only two weeks. I actually had an Afton girlfriend longer than that but she thought it was silly to walk me to the bus. Eventually she must have thought it was silly to have me as a boyfriend.

Field Trips

One time the band followed the basketball team to Kemmerer Wyo. for a game. The trip one way was over three hours. On the way back [with no rest stops or convenience stores] cries were going up to the driver that miles traveled had exceeded the square root of bladder capacity x two. I'm not sure how we would have handled a rest stop late at night with a mixed group on a rural road but we were willing to give it a try. We never got the chance. The driver just kept on driving back to Afton.

Petticoats

Girls often wore multiple petticoats to school. In sitting position these tended to take up most of bus seat. If two full petticoated girls sat together it would have been the same as a primitive air bag. This level of underclothing was more that just decorative. It could help retain body heat on a cold bus.

Forty Five Year Gap

In 1962 I rode a school bus for the last time. Forty five years later I started riding again. The color of the bus is the same, but my bus has a turbo charged Mercedes Benz diesel engine, five speed automatic, air conditioning, air brakes, and an air ride seat. It has a satellite tracking system that tells dispatch where I am, how fast I am going, and what time I made each stop. A camera is filming the driver and passengers at all times. The C-B radio keeps me in touch with dispatch and eighty five other drivers.

If Roe Herrick is looking down on all of this perhaps even he is now smiling. Mr. "B"

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Transition Revisited

2010-02-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

The day after I dropped Ashley of in SLC I started struggling with my emotions again. I couldn’t figure it out. I had done this separation thing seven times before and it was not a two-day affair. By mid morning I had to retire to my bedroom to hide my tears as I lay on my bed. When my children left they had always came home again with spouses and eventually grandchildren. This is a win-win situation After some bitter struggling with my emotions I finally came to realize this was probably more about me than it was about Ashley’s leaving.

When you have your “last child” seven years after your other “last child” and you are already into your forties it is not without consequences. It means that should that child remain with you as they attend several years of collage while living at home you will be in your mid sixties when they finally leave home. I have high school mates that had two children in their early twenties. The children left home in their early twenties and the parents have already been empty nesters now for twenty years. I met a friend of Elaine’s and mine the other day that I first met when we were freshmen at BYU, Danny Boyle. Danny was chasing a four year old around Lenharts. Danny got remarried in his late fifties to a women almost twenty years his junior. The four year old was not his grandchild. It was his daughter. He will be around eighty when this girl leaves home. For years now we have been invited to the empty nesters monthly potluck dinner/home evening in our ward.

First of all we didn’t want to spend the evening with those old people and second of all we weren’t empty nesters.

By maintaining teenagers in your home well into your middle age you slow the aging process. You are enriched by their lives and the lives of their friends that also come into your home. By maintaining a grandchild in your home in your mid sixties you can actually reverse that aging process.

So there you have it. This was my transition and I am coming to terms with it. I’m still not going to go to the empty nesters monthly potluck/home evening. Dad

Transition

2010-02-03T07:09:00.001-08:00

4 A.M. Tuesday. It was decided the night before that I would drive Ashley to SLC rather that Elaine. She and Ashley had been up all night packing. I have no idea where she is going to put the stuff. My HHR had only room for two people in the front seats. After prayer Mom and Ashley were both in tears. We had a pleasant trip. In-between Ashley sleeping we had time for reminiscing stories and some good laughs. One of the stories I told her was of just before Rob left for BYU. I was driving home on Broadway when I unexpectedly got all teary and emotional at the thought that he would be gone to school then a mission then marriage and he would really never "come home again" in some sense. All went well until we entered SLC and I knew that Ashley would be dropping me off at Jeans and continuing on to Rexburg alone. Then it hit me. For the last ten miles we were both in tears. Ashley had a few minutes with each of the kids as they came home from school and then she was off on her new adventure. Jean by the way looks great. I kept looking at her and saying who is this girl? She could pass for someone 20 years younger. After supper with Jean and the kids I caught a late flight home and again was reminded that someone had left as we drove in the garage with one empty stall. Dad

Limo Driver

2009-12-21T21:04:00.001-08:00

In the movie “The Bucket List” Morgan Freeman and Jack Nickelson are two older men who have a list of things they want to do before they kick the bucket. I too have a list. It is not very exotic and mainly involves things I haven’t driven so far in my life. As you get older I think you have license to satisfy some of these desires. Some time ago a Limousine company set up shop just down on Main four blocks from our house. They have a full complement of Limos from Lincoln town Cars, Hummers. to full buses made up as limousines. I didn’t even know being a Limo driver was on my list but some how it showed up. This is the story of my first two jobs. The misspelled words are a salute to my being able to spell words in such a way that even spell check can’t help me
My First Job as Lemo driver was to pick up a group of Hispanic people.

I was supposed to go though 16 hours of training for my new part time job. I was into the third hour on the second day of watching a video on the rules and protocol of chauffeurs. The trainer is also the manager and dispatcher. We were scheduling a time when he could take me out at night and drive around Scottsdale as that is one of the favorite destinations. He also wanted to acquaint me with nighttime driving in a stretch limo.

While we were engaged in this conversation a call came in from Phoenix from a very upset woman who had pre-paid $350 for three hours of limo service that was supposed to have started 30 minutes ago. Brandon shuffled though his desk till he found the contract that had not been entered into the computer and thus had not been assigned. Sensing the tension of the moment, I excused myself and told him I would call tomorrow. He replied, “How quick can you go home, get your suit on and be back here for this run”?

In the few nano-seconds that I had I am thinking; Lets see, I have never driven a stretch limo, we will be almost an hour late by the time that I get there, the customer is already upset---perfect---- I’ll take it and was back in 15 minutes. Helpers were prepping the limo when I got back and I got about three minutes of instruction on the controls of this stretch mobile. I put it in gear and pulled out of the yard into the narrow street behind the yard. How hard can this be I’m saying. After all I drive a forty-foot school bus every day. There were similarities. It seemed forty foot long but with less visibility both front and rear and a worse turning radius.

The occasion was a “Quinceanera” coming out celebration for a 15-year-old Hispanic girl. I had already been warned there would be no tip for this run as they have usually spent all the money they have been saving for months to put on this party. That proved to be correct but my life is more about experiences right now than it is about money.

Armed with a map of the destination in downtown Phoenix I was soon on the freeway trying to figure out how close the cars were to the rear of me as I was making lane changes. The map took me to one of the more humble parts of Phoenix. These were project houses. All looked alike and were the same color. As I made my way down the narrow roads between the houses my clue that I was at the right place was a group of nice looking young men in fancy tuxedos standing on their dirt lawn. This is all that was left as the rest of the group had move on to an Old Catholic church for the ceremonies. They quickly and courteously gave me directions to the church. The ceremonies were already in progress. When I dropped the boys off. I decided to lock the car and go observe what was happening. In testing the remote lock that had all the directions worn off I hit something while the door was still open which set the car alarm off. I can hear the music from the church so I assume they can hear the car alarm. Panic!! Getting a tip is now out of the question. I’m now just trying to stay out of jail for disturbing one of the most important events in a young fifteen year olds life. As it turned out after an eternity of 30 seconds getting the alarm off, I found the music I was hearing was coming from a loud speaker outside the church.

When you get to an event way late it seems to get over way early. Soon out came the party-goers in their fancy dresses and tuxedos. The mother who had prepaid for the Limo let me know of her unhappiness and reminded me that she had paid of three hours of service. I assured her that she would get her three hours and that I was at her service. Seven young men and one girl got in the back and asked me to just drive them around downtown Phoenix. I still have two hour left on the clock. After about fifteen minutes I stopped and asked them if they would like to go see some great Christmas lights in Mesa. They thought that would be cool so we took the freeway back to Mesa. I drove up in front of the temple and let them out advising them that this was a sacred place so they would need to observe a reverent attitude. The temple lights are very impressive and from their part of Phoenix it is possible they had never seen them before. They were quite impressive too. There were seven young men in tuxedos escorting one young woman in a princess gown around the temple grounds. Finally they had had enough. I felt like I was being instructed to take Cinderella from the ball back to the kitchen as we returned to the project houses.

Upon returning to Mesa what grandfather could resist going by his grandkids house and giving them a ride in the stretch limo before returning it to the yard. Not this one. Errol

Ride # 2 I picked up two couples in a gated community in Chandler and drove the to North Scottsdale for a short birthday gathering. The round trip was 90 miles. This trip was quite uneventful as I had my GPS guiding me and it was mostly freeway both ways. On returning to Chandler one of the men slipped me a couple of bills. Discretion dictates that you don’t examine the tip in the presence the customer. You merely thank them for being able to serve them and be on your way. At my first opportunity I held the bills up to the dim interior light of my stretch Cadillac to find they were both of the $100 type. My tip less teenagers soon became a dim memory and I was forced to reexamine my reasons for doing this job. EB

Organizing

2009-11-22T20:21:00.001-08:00

Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:20:35 -0700

No one could accuse me of being a neat freak. In my mind I love organization and my only hope of getting there is to have less stuff. My goal is to be a minimalist but it takes too much work. By the side of my bed there has been for many years a binder that started out as a journal. Over the years it has become a place that I stuffed memorable things that I wanted to save.

Tonight I pulled it up on the bed and started going thought it. There were letters from my children, talks, birthday notes,appreciation notes from ward members, lists of all the cars and trucks I had bought over the years,{it is in the 60's} etc. My goal was to throw much of it away. That didn't happen. There was a reason I had stashed the stuff in the binder and I found that even though I hadn't looked at it for years I wanted to keep the evidence that someone thought kindly of me at some time.

One of my favorite birthday cards was from Heidi.[Picture of trees and forest] Dad I'll never forget how you used to take me places---Open card--but I always found my way home. I hope we will always know where home is and be able to find our way there.

This week my plan is to start training as a Lemo driver. There is a Lemo/ bus business up on Main that I stopped in at this week. I only work 30 hrs for the school so I thought I could get a few Lemo gigs on the side during the holidays. The pay is higher plus tips. Just branching out the arms of my new career.

Bad news this week. For the last five years I have been nurturing four aspen trees up in Pine. Rob and family helped me plant them. I was told it would be a challenge as the elk and deer love to eat the bark. We dutifully sprayed them with liquid fence [terrible smelling stuff that repells most animals] for these years but lost two of them last year. The other two were getting healthy in size and we love the look of Aspen. Last week when we went up these two were stripped of all there bark. So much for my Aspen forest. Love Dad

Random Thoughts

2009-11-14T18:17:00.001-08:00

Subject: RE: Random Thoughts
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:11:34 -0700

One final thought on "The final resting place" here on earth and then I will give this a "rest".
I thought Terry gave the best summary of reasons to be buried in a certain place. I have lived most of my life in Arizona. Memorial Day in Arizona is almost a non-event in the Ray family. It is already hot and none of the wonderful traditions of going to the graves and getting together with relatives are practiced here. In the thirty years since Elaine's Moms death she has been to the grave, which is less than three miles from our home, three times. Her Mom is very close to her and she has felt her presence often but not in the cemetery so she feels no need to go there. Star Valley too is my "Home" but it is unlikely that my children would ever come there to pay their respects and in Arizona respect paying is a non-event.

I resent the costs of a traditional funeral and burial even though it is minute fraction of the monies that supported one in life. The billions spent putting people in the grave it seems could have a better use on the needs of the living. I remember Mom telling about when her brother Gerald died. The body was laid out in the family living room and they stayed up putting ice on it though the night until the funeral. I suppose the main expense was the casket which grandpa probably made.

One remembrance from the Fairview cemetery on memorial day when I was maybe ten years old. There was a particularly well endowed older woman there that Dad asked me to go up and ask her what she had done for him when he was a baby. I did not ask so he told me. Being the ninth of ten children apparently Grandmother Bagley was not able to nurse him properly so he got supplemented by this neighbor lady. He claimed that was why he was bigger than the rest of his brothers.

Anyway, that leaves me with the Grover hill fly over or they can sprinkle my ashes up on the hill above our Pine home. My children and grandchildren are sure to visit there. Perhaps none of my wishes will be considered and as Loren said "over my dead body" they will do what they want. On with the joys of living. Errol

From: Terry
To: Errol
Subject: RE: Random Thoughts
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:35:29 -0600

Dear Family: As I am the eldest I prefer to contsentrate on living! But in the event I am not twinkled with Christy I have arranged to acquire two lots in Afton from Partsy where Jerry , Ryan, Mom, Dad, Uncle Gene, Aunt Ida and Eugene are resting. I could just as easily have chosen Fairview, but I want to be with "my family". I never lived at the Grover Ranch, so I have no connection with it although I understand Errols affinity with it. I have always considered Star Valley "home". Yes I have lived in California, Washington, Oklahoma and Idaho, but Star Valley is "home". It is where I grew up, worked with dad and Jerry, went to school, went on my first date, kissed a girl for the first time, had my first love and went steady my junior year; graduated from High School, left for and returned from my mission. It is where I gave my wife a diamond and announced our engagement. It is also where Mom & Dad gave us a wedding reception and sent us to the cabin for our honeymoon. But I would really like to be "twinkled" Terry

From: Errol
Sent: Saturday, October 24, 2009 1:16 PM

Subject: RE: Random Thoughts

I am waiting for the wisdom of Terry and Christy on this important topic. I think I will add something John and I can both take some pleasure in. I think I will hear Dads call just as well from the Grove hill as anywhere as that is where I heard it the most in the Grover house. I would like John to do a fly over of the Grover hill and drop my ashes from at least 100ft elevation. I think the prop wash would insure a good even spread. One added memory from that hill was that I shot my one ond only deer just on the top. There were two standing across the first draw. Dad said" You take the one on the left and I will take the one on the right". We dropped them both. Errol

From: Jule
To: Errol
Subject: Re: Random Thoughts
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:12:16 -0600

My Oh My but this has taken a serious note!

Errol: don't paint any more lockers and get to Wyoming as soon as you

can to get some fresh air!! Take in all the air you can in Idaho as you go.

Breathe slow. breathe deep. As Dolly Levi said in "Hello dolly": Just keep breathing!!!

Like Merissa, I too was happy that you brought up cremation.

That wasn't incarnation that you were thinking of, was it?

I have long expressed that the thoughts of being under the ground are most distressing tome

LIke Aunt Christy, I just gotta have a way to get out!

I have said to John, maybe just wrap me in a shawl and put me in a tree.

But, as to where? The Ranch in Teton Valley has my heart.

I too love Star Valley, very much, but, my life has been lived with my family in

Teton Valley. I love our ranch. I want to be sprinkled in a bed

of natural wildflowers on the hill with the Tetons ever visible.

I would like all of you to join me, as that's whar we are:

a varied and wonderful family of wild flowers with mountains

to climb or fly over or walk through.

Now, on with the joy of life while we are living!

Julie of the South China Sea

On Oct 22, 2009, at 9:44 PM, Errol Bagley wrote:

Dear Family,

You must understand that I spend five hours a day [90 miles] driving school bus. Bus driving only uses 37% of your brain except at intersections [150 per day] when it can go up to 65%. I therefore have time to think of the meaning of life and of death with the other parts of my brain while driving. Today I was thinking about death and particularly where I would like to be buried if I could be buried anywhere and not confined to a cemetery . I would ask each of you to think about your answer to that question before you read mine.......................

I decided that I would like to be buried on the dry farm on top of the hill behind the Grover Ranch house. I used to be opposed to cremation but I have mellowed to that idea and I would not mind if my ashes were spread up on that hill. Grover has many great memories for me. It is where I came into my own in young manhood. I loved the ranch. My High School years were good. It was on that hill that we baled hauled and staked a 1000 bales one day. That was a lot of hay in those days. I was watching the bale counter and immediately told Dad when it hit 1000 as we had never done that before. I thought he might call it a day. He duly noted the fact and kept on baling.

I saw an arcticle about a burial place where no caskets or markers were allowed. The bodies were just wrapped in a blanket and put in the ground. A geo-marker was put in the ground so the location could be identified electronically in the future and the body would speedily return to mother earth.

I am not discounting how much I enjoy going to the cemetery and visiting the place of our loved ones final resting place. It is very special to me. I would be interested in your thoughts on this subject if you care to share them.

Errol

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The Good Life

2009-11-14T18:10:00.001-08:00

Dear Family, For those of you in the mist of making a living, raising children, and finding love I salute you. I have had a great life but there is no part of it that I need to go back and live over.

I find I am most satisfied with being older and having a great store of memories that I can access from my hard drive and relive in my mind if I wish and I do regularly.

To live with the pleasure of my wife, children, and grandchildren is reward enough for whatever good I may have done thus far. It goes by very quickly and each stage needs to be savored even in its challenges.

I share this with you in hopes that it will be an encoragement in whatever stage you are in to live it to the fullest. Then, when you get older like me you will have both posterity and good memories. Love Dad

The Cat Man and the Inner city

2009-11-03T20:06:00.001-08:00

We live just four blocks from the Arizona Temple. It is one of the most visited spots in Arizona. Unfortunately it is no longer the best part of Mesa, which brings me to the cat man. Some months ago at the end of our street on Horne a man set up shop feeding cats. He arrives before dawn and stays for hours feeding cats from the neighborhood. He appears to check them off on a list he keeps and carefully feeds and holds each cat till he is satisfied that all have been accounted for. The cat man is very thin wears a safari hat, cargo pants, and has plastic bags tied all over his bike. I am told he is well educated but for some reason has dropped out of mainstream society.

We also have Dizzy who has haunted Main Street for decades now. He carries a cross and a bible, is usually listening to music and does dances and makes unusual hand gestures as he performs crossing the intersections mostly at Stapley and Main. He is getting older and gaining weigh but still keeps up a fairy vigorous pace. Years ago I saw him dancing at Mesa Drive and Main with what appeared to be a just a large diaper on. I called the police.

We also used to have a long legged prostitute that patrolled Horne between Main and Brown. She is missing this year.

There is of course Bob of Third Street. Bob has more jokes and the greatest sense of humor of anyone I know. He works for Ellsworth and serves many of the widows in the area mowing their lawns and taking out their trash.

Such is the flavor and texture of the inner city.

Random Thoughts on my Final Resting Place

2009-11-01T18:20:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

You must understand that I spend five hours a day [90 miles] driving school bus. Bus driving only uses 37% of your brain except at intersections [150 per day] when it can go up to 65%. I therefore have time to think of the meaning of life and of death with the other parts of my brain while driving. Today I was thinking about death and particularly where I would like to be buried if I could be buried anywhere and not confined to a cemetery . I would ask each of you to think about your answer to that question before you read mine.......................

I decided that I would like to be buried on the dry farm on top of the hill behind the Grover Ranch house. I used to be opposed to cremation but I have mellowed to that idea and I would not mind if my ashes were spread up on that hill. Grover has many great memories for me. It is where I came into my own in young manhood. I loved the ranch. My High School years were good. It was on that hill that we baled hauled and staked a 1000 bales one day. That was a lot of hay in those days. I was watching the bale counter and immediately told Dad when it hit 1000 as we had never done that before. I thought he might call it a day. He duly noted the fact and kept on baling.

I saw an arcticle about a burial place where no caskets or markers were allowed. The bodies were just wrapped in a blanket and put in the ground. A geo-marker was put in the ground so the location could be identified electronically in the future and the body would speedily return to mother earth.

I am not discounting how much I enjoy going to the cemetery and visiting the place of our loved ones final resting place. It is very special to me. I would be interested in your thoughts on this subject if you care to share them. Errol

I am waiting for the wisdom of Terry and Christy on this important topic. I think I will add something John and I can both take some pleasure in. I think I will hear Dads call just as well from the Grove hill as anywhere as that is where I heard it the most in the Grover house. I would like John to do a fly over of the Grover hill and drop my ashes from at least 100ft elevation. I think the prop wash would insure a good even spread. One added memory from that hill was that I shot my one ond only deer just on the top. There were two standing across the first draw. Dad said" You take the one on the left and I will take the one on the right". We dropped them both. Errol

From Terry
Dear Family: As I am the eldest I prefer to contsentrate on living! But in the event I am not twinkled with Christy I have arranged to acquire two lots in Afton from Partsy where Jerry , Ryan, Mom, Dad, Uncle Gene, Aunt Ida and Eugene are resting. I could just as easily have chosen Fairview, but I want to be with "my family". I never lived at the Grover Ranch, so I have no connection with it although I understand Errols affinity with it. I have always considered Star Valley "home". Yes I have lived in California, Washington, Oklahoma and Idaho, but Star Valley is "home". It is where I grew up, worked with dad and Jerry, went to school, went on my first date, kissed a girl for the first time, had my first love and went steady my junior year; graduated from High School, left for and returned from my mission. It is where I gave my wife a diamond and announced our engagement. It is also where Mom & Dad gave us a wedding reception and sent us to the cabin for our honeymoon. But I would really like to be "twinkled" Terry

From Errol
One final thought on "The final resting place" here on earth and then I will give this a "rest".
I thought Terry gave the best summary of reasons to be buried in a certain place. I have lived most of my life in Arizona. Memorial Day in Arizona is almost a non-event in the Ray family. It is already hot and none of the wonderful traditions of going to the graves and getting together with relatives are practiced here. In the thirty years since Elaine's Moms death she has been to the grave, which is less than three miles from our home, three times. Her Mom is very close to her and she has felt her presence often but not in the cemetery so she feels no need to go there. Star Valley too is my "Home" but it is unlikely that my children would ever come there to pay their respects and in Arizona respect paying is a non-event.

I resent the costs of a traditional funeral and burial even though it is minute fraction of the monies that supported one in life. The billions spent putting people in the grave it seems could have a better use on the needs of the living. I remember Mom telling about when her brother Gerald died. The body was laid out in the family living room and they stayed up putting ice on it though the night until the funeral. I suppose the main expense was the casket which grandpa probably made.

One remembrance from the Fairview cemetery on memorial day when I was maybe ten years old. There was a particularly well endowed older woman there that Dad asked me to go up and ask her what she had done for him when he was a baby. I did not ask so he told me. Being the ninth of ten children apparently Grandmother Bagley was not able to nurse him properly so he got supplemented by this neighbor lady. He claimed that was why he was bigger than the rest of his brothers.

Anyway, that leaves me with the Grover hill fly over or they can sprinkle my ashes up on the hill above our Pine home. My children and grandchildren are sure to visit there. Perhaps none of my wishes will be considered and as Loren said "over my dead body" they will do what they want. On with the joys of living. Errol

800 temple lockers

2009-11-01T18:07:00.001-08:00

Some weeks ago I learned that during the two week Oct. temple closer they wanted all of the lockers and stalls painted in the Mesa Arizona Temple dressing rooms. That would be 800 lockers four to a stall. The best advise I got while researching this project was figure a good price double it and pray you do not get it. I did so, but my prayers were not answered. I got it. Elaine headed up the prep and clean up crew. All temple worthy of course. We used miles of tape paper and plastic. The paint was a nasty two part epoxy that had only a 4 hour pot life before it turned to stone. I lost one $200 hose and gun during the project for not cleaning it our properly between sessions. An industrial fan was set up in one of the emergency exits and ran 24 hours a day while we were working to draw the vapors out of the temple. You could smell it all the way across the parking lot. I could only paint for a couple of hours at a time before I had to leave and air out. I'm not sure how many brain cells I lost in the two weeks. They paint these lockers every ten years. I will not be bidding on them next time at any price. Errol

Windows 7: Simplify your PC. Learn more.

The Stop Arm

2009-10-25T19:30:00.001-07:00

Next to commercial air travel riding on a school bus may be the safest form of transportation in the U.S. An average of 20 students die each year in school transportation related traffic accidents. Of those, only 5 die while on the bus. The rest loose their lives, as pedestrians coming to or away from the bus. Compared to the 50,000 teenage driving deaths in the U.S. each year, some of which are students driving to and from school, this is an amazing low number.

This enviable safely record is in no small part due to the many rules related to school bus transportation. Not the least of these is the stop arm and related flashing lights. It is a misdemeanor to pass a stopped school bus with red lights flashing in either direction if there is no raised median between you and the bus. A misdemeanor is when you go before a judge and he decides if you pay a lot of money, a really lot of money, or just go to jail and not on a school bus. People pass my stop arm every day, sometimes five or six at a time.

Mesa was laid out by the Mormon Fathers with wide streets. Some have four traffic lanes and some have six traffic lanes with a center turn lane and bicycle lanes next to the curb. If it weren’t for the power lines and the cars you could comfortably land medium sized aircraft on many of the streets. If my brother John lived near Mesa I’m sure, he would have taken advantage of these many landing opportunities and not be confined to the freeways and fields of Idaho. It is understandable that cars approaching a stopped bus with five traffic lanes between them and the bus feel little need to stop.

There is a form that we can fill out with the cars license #, description of the car, time of day, and give it to the police. The state supposedly sends the driver a stern warning. I go for more instant gratification with stop arm runners. I wait till they get right alongside of the bus and then I apply the air horn. People react in different ways to this bugle mounted on the side of the bus they have just passed. Some quickly bring the vehicle to a stop, several hundred feet ahead of the bus and wait for you to unload the students. Nice effort….. Some tap their brakes, so that you can see their brake lights as they go by as some sort of acknowledgment, that they will for sure, stop at the next bus they come to. Others just honor you with a one-fingered salute.

Three examples of recent stop arm runners;

The Three Car Three Bus Slalom

One morning as I am approaching my Mckellips and Stapley pick up, I lit up the bus with no less than two sets of stop lights, four overhead flashing reds and two flashing reds on the stop arm. This morning two other bused approach me coming the opposite direction as I came to a stop. They of course stop and turn on their flashing overhead amber lights. Not to be deterred by this wattage three cars sped between all three of these forty-footers. I went for my on my air horn, and the buses across the street used their regular horns. I think some stopped cars even joined in with their horns. This had to be like driving though a pumpkin patch at Christmas time with a band playing. I feel sure someone in one of those cars said “What’s the deal with those big yellow trucks and their flashing lights and horns”?

The Mormon Mommy

Now I’m just guessing on this one, but she was driving a Tahoe full of kids. Maybe she was just the neighborhood Den Mother. This is my only stop where students could walk in front of the bus even though they do not. This ‘sister’ approached the bus slowly as we where in her neighborhood and then she drove right under the flashing stop arm while talking on her cell phone. I gave her the benefit of my “busy mothers in Zion pass” and did not use the air horn on her.

The Riding Lawn Mower

Val Vista & McClellan 3:05 P.M./ Four lanes / Busy street / My longest student stop/ Fifteen students get off. I watch for them here, as it is the number one place for stop arm runners on my route. Most of them come from behind, but not this day. This day it came unexpectedly from the front. A man on a riding lawn mower was coming towards me at full speed [5mph] across the street in the bicycle lane. As he got across from me he seemed confused as to what the rules were with riding lawn mowers and stopped buses. Not to take a chance he brought the mower to a full stop. I smiled and waved to him.

Happy driving, Mr. “B”

Rule #3 No Eating or Drinking on the Bus

2009-09-07T20:26:00.001-07:00

This is a rule I don’t agree with and one that I have not enforced. My first students get on the bus at 6:45 A.M and ride for almost one hour before getting to school. Some of them come with breakfast items in hand that they did not get time to eat at home. One girl came last week with some Cheerios and milk in a zip lock bag. I have no idea how she consumed it.

For a year and a half at the end of each day I have swept out the bus, which usually includes a few wrappers off of food bars, drink cartons, a few crushed cookies and an occasional apple core or banana peel. I was OK with this until the other day when I found a fresh wade of gum on the floor in front of one of the seats. I don’t do gum.

The next morning I reviewed with my passengers the no food and drink rule #3. I reminded them that I had not been enforcing this rule and I really did not care to. I invited them to look on the floor at seat #24 and if the gum was not there it was probably on the bottom of one of their shoes. I displayed a medium sized clear zip lock bag and told them if the food related items that were found on the floor during the next week filled the zip lock bag then the no food and drink rule would go into force.

They were great. There is a wastebasket right by the driver’s seat where they can easily deposit their trash, leaving them no reason to throw it on the floor. By Wednesday I had two cheerios, two empty zip lock bags, and two gum wrappers in my zip lock bag. Even the gum at seat #24 was gone. On Thursday they had a relapse. My bag was half filled at clean up time.

Friday morning before we got to the school I hung my zip lock bag from the passenger mirror for all to see and reminded them that this was the last day and the bag was half full. Like the story of a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it--did it really make any noise? I considered no trash on the floor meant no one ate or drank on the bus.

That night as I swept out the bus there were two clear lollipop wrappers on the floor. What a relief. Surely I did not want to have to follow the no food or drink on the bus rule myself.

Mr. B

2009-08-02T09:55:00.001-07:00

Dear Family & Friends

What a great summer we have had. More time in Pine than I have ever spent even though I can only take three days at a time before I start feeling guilty. We had a great trip to Portland at the beginning of the summer to take care of Jason and Jills children. I got to work in Colorado in a most beautiful setting. We had our Pine Errol & Elaine Bagley family reunion. Elaine and I were back from the two Idaho/ Utah reunions for less that a day before we left for California for three days at a time share resort and musical theater with our friends the Whitings.

We were musing the other day that we can hardly remember when we have had to pay for a hotel in resent years as we have friends and family everywhere we go.

I remember the line from Sound of Music often." Somewhere in my youth and childhood---I must have done something good". We think of the line often and with with gratefulness as we inventory our many blessing.

I am ready to get back to a routine. I got my good bus route back with one small school added within my pickup area. I still have a contract which means a months worth of paid holidays during the school year. I find myself almost embarrassed that I have driven out of my way this summer just to go by the bus yard and look at the big yellow buses. As we were driving though Idaho this summer I noted each school we passed and how many buses were parked by them. I sometimes wake up in the morning going though the bus safely check and then imagining the music of starting up a big diesel engine. I think I am still OK but you may want to keep our eyes on me. Be prepared for more "bus stories". I'm sure they will be coming.

Love, Errol

FW: The Tale of Two Fords

2009-07-29T22:45:00.001-07:00

Within 24 hours of turning in a Ford Focus at the SLC airport I rented a Ford Fusion in Mesa for a trip to California. Hence a little critique. The Focus seated four adults comfortably. The trunk was surprisingly large for an economy car. It was a peppy performer around town. Freeway passing was adequate but did not exactly fill you with confidence. Engine noise at freeway speeds was almost nonexistent which was pleasant for a four cylinder. The trip computer lead me to believe I was getting 42/44 mpg SLC to Rexburg. A gas top off on the way back proved to be closer to 38/39 mpg. This was at 70/80 mph so I was pleasantly surprised at that.

The Fusion SEL was not only pleasing to look on it was sporty to drive. This was the first time I had driven a car with a six speed automatic. This tranny seemed to always be in the right place at the right time to keep you on top of your driving game. This Ford delivered 26/27 mpg at 70/80 mph which is good but not at all outstanding for this size of car. The gold standard for full size cars remains the Chevy Impala which has always gotten me [+] [-] 30 mpg. at fwy speeds.

Conclusion; The Focus exceeded my expectations for an economy car but the Fusion was actually fun to drive.

Well there you have it, All the information you didn't ask for but got anyway. EB

FW:

2009-07-01T13:34:00.001-07:00

Dear Friends

Having grown up in what I assumed were the most beautiful rocky mountains in the West last week I went to Colorado. I friend of mine talked me into helping him painting a 6000 s.f. lodge. at 10,200 ft elevation between Silverton and Ouray. At this elevation I had to catch my breath climbing between the basement and the main floor of the house. The Aspen groves were so thick that from a distance it looked like you could mow them with a lawn mower. Water was busting out of the mountains and cascading over the rocks at every turn. The road on the "Million Dollar Highway had no guard rail so the snow could be plowed over the edge to a dizzing drop below. Within a half of a mile of the lodge there were a half a dozen abandoned gold and siver mines. Water was reluctant to boil at this altitude for cooking. After the second day we ran out of ice for the coolers so we put the milk in the back of the toilet which was spring fed from above the house.
The electricity came from solar panels with a backup propane generator.

For a long time desert rat this was this was most soothing to the eyes and soul.

Errol

FW: last day warfare

2009-05-29T19:11:00.001-07:00

From: eebagley@hotmail.com
To: eebagley@hotmail.com
Subject: last day warfare
Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 12:23:41 -0700

The Last Day of School

Last year as a new driver I was totally unaware and unprepared for what apparently had become a last day bus tradition. After the bus gets moving the students start taking paper out of their binders wading it up into paper balls and have a paper war. I was so confused and surprised at this hail of paper warfare that I just pretty much let it run its course. My first run of elementary students started the fight. As the second run of Junior High students got on they did not even have to manufacture paper balls. The bus was already full of them.

This year on the day before the last day I reminded the students of last years paper war and warned them to not even think about it this year. If, however something like that did happen that no one would be let off the bus at the first stop until they, not me, had cleaned it all up.

On the last day I arrived at the school for the final trip home with black garbage bags already taped on up on the inside of the bus like black funeral crape. It worked. After I delivered the elementary students the bus was even cleaner than normal. This was too easy.

Now for the junior high students-------- As I took my seat and looked into the passenger mirror I sensed that munitions were already being manufactured behind the high back green seats. Realizing that this was a war that I was going to lose I thought I might regain some control by at least taking charge of the battle.

On some level you have to respect young people who take it upon themselves to defy their elder authority in the name of fun. I had told them I didn't want it to happen and I had also explained the consequences if it did. They apparently were choosing the consequences.

Before I started away from the school I reminded them that no one was getting off the bus till it was all cleaned up. I directed them that there was to be no flying objects till we were out of sight of the school and away from any other buses. I didn't want any other driver calling in backup help for a besieged driver.

After we passed though the first stop light I gave the command to commence firing.---- It was marvelous.---- A hail of white—front to back—side to side as new munitions were being made and the previously used ones were being refired. This went on for about four miles. Even before I had pulled off the road for the first stop the students had begun their cleanup. They took to it with the same vigor as they had the paper war. In the mist of the clean up one girl said, "This was so worth it."

Well it was for me too. Mr. "B"

FW: tales of a bus driver

2009-05-22T08:43:00.001-07:00

From: eebagley@hotmail.com
To: eebagley@hotmail.com
Subject: tales of a bus driver
Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 08:27:38 -0700

Taking My Students to Church

Some time ago one of my student passengers revealed to me that there was some foul language going on on the bus and he told me who was involved. Not being up to date on the inventive new ways to use the English language I ask him to tell me what kind of verbiage was involved. The poor boy had to repeat it to me three times before I got it though my head what it meant. Yep, that would constitute inappropriate use of words in mixed company on a bus of young people and this was coming from young people. I thanked him for telling me and duly noted the situation. Not knowing how I was going to properly deal with this I put it in my mind and hoped that it would just go away.

A few days later the same boy reported the same conduct from the same boys. I knew that now this would have to be addressed. I spent the next few days planning how I could best correct this problem. I concluded I would get the most mileage out of the situation by not singling out the individual boys as I might miss some but rather by addressing the whole busload. I now planned the time and the place for the" teaching moment".

As it happens my last pickup is on the road at the north parking lot of the LDS church at Val Vista and McClellan. On the day of the instructions I first notified dispatch on the radio that I would be off route for a" teaching moment" after my last pickup. After the pickup at the north parking lot I drove 200ft. to the south parking lot, pulled into the lot and up as close as I could to the front door of the church. I thought this setting lent itself to the instructions I was about to give. As the bus came to this unscheduled stop, the swoosh of the air park brake is heard, and the driver rises from his seat with the PA in hand, there was an uncharacteristic hush that came over my thirty five passengers.

As a former-LDS bishop in front of an LDS church with well over half of my students being LDS there was an instructional speech that I could have given on the subject. I did not give that one. There are ten rules posted at the front of the bus. Cooperate with the bus driver, Stay seated while the bus is moving, no profane language, no smoking on the bus etc. I briefly went over these rules and then pointed out to them that we would focus on the profane language one for a few moments. I told them that some were using language not appropriate for students of their caliber who had qualified to go to The Mesa Academy for Advanced Studies. I told them I knew who was doing it, they knew who was doing it, and the bus camera knew who was doing it and I did not want to hear about it again. After an appropriate and agonizing pause and not wanting this to be remembered as a totally negative moment I added, " I do thank all of you for not smoking on the bus."

Off went the air brake. We circled the parking lot and were off to school. So far I have not heard any more about this inappropriate language. I might add. My students love me. No really, they do.

--Mr. "B"

Field Trips from Different Worlds

2009-05-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

Last week I had two field trips from elementary schools. The first one was from the South side of Mesa sometimes referred to as the miserable mile. This is an area of low-income families dominated by Hispanics. As these beautiful brown first graders came to board the bus I observed them laughing, holding hands with each other, and clutching their water bottles. I wondered if in all the world God has any more beautiful children than these. I know where they live and I know that perhaps most of their parents are illegal. In their innocent childhood they did not seem to be aware that they lived on the wrong side of town. They were just happy to be going on a field trip in a bus. As I gained speed down the on ramp and merged onto the freeway there was an audible excitement as if they had just begun a trip to Disneyland. We were going just four miles to Mesa Community College for a water safety day.

My second field trip was from one of the best neighborhoods in town. There is a gated community just across the street from the school. As you might guess these kindergarten children were all white. They too held hands and clutched their water bottles. They too were so cute that I wanted to take a couple of them home with me. {This I’m told would be illegal.} One of the parents arrived fashionably late in her black Escalade to deliver her student. As I got up to the speed limit on the freeway I addressed them on the PA and asked them if they would like to go really fast on this bus. They answered excitedly in the affirmative. I replied” Sorry this is as fast as I can go”. Their trip was to the Phoenix Botanical Garden. As we got back to the school I had to dodge a 50 thousand dollar Hummer that one of the parents had boldly parked in the bus loading zone and left unattended. As these privileged children got off the bus most of them, I’m sure prompted by the teachers, came by and thanked Mr. Bus Driver for the ride.

This was a study in contrast of two of the most diverse neighborhood schools in Mesa. No one can know what these children will be doing in twenty-five years from now. I am reminded of a saying I once heard. Two things are needed in this world; For poor men to know how rich men work and for rich men to know how poor men live.

Random thoughts by Errol Bagley Seniority #447

Weekly News From Third Street

2009-02-09T11:49:00.001-08:00

Weekly News From Third Street February 8, 09

Since January our valley has had light rail. It is a beautiful train but not very fast. In addition to the train there are some beautiful new double long super buses that feed into the light rail. These buses cost $756,000 apiece. These super buses have the ability to hold a green light they are approaching and they only stop every mile. I took some of the grandchildren on a free ride during the holidays over to the airport. I think it would probably take one hour from Mesa by bus and train to get to the airport. Andrew took the bus and train to work this week.

I had a field trip to the new Tempe Arts Center on the lake this week. This is an amazingly beautiful structure on the river walk and not far from a light rail stop.

Leisel is dating regularly, perhaps even more that Ashley at this time. She may choose to share her experiences.

In Sacrament mtg this Sunday Cynthia Nuland played a piece on the piano. Most of you will remember Cynthia is a mildly downs syndrome girl who is Hiedi's age. She played two hymns with one finger only. While short on full piano ability she put feeling into the one finger hymns. We have two other downs syndrome boys in the ward Nathan Davidson and a Richardson boy. Nathan and Cynthia are approaching 40. I would be interested to know Rob and Hiedi's remembrances of Cynthia and Nathan from your earlier years.

Our second musical number was a hymn sung by a sister who sometimes takes leads on Broadway. She did not need the microphone. Thank heavens she does not sing in the ward choir. The rest of us would have to quit. She did a beautiful job and the contrast between the one fingered piano player and the opera singer was a study in our inclusiveness and acceptance in the church.

Since I have more time right now I signed up to go out with the missionaries if they need someone. If the Elders are teaching a single sister they have to have one other priesthood brother with them now.

We are grateful for our two new grandsons Roxwell and Charlie.

When one of Leisels dates came this week Berlin was sitting at the bar. As he shook hands with the adults she immediately put our her hand to be included. It was one of those you had to be there things to know the cutness of it all.

Dad

Trains & Grandsons

2009-01-22T07:04:00.000-08:00

Occasionally a grandfather hits a home run. Sat. I took Sam, Jacob ,Layne, and Brik to and outdoor train museum in Chandler. Since I have always had a great interest in trains this was not a hard task for me. This museum has some 35 different train engines, cabooses, dinning cars, smoking cars, passenger cars, sleeping cars,and kitchen galleys. Possibly the best part about it there was no supervision and you could get hurt. Unlike today's rubberized playgrounds set up with soft ground cover we were climbing into, on top of, and through real trains. The little boys had to be helped up and down the ladders. The only thing we did not do was get on top and jump from car to car. Maybe next time.

Gramps

Singing Bus Driver

2008-12-21T11:38:00.001-08:00

On a rare gloomy raining day in Arizona last week I decided it was time to try singing to my passengers. I warned them ahead of time that I was going to do it and as I tuned up my voice on the PA system I watched them intently through the passenger mirror.

I chose "The Silly Worm" song that adequately demonstrates my vocal range and it was only after I began singing that they seemed to believe that this was really happening. In their young lives I guess they had never experienced a bus driver herding a forty foot bus down the road at 45 mph driving with one hand while singing to his students. There are eight speakers mounted in the metal roof of the bus and the acoustical feedback was amazing. It seemed like I was singing in an opera house.

My first group in the afternoon are the 7th and 8th graders. They looked on with amazement and generously gave me a sitting ovation and asked for an encore when I finished.

My second group in the afternoon are junior high students. There were a group of girls sitting mid-bus that were particularly interesting to watch. The look on their faces changed from embarrassing disbelief to studied delight at a singing bus driver. One girl immediately called someone on her cell phone and held it up to share the event. This bus load was much more reserved in there reaction at the end like they were searching for the proper response to a singing bus driver. It might have been easier if I had put a can up front with a sign for "tips".

A surprising personal observance as I was singing I noted how often my voice sounded like my brother Jerry's. I almost wondered if he had dropped in to sing along. EB

Human Sexuality Class

2008-12-05T06:58:00.000-08:00

Ashley has been taking a HS class this semester. The text book is very large, costs $90 new, and they change the book every few years. I told her that I don't think HS has changed much in the last six thousand years so I can't see why a new book is needed regularly.

Anyway this week the instructor showed some "ART/PORNOGRAPHY" as part of their education in this area. Before doing so he said that if this was going to be offensive to anyone they could leave. There were 100 students in the class. Ashley was sitting on the front row and she was the only one to get up and walk out while the instructor waited to start the show.

This reminded me of when Rob went to Las Vegas with his working team and Forest gave them all some money to gamble with. Rob was the only one who did not gamble.

Dad

Happy Birthday Rob

2008-11-20T19:06:00.001-08:00

Dear Rob,

I hope you got the letter from Mom with $ to go get your favorite lemon pie. I thought I would review some of our thoughts 40 years ago as we recieved our first born son. We had been married for a year and a half before we got the conception thing to work. Apparently washing your cloths together was a misleading information. Elaine started out at 98 # and ended up at delivery at almost 150#. In those days the father was not allowed in the room during examination or delivery. I felt like telling the Doctor " Look I know how this happened and the end results why do I have to miss the best part". Anyway that was just the way it was in those days. As most babies you were not much to look at in the first few hours but that changed real soon and we were among the proudest of new parents at BYU. During the first week we took you out with us for a treat and I was feeding you little spoonfuls of ice cream which you took to right off.

Skipping 20 years ,and seven years after having our last child we got our suprise Ashley. No one told us you didn't have children after 44. Elaine told me the news on April Fools Day. How fortunate as grandparents in our sixties to still have a teenager in the house. Well that changes tomorrow. As her delivery approached it became apparent that she would be born on your birthday. I called your mission president to have him tell you and he said " I think you had better call and tell him yourself ". After not being able to concieve a child in the beginning to timing one to the day 20 years apart I think we showed real improvement.

Best Wishes on Your Birthday.

Love ,

Dad

Sweet Ellsworth to the rescue

2008-11-11T22:24:00.001-08:00

Tonight after Elaine and I had left for the temple we could not remember if Berlin was asleep in the basement and we knew tha Leisel was at work. I tried to call Leisel but got no answer. The only person I could think of to call then was Ellsworth.

I asked him to go over and see if he could hear a baby crying in the basement but not to try to go down in the basement as there is no handrail.

He could not hear anything but not satisfied he decided he had to go down and look. The only way he could get down the stairs has to sit down on his seat and slide down, step by step. I'm not sure how he got back up. Anyway, he did not find Berlin as Leisel had her.

Regional Conference

2008-11-02T11:36:00.000-08:00

Today we had one of those regional conferences broadcast from SLC. Pres. Packer was the concluding speaker. There are many stories of people meeting Pres. Parker in an airport or other places when he was less than warm and friendly. His remarks today were full of humor, stories from his past, and as warm as a beloved grandfather speaking to his children. He counseled us not to live in fear in these troubled times but to pay our tithing and follow the gospel principles.

He briefly talk about Satan coming to earth with is angels. He said that Satan's angels use the same wavelengths in communicating to us as Heavenly Father's angels do and so we must be very careful that we are not deceived by them. That is all he said on the matter. I drew my own conclusions that if any of our inspirations are going against known doctrine or the brethren then we must know it is not of God.

I found very little difference in the inspiration of a televised conference than if we where being taught from our own pulpits.

Love Dad

The End is Near

2008-10-22T11:41:00.001-07:00

We have little hope left but to make our street a gated community. Mervyns is closing. That was the canary in the coal mine for our part of town. The former Wendy's, Burger King, and Long John Silvers are now taco shops. The former Bashas is a Food City. We do still have dollar stores and payday loan centers.

Actually 3rd street is one of the nicest cul-de-sac streets in the whole area. Hold on to that thought.

Errol

Pear Harlequin Jelly and Choke Cherry Syrup

2008-10-19T21:29:00.000-07:00

This week I had a nice visit with Julie had John. They were down for Rubys baptism. Julie brought us some home made Pear Harliquin jelly and Choke Cherry syrup.

I decided a handwritten thank you letter was in order. I told Julie how much I appreciated the home made preserves and that it brought back memories of home and Mom.

I went on to say that it does not matter how old you get sometimes you just want to go to your Mom and Dad and tell them you are having some problems. I didn't realize that I was overdo for a good cry but it happened after I wrote that sentence and it was a gusher.

I finished by saying that Mom and Dad probably already know of our challenges and are part of a prayer circle on the other side in our behalf.

I appreciated Elder Wirthlins conference talk about how all of us have or will have challenges but we need to focus on our many blessings and find humor where ever we can.

We do that most of the time.

Love Errol

Why I was "B" student

2008-10-12T21:35:00.001-07:00

Why I was "B" Student in High School and for that matter in Collage as well

The reason I was "B" student is because I wasn't an "A" student. I wanted to be an "A" student. My sister Julie was valedictorian of our H.S. My sometimes girlfriend Patty Child was an "A" student. My good friend Lamar Walker was an "A" student. If you were on the honor roll they published your name in the Star Valley Independent. I was determined to make the honor roll but it just didn't happen.

If you were a "B" student and member of the national honor society you got to wear a nice white sash over your robe at graduation. I was determined that I would at least wear the white sash at graduation which I did. I also spoke at graduation as senior class president.

The Call line of our heritage has sporadic genius level members. This has shown up in some of my children. As to economics, our one son who barely graduated from high school for lack of interest now makes more money than any of the rest...

In a non related memory from collage I was required to take one chemistry class for my major. This class was taught in one of the amphitheater classes with ever rising rows of seats. The seats we first sat in became our assigned seats for the semester. Most of the students were nursing students, thus were female. I found myself between two of these BYU coeds. The one on the right was of cover girl variety, with skirts that could have at best barely met BYU standards while she was standing. In sitting position there was a lotta leg showing. I can only guess what the view from the professor’s pit was. On my left was a coed who, to be kind, was of the very plain variety and she had bad breath, as well.

When taking a test we would lean over the 12 square inch pull up desk top and I had my choice of a model’s legs on one side or Miss bad breath on the other. Maybe that is why I was "B" student in collage as well.

Errol

contract driver

2008-09-20T13:38:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I got a 50% raise. Mind you 50% of nothing is not much but in this case it actually is something.

My route went over 30 hrs. so I am now intitle to health,dental,vision,life,disablity, insurance as well as 24 paid holidays,sick and personal days off. That is over a month of paid working days off in my 9 month work year.

Since I had no health ins. at my age this is really quite a big thing. Although I don't work in the summer the benifits are in force in the summer.

That along with getting an A.C. bus within a few week period was quite overwhelming for this semi retired guy. Dad

A.C. Bus

2008-09-16T11:12:00.001-07:00

Well it is mid Sept. in Arizona. The weather has modified and we are once again able to put away suicidal thoughts and remember why we live in this southern desert. Some of my students have even started wearing sweater to school in the morning.

Monday I went in to get my bus keys and the dispatcher gave me a new set of keys and told me my bus was parked in a different place. I was almost afraid to think what this meant. I boldly went out to see if I had been promoted or demoted. It soon became apparent that I was parked in the newer air conditioned section. My bus was last years model with only 17,000 miles on it and a big white A.C. unit on top. I had arrived.

I thought the receiving of an A.C. bus should have been accompanied by a little more fanfare. A group of bus driver forming a path waving their brake sticks over you or some store bought sheet cake or the like. As I thought through that a little more it occurred to me that some of those drivers would have been driving for years without having an A.C. bus and I have only been driving for months so they may be trying to hit me with their brake sticks rather than hail me.

I put on my sun glasses turned on the A.C. and drove out of the yard trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

I couldn't wait to see the reaction of my students. I had told them we had been promised a new bus because of this high mileage route. I did not tell them it was going to be an A.C. bus. Most were properly impressed with the newer style bus and they were really impressed as they noticed the cold air coming out of the holes in the ceiling.

After I got them all on board I asked them what they thought. I got a resounding approval. I then said there is only one problem that I see with this bus. As they could see and feel there was cold air leaking out of the holes in the ceiling and I would try to have that fixed by the afternoon run. That brought a resounding disapproval.

I wonder if I will miss seeing their red sweaty faces in the passanger mirror..........

School Bus on Fire----sort of

2008-09-01T21:08:00.001-07:00

My bus has sort of been on fire ever since school started on the 10th. It has been over 100 degrees each day and high humidity. I am driving 95 miles a day now and I have come home each day dehydrated and exhausted.

This Wednesday I was on my first afternoon run with just eight students still on board when I noticed in one of the seven mirrors that I can look backwards in that brown smoke was coming up from the engine outside the rear window.

Seeking an expert second opinion I turned to the nearest student and asked if he saw the smoke. He did. That was good enough for me. I put the air park brake on,turned off the engine, and said "Everyone out." They didn't have to be told twice. They were out and orderly went down the sidewalk 200 ft. and stood in a group. They had had evacuation training. I have not yet.

At this point I went on the dispatch radio gave my location and announced that I had evacuated my bus because of smoke coming out of the engine and I was now leaving. I was supposed to throw the mic out the drivers window so I could continue talking to dispatch without reboarding the bus but I forgot that part.

I went now to my cell phone to call dispatch. Connie calmly asked me if I had put the reflectors out in front and behind the bus. Hadn't got to that either. I'm thinking if the bus catches on fire I'm sure people will not run into it.

Soon the director of transportation arrives in a van. Next the head mechanic arrives in a truck and within 15 minutes a replacement bus had arrived for me to continue on with my route.

It turns out that the fan had come off the radiatior and the smoke and mist was just the cooling system blowing off steam and smoke.

Just another day in the life of a school bus driver. Mr. B...

Star Valley

2008-07-28T03:11:00.001-07:00

Family,

In the 27 years that I had a reserved seat on the stand at all church meetings I had the opportunity to give many talks. Many of these talks were laced with stories from my rural Wyoming background on subjects from cowboys to cloths lines and they were supposed to be lead-ins to gospel subjects.

I had an enjoyable time doing this and it seems that my audiences took a liking them also. I fear that many of the cowboy and cloths line stories were remembered long after the gospel subjects that I tried to tie them to were remembered. I would always include a testimony so the members might recall that I was at least a cowboy with a testimony.

This last week I got to take two of the brethren that I have worked with for many years to the place where most of those stories originated [Star Valley] This was a man trip and only lasted for 24 hours. Both of these men, Dion Morris and Steve Rogers were perhaps born in the wrong time or at least live in the wrong place. Circumstances and employment opportunities have conspired against these men as they both should have lived in Star Valley.

We began our trip by traveling though Cache Valley, Logan Canyon, Bear Lake, Montpelier and over the south end. We had a surprise Wyoming breakfast with Dean and Virginia Bagley. By 2:00 P.M. we had been thought most of the small towns, visited two cemeteries, stood on the ruts of the Oregon trail up Stump Creek, visited my boyhood homes and we were standing in the middle of the road in Freedom straddling the Wyoming/ Idaho boundary.

I was lecturing them continuously on history and family ties to this beautiful place. I'm not sure how much they were paying attention but it didn't matter as they were blown away by the valley in its full splendor at this time of the year.

We made our exit out Tincup Canyon to Soda Springs with a brief stop in the ever changing restoration town of Chesterfield and then back to Salt Lake.

Too bad I don't give talks anymore. I still have some stories left.

Errol

King of the Road

2008-07-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

As some of you know one of my Walter Mitty desires or one of the things on my “Bucket List” has been to drive a big rig at least temporally. I had the opportunity at the beginning of the summer to be a relief driver for a contract mail route between Phoenix and Payson, but I did not have my class A CDL license. Neil Silvey the driver was driving seven days a week an encouraged me to upgrade my license and he would have me drive 2-3days a week.

By the time I got my license upgraded his relief driver had returned from her job in Colorado and Neil felt bad that he had encouraged me to do something that did not work out. I told him I would still like to ride along on the route to see how it went as something might come up later. Neil readily agreed and told me he would even give me some driving time.

On the morning of the forth of July{ the mail must go through} was my first time behind the wheel .Neil met me at the QT where he stops for his morning coffee on the way from Phoenix. Each truck has its own personality which is perhaps most manifest through its gear shift. This Volvo tractor has ten forward gears. After first gear you can shift it with or without the clutch. It is somewhat like learning to play and tune a new musical instrument all at the same time. I made it out of the QT parking lot and up to the first stop light. At this point I mistook forth for ninth gear and stalled the truck part way into the intersection. Not an impressive start. I made it thought the next three lights on green and by the time we are at the Verde River it is open highway to Payson.

At this point Neil tells me to get into it as we have to be in Payson before 8 a.m. Inasmuch as Neil has never even seen me drive a pickup truck and has only heard from me that I can drive a forty foot school bus I thought this was a bit brave of him. This truck is speed controlled at 70 mph and he wanted it moving close to that speed. I had been hopping for a bit more leisurely first run but I obliged Neil and put it down. It was a good thing this was a divided highway as we passed of good number of cars and trucks. I got a quick baptism into 400 hp, a forty-eight foot trailer and 70 mph on a mountain road.

When we got to Payson at 7:45 a.m. I assumed Neil would want to take it into the post office as we had a serious u-turns and a backup into the dock. He merely said, “You remember how I did it”. As the back of the trailer touched the dock I was feeling pretty good about myself.

How did I feel about being” King of the Road”? Actually it was a little disappointing. The expectations were greater than the reality. I guess I had seen too many episodes of Ice Roads Truckers and Trick My Truck. I was expecting a bigger adrenaline rush. Can’t wait to do it again. EB.

FW: The Last Buick ??

2008-07-16T18:37:00.001-07:00

From: "Errol Bagley" <eebagley@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: eebagley@gmail.com
Subject: The Last Buick ??
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:32:27 -0700

The Last Buick ??

At one time I made a list of all the cars and trucks I have bought in my life. It is in the sixties now and many of these were not for me. When I saw something that seemed like a good deal I bought it and either kept it for a while ar sold it to someone in the family with no mark up. This has been a hobby for me.

I have had a weakness for Buicks of the 1985 to 1991 era. This was a the first of the front wheel drive multi-port fuel injected V-6's that except for suspensions GM has hardly improved on since. 29 mpg highway was not unusual for the 3.8 liter engine.

We have had at least five of this type of car; Three Buicks.one Pontiac, and one Oldsmobile. The most interesting story probably accompanies the 1989 Olds which I got for Jason. The man I bought it from told me a tree had fell on the roof of it so they cut the roof of from a Buick LeSabre and welded it on the Olds. I paid $2800. Jason took no particular pride in this car which eventually changed to indifference and then to distain. The problem was the car would not die. After driving for almost ten years he decided he would do nothing more for it except add oil and gas when needed. He eventually gave it to a couple in his ward and they are driving it still.

That brings me to my latest 1991 LeSabre Limited.I watched this one at a Park and Sell lot until I was able to get it for $2400. It has 97 k miles,ice cold air,and an interior that is almost showroom. It was registered in Minnesota untill April of this year. I presume it belonged to one of our snowbirds.

With rumors last week that GM might retire the Buick line I thought I should be the last one on my block to own one of these 17 year old beauties. EB

gray water update

2008-06-29T16:47:00.001-07:00

We have had our gray water collection in place for several weeks now. This week end Melody had a crowd for two days and Elaine and I were there the same time. We drain the tank each week before we leave. This week it took a full 45 min.to pump the water out as I hand watered trees. I completed the piping from our side of the rain gutters to the tank this week end also. If it looks exposed and unfinished it is. I will not be covering and gluing it together until we see how it works. All downspouts are currently connected together and going to the tank in a 4 inch pipe. We need to be up there during a big rain storm to see if one pipe can handle the flow or if we will have to split the system. We are also experimenting with different additives for odor control.

With our limited experience so far it seems reasonable to hope that were we to start the season with a full tank of snow melt the gray water/rainwater collection might supply most or all of our outside watering needs.

It is rather satisfying to be reusing water in this way.

Errol

bread heels

2008-06-01T12:28:00.001-07:00

Richard mentioned in his blog that his family does not eat bread heels.
Since I can remember heels especially off hot bread were the most coveted
part. They still are for me. Dad

2008-05-31T13:07:00.001-07:00

Hi, We just finished an amazing cruise to Alaska. Great weather and great
port of calls. To top it off we took the train from Seattle to Portland.
This has to be one of the most beautiful train rides in the states. Dad

Random Thoughts of a New Bus Driver

2008-05-18T21:57:00.001-07:00

Random Thoughts of a New Bus Driver

By Errol Bagley Seniority # 562 *

At the end of 2007 I entered semi retirement. It was kind of interesting for about five weeks and then I abruptly realized I needed something to do each day and someone to report to. For some years I had noticed the signs on school buses parked at schools advertising for new drivers and they even pay you to train.

As I looked into it I found that this was a job with low pay, high turnover, and a chance to drive an unairconditioned forty-foot bus full of kids twice a day in rush hour traffic. I'm thinking, this could be the job for me . I began training. Had I known all the things you would be expected to know and how long the training was I might have reconsidered? I thought several times that I should have tried being an airline pilot instead. They after all don't even have to sit with their passengers and they get in-flight meals.

As I began ride alongs at the "Broadway yard" it was still dark in the mornings. It was quite a revelation to see all the red and amber lights flashing in the dark as the drivers were pre-checking dozens of buses at a time. At the time I didn't even know what the strange "woofing" sound the brake test was. The sound of big diesel engines has always been music to my ears. It was even cold outside. This is something I will try to remember this August as school starts again.

A "drivers lounge" might bring to mind images that would be different than what one sees at the Broadway yard. This lounge I can only guess began its life as a doublewide classroom. Perhaps after it was deemed unsafe for children or otherwise condemned it was turned into a bus driver's lounge. I try to time my check-ins and outs as to spend the minimum amount of time there. I have enjoyed getting to know more of the drivers each week and that is the only thing that persuades me to linger in this place.

The "dispatchers" are amazing. They sit barely visible inside two small windows like friendly pit bosses that know everything. They seem to know all the drivers, all the buses, all the schools and all the roads. During the day they choreograph a delicate dance of drivers moving thousands of students on hundreds of buses through out the city never knowing what challenge is just seconds away on the radio.

"The Start Up". In days of yesterfar* the bringing to life of a big diesel engine in the morning used to be a well-guarded male ritual so powerful it has been known to raise testosterone levels right on the spot. It meant that you were about to ascend to your seat behind a twenty-inch steering wheel. You will look down on most other drivers. They will not harm you in this forty-foot fortress. You will stop traffic in both directions with the flip of a switch. You will protect your young passengers against all comers . No one will enter your bus without your permission. You are the captain of your yellow and black ship. You are Suddenly this male fantasy is interrupted as you notice the captain of the ship next to you has just boarded her vessel. She is a twenty two year old who took time to do her make up before reporting to her battle station this morning. O the bastions of male superiority. How many more will fall??

* Mr. "B" is a 64 year old mostly retired painting contractor , father of five sons, three daughters, grandfather of twenty two grandchildren and married to his dear wife Elaine for forty two years.
* Yesterfar is a word invented by a local boy Randy LeSueur to be used in a national advertising campaign for Old Spice featuring Will Ferrell and produced by my son Jason Bagley.

Re: locked cuboards

2008-05-16T10:01:00.001-07:00

The vending machine is a brilliant concept. The money you give your kids would come back to the family instead of whoever else has a vending machine. Reuse, recycle. Really I am not a big fan of vending machines. I think it is a crime to have them in schools, especially filled with caffeinated sodas. But I am certainly not opposed to bribes for children. Despite the abundance of unhealthy foods readily available in our pantry, we do have a stash of candy kept high in my closet for bribing purposes. The old "you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" really works. Going to Eugene's must have been like when Camrey goes to Jessie's house. She raids their pantry for pop tarts, lipton soup and ego waffles. Why in the world would you like that when you can have delicious homemade treats? Oh well, there was a time in my young life when I would have traded a dozen homemade cookies for a bite of a twinkie.

Jean

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 10:04 PM, Errol Bagley <eebagley@hotmail.com> wrote:

There is a long history of locked cuboards in our family. Mom told me that her mother had one and the kids learned to take the hinges off when she was gone and get into the treats without unlocking it. "Treats "were real special in those days as they were scarce.

My cousin Eugene was an only child. In their home there were candy dishes out with candy in them all the time. This was amazing to me when I went to visit.

I think the answer is a home vending machine where the kids could put in there allowance money to get treats. Extra money could be earned for extra chores to get more treats. The kids might then start a new business by puting vending machines into their friends houses and servicing them. Dad

RE: locked cuboards

2008-05-15T21:20:00.001-07:00

so i've been thinking about this dilemma and at first thought i sided with Jarom, but then Heidi brought up a valid point. I was then at a loss...thankfully we have in ingenious father who, i must say, hit the nail on the head. Not only is it cool to have a vending machine, but it also solves all the problems you and all your hoodlum children seem to be encountering. At Sam's club you can get a gatorade/water/pop vending machine for less than $3,000, and a snack/candy machine for a little less than $2,000. Think of the future, it's worth it.
best of luck to you all. i'm not having children,
ashley

Heidi-if you're about to write me and tell me that your kids would only learn to break into the machine, then it's probably time to bring back the arabian nights style of government...tell them that you love them, but you're going to have to cut off their hands.

________________________________
> From: eebagley@hotmail.com
> To: andrewtbagley@gmail.com; ashleybagley@hotmail.com; beckycbagley@gmail.com; reachelbagley@gmail.com; richbag@gmail.com; robbagley@gmail.com; eebagley.starvalleycowboy@blogger.com; jhd3978@yahoo.com; jane.heidi@gmail.com; jarombagley@gmail.com; jasonbagley@mac.com; jeanbagley@gmail.com; jillbagley@mac.com; karabagley@gmail.com
> Subject: locked cuboards
> Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 21:04:48 -0700
>
> There is a long history of locked cuboards in our family. Mom told me that her mother had one and the kids learned to take the hinges off when she was gone and get into the treats without unlocking it. "Treats "were real special in those days as they were scarce.
>
> My cousin Eugene was an only child. In their home there were candy dishes out with candy in them all the time. This was amazing to me when I went to visit.
>
> I think the answer is a home vending machine where the kids could put in there allowance money to get treats. Extra money could be earned for extra chores to get more treats. The kids might then start a new business by puting vending machines into their friends houses and servicing them. Dad

_________________________________________________________________
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Mr B......

2008-04-27T18:48:00.001-07:00

All buses are yellow and black right? My bus has been down for repairs for a week so I have been relgated to the oldest buses in the fleet. These are Blue Birds with michanical door openers. There are two of them that sit next to each other among 84 other buses at this yard. One morning I went to my bus put my newspaper in it and then got out to start my pre-check of all the lights tires brakes etc. During this estensive pre-check I took my jacket off and put it on the back of seat. At some point I realized there wasn't any paper towels or a window washing spray bottle so I wound my way though a dozen buses to get some from the shop.

Having completed all this I fired up this 40 ft. diesel pusher and drove out to a church parking lot where I usually have a 10 min. wait before my route starts. At this point I reached down for my newspaper and it was not there. Strange I thought as no-one else had been around my bus. For some reason I decided to check the number on the key with the number on the outside of the bus.They did not match. These ignitions are so old that I think you could start most of the old buses with a pocket knife so matching keys isn"t a prequsite for starting the right bus. Now I get to radio in to dispatch to tell them I have the wrong bus. This has to be impressive.They had already figured it out and told me to finish the route.

When I got back to the matching bus I found my newspaper and the spray bottle were in one bus and my jacket and the paper towels were in the other bus. I am not sure which bus I pre-checked.

I'm sure glad there was only one bus present when I took my four and one half hour CDL bus driving test. Who knows what could have happened..........

Mr. B......

2008-04-11T20:35:00.001-07:00

This week was my birthday so I had a little game with my students. I passed them out a questioner with these questions on it: How old I'm I-----How long have I been married---How many children---How many grandchildren. They were pumping me with questions trying to get clues. I told them I would give them one clue that was worthless. I was born in Wyoming and I was a cowboy when I was young. One of the boys said "You don't look like a cowboy. You just look like a busdriver".

I gave the boy who came the closest an uncirculated metal dollar.

All but one of them guessed me to be younger that I really am.

I should have given them all a dollar for that. Mr. B....

Adventues in bus driving by Mr. B..........

2008-03-29T21:22:00.001-07:00

I love this job. It fulfills three of the major food groups.

You are needed by someone.

You are doing service.

You get to see bright young students on your big yellow bus twice a day.

My biggest mistake of the week: At each student stop you are supposed to put the park brake on, put the transmission in neutral, and keep your foot on the service brake. This is so if something happened to the driver during a stop the bus doesn't go rolling down the road with a load of students. I haven't been following this procedure at every stop. On one of the stops that I did do it this week instead of putting the transmission in neutral I put in in reverse. The transmission gear selectors are three push buttons next to each other on the dash. As I released the park brake the bus started going backwards. Not impressive to anyone who is watching........Mr. B......

FW: Job Market 2009

2008-03-28T22:27:00.000-07:00

You have to see this one. Dad

From: sidney madsen <sidneymadsen@hotmail.com>
To: Candice Madsen <cmadsen@ksl.com>, Dave Weed <dweed@azmesalaw.com>, Errol and Elaine Bagley <eebagley@hotmail.com>, "jasonbagley@mac.com"<jasonbagley@mac.com>, Joanne and Paul Fillmore <pandjfillmore@cox.net>,lynnette Richter <gizmorichter@cox.net>, Marjean Archibald<m.archibald@comcast.net>, Melody Stapley <stanker@cox.net>, Rachel Waite<rachwaite@hotmail.com>, Ralph Spilsbury <rspilsbury@cox.net>, Robert Ray<robertray_2000@yahoo.com>, Roman madsen <romanmadsen@gmail.com>
Subject: FW: Job Market 2009
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:19:26 +0000

Honestly I try not to forward to many of these but this one just caught me, Perhaps because it cuts so close to home!

Sidney

Subject: FW: Job Market 2009
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:57:13 -0700
From: bmadsen@amerifirstloan.com
To: sidneymadsen@hotmail.com

Sid, thought you might enjoy. bk

-----Original Message-----
From: Willis, Judy
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 9:54 AM
To: Bowlby, Garrett; Bowlby, Eric; Bowlby, Ken; Wetch, Pepper; Peters, Mary Lou; Parks, Ann; Peterson, Shad; Bowman, Todd; Bogle, Mike; Madsen, Bryan; Bowlby, Shane; Bolster, Rita; Caplette, Kim; King, Tonia; Bolster, Rita; Ashby, Sherry; Tavares, Stefanie; Schreur, Hunter; Willis, Craig; carrie fulghum; Cash, Debbie; Conger, Shelba
Subject: Job Market 2009

Funny!!!

Test your Star IQ Play now!

Mr. B the Bus Driver

2008-03-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Back in Dec. when I was released from the stake presidency the Arizona housing boom bottomed out at the same time. I thought this would be a good time to take a sabadical from the construction field and just wait for it to come back. It always has in the past. We had our homes and vehicles paid for and my social security and rental incomes in theory would sustain us.

I began semi-filling my days with semi-important things and without two or three nights at the stake center life took on a whole different tone. This worked out for about five weeks when I soon discovered that I seriously needed something each day to do and someone to report to.

My life has had plenty of service to the church but very little to the community. I started looking. The school system is always searching for bus drivers so I looked into that. Low pay,high turn over, and a chance to drive a 40 ft. bus twice a day in rush hour traffic. I'm thinking "This is the job for me".

The rest is history, Errol

Re: FW: bus pictures

2008-03-15T18:44:00.000-07:00

Dad, I see that the district does not have a problem with you taking the bus on personal trips. Do you think you can get it for the family reunion? The per person miles per gallon will be better than a minivan.

Jarom

On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 8:44 AM, Errol Bagley <eebagley@hotmail.com> wrote:

From: Ashley Bagley <ashleybagley@hotmail.com>
To: Elaine Bagley <eebagley@hotmail.com>
Subject: bus pictures
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 07:12:31 -0700

Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. Get it now!

Re: Adventures in bus driving ------ by Mr. "B"

2008-03-15T15:40:00.001-07:00

Leave it to the gifted kids to tell you they are uncomfortable. If it had been one of the bus routes from hell, they would have said "DUDE!" Have fun!

Jean

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 10:51 PM, Errol Bagley <eebagley@hotmail.com> wrote:

Well it finally happened. After weeks of safety and first aid classes--sexual harrasment and student management classes---- learning every part of a 40 ft. bus as if you were looking at it with an ex-ray machine---- learning to drive this bohemoth in rush hour traffic two times a day---traffic law and all the things that you could be held accountable for in a lawsuit--- learning to deal with angry parents, angry principals, and angry students---- I have job for $12.50 an Hr.

They gave me a route the first day. There are lots for routes that are called the routes from hell to the schools of last chance. Being the lowest on the senerority list your fear is that you will get one of these to start with. I did not. My route, at least for now is the gifted children to the high performers academy.

The current driver was with me for the first trip. As the students got on the bus they ask me who I was. Standing near the drivers seat I thought should have been a clue.------- I told them that I was a driver in training and that was why the training wheels were on the bus---Hadn't they noticed? I then added that I didn't know too much but I did know how to get to Flaggstaff and I thought that I could get the bus though the drive though at Jack-In-The-Box if they wanted to stop. One of the boys looked at me and said "I am not feeling too comforable about all this". They did take their seats and I got them home allright.

The next morning was a bit of a panic as I was on my own. I had covered the first four stops and there weren't students at any of them. I was starting to wondered how I was going to explain to dispatch that there weren't and kids on my route and maybe I was in Flaggstaff. Finally at the fifth stop there were three students. I asked anxiously "Where was everyone at the the first four stops"? They told me that there usually is no-one at those stops. I'm starting to feel better .

The former driver introduced me as Mr. "B" so I guess that will be my bus name. Sorry to bother you with all these facts but this is all pretty new to this 64 year old.

Love, Dad

FW: bus pictures

2008-03-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

From: Ashley Bagley <ashleybagley@hotmail.com>
To: Elaine Bagley <eebagley@hotmail.com>
Subject: bus pictures
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 07:12:31 -0700

Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. Get it now!

Adventures in bus driving ------ by Mr. "B"

2008-03-14T21:51:00.001-07:00

Well it finally happened. After weeks of safety and first aid classes--sexual harrasment and student management classes---- learning every part of a 40 ft. bus as if you were looking at it with an ex-ray machine---- learning to drive this bohemoth in rush hour traffic two times a day---traffic law and all the things that you could be held accountable for in a lawsuit--- learning to deal with angry parents, angry principals, and angry students---- I have job for $12.50 an Hr.

They gave me a route the first day. There are lots for routes that are called the routes from hell to the schools of last chance. Being the lowest on the senerority list your fear is that you will get one of these to start with. I did not. My route, at least for now is the gifted children to the high performers academy.

The current driver was with me for the first trip. As the students got on the bus they ask me who I was. Standing near the drivers seat I thought should have been a clue.------- I told them that I was a driver in training and that was why the training wheels were on the bus---Hadn't they noticed? I then added that I didn't know too much but I did know how to get to Flaggstaff and I thought that I could get the bus though the drive though at Jack-In-The-Box if they wanted to stop. One of the boys looked at me and said "I am not feeling too comforable about all this". They did take their seats and I got them home allright.

The next morning was a bit of a panic as I was on my own. I had covered the first four stops and there weren't students at any of them. I was starting to wondered how I was going to explain to dispatch that there weren't and kids on my route and maybe I was in Flaggstaff. Finally at the fifth stop there were three students. I asked anxiously "Where was everyone at the the first four stops"? They told me that there usually is no-one at those stops. I'm starting to feel better .

The former driver introduced me as Mr. "B" so I guess that will be my bus name. Sorry to bother you with all these facts but this is all pretty new to this 64 year old.

Love, Dad

Reflections

2008-03-07T18:36:00.001-08:00

Dear Family.

In one month I will be 64 years old. My Dad died when he was 65. My Mom died when she was

73. Dad probably did not die of natural causes . He had a knee injury that had caused flibaitios or

blood clots below the knee and the danger is that the clots break loose and go to the heart or

brain. That is only speculation. He did die with his boots on. He had been doing some tractor

work that morning and they found him on the tractor. He had been a healthy hardy man all of his life except for getting hepititis once.

Mom had had open heart surgery some 12 years before she died and she was probably due for

some more repairs if she had chosen to. I found her peacefully laying in her bed. She had died the night before. She had told me that she wanted to die in a dignified manner. I would say that she got her wish. She had come over about a week before she died and told us that she was so mad. She had had a dream the night before and dad had come for her but he did not take her. Apparently he came back the next week.

Now if you think all this talk about death makes you think you will be getting your vast inheritance soon forget it. I feel great. I have gone back to school and I will be driving a school bus soon with 40-60 lovely school kids on it.

By the way, I am looking for a nickname as a bus driver. Kids like to know your name but Errol is so often misunderstood and so rare I am looking for an appropriate new one. Any ideas??

Love, Dad

FW: The Lone Ranger & Tonto

2008-02-16T06:47:00.001-08:00

You may have heard this one.It has been around for years, but I always enjoy it. EB

From: "Gary Heiner" <gheiner@cox.net>
To: "Dan Goettl" <gampers@yahoo.com>
Subject: FW: The Lone Ranger & Tonto
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 12:30:48 -0700

Subject: Lone Ranger & Tonto

The Lone Ranger and Tonto stopped in the desert for the night. After they got their tent all set up, both men fell sound asleep.

Some hours later, Tonto wakes the Lone Ranger and says, "Kemo Sabe, look towards sky, what you see?"

The Lone Ranger replies, "I see millions of stars."

"What that tell you?" asked Tonto.

The Lone Ranger ponders for a minute then says, "Astronomically speaking, it tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three in the morning. Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow."

Tonto is silent for a moment, then says, "Kemo Sabe, you dumber than I think. It means someone stole our tent."

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Re: My new career

2008-02-08T11:37:00.001-08:00

More details please. Did you learn how to drive the 18-wheeler tractor trailers? Are the school buses automatic transmissions?

--Rob

On Feb 7, 2008 10:32 PM, Errol Bagley <eebagley@hotmail.com> wrote:

Dear Family, Back in December when I retired (ur became unemployed) I was quite enjoying myself. No church job and no work. I started planning my day with a trip to Home Depot in the morning and a visit to the gym in the afternoon and whatever else that came up inbetween. I soon realized I was becoming bored ( ur broke ) on my current retirement plan so I started training for my new career opportunity. This is acually something that I have had in my head for a few years. Don't ask me why but I have.

I took the test for my CDL ( Commercial Drivers License) permit.This is necessary to drive trucks over 26,000 lbs with air brakes, passenger buses, or school buses that haul over 15 passengers. I have always had a love affair with big machinery and big trucks. I watched most of the Ice Road Trucking series this season. That is the three month period each winter when they make roads over the ice covered lakes to truck supplies to the diamond mines deep in northern Canada.

I will start out with the Mesa School System driving up to 40 ft. diesel pushers. I have been in training for the passed two weeks and passed all my requirements to start my 20 hrs. behind the wheel training on Monday. The schools here are always begging for new drivers so thay pay you for all the class and training time. The pay is easier to live with if you convience yourself that this is also a needed public service and that you got one more bored retired guy off the streets. It costs the school system $3500 for each driver they put through the program.

The work schedule is very flexible with a minimum of five trips a week so when the building starts again I can work my real job back in or maybe I'll be up on the ice roads in Canada next winter. Do they speak French? Love Dad

My new career

2008-02-07T21:32:00.001-08:00

Dear Family, Back in December when I retired (ur became unemployed) I was quite enjoying myself. No church job and no work. I started planning my day with a trip to Home Depot in the morning and a visit to the gym in the afternoon and whatever else that came up inbetween. I soon realized I was becoming bored ( ur broke ) on my current retirement plan so I started training for my new career opportunity. This is acually something that I have had in my head for a few years. Don't ask me why but I have.

I took the test for my CDL ( Commercial Drivers License) permit.This is necessary to drive trucks over 26,000 lbs with air brakes, passenger buses, or school buses that haul over 15 passengers. I have always had a love affair with big machinery and big trucks. I watched most of the Ice Road Trucking series this season. That is the three month period each winter when they make roads over the ice covered lakes to truck supplies to the diamond mines deep in northern Canada.

I will start out with the Mesa School System driving up to 40 ft. diesel pushers. I have been in training for the passed two weeks and passed all my requirements to start my 20 hrs. behind the wheel training on Monday. The schools here are always begging for new drivers so thay pay you for all the class and training time. The pay is easier to live with if you convience yourself that this is also a needed public service and that you got one more bored retired guy off the streets. It costs the school system $3500 for each driver they put through the program.

The work schedule is very flexible with a minimum of five trips a week so when the building starts again I can work my real job back in or maybe I'll be up on the ice roads in Canada next winter. Do they speak French? Love Dad

2008-02-03T07:03:00.001-08:00

Ashley left MCC with a 4.0 grade point average and a nice letter from the president of MCC.

Congrads to Ashley.

Dad

2008-01-29T15:55:00.001-08:00

Dear Family,

This afternoon Elaine and I were set apart as temple workers in the Mesa Arizona Temple.

We look forward to this opportunity. We will be working tues. evenings.

Love. Errol

memories: haircuts

2008-01-20T15:14:00.001-08:00

Since I got married I think I have only paid for two haircuts. Elaine has always cut my hair. She gives me a senior discount now. Someone might figure what that has saved over the passed forty years?? $$$

In Afton Wyo. there were two barber shops when I was growing up. Art Roberts was on the West side of main street and a Merritt was on the East side of main almost directly across from each other. Just as people have different doctors or churches we had our favorite barber. Dad and I went to Art Roberts. Haircuts were $1.25. When Dad was in the hospital with his knee injury his hair got long and Mom persuaded Art to come to the hospital and cut his hair.

On my mission in Finland we got our hair cut at the beauty shop and all the barbers were usually younger females. A haircut there included the getting your hair washed first and a head message afterwards. You can imagine that this was a pleasant experience for us young elders to look forward to. Errol

2008-01-06T14:26:00.001-08:00

Thanks to all who participated in the Christmas Present Opinion Poll. My two favorite words used were " shellshocked" and "hospitalized".

I did think it was great fun to hear the opinions and family traditions of Christmas.

I have to admit my Dad did love Christmas and buying gifts (always a few)

Dad often had a tree spotted during the summer range riding that he would cut for Christmas.

When Christmas fell on Sunday he would hook up the team and hay sled, put bells on the horses, and we would pick up people for church in the mile between our house and the church when we lived in Etna Wyo.

Just think , there are only 359 shopping days till next Christmas.

Love Dad

Re:

2008-01-04T13:35:00.001-08:00

Me again.

So while I was cleaning very messy kitchen I set my ipod to listen to Reachel's Christmas Talks List. I was thinking about our topic of giving and receiving and how to do so appropriately. I was even wishing I could find out a general authority's opinion on this since certainly they have families to give gifts to on Christmas, too. Scrolling through the list of talks I hadn't heard yet I found one called "Gifts of Love" Gifts! Sounds apprapo [aside: please tell me how to spell that and what language it is]. By Henry B. Eyring? Even better. I love his talks!

I was surprised and delighted when he immediately launched into the quandary of what to give at Christmas time. His advice was astonishingly appropriate, as if he'd been reading our emails, and touched me as only Elder Eyring can. So thank you Reachel for giving us that gift! It perfectly fits his 3-part theorem of what a good gift entails.

Yours,

Becky

p.s. If you don't have a copy of Reachel's beautiful collection of talks and still want to hear it, you can find it at:
http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=browse&speaker=Eyring%2C+Henry+B.&topic=&type=&year=&x=16&y=8
Listening to it was the best thing I did all day!

On Jan 4, 2008 11:44 AM, Becky Bagley < beckycbagley@gmail.com> wrote:

It's hard to feel spoiled when you're cleaning up a mess. Particularly, this mess (which occurred while I was reading emails about spoiling kids with excess Christmas Gifts) courtesy of Sophia and a handme down nipple I purchased when the girls were infants (that's getting thrown away ASAP!) But I really have to weigh in on this issue! I love a great debate, especially in the Bagley email tradition. So, some of my thoughts:

Gift giving. It is custom that for some people carries a lot of weight. For some, it may even be considered their "love language" or how they express love for those around them. This is certainly the case with my dad as he has always loved giving gifts to his kids. I didn't realize he was "over doing it" until I grew up, but if Kara was shell shocked in Pine she would have had to have been hospitalized after a Christmas at my house when I was a kid. If I gave you a detailed list of the amounts and quantities you'd be appalled and I'd be embarrassed so sufficeth to say it was typically a big Christmas at the Craig household.

But somehow it still worked out. We loved seeing what other people got and not just ourselves. We opened things slowly and showed them to the group so it was a family affair. I don't remember a single time when I felt like one of my siblings got a "better" Christmas than me (okay Jean, so only one, but it was 9th grade: dad had some hiccups in his employment and mom bought me only clothes I would have died wearing to school and no one got a particularly awesome Christmas that year. I mainly felt sad because the clothes made me think in that typical early teen way that mom doesn't "get me" anymore). I don't remember ever feeling like I got a "better" Christmas than my friends in my neighborhood (I didn't). I think I felt grateful and loved, even lucky and hoped that everyone like the gifts I had picked out for them, too. Maybe those gifts weren't what they would have picked out for themselves, but that's the interesting thing about gift giving, that little bit of mystery & magic. That little piece of the giver's personality that's there with the gift--like that odd gift from an odd friend that you just love because of their uniqueness even if you can't really see yourself living with the object they've given you, you can still feel loved and appreciated. I have a child whose love language is most likely gifts. She doesn't really respond to the hugs and gushing praise that I give her every day (that would be me speaking my own language which she finds really embarassing and uncomfortable) but somehow gifts crack her heart and makes her melt. If it takes a few extra presents to make my kids heart melt once a year, then why not?

So I totally agree with Kara that you should do Christmas and presents the way that is right for your family (much like parenting styles, there's not just one way that works) and a simple Christmas can work perfectly if done thoughtfully like Kara just described. And of course I think everything should be done in moderation, living within your means, etc., etc. But what can I say. . . once a year, it's Christmas!

Now if you'll excuse me I have a very messy toddler and kitchen to clean up!

Much love,

Becky

p.s. I really do know I over do Christmas. It's in my blood. Maybe we can talk about excess consumerism and consumption in general in the next email chain!

On Dec 31, 2007 2:48 PM, kara bagley <karabagley@gmail.com> wrote:

I have to say I was shell shocked the Christmas of 2003 when we spent Christmas morning in Pine with the Bagley's. After a Late night Christmas Eve of the parents wrapping the very abundant amount of presents and fretting over presents left back at home and how distraught their child will be, Christmas morning came early. I guess you could say the kids were excited...everything was ripped open within 5 minutes and not because there wasn't much to open. There were kids asking for more and counting their presents, comparing with their cousins and asking there parents why didn't I get... and where is...(thing that I asked for)

Christmas is as magical as the parents perceive it and that perception easily wears off on children. If the parents make it all about getting a lot of presents, getting expensive presents and being entertained all day long by their presents then that is going to be what it takes for their kids to feel it was a good Christmas.

We had a wonderful Christmas. The anticipation of the day made it magical. The kids each got one special present from Santa, Layne's was a $20 drum set that he banged on for hours while singing "jingle bells" Brik got an aquadoodle mat that he got to express his artistic side. Stockings had socks, a t-shirt, oranges and a candy cane. We had breakfast and then had the big event. Gifts one at a time, recognized who they were from before they were opened, shared with everyone and discussion on how thoughtful it was for that person to get you that present. Thank you was said and we moved on. Layne got a exercise ball from me to give to me, he had punched a screwdriver through my old one and was supposed to be earning money to buy me a new one, but it was slow going. He was so thrilled to be debt free and wanted to open it right away to find out what color it was. Jarom got him a hand-me-down digital camera that had been sitting at the bottom of a drawer for the past 3 years since we had gotten a new one. Brik got him a pack of games that was 5$, we have been teaching him how to play and it has been educational. Brik got some toys that were Layne's at two that had been stored in the garage for the past year. Layne played with them as much as Brik did. My parents sent some presents and we had a few from friends. We spent the rest of the day playing, finding a place for our new things, making calls to family, and just relaxing.

I think you should do Christmas and presents the way that feels right for you. There is nothing wrong with a lot of presents, but a simple Chistmas does not make the day lame. CHristmas day can be just as wonderful even for the kids with just one special gift as long as they are not expecting enough to kill a Guatemalan family of 6.

On Dec 30, 2007 8:06 PM, Errol Bagley <eebagley@hotmail.com> wrote:

Good points. I didn't assume I was right on this subject although I may be. Lets hear more. Dad

From: Jill Bagley <jillbagley@mac.com>
To: eebagley@gmail.com
CC: andrewtbagley@gmail.com, ashleybagley@hotmail.com, beckycbagley@gmail.com, reachelbagley@gmail.com, richard.bagley@honeywell.com, robbagley@gmail.com, eebagley.starvalleycowboy@blogger.com, jhd3978@yahoo.com, heidi@hebervalley.net, jarombagley@gmail.com, jeanbagley@gmail.com, karabagley@gmail.com, oleyeller@oleyeller.com, patsyqbagley@hotmail.com, tractorman@cableone.net, gracechristy@sbcglobal.net, scarlet@tetontel.com, lbwdesigns@tetontel.com, srogers16@cox.net
Subject: Re:
Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:55:19 -0800

might i say in our defense as parents who bought too much stuff-------

last year we only bought ruby and Ezra one gift from santa, one gift from mom and dad, and one from their grandparents.

our christmas was very minimal.

and afterwards it was very lame. there was not much to do-----ruby got a little bored with her gift. and i personally felt that it was less magical.

when your kids have lots of presents that they are excited about its like going to disneyland. its exciting , and fun and it gives them a lot to do that day.

to get it straight, jason reported that our kids got too much stuff and they were bored---that is not true!! its all lies!!! Jason was disgusted with how much stuff we got them, but in truth, ruby was loving it.

Ezra didnt want to open presents because he doesnt know how----he is still too young.

but ruby loved everything she got, was grateful and excited. and jason made the kids stop opening presents because he personally felt that they had enough. and admittedly, they did have enough.

there are at least two good legitimate reasons to buy your kids lots of presents at christmas.

the number one reason for me is because it is so magical. and they have lots of interesting things to do that day.

the second reason is because it gives me an excuse to throw out all the old stuff.

the other reasons for getting lots of stuff on christmas:

-everything is on sale and readily in your face when you go shopping.

its easier to buy toys at this time of year than other times.

--its fun

--why wouldnt you want lots of entertainment for your kids? its better than tv!!!

it shouldnt be such a mystery----and it shouldnt seem so selfish to all of you old humbugs out there.

its fun for the parents, its fun for the kids.

when picking which party you want to go to----dont you always pick the one that will provide the most fun?

you dont want to go to a party that is unexciting.

i know, its a lame analogy, but that is my defense.

so there.

--Jill

On Dec 29, 2007, at 1:55 PM, Errol Bagley wrote:

Thank you--Thank you-- Thank you for my large flat screen monitor. It is 30% larger to look at and takes 80% less desk space.

We are still enjoying the holiday season with family and grandchildren. Our Pine house has been used regularly with a little snow still under the trees and fires in both fireplaces.

From what I witnessed and what was reported my pre-Christmas suggestion of several meaningfull gifts to children was universally ignored. Elaine has ignored it for forty years so my expectations were not really high on this one. I will say Sam exibited the same excitment on gift twelve as he did on gift one. Jason reported that his children lost interest after a while and had to be encoraged to came back and finish opening thier presents. I'm thinking of commissioning a study on parents to see if we can figure out what the hell is wrong with them on this Christmas thing.

That aside, we are most gratefull for all of our children and grandchidren and the peace and prosperity that we live in. Sometime people ask me how I am doing and I often reply " Better than I deserve"

Love Dad.

--
Kara Bagley
Master Maitre 'd
Chef Brad Events
480.452.9230

Re:

2008-01-04T10:44:00.000-08:00

It's hard to feel spoiled when you're cleaning up a mess. Particularly, this mess (which occurred while I was reading emails about spoiling kids with excess Christmas Gifts) courtesy of Sophia and a handme down nipple I purchased when the girls were infants (that's getting thrown away ASAP!) But I really have to weigh in on this issue! I love a great debate, especially in the Bagley email tradition. So, some of my thoughts:

Gift giving. It is custom that for some people carries a lot of weight. For some, it may even be considered their "love language" or how they express love for those around them. This is certainly the case with my dad as he has always loved giving gifts to his kids. I didn't realize he was "over doing it" until I grew up, but if Kara was shell shocked in Pine she would have had to have been hospitalized after a Christmas at my house when I was a kid. If I gave you a detailed list of the amounts and quantities you'd be appalled and I'd be embarrassed so sufficeth to say it was typically a big Christmas at the Craig household.

But somehow it still worked out. We loved seeing what other people got and not just ourselves. We opened things slowly and showed them to the group so it was a family affair. I don't remember a single time when I felt like one of my siblings got a "better" Christmas than me (okay Jean, so only one, but it was 9th grade: dad had some hiccups in his employment and mom bought me only clothes I would have died wearing to school and no one got a particularly awesome Christmas that year. I mainly felt sad because the clothes made me think in that typical early teen way that mom doesn't "get me" anymore). I don't remember ever feeling like I got a "better" Christmas than my friends in my neighborhood (I didn't). I think I felt grateful and loved, even lucky and hoped that everyone like the gifts I had picked out for them, too. Maybe those gifts weren't what they would have picked out for themselves, but that's the interesting thing about gift giving, that little bit of mystery & magic. That little piece of the giver's personality that's there with the gift--like that odd gift from an odd friend that you just love because of their uniqueness even if you can't really see yourself living with the object they've given you, you can still feel loved and appreciated. I have a child whose love language is most likely gifts. She doesn't really respond to the hugs and gushing praise that I give her every day (that would be me speaking my own language which she finds really embarassing and uncomfortable) but somehow gifts crack her heart and makes her melt. If it takes a few extra presents to make my kids heart melt once a year, then why not?

So I totally agree with Kara that you should do Christmas and presents the way that is right for your family (much like parenting styles, there's not just one way that works) and a simple Christmas can work perfectly if done thoughtfully like Kara just described. And of course I think everything should be done in moderation, living within your means, etc., etc. But what can I say. . . once a year, it's Christmas!

Now if you'll excuse me I have a very messy toddler and kitchen to clean up!

Much love,

Becky

p.s. I really do know I over do Christmas. It's in my blood. Maybe we can talk about excess consumerism and consumption in general in the next email chain!

On Dec 31, 2007 2:48 PM, kara bagley <karabagley@gmail.com> wrote:

I have to say I was shell shocked the Christmas of 2003 when we spent Christmas morning in Pine with the Bagley's. After a Late night Christmas Eve of the parents wrapping the very abundant amount of presents and fretting over presents left back at home and how distraught their child will be, Christmas morning came early. I guess you could say the kids were excited...everything was ripped open within 5 minutes and not because there wasn't much to open. There were kids asking for more and counting their presents, comparing with their cousins and asking there parents why didn't I get... and where is...(thing that I asked for)

Christmas is as magical as the parents perceive it and that perception easily wears off on children. If the parents make it all about getting a lot of presents, getting expensive presents and being entertained all day long by their presents then that is going to be what it takes for their kids to feel it was a good Christmas.

We had a wonderful Christmas. The anticipation of the day made it magical. The kids each got one special present from Santa, Layne's was a $20 drum set that he banged on for hours while singing "jingle bells" Brik got an aquadoodle mat that he got to express his artistic side. Stockings had socks, a t-shirt, oranges and a candy cane. We had breakfast and then had the big event. Gifts one at a time, recognized who they were from before they were opened, shared with everyone and discussion on how thoughtful it was for that person to get you that present. Thank you was said and we moved on. Layne got a exercise ball from me to give to me, he had punched a screwdriver through my old one and was supposed to be earning money to buy me a new one, but it was slow going. He was so thrilled to be debt free and wanted to open it right away to find out what color it was. Jarom got him a hand-me-down digital camera that had been sitting at the bottom of a drawer for the past 3 years since we had gotten a new one. Brik got him a pack of games that was 5$, we have been teaching him how to play and it has been educational. Brik got some toys that were Layne's at two that had been stored in the garage for the past year. Layne played with them as much as Brik did. My parents sent some presents and we had a few from friends. We spent the rest of the day playing, finding a place for our new things, making calls to family, and just relaxing.

I think you should do Christmas and presents the way that feels right for you. There is nothing wrong with a lot of presents, but a simple Chistmas does not make the day lame. CHristmas day can be just as wonderful even for the kids with just one special gift as long as they are not expecting enough to kill a Guatemalan family of 6.

On Dec 30, 2007 8:06 PM, Errol Bagley <eebagley@hotmail.com> wrote:

Good points. I didn't assume I was right on this subject although I may be. Lets hear more. Dad

From: Jill Bagley <jillbagley@mac.com>
To: eebagley@gmail.com
CC: andrewtbagley@gmail.com, ashleybagley@hotmail.com, beckycbagley@gmail.com, reachelbagley@gmail.com, richard.bagley@honeywell.com, robbagley@gmail.com, eebagley.starvalleycowboy@blogger.com, jhd3978@yahoo.com, heidi@hebervalley.net, jarombagley@gmail.com, jeanbagley@gmail.com, karabagley@gmail.com, oleyeller@oleyeller.com, patsyqbagley@hotmail.com, tractorman@cableone.net, gracechristy@sbcglobal.net, scarlet@tetontel.com, lbwdesigns@tetontel.com, srogers16@cox.net
Subject: Re:
Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:55:19 -0800

might i say in our defense as parents who bought too much stuff-------

last year we only bought ruby and Ezra one gift from santa, one gift from mom and dad, and one from their grandparents.

our christmas was very minimal.

and afterwards it was very lame. there was not much to do-----ruby got a little bored with her gift. and i personally felt that it was less magical.

when your kids have lots of presents that they are excited about its like going to disneyland. its exciting , and fun and it gives them a lot to do that day.

to get it straight, jason reported that our kids got too much stuff and they were bored---that is not true!! its all lies!!! Jason was disgusted with how much stuff we got them, but in truth, ruby was loving it.

Ezra didnt want to open presents because he doesnt know how----he is still too young.

but ruby loved everything she got, was grateful and excited. and jason made the kids stop opening presents because he personally felt that they had enough. and admittedly, they did have enough.

there are at least two good legitimate reasons to buy your kids lots of presents at christmas.

the number one reason for me is because it is so magical. and they have lots of interesting things to do that day.

the second reason is because it gives me an excuse to throw out all the old stuff.

the other reasons for getting lots of stuff on christmas:

-everything is on sale and readily in your face when you go shopping.

its easier to buy toys at this time of year than other times.

--its fun

--why wouldnt you want lots of entertainment for your kids? its better than tv!!!

it shouldnt be such a mystery----and it shouldnt seem so selfish to all of you old humbugs out there.

its fun for the parents, its fun for the kids.

when picking which party you want to go to----dont you always pick the one that will provide the most fun?

you dont want to go to a party that is unexciting.

i know, its a lame analogy, but that is my defense.

so there.

--Jill

On Dec 29, 2007, at 1:55 PM, Errol Bagley wrote:

Thank you--Thank you-- Thank you for my large flat screen monitor. It is 30% larger to look at and takes 80% less desk space.

We are still enjoying the holiday season with family and grandchildren. Our Pine house has been used regularly with a little snow still under the trees and fires in both fireplaces.

From what I witnessed and what was reported my pre-Christmas suggestion of several meaningfull gifts to children was universally ignored. Elaine has ignored it for forty years so my expectations were not really high on this one. I will say Sam exibited the same excitment on gift twelve as he did on gift one. Jason reported that his children lost interest after a while and had to be encoraged to came back and finish opening thier presents. I'm thinking of commissioning a study on parents to see if we can figure out what the hell is wrong with them on this Christmas thing.

That aside, we are most gratefull for all of our children and grandchidren and the peace and prosperity that we live in. Sometime people ask me how I am doing and I often reply " Better than I deserve"

Love Dad.

--
Kara Bagley
Master Maitre 'd
Chef Brad Events
480.452.9230

Simple Christmas

2007-12-30T21:24:00.000-08:00

Dear All,

First I have to say I love being included in this chat!

Miscellaneous thought s on Christmas.

1. My kids never got a lot from “Santa”. I wanted them to be appreciative to their parents for the gifts.

2. I liked to keep my kids home for most of the Christmas holidays because I didn’t want them comparing what other kids got with what they got.

3. Our children usually had about five gifts(this always included socks and underwear) and I did have my concerns that they would feel that there wasn’t much there. They also drew names between themselves so I knew that there would be one more gift and then one from Lorin’s parents. It seems like it always turned out that there were plenty of presents to open. We always go one at a time. With so many kids that takes quite a while and instead of doing a gift for just the sibling that they choose the name for they usually did gifts for all of their siblings or a family gift to us all.

4. The past couple of years we have tried a new tradition. The three gifts of Christmas: Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

Gold= a fun gift

Frankincense= a practical gift

Myrrh= a meaningful gift

Merissa, along with Alesa and Billy presented me with a most meaningful gift. Merissa has been writing songs for the new CD that she is putting out in Jan. One of the songs that she wrote was taken from the letters that Granddad wrote to Gran while he was at university of Wyoming and she was in Logan at school. I have tried to connect my children with my parents through stories and pictures, it seems to be taking. You will all be anxious to hear this new song so watch for its release soon.

5. Now that my children are older our traditions are changing some. Christmas day is always fun but the part I look forward to is our Christmas party. This year is was on the Thursday after Christmas as that is when we could all be together. We did the Let’s Make Deal and the Price Is Right hybrid game. I had everyone bring a “regift” , I downloaded theme songs for everyone and had a costume prepared for each. They then had trivia questions to answer and then they could choose door number 1,2,or 3 and get that prize. They also earned beans from the trivia questions and we then bid with the beans on different items. I think they all had a great time and it will be more remembered than what they received. Last year we did a Jeopardy game and the year before a treasure hunt all over the valley as we did our caroling. Hmmm…what am I going to do for next year. I am open to suggestions!!!!

6. I am a great supporter of the simple Christmas. I loved the story of the Match Box cars that Errol sent, how the little boy didn’t know how to love so many cars, he was happy with just the two. I generally think that kids get too much stuff. However, this year I played the Grandmother role. Thayne and Jennifer’s daughter Mckaylee got an American Girl doll and a couple of outfits. I was so excited, I love dolls. I just wanted to sew a bunch of outfits and give them to her. This would make me part of the problem rather than part of the solution. I did get out all the patterns and material. I think what I will do is make the clothes for my doll and then let her (and my future granddaughters) play with them when they are here.

From: Jean Bagley [mailto:jeanbagley@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2007 9:55 AM
To: Jill Bagley
Cc: eebagley@gmail.com; andrewtbagley@gmail.com; ashleybagley@hotmail.com; beckycbagley@gmail.com; reachelbagley@gmail.com; richard.bagley@honeywell.com; robbagley@gmail.com; eebagley.starvalleycowboy@blogger.com; jhd3978@yahoo.com; heidi@hebervalley.net; jarombagley@gmail.com; karabagley@gmail.com; oleyeller@oleyeller.com; patsyqbagley@hotmail.com; tractorman@cableone.net; gracechristy@sbcglobal.net; scarlet@tetontel.com; lbwdesigns@tetontel.com; srogers16@cox.net
Subject: Re:

Well said, Jill. I think you're right about small Christmases being less entertaining afterword than big Christmases but I have noticed that too many gifts on Christmas morning is detrimental to the holiday. You have probably heard Rob's & my Christmas Gift Theorem: Children are cranky in direct proportion to the number of gifts they get. Maybe the solution is a 12 days of Christmas. That way you can have the entertainment without the burnout on Christmas morning. Actually, I think the best solution is a medium sized Christmas. That's what we ended up with this year. Yes, I would have liked to buy more presents but due to budgetary cutbacks, we were limited. They each had 5 presents of varying cost. The most expensive being around $30, and two of them were socks (that was a big hit because all of my kids had holey socks) and underwear (not exciting unless you are 2 or 4 and get character underwear). We also had a few gifts that were just for the family but we scored big on those - a Wii, karaoke revolution, and movies. I went into this Christmas a little worried that our kids would notice that they had a fraction of the gifts their friends and cousins would receive but it ended up being a fantastic Christmas. I think it's easier with older kids. They spent the next few days playing together on their new electronics. The little kids spent the next few days fighting over Ari's Polly Pockets. Oh well. Everything can't be perfect!

Love,

Jean

On Dec 29, 2007 11:55 PM, Jill Bagley < jillbagley@mac.com> wrote:

might i say in our defense as parents who bought too much stuff-------

last year we only bought ruby and Ezra one gift from santa, one gift from mom and dad, and one from their grandparents.

our christmas was very minimal.

and afterwards it was very lame. there was not much to do-----ruby got a little bored with her gift. and i personally felt that it was less magical.

when your kids have lots of presents that they are excited about its like going to disneyland. its exciting , and fun and it gives them a lot to do that day.

to get it straight, jason reported that our kids got too much stuff and they were bored---that is not true!! its all lies!!! Jason was disgusted with how much stuff we got them, but in truth, ruby was loving it.

Ezra didnt want to open presents because he doesnt know how----he is still too young.

but ruby loved everything she got, was grateful and excited. and jason made the kids stop opening presents because he personally felt that they had enough. and admittedly, they did have enough.

there are at least two good legitimate reasons to buy your kids lots of presents at christmas.

the number one reason for me is because it is so magical. and they have lots of interesting things to do that day.

the second reason is because it gives me an excuse to throw out all the old stuff.

the other reasons for getting lots of stuff on christmas:

-everything is on sale and readily in your face when you go shopping.

its easier to buy toys at this time of year than other times.

--its fun

--why wouldnt you want lots of entertainment for your kids? its better than tv!!!

it shouldnt be such a mystery----and it shouldnt seem so selfish to all of you old humbugs out there.

its fun for the parents, its fun for the kids.

when picking which party you want to go to----dont you always pick the one that will provide the most fun?

you dont want to go to a party that is unexciting.

i know, its a lame analogy, but that is my defense.

so there.

--Jill

On Dec 29, 2007, at 1:55 PM, Errol Bagley wrote:

Thank you--Thank you-- Thank you for my large flat screen monitor. It is 30% larger to look at and takes 80% less desk space.

We are still enjoying the holiday season with family and grandchildren. Our Pine house has been used regularly with a little snow still under the trees and fires in both fireplaces.

From what I witnessed and what was reported my pre-Christmas suggestion of several meaningfull gifts to children was universally ignored. Elaine has ignored it for forty years so my expectations were not really high on this one. I will say Sam exibited the same excitment on gift twelve as he did on gift one. Jason reported that his children lost interest after a while and had to be encoraged to came back and finish opening thier presents. I'm thinking of commissioning a study on parents to see if we can figure out what the hell is wrong with them on this Christmas thing.

That aside, we are most gratefull for all of our children and grandchidren and the peace and prosperity that we live in. Sometime people ask me how I am doing and I often reply " Better than I deserve"

Love Dad.

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.17.12/1203 - Release Date: 12/30/2007 11:27 AM

Re: Re:

2007-12-30T21:14:00.000-08:00

I'll take that invite. Yes, my kids had fun, but Ruby did in fact have to be asked to take a break from playing with her fabulous toys to come back to the living room to open more fabulous toys. And Ruby did enjoy herself and shows no serious side effects as of yet. But that's only because she's been inoculated for just such an event. She's developed an exceptionally high tolerance for toys by being given way, way too many her entire life! The same amount of toys is reported to have killed a Guatemalan family of 6.

Here's a few reason's not to go overboard on the gift giving:

-it spoils children and sets their expectations too high---it's hard to be grateful for little things, when you're used to having everything

-it teaches kids that Chirstmas is all about getting, instead of giving.

-it's a waste of hard earned money that your husbands worked long hours for, and you didn't like how many long hours your husband worked, but how can he ever stop working those long hours when you spend so much money on Christmas! I also bought a car.

-it's just more stuff that you don't have room to store, so you have to spend hours going through the old stuff, which isn't old at all--you just bought it a year ago, but you have to throw it out anyway and thus shall the earth be destroyed as well as our finances.

I think the key is balance. Perhaps 1 or 2 nice gifts the child asked for, a stocking full of goodies and small stuff, and a large family gift (something fun for everyone to do together, like a bowling alley). If it weren't for Jill, Christmas in our home would definitely be missing some magic. And magic is good...in moderation.

Jason

On Dec 30, 2007, at 7:06 PM, Errol Bagley wrote:

Good points. I didn't assume I was right on this subject although I may be. Lets hear more. Dad

From: Jill Bagley <jillbagley@mac.com>
To: eebagley@gmail.com
CC: andrewtbagley@gmail.com, ashleybagley@hotmail.com, beckycbagley@gmail.com, reachelbagley@gmail.com, richard.bagley@honeywell.com, robbagley@gmail.com, eebagley.starvalleycowboy@blogger.com, jhd3978@yahoo.com, heidi@hebervalley.net, jarombagley@gmail.com, jeanbagley@gmail.com, karabagley@gmail.com, oleyeller@oleyeller.com, patsyqbagley@hotmail.com, tractorman@cableone.net, gracechristy@sbcglobal.net, scarlet@tetontel.com, lbwdesigns@tetontel.com, srogers16@cox.net
Subject: Re:
Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:55:19 -0800

might i say in our defense as parents who bought too much stuff-------

last year we only bought ruby and Ezra one gift from santa, one gift from mom and dad, and one from their grandparents.

our christmas was very minimal.

and afterwards it was very lame. there was not much to do-----ruby got a little bored with her gift. and i personally felt that it was less magical.

when your kids have lots of presents that they are excited about its like going to disneyland. its exciting , and fun and it gives them a lot to do that day.

to get it straight, jason reported that our kids got too much stuff and they were bored---that is not true!! its all lies!!! Jason was disgusted with how much stuff we got them, but in truth, ruby was loving it.

Ezra didnt want to open presents because he doesnt know how----he is still too young.

but ruby loved everything she got, was grateful and excited. and jason made the kids stop opening presents because he personally felt that they had enough. and admittedly, they did have enough.

there are at least two good legitimate reasons to buy your kids lots of presents at christmas.

the number one reason for me is because it is so magical. and they have lots of interesting things to do that day.

the second reason is because it gives me an excuse to throw out all the old stuff.

the other reasons for getting lots of stuff on christmas:

-everything is on sale and readily in your face when you go shopping.

its easier to buy toys at this time of year than other times.

--its fun

--why wouldnt you want lots of entertainment for your kids? its better than tv!!!

it shouldnt be such a mystery----and it shouldnt seem so selfish to all of you old humbugs out there.

its fun for the parents, its fun for the kids.

when picking which party you want to go to----dont you always pick the one that will provide the most fun?

you dont want to go to a party that is unexciting.

i know, its a lame analogy, but that is my defense.

so there.

--Jill

On Dec 29, 2007, at 1:55 PM, Errol Bagley wrote:

Thank you--Thank you-- Thank you for my large flat screen monitor. It is 30% larger to look at and takes 80% less desk space.

We are still enjoying the holiday season with family and grandchildren. Our Pine house has been used regularly with a little snow still under the trees and fires in both fireplaces.

From what I witnessed and what was reported my pre-Christmas suggestion of several meaningfull gifts to children was universally ignored. Elaine has ignored it for forty years so my expectations were not really high on this one. I will say Sam exibited the same excitment on gift twelve as he did on gift one. Jason reported that his children lost interest after a while and had to be encoraged to came back and finish opening thier presents. I'm thinking of commissioning a study on parents to see if we can figure out what the hell is wrong with them on this Christmas thing.

That aside, we are most gratefull for all of our children and grandchidren and the peace and prosperity that we live in. Sometime people ask me how I am doing and I often reply " Better than I deserve"

Love Dad.

Re:

2007-12-30T08:55:00.001-08:00

Love,

Jean

On Dec 29, 2007 11:55 PM, Jill Bagley < jillbagley@mac.com> wrote:

might i say in our defense as parents who bought too much stuff-------

last year we only bought ruby and Ezra one gift from santa, one gift from mom and dad, and one from their grandparents.
our christmas was very minimal.
and afterwards it was very lame. there was not much to do-----ruby got a little bored with her gift. and i personally felt that it was less magical.
when your kids have lots of presents that they are excited about its like going to disneyland. its exciting , and fun and it gives them a lot to do that day.

to get it straight, jason reported that our kids got too much stuff and they were bored---that is not true!! its all lies!!! Jason was disgusted with how much stuff we got them, but in truth, ruby was loving it.
Ezra didnt want to open presents because he doesnt know how----he is still too young.
but ruby loved everything she got, was grateful and excited. and jason made the kids stop opening presents because he personally felt that they had enough. and admittedly, they did have enough.

there are at least two good legitimate reasons to buy your kids lots of presents at christmas.

the number one reason for me is because it is so magical. and they have lots of interesting things to do that day.
the second reason is because it gives me an excuse to throw out all the old stuff.

the other reasons for getting lots of stuff on christmas:
-everything is on sale and readily in your face when you go shopping.
its easier to buy toys at this time of year than other times.
--its fun
--why wouldnt you want lots of entertainment for your kids? its better than tv!!!

it shouldnt be such a mystery----and it shouldnt seem so selfish to all of you old humbugs out there.
its fun for the parents, its fun for the kids.
when picking which party you want to go to----dont you always pick the one that will provide the most fun?
you dont want to go to a party that is unexciting.

i know, its a lame analogy, but that is my defense.
so there.
--Jill

On Dec 29, 2007, at 1:55 PM, Errol Bagley wrote:

Thank you--Thank you-- Thank you for my large flat screen monitor. It is 30% larger to look at and takes 80% less desk space.

We are still enjoying the holiday season with family and grandchildren. Our Pine house has been used regularly with a little snow still under the trees and fires in both fireplaces.

From what I witnessed and what was reported my pre-Christmas suggestion of several meaningfull gifts to children was universally ignored. Elaine has ignored it for forty years so my expectations were not really high on this one. I will say Sam exibited the same excitment on gift twelve as he did on gift one. Jason reported that his children lost interest after a while and had to be encoraged to came back and finish opening thier presents. I'm thinking of commissioning a study on parents to see if we can figure out what the hell is wrong with them on this Christmas thing.

That aside, we are most gratefull for all of our children and grandchidren and the peace and prosperity that we live in. Sometime people ask me how I am doing and I often reply " Better than I deserve"

Love Dad.

Re:

2007-12-29T22:55:00.001-08:00

might i say in our defense as parents who bought too much stuff-------

last year we only bought ruby and Ezra one gift from santa, one gift from mom and dad, and one from their grandparents.

our christmas was very minimal.

and afterwards it was very lame. there was not much to do-----ruby got a little bored with her gift. and i personally felt that it was less magical.

when your kids have lots of presents that they are excited about its like going to disneyland. its exciting , and fun and it gives them a lot to do that day.

Ezra didnt want to open presents because he doesnt know how----he is still too young.

but ruby loved everything she got, was grateful and excited. and jason made the kids stop opening presents because he personally felt that they had enough. and admittedly, they did have enough.

there are at least two good legitimate reasons to buy your kids lots of presents at christmas.

the number one reason for me is because it is so magical. and they have lots of interesting things to do that day.

the second reason is because it gives me an excuse to throw out all the old stuff.

the other reasons for getting lots of stuff on christmas:

-everything is on sale and readily in your face when you go shopping.

its easier to buy toys at this time of year than other times.

--its fun

--why wouldnt you want lots of entertainment for your kids? its better than tv!!!

it shouldnt be such a mystery----and it shouldnt seem so selfish to all of you old humbugs out there.

its fun for the parents, its fun for the kids.

when picking which party you want to go to----dont you always pick the one that will provide the most fun?

you dont want to go to a party that is unexciting.

i know, its a lame analogy, but that is my defense.

so there.

--Jill

On Dec 29, 2007, at 1:55 PM, Errol Bagley wrote:

Thank you--Thank you-- Thank you for my large flat screen monitor. It is 30% larger to look at and takes 80% less desk space.

We are still enjoying the holiday season with family and grandchildren. Our Pine house has been used regularly with a little snow still under the trees and fires in both fireplaces.

From what I witnessed and what was reported my pre-Christmas suggestion of several meaningfull gifts to children was universally ignored. Elaine has ignored it for forty years so my expectations were not really high on this one. I will say Sam exibited the same excitment on gift twelve as he did on gift one. Jason reported that his children lost interest after a while and had to be encoraged to came back and finish opening thier presents. I'm thinking of commissioning a study on parents to see if we can figure out what the hell is wrong with them on this Christmas thing.

That aside, we are most gratefull for all of our children and grandchidren and the peace and prosperity that we live in. Sometime people ask me how I am doing and I often reply " Better than I deserve"

Love Dad.

FW: Re:

2007-12-10T09:16:00.000-08:00

From: Jason Bagley <jasonbagley@mac.com>
To: "eebagley@gmail.com" <eebagley@gmail.com>
Subject: Re:
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 08:55:44 -0800

Congratulations on your civilian status. Does the church have witness protection program you can enter to avoid further callings?

Who's the new stake president?

On Dec 9, 2007, at 8:28 PM, Errol Bagley <eebagley@hotmail.com> wrote:

Today Elders Uchtdorf and Olsen came to the Mesa North Stake and released us as a stake

presidency and called a new one. In the church even in very visible callings you need not get

an over inflated sense on your importance as you will be replaced and the church will go on just

fine in your absence.

It is one of the miracles of the church to see two brethren who do not know anyone in the

stake come for two days, reorganize the stake, fly out, and the church goes on almost as if

nothing happened.

In addition to the wonderful spiritual messages Elder Uchtdorf has a sharp sense of humor that

endeared him to his listeners. After twenty seven and half years I will get to sit with my wife

again in sacrament meetings.

Dec. 9 07