Why I was "B" student

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

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

 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

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

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

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 ??

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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