Light Thoughts

     My workday started with a text while I was still at home.  Would you be able to come in a little early?  Translation, we want you to cover a route that leaves the garage before your normal starting time. So in I go to receive my marching orders.      Upon hearing what route they wanted me to do, three things became obvious. One, it was a route I did not know.  Two, it was pitch black outside. And three, it was the most challenging bus for me to drive out of the seven bus types I drive.  Driving a rear engine bus in always more difficult for me, but throw in streets I am not familiar with and darkness and my stomach looks like a butterfly refuge.      Ok, back to rear engine busses.  The issue I have with them are that they are more difficult to turn.  If you don't pay attention, you can easily hit a curb or worse.  Sometimes it means you have to wait until there are no cars around to make sure you hav...

     I wrote this blog 10 years ago but I wanted to post it again because I believe it has a very powerful message.  It's not so much what happens to us that matters but how we think about and react to what happens.  If by reading this blog you could see your past and present circumstances in a different light, it could be a game changer or life changer. And that would be one of the best Christmas presents I could give you!  Enjoy!     "When I was in high school I was on the wrestling team. I made the varsity team as a freshman and boy, did that help my self esteem. Seniors were saying hi to a lowly freshman. What a rush! Anyway, my wrestling coach was a great guy we called Coach Ailts. I always knew that Coach liked me, but beyond that I knew he thought I had great potential.      Now you need to know that I often lacked motivation during practices. I was a meet wrestler, meaning that I could do well during...

     Not too long ago I was filling in for a driver on a special needs route.  It was my last school of the day and there were only three students to take home.  The first student came on with an aid from the school.  The student was saying something and pointing to a compartment above the driver's seat.  I did not know what he was saying and neither did the aid.  After a couple of minutes the aid figured out what he was saying.  He was asking for candy.      The regular driver had gotten permission from the parents and would give this student a piece of candy as a reward for good behavior.  Obviously I did not know this and so was not prepared to follow the routine.  The aid reminded the student that he was not supposed to ask for the candy but wait for the driver to give it to him.  None of this deterred our student.  Finally something else happened that took his focus off the candy.  I thought we ha...

     So last week because Christmas is coming fast I started to think about Christmas's past.  Who knows why we remember certain things but don't remember others?  I am sure I have had more than three good or sort of good Christmas memories. But when I started to think about my Christmas memories, three things stood out.      I remember the farmhouse in Jackson, Mn and I can still picture the living room and the exact place we put the Christmas tree each year. People don't seem to use tinsel anymore but back them we did.  I will confess that hanging tinsel was my least favorite thing to do.  I don't think I was a pro at any part of Christmas tree decorating but tinsel was my achilles heel.  After throwing a few globs of tinsel on the tree I was usually removed from that part of decorating.      Here then is my first thought about Christmas.  You don't have to do it all.  Just do the fun parts.  For ...

     Let me start today by hoping you had a great Thanksgiving and that you are ready to have an awesome Christmas this year.  You can now play Christmas music at will.  This morning I had Christmas music playing on the bus and as the kids were getting off Burl Ives was singing "Have a holly jolly Christmas" so I said to the students have a holly jolly Monday.  I didn't get any eye rolls that I could see so that's very good.     Most weeks I start thinking about what to write about for the following week a day or two before I write the post for that week.  Last week what came to my mind was "I Got Nothing," so that is what I started to think about and what I want to discuss this week. My sister asked me if I have any blogs in the bank so to speak.  I do not.  I depend on what happens that week on the bus or elsewhere that gets me to thinking and contemplating about how to live my best life. A life that I can look back on when I a...

       Last July I wrote a blog about my adventures with a mole who had been terrorizing my lawn for many months.  My take away from this saga was that the questions we ask ourselves determine how successful we will be.  Asking why something happens usually doesn't help.  But asking "How can I fix this?" or "What can I learn from this?" are better questions that lead to better results.        I was able to trap the mole and my lawn had a respite from the mole occupation for a couple of months.  But then, another mole who was not aware of what happens to trespassers on my lawn showed up.  I honestly don't like trapping moles.  I try to do it only as a last resort.  This time my first step was to try an unconventional method for driving him out of my lawn.  It not only did not work but seemed to make him mad.  The activity increased so I decided to get out my traps and go to war.       Th...

     First off this week I want to apologize to any and everyone who was hurt or emotionally scarred by my terrible pun.  The worst part is that I kind of thought it was a little bit cute.  If anything, it may give you some insight on how to pray for me.  We all have our flaws or weaknesses.  Through this blog you have learned a few of mine.  If there is hope for me then there is hope for you, too.  Ok, now to this week's thought.      Last week I was sitting in my living room looking out the window at the backyard.  We have a couple of trees with smaller leaves that create a bit of a mess but the biggest offender is the Maple tree in our neighbor's yard which has branches that hang over our fence.  The leaves of this tree are big and yellowish orange and there are a lot of them.  You maybe have heard the stories in the Bible where Jesus fed 5000 people with  5 loaves and 2 fishes.  I'm just saying it ...

       It was a nice Monday afternoon, the birds were singing and all was right with the world.  Ok, so I did not actually hear the birds singing but that doesn't mean they weren't singing.  And none of this has anything to do with my funny story but it seemed like a fun way to start my amazingly awesome story. Oops!  Guess I need to read my post on humility.       It was the best of times and it was the worst of times.  Okay, okay, I will skip to my story. It was actually a Monday afternoon and my route for the day was a special needs bus that was equipped with a wheelchair lift.  Another teacher and I were having trouble getting one of the students buckled in when I heard the wheelchair lift being activated by yet another teacher.  I went to the back of the bus to receive our wheelchair rider.        As I was getting her on board, another student was pretty much underfoot watching everything I was d...

       So, we all know people who seem to be stuck in some behavior that is not beneficial to their well being or the well being of their friends and families.  And to get a little more personal, most of us have areas in our lives that we are not happy with but we just tolerate them.  Often times we come up with excuses as to why we can't change ourselves or the situation that we find ourselves in. My thought is that often times, if I change, my situation will change.        When I am driving my school bus I sometimes have students who want to behave in a way that is not safe for themselves or others.  When this happens and they do not respond to my request, I have a choice to make.  I can't force them do what I want them to, but I can choose how I want to respond. Yesterday on the bus I had a student who would not sit down because he did not want to be three to a seat.  While I understand his dilemma, I did not feel sa...

       I have been thinking about change because I know a couple who need to make some changes but won't.  Also, I have been trying to make some changes in my diet so I am eating healthier.  My conclusion is that change is hard.        The other night Kathy commented how perfect the dining room table was.  I had wanted to get something different because what we had was counter height and very uncomfortable for Kathy because of her ongoing leg problems.  As a result, we we eating our meals in the living room.         We looked at dining tables for a while but I just did not want to pay $1000 or more for a table.  Then we gave up for several months.  One day I decided to look on Facebook Marketplace.  In a day or two we found a table about a mile from us that was perfect for  $120.  We sold our old table on Marketplace in two days and came out a little ahead.  We did not know th...

       It had been a fairly good morning.  I had arrived at my last school and was letting the kids off the bus.  One of the younger kids had apparently forgotten what the aisle was for and was walking from seat to seat.  I told him to stop walking on the seats but he continued on like I did not exist.  What nerve!        I don't know about you but being intentionally ignored tends to get me a little worked up.  So he had thrown down the gauntlet and it was my move.  Like they say, "Oh, it's on now!"  My move was to stand in front of him when he reached the front and ask him to move into the front seat.  I had intended to just tell him it was important to follow instructions and what he was doing was not safe.        His response was to yell, "No!" then collapse into a heap at the front of the bus.  He wasn't going to move and there was 30 or so more students behind him wanting t...

     I tend to see making decisions the same way as when I was in school and we would have a test in class.  For most of these tests there was only one right answer and if you got enough of them wrong, you failed.  Each question on the test was significant and you needed to get it right,  just in case you might miss some of the other questions that were coming up.      We talked recently, okay, I wrote and you read, about mistakes and how we need to see them as opportunities for growth.  But the truth is, like many times in school, mistakes bring you pain.  The shame of failure or maybe even the pain of having to take the test over again or maybe, even the class.      Needing to make the perfect choice every time can be very fatiguing. I like the approach of a family who made the decision to move so the dad could take a better job.  His announcement to the family was "We are going to make this a good decision."...

     I have not always been humble but in all humility I must say that these days I am more humble than I used to be.  Okay, so I know saying I'm humble seems to automatically disqualify me from being humble. But in my humble opinion, I would tend to disagree, although I will concede that saying you are humble does not make you humble.  Confused yet?      Many of us tend to see humility as taking the lowest position and thinking of everyone else as more important than ourselves.  So we hear things like I am your humble servant. But being a servant does not automatically make you humble.  I am not claiming to be the final word on what humility is but I would like to share some thoughts if I may.  Actually I believe that true humility starts with the way we think and the way we perceive things.      As I have said before, I am a cover driver for the school district I live in.  Cover driver sounds more important t...

     In my estimation, there are two kinds of shopping.  The first is going after something you want or need.  You know what you want and you are just looking for the best buy.  The goal is to get the best product at the best price.  I was telling someone recently that a good shirt has two requirements for me.  It has to be a good quality shirt that I like and it has to be on sale.  Often the shirts I really love and wear a lot are the ones I paid the least for.  For instance I have a plaid shirt I wear as an everyday shirt and it cost me $5.00 at Walmart.  It looks good on me, really it does.      The second kind of shopping is more like dreaming.  You wander around the stores looking at things that you might buy if money was no object.  When we go to the mall I always like to go by the pet store and look at the puppies.  They are usually way more than I am willing to pay and my wife isn't really a do...

     I had not been driving a school bus but a fews days when I made a mistake that could have ended my bus driving career before it started!  I was driving the school bus with a learning permit and my instructor was telling me where to go and how to drive safely.  We came to an intersection and my instructor told me to wait to turn right if there was a car coming from the opposite direction.      I do not know where my mind went but it obviously departed for a brief period because I started the turn even though there was a car right where I needed to go!  I think my instructor said something like "Okay then"  and ran to the back of the bus to try to make sure I did not hit the power pole right on the corner.  Meanwhile, my show down with the car was progressing nicely.  Because I was big and yellow, they started backing up.  I ran over the curb but missed the telephone pole!  In just a few seconds, it was all over a...

      Last Monday was my 63rd birthday so I started thinking about all the different presents I have been given over my lifetime.  I can't tell you everything I've gotten, but I can tell you that, at times, I was disappointed in what I received.  Okay, so I am sure we all can say that.  I think for me, part of the disappointment is that people did not really know what I wanted or needed.  Now days we tend to give people gift cards so they can get what they want.  Doing that makes gift giving easier and safer but we lose the personal touch that says we put effort into the gift giving because we really care about that person.  The sound you are now hearing is me climbing down off my soap box.       Three of the gifts that have meant the most to me did not come on my birthday but they had a great effect on me.  Full disclosure, I did not see them as gifts at the time, that came later.       When I was in ...