The Twirlie Girlie Gang

A LETTER FROM JENNIFER TO HER FATHER AND THE REST OF US (AN UPDATE ON THE TWIRLIE GIRLIE GANG):

Hi, Dad. Sorry it has been so long since I have emailed you. Keeping in contant with people is one of my huge weaknesses and downfalls. I am trying to improve:)

How are you doing? how is your eyesight? What projects have you been working on? We all sure miss you and hope to see you this summer. We have had a few unforseen expences but are still hoping to come out. Our darn water-heater broke and I have brought in a few medical bills with this stupid sinus thing. I have another CT scan today and a doctor's appointment early next week. Hopefully the news is good.

Brian has his last day with the seniors today and is excited for the extra time the next 2 weeks. Since they are on a block schedule and one of his days only consists of seniors.... He has been running a stake basketball league over the last couple months and the big tournament is coming up next weekend. He has been having a blast. He also went to Delaware for the national mock trial tournament and his kids did amazingly well. He didn't want to go and moaned for weeks, but he enjoyed every minute there. He is even considering coaching the team again next year. He has stared up the band again and their dad is paying for them to record another cd. He is, of course, very excited!

Katlyn and Kamryn are ready for the summer. All they can seem to think about is friends and playing. They are kids after all:) They both just finished up their soccer seasons and are two very different players. Katlyn is hesitant and afraid to touch people. Kamryn, on the other hand, is a little to competetive. We had to talk to her about team work. She averaged 5 goals a game. One game was 10. She has no fear. They both are still jump roping and that seems to be where Katlyn shines. She was so excited to perform at the govenor's mansion and spend the day teaching at the health fair that she was up at 5:30. I had to send her back to bed, and when I went down to get her up she was still fully clothed (shoes and all). They both are really doing well in school and are too smart for their own good. In all these silly tests they are giving the kids, they both score above 12th grade vocabulary expectations and 9th grade reading expectations. Katlyn loves to read and write. She even asks if she can read instead of playing or doing other fun activies. Kamryn is bored with scholl, but soccer keeps her happy.

Brianne just registered for kindergarten and took the screening. She is so excited that she asks me evry morning if she is going to school yet. It is going to be a long summer:) We are not very sure how her little mind works. We are blind-sided quite often by her comments. We can't even wrap our brains around some of them. Dad is a having a little inner struggle seeing how Brianne informed him she has a boyfriend. He is the only boy in our neighborhood. She is quite adiment about their boyfriend/girlfriend status.

Aubrey is Aubrey. She will be the death of us. In just the last 2 weeks she has pulled the shandelier out of the ceiling, spilled nail polish on her carpet, locked the cat in a side table, put the cat in the dryer and put Rascal out in the middle of a tournado warning with hail coming down. This is just a few things. Eyes have to be on her every second! Sometimes she is very much her age and others she is a 2 year old again. We are treying very hard to give her the attention she needs and help her to be happy, but we are not quite sure what else to do. We are hoping with Bree in school all day next year that maybe things will improve.

Addison is the happiest chubbiest baby ever! Her sisters dote on her all day. She is very much a daddy's girl. She is so excited to see him and yelss Hi Dadd! She immediately starts laughing and kicking her legs or crawling as fast as she can to get to him. She can stand by herself and is walking on anything she hold on to. She loves the chairs at Nana's because they slide. She walks and pushes them all over the kitchen. She loves Rascal and they are each others constent companions. Even though she is only a little over 10 months, she is wearing 24 month clothes for her heighth and mostly weight :) She has her two bottom teeth and her top two will hopefully cut through soon. They are really swollen. Her favorite past-time, other than getting into everything, is taking a bath. Anytime she hears the water start to run she is at the tub climbing in. You have to wear a rain slicker to bathe her. She can splash with the best!

I am busy busy being Mom and really looking forwar to the summer. Next fall will be very busy again. LCCC has offered me a job as assistant director to the choir and will pay for the rest of my schooling on top of what they will pay me. I have 6 semester classes left to take and I can just take one or two at a time until I am done. I will only work 3 or 4 hours a week. I am really looking forward to the experience and am relieved that I will be going to school for free. I will be continueing my vocal training and will hopefully someday be able to become a professional vocalist. All just dreams, but exciting ones. For now I am loving being a mother and wouldn't have it any other way. They will all be in school all too soon.

Again, we love and miss you!

The Girly Twirly Gang



MY RESPONSE:

Jen!

What a great email!

Thank you so much for the update. It makes me so happy
to hear about the girlies, and about my eldest brother
and sister. You two have been such a great example to
us all - from your marriage in the temple to your
complete selflessness in raising FIVE girls (all of
whom are beautiful and wonderful in so many ways).
It's always been clear to Frannie and me that you love
each other and love the Lord, and even though I'm not
sure how it works, it gives us strength.

I'm excited for you to have at least a few hours a
week next semester to be "selfish" and continue to
pursue your dreams. Our family is full of dreamers,
and I've come to believe that whether or not we
achieve exactly what we dream for in this life, the
hard work we put in will not be in vain. There is
choir in Heaven! A basketball court (if we can control
our tempers)! A video camera!

And if we DO achieve those dreams in this life, well
then, what a bonus (on top of the wonderful family
we've been blessed with, our beautiful country, and
the Gospel)!

We love you and can't wait to see you all again in
August.

Love,
Fran and Doug

p.s. 'Ol Wendall is starting to really kick! If he
weren't stuck inside Frannie's belly, I'd say he's
been to a few of Kami's soccer games!

Maximus Dog

Dad's letter to all of us, after putting Max down (he had been suffering for quite some time due to cancer)

I think you all know the story. Sandy wouldn't let me have a dog. I had tried periodically through the years, but she wouldn't hear of it. "I don't need another child to clean up after," she would say. And that was that. Christmas 2002, Aaron had been wanting a dog, so I suggested he include that on his letter to Santa. Sandy couldn't reject a letter to Santa. Sandy sure wasn't too happy when she saw that letter, but what could she say? When I went to the place appointed by Santa to pick up Aaron's "golden" I found a garage full of beautiful, fluffy puppies. They all came toddling out to greet me. I decided, there's no way to choose, so I'm just going to take the first one who gets to me. And that was Max. It was love at first sight. The first place I went after picking up Santa's gift was Carey Junior High. Aaron was at 8th grade basketball practice. When I walked through the door and Aaron saw me, he left the floor and headed over to hold his soon to be best friend. Again, love at first sight. Through the years, all too few, Maximus has been a pure treasure. You all know how he saved mom from the "huge black dogs" who were about to knock her off her bike, how he jumped for joy whenever anyone came to visit, how he almost did back flips when Doug returned from the Ukraine and Marc from Germany and Aaron and Katie from school, how he and Rascal used to romp through the yard, wrestling and "fighting" and chasing each other, how he growled at the name of "John Kerry" and ate pancakes for breakfast and jumped up on the couch in the theater room when we'd let him . . . which was usually. Most of all you remember how much he loved everyone, and how everyone loved him. Even the FedEx lady knew Max by name! Today, when I told Susan Robinson, our neighbor, that Max was gone, she just sobbed. Between the sobs, she said, "Lee will be devastated." Why would someone react that way? Why mourn so the loss of a dog. Simple, Max wasn't just a dog. He was one of us. He could never be registered as a pure breed retriever, because his dad was killed before they finalized his paperwork. So we called Max our "mutt." He was just a regular "person," just like all the other Baileys - no pedigree - but with a heart as large as the world through which he roamed.

Bri asked if we'd get another dog. Right now the answer is, "No." I don't think Sandy would permit it. This time, not because she just doesn't want a dog, but because she would only be satisfied with Max. And there couldn't be another one like him.

I told him yesterday when I left him at the vet's office, "You've been a good friend, Max. We love you." Somehow, I think he understood what I was saying. At least he smiled when I said goodbye.

dad

Responses to Dad's letter:

I think most of you remember my old roomate, Shiloh,
who came and visited a few summers ago. Mom remembers
how we went out on the deck every morning to read his
Book of Mormon.

Well anyway, I thought I'd forward you all his
thoughts on the passing of Maximus Dog. As he says in
his email, he didn't spend much time with Max, but he
was certainly left with a strong impression.

Maxie Boy was good fellar, a true champion, even
though he never was quite coordinated enough to catch
a scrap of food in the air. He certainly more than
made up for that with his outstanding play in left
field (during backyard wiffle ball games), his John
Kerry trick, and most of all his loving heart. I never
met a more loving dog.

We'll all miss him, but you can bet your bottom dollar
he's in Heaven right now, playing with Pepsi, Buster,
Tiggie, Betsy, Sasha, Fred, and all the rest. And I
know he'll be there when our time comes.

See you at the crossroads, Max!

Shiloh Winder's response:

That's hard news Brother. I really felt Max would be with us for years to come. It's hard to imagine that he's gone.

I've never encountered a dog that had such a keen understanding of the people's world and his relationship to it.

Max had a great heart. I only spent a few days with him, but I felt a stronger connection to him than I ever thought I'd feel with an animal. I love my parent's Akita, but he's nothing like Max. The Shellback Ranch will miss him badly.

Send my condolences to Aaron and the whole family.

Jeff's Response:

We're all very sorry and sad about the loss of Max. Draya asked me
yesterday, "how are we going to tell Jackson that Max is gone?" His first
words in pulling up to Mom and Dad's house are always "hi Maxy" or
"Maxy, where are you?" Even with his allergies, Jackson couldn't stay
away from that lovable dog. One thing's for sure, when he's old enough to
understand and see the countless pics of himself and Max playing
together, he will smile. We will all smile.

love,
Jeff

CONSERVATISM

This was a response to Michael Quinn's post on MyFamily.com, calling out the conservatives in the family to articulate a political platform:

Ask and ye shall receive, Michael. I was going to let Jeffrey and
Thomas speak for me, but since you
called me out, I gotta sound off. They articulated some of my feelings on
some of the issues, but I’ll
elaborate a little further – perhaps provide you with a more concrete
political “platform.” Although, I must
warn you, the platform is based on IDEOLOGY (I could not disagree
more with your statement that
“ideology doesn’t really mean anything”). This ideology – the set of
beliefs in certain principles that are
eternal (inalienable, if you will) – guides everything true conservatives
say and do, no matter the
circumstance, no matter how much times have changed. And if people
would rely on these true
principles, many of our country’s problems would be alleviated, if not
completely eradicated.

To give one example, the solution to the so-called healthcare crisis
(which is almost as big a hoax as the
global warming hoax – oh wait, it’s now been changed to global “climate
change” now, since the whole
warming thing has started to cool down – no matter what the
temperature is, we can blame it on climate
change! which can’t possibly be caused by anything other than
humans) is not UNIVERSAL
HEALTHCARE provided by the government.

When Senator Clinton as First Lady advocated universal healthcare
coverage for all Americans, 560
economists wrote her husband to plead with him to put a stop to her
madness. They argued, based on
eternal free market principles, that “price controls produce shortages,
black markets, and reduced
quality.” So government instituted price controls don’t “control” the true
cost of goods at all. People end up
paying in other ways.

The answer to the “crisis” is not more government regulation, but more
privatization. The healthcare
system needs to be opened up to market forces. Healthcare services
would be based on market prices,
and healthcare providers would compete for patients. “Compete” is the
key word here; “competition,” the
eternal principle. With private health insurance, private medical practice,
and private healthcare
establishments, competition would drive costs down and enhance the
quality of the healthcare, and would
provide patients with a CHOICE between a much wider range of
services depending on their needs and
the quality of service required for that need.

In order to afford healthcare, a person will have to work for it, just as a
person has to work for food and
shelter, just as a person has to work to make a car payment, just as a
person has to work if he wants to
go the movies on the weekend. Thank God we live in a country where
we can work where we want to
work, be what we want to be, and earn what we want to earn. Of course
there are exceptions! People get
laid off, people are disabled, etc. And there’s nothing wrong with
providing subsidies for the people in
these circumstances. But the vast majority has the choice to make of
themselves whatever they want to
be.

This is a far cry from the liberal idea that everyone is a “victim” – of
racism or sexism or whatever other –
ism there is out there – and that salvation lies in the government. The
truth is, no matter the
circumstance, whether others have been blessed with more money,
better connections, a better home
environment, or even better looks, a person can succeed through hard
work, perseverance, and
education.

Which brings me to my next point: Education! And the solution for the
problem with the education system
is the same solution to the problem with the healthcare system:

EDUCATION – Take the government out!

Before the mid 1800s, elementary and secondary education was largely
parent financed. Today,
taxpayers spend more than $6,000 a year per student, more than
virtually any other country, including
Japan. With what result? Poor test scores, high dropout rates, kids
incapable of filling out employment
applications… The private sector ought to assume this responsibility.
Vouchers are a great way to take
us in that direction. Let schools compete for students, increasing the
quality of the teachers and paying
them what they deserve, and giving parents a choice as to where they
will send their children.

And sure, some schools and teachers will be better than others (as
they are now), but an individual’s
level of effort, dedication, curiosity, and willingness to grow will
determine what they learn.

I’m going on way longer than I initially planned. Let me just finish with a
couple more platform items (I’ll try
and be brief).

TAX CUTS – As JFK once said, after signing off on across-the-board
tax cuts in the 60’s, “It is a
paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are
too low — and the soundest way
to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now.” We pay an
obscene amount of taxes in this country.
The mere thought of the government taking more of that money to
spend on more inane programs and
useless committees makes me ill. A government that’s too big to
function without resorting to extortion is a government that’s too big.
Period.

The argument that the Bush tax cuts unfairly benefit the rich is
ridiculous. First of all, it’s insulting and
presumptuous to think that anyone’s entitled to that money but the
individual who EARNED it! That aside,
the statistics show that the top 1 percent of taxpayers – those making
more than $364,000 annually – pay
39 percent of all federal income taxes! Any across-the-board tax cut
would, by definition, “unfairly” benefit
the rich.

In order to cut the deficit, shrink the government! In order to increase
revenue, decrease taxes!

SHRINKING THE GOVERNMENT - Less than 2 percent of Americans
are farmers, yet the Department
of Agriculture continues to add more and more bureaucrats. And what in
tarnation does the Department of
Commerce do?! Do we need the Small Business Administration?
Amtrak? The Tennessee Valley
Authority????

Before 1950, the government largely stayed out of the housing
business, thank goodness. Now we have
housing projects in all of our major cities, and don’t just speak for the
City of Los Angeles, when I say that
they have become sewers of crime and drugs. Why? When everybody
owns something, NOBODY owns
it (a principle I learned while living in the former Soviet Union). Without
ownership, who’s going to take the
responsibility of upkeep and repairs? The government is an absentee
landlord and really couldn’t care
less about what happens in these projects.

The private sector can build housing more cheaply, with an INCENTIVE
to maintain the property and
screen tenants.

On top of getting rid of ridiculous government programs, we can shrink
the government by ending
welfare, entitlements, and other special privileges.

Welfare for the poor works out to a national average of $12,000 to
$13,000 a year per recipient. That’s
almost as much as Frannie and I made COMBINED last year! So why
even get a job when the
government shields you from financial responsibility? As detrimental as
welfare is for the economy and
hard-working citizens’ pocket books, it’s probably more detrimental to
the recipient in the long run. Do we
not remember the saying, “give a man a fish, you feed him for a day;
teach a man to fish, you feed him for
a lifetime?”

And don’t get me started on Social Security! The average recipient has
put in fifteen cents for every dollar
he or she takes out! How much more inefficient and unfair can it get?

Conservatives would simply like people take control of their own destiny
and earn whatever life they want
to live. Let the government worry about policing the streets, enforcing
the law, and keeping its citizens
safe from foreign enemies.

WAR ON TERRORISM – Al Qaida has been significantly weakened,
Sadaam Hussein is gone, there’s a
democracy in Iraq! and the surge is working. A withdrawal in Iraq would
create a staging ground for al-
Qaida, increase the influence of Iran over Iraq, and result in “the biggest
civil war we’ve ever seen,”
according to former Secretary of State Jim Baker of the Baker-Hamilton
Report.

The criticism President Bush gets for going to war in Iraq is unfair, and
seems to be a product of the
culture’s hateful obsession with the man, as opposed to something
founded on reason. All 16 intelligence
agencies felt with "high confidence" that Saddam Hussein possessed
stockpiles of WMDs (there’s far
more dissent among credible scientists about global warning than there
was among American intelligence
analysts about Iraq). And just because we didn’t find them when we got
there, doesn’t mean they didn’t
exist and doesn’t mean they still don’t exist! It just means we didn’t find
them. Perhaps it’s because we let
the bureaucracy take its sweet time in debating whether or not Sadaam
had the things, giving him ample
time to hide them away in a cave somewhere. Even if they never did
exist (even though the intelligence
claims otherwise), who’s to say we’re not safer now thanks to the fact
that Bush wasn’t afraid to take the
war to the enemy, rather than wait for another September 11?

And while I don’t much care for John McCain, I’m happy to hear that he
will not risk everything our
soldiers have fought and died for by pulling out early.

If you want to hear more on global warming, abortion, illegal immigration,
etc., let me know.

A Correspondence With an Old Friend

DRU FARRO:

I'm glad we're friends now [in reference to the social network "Facebook"]. I think often of you and Beast and have frequently wondered what you're doing and how your bid for an award from the Academy is going. I heard some indistinct whisperings about a successful story or script...I can't get any good news from home. As for me, I'm living in Montreal right now, and was just accepted to Columbia to study literature, so I'm staying up nights worrying about quitting my job, moving, financing, and whether I should start rooting for the Knicks. The orbits of my and Beast's life have for 4 years or so been unfortunately unsympathetic, but I have lately eclipsed him and vow (supergiant that he is) to become his satellite.
I'm sorry O.J. Mayo is in hot water.
I look forward to hearing from you.

DOUG BAILEY:

Farro!

I couldn't be happier that you accepted my friend request.

I am in LaLa Land with my beautiful wife, graduated from USC (I left before the water started boiling for OJ so I pretend it's not happening) in December, and am now an assistant to an insane talent agent. If you've ever seen ENTOURAGE, you'll know what I mean. It's a common step that people take to make connections and learn the industry - hopefully after about a year, I'll have learned and met enough people to myself my own agent so I can just sit at home and WRITE! I sold one of my scripts, but I don't get paid until it goes into production (which may never happen). It was a good experience though, and if it ever gets made, I can join the Writer's Guild.

I feel like I've talked to much about myself. I'd rather have talked about Beast and his adventures in Kazakhstan, or about the time we spent the night at Braxton Restivo's and played pogs all night, or about when we were playing basketball in my basement and you put a hole in the wall the size of your entire body, or about making mirrors in Boyd's garage...

Good times.

Sounds like good times are in your future too - or at least good opportunities. I'm sure you'll be alright, whatever you decide.

Let me know, brother.

Douglas

DRU FARRO:

've never seen ENTOURAGE, but I was recently in Los Angeles. I was there only briefly visiting a friend, but did go on a VERY long walk (from Silver Lake to the Pacific Ocean via Sunset Blvd.) It was kind of eerie, actually, walking 25 miles, being passed by thousands and thousands of cars while encountering only 2 other people on the sidewalks...
Thanks for updating me. I'm very excited for you and your prospects as a storyteller. Since my descension (or ascension...probably a little of both) into 'academia' (whatever that term is supposed to mean), I find that I have had little to no time free for creative writing, though I wonder about it constantly. I've often tried to guess at what has emerged from the seeds we planted in Diane Panazzo's classes...it would be a real joy and learning experience to sit down with you and Beast someday and talk books/films/art/basketball.
What's already clear to me is that your memory is vastly superior to mine. If it weren't for you I might've forgotten that hole! I can still feel my stomach drop, it's dropping right now.
I'm hoping that I'll be able to find a way to swing the Columbia offer financially. Before I arrived in Montreal my girlfriend and I took a cross-country tour visiting different universities we were planning on applying to and, sadly, New York was by far my least favorite place. Harlem, however, I liked WAY more than downtown. I stayed with a friend who is living in Harlem whose girlfriend goes to Columbia, so I am assuming that I, too, will likely live there, which I would greatly prefer to living anywhere else in the city. This year off, though, has made me hungry, and I imagine I want to think to the same degree you want to write (each of us doing plenty of the other in the process I'm sure).
I'll be sad to leave Montreal, though.
It's been great hearing back from you, Doug, and I hope you keep me posted on every development in your and Frannie's lives. I don't even know if this is legal, but if you've got a draft of your script I would love to read it. I've got a fantastically boring job at McGill University with plenty of time either to look at amazing tennis shots on youtube or reading Doug's movie scripts. If not, that's fine, of course. Let me know and the next time you talk to Beast tell him he owes me WAY more than a dinky (though tender) message on my Facebook wall...

DOUG BAILEY:

Dru,

It is indeed illegal for me to let you read the screenplay that I wrote (and yet don't own the rights to) for these producers. I do, however, have a couple of comedy/dramedies that I'm happy to send your way. I always respected your opinion when it came to literature, and while screenplays aren't exactly literature, I would appreciate any thoughts/feedback you might have.

And actually, I've been working on a little something that isn't a screenplay at all. I'm not really sure what it is - part memoir, part fantasy? I'm not sure. But it is the seeds planted in Panozzo's class that you speak of which have sprouted in me again. I was unemployed for about a month and half, and I decided to start doing something while I was doing nothing. So I picked up a pen again. Unfortunately, now that I have a job and am doing "something," I have no time to do the "nothing" I truly enjoy. Interesting how that works.

I guess it's all part of the curse of Adam. "By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread..."

Hopefully after a few years of these insane hours at the agency, I'll have earned the right to relax a little more, and have made the connections which will allow me to write for a living. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'll keep sweating, and getting up early in the morning to dabble a little here and there.

Keep me posted on Columbia, and I'll keep you posted of the happenings out here (it IS a strange land of cars and freeways - thank goodness there's also the beach and the ocean).

Peace,
Douglas

PS I'll send you an email with the screenplays "Pablo Mariachi" and "'Tis Himself," as well as the work-in-progress mentioned above. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

PPS In keeping you posted, I guess I ought to mention that a little Bailey is on the way. Frannie's due in September.

Flipper

I went to the beach yesterday with Mr. Michael Van Vliet and a few of the members from the USC Ward - The Johnsons, Danforths, Andrew Whitesides, and a couple others. Whitesides brought a skim board he bought for his birthday, so we spent some time trying to figure out how to drop and jump and slide into the waves, but we were largely unsuccessful. Van Vliet was pretty good, having spent time on the beaches in Connecticut skim boarding. It's a little different in SoCal though, because there's a very small window of time for the drop, and it was especially difficult in Santa Monica, because the beach was pretty slanted. Anyway, after a few semi-successful attempts at the skim board, I decided to go out with Kyle and Evan to boogie board. The water was like ice, but the waves were decent, so I was happy to stay out there for a good half hour. Despite catching a few good and big ones, the highlight of the day was the school of dolphins that swam about 10 feet from us - back and forth. They seemed to be enjoying the sun and ocean as much as we were. It was pretty amazing to see them so close (and a little frightening as well), jumping out of the water, diving into the waves, bobbing and weaving like Chris Paul on the hardwood...

It was quite the sight! The beach, the ocean, the sun, waves, the dolphins...

For the beauty of the Earth!