Michael George Aley

I have nothing but good memories of Uncle Mike.
He helped me move out of my dad’s house after I graduated high school. Loaded up all my stuff (and my friend’s stuff) in the back of his huge semi truck and drove us up to Newport from NB. My dad was with us back then. I remember going salmon fishing with him and my dad at Friday Harbor back in 1980 when we went to visit. He was finishing his PhD back then. I remember your whole family came to visit us and we did a massive landscaping project at our old house in NB. He also fixed our stairs so they didn’t squeak so bad. I just thought he was so cool because he knew how to do so many things and he let me help him all the time. The last time we saw him was at my mom’s funeral. We got to talk privately for a little bit and he had a lot of surprisingly cool and positive things to say about me and my school work. I didn’t even know he knew what I was doing at all and then he rails off a full on personal biography of my life and I was like, wow I had no idea he even kept track of me at all. It meant a lot to me. I still think about how your dad and mine both grew up in a logging camp (that doesn’t even exist anymore) and both wound up getting doctorate degrees.

I happy to tell my memories of him, and all of you. I didn’t ever really meet your younger brothers. It makes me sad that they broke off communication and don’t have much good to say about him. I don’t want to pretend to know him like you and your brothers and sister but I don’t have any bad memories at all. And every time I saw him throughout the years, he was always happy to see me and we picked up right where we left off. He was the “cool” uncle growing up. He was a bad ass. Super cool but big and strong and intimidating to anyone who might dare to flick me (or any of us) any crap. I looked up to him. He always stayed calm and patient with me showing me how to do stuff. From carpentry to landscaping to driving a big rig. When I was little, I’d wear out most adults. But not Uncle Mike. He always had the patience to tolerate me and he was good at setting me up on a project and that would keep me busy for a while. I worked extra hard because I wanted to impress him with how good of work I could do.

He taught me (and my brother Ryan) to never sleep with our socks on, that if we did, it would make us have bad dreams. It totally worked.
I think now that was more about us complying with putting our pajamas on and getting ready for bed when we didn’t want to. He just had a way of helping me understand the “why” of things. He also was good at convincing me that doing the things (like cleaning up and putting on Jammies) and going to bed on time without arguing, was a good idea. But he made it a good idea. Not like forcing but convincing me. He had a way of explaining things to me that just made sense, so I complied. I know my mom was happy every time y’all came to stay with us because she knew us kids would be on our best behavior. And we’d also get a LOT of work done. I actually looked forward to the work because I knew he’d teach me something new.

Back in the 70s.I took Mike with me in my truck lumber truck. I was teaching him how to drive. We got stopped at the scale. by Rio Dell, because Mike didn't have a license, and I got chewed out a little bit by the c, h, p, we went to a restaurant later on I will never forget this.. We were sitting at a table in the middle of the restaurant at hansen's truck stop. When they served the food I was a little bit embarrassed about sayìng a prayer.So I said, prayer is the souĺs sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed. Then mike said something I will never forget , he says ,yes , but uttered is always best.
When I was Bishop, he served as Eĺders. Qurum .President for a while, we went to visit an inactive member in a bar in Ĺaytonvvilĺe
we decided we should go where needed .

He was dating Sarah at that time but hadn't proposed.
I encourage him. .I knew from my experience of teaching her in sunday school glass, and knowing her for many years that she would be a perfect wife for him. She's very spiritual and very worthy and very good looking too
I'm glad they moved to grant's pass where we can renew our old acquaintances. It's been good to have them here and spend a little bit of time with them here.