This week I have signed up for Medicare. I don’t know that I understand it all that well, but I do feel like I have passed another of those “life experiences” against which we measure the passage of time. Just like getting your driver’s license, going on your first date, going to prom, graduating from high school, your first “legal” drink, voting, graduating from college, getting married (more than once), having children, getting your first AARP membership card and discounts, signing up for Medicare is one of the markers in life that tell you how far you have come……………….and, to a certain extent, how far you have left to go. At the risk of moving those markers even closer to the finish line I am going to experience another “life obligation”, if you will, right now………….I am going to make my “bucket list”. I think a “bucket list” is really not something you make in anticipation of kicking the proverbial “bucket” as much as it is a list to show you how much life you still have to live. Frankly, I never thought I would live as long as I have, but now that I have, I have a bunch more to be done so here goes with that list,,,,,,,(I reserve the right to add any number of items to this list as I firmly believe a bucket list is a human’s attempt at immortality….if you have things to do, you have to have time to do them, hence it is not your time yet!!!!) 1. Publish a book: I love to write. I have loved to write most of my life. Early on, my writing was a job………you had to learn to write in a “legal way” so that judges would be swayed by the persuasiveness of your arguments…….and THAT is a JOB! It has only been in the last ten years when I have written not only as a job, but also for fun I realized writing can be a great stress reliever, as well as a way to come to terms with your life…..and sometimes, I even have something to say!! 2. Broadcast a Major League Baseball game: This is an oldie…….I believe I have relayed in some of my “writings” that I used to sit on the back patio of my house on Howard Street in Union City, Indiana and turn on the “rabbit ears TV”, turn down the sound, and provide my own play by play to the Cincinnati Reds…….I am still waiting on the call to do it for real. 3. Sky Dive: If George Bush can do it, so can I……I really got the bug to do it in Jamaica one year when I went parasailing…………..It would be really great to not be attached to the boat and have that feeling of falling and then floating to a gentle touchdown….I think 4. Have one date with Haile Berry………okay, she’s married, and I am pretty sure her bucket list doesn’t include me 5. Have a grandchild: A lot of you have grandchildren and I envy you. I truly think I will be a better grandfather than I was a father, but I also think my daughter will have beautiful babies……………and I will have a whole new generation to tell my stories to….(I am getting a little tired of everybody telling me they have heard that one for about the twentieth time). 6. See a woman become President of the United States……….e on Hillary, it is time. 7. Drive the boundaries of the Lower 48 states in an RV, stopping when I want to stop, staying as long as I want in any one place for as long as I want………I guess I would have to fly the family in to take part in places along the way, but it is a trip I have wanted to take for about 38 years when a client of mine did the same thing………..now THAT would be a vacation. 8. Play 18 holes of golf at Augusta:………..Actually I have done this on the computer and that might be as close to it as I could get……….I would also settle for 9 holes on the old Union City Country Club. 9. Have a whole night of pickup basketball to play at Runkel’s barn……Let’s see, we could get Bick, Bobby Lees, Runk, Charlie Haviza, Noff and anybody else in or around the Indiana area to come for the night……….It might be necessary to secure some medical attention and Oxygen, but if I was going to have to go out, Runk’s barn is not a bad place. 10. I would like to get a part in a Broadway Play……….I used to think I could sing, but I would have to forego those parts for now…………I would really love to have played the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, or Don Quiote, the Man of La Mancha……….. 11. Spend 100 Sibling Tours with my Brother and my Sister so that we could have every conversation we have ever wanted to have and some of them twice. 12. Spend an October night in Union City, Indiana, so I could smell the smells, breathe the air, and live the color. 13. Play one match of tennis for all the marbles with John Lowe………have to keep the medical attention around for that one, too……I would probably die on the court just so Lowe could not claim all the marbles, and if we didn’t die………..I want to go fishing with him again….. That’s just some of my bucket list………..I will add some more later on, but this should keep me busy for a while!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 21:08:16 +0000