I know that some people have succumbed to the trend of having bucket lists. It’s the older person’s equivalent of a Tik Tok challenge. Instead of consuming goods of indeterminate purity, jumping off railroad trestles, or other idiocies, older adults wisely create lists of books, places, and wines they wish to experience before being called to the great beyond.
I was recently asked if I had one. I flippantly stated that I had. But my wife wouldn’t allow me to date any of them. My wife gave me a severe “look,” and I hurried to explain that I was only kidding. I then explained that I had made most of my bucket list when I was younger and now wished for a more sedate life.
I wasn’t kidding. Aspects of my younger life had been wild enough that I look with pity on those only now as sexto and septuagenarians planning to live it up. Go dancing in the moonlight on tropical sands? Damn! Waking in the morning with a hangover and sand fleas is hardly worthwhile. Camping your way across the country while staying at luxurious campgrounds each night is called glamping. She-it! Try hitching with a bedroll, guitar, and a crazy gray cat.
I’ve been told by a few merchant mariner friends that the old Blue Anchor bar got closed—too many bar fights. Most of them prefer these days to settle into an Applebees. Like me, they view with dismay the idiotic trend of oldsters trying to relive a youth they never got around to misspending. Now a nice wind jammer cruise with someone else hauling the lines and picking up the mooring, no heavy weather, and a nice haddock filet afterward. That’s the ticket.
After the bucket list crowd leaves, we’ll talk about that night in the Bucket of Blood when we were twenty-two. We don’t want the late arrivals to feel too bad about what they missed, do we?
You hitched with Clancy?
There were times that it was unavoidable. Coming back from Canada we stopped to have dinner at a bar. The owner insisted that he be let out of the carrier, and had him in the kitchen mousing all evening. We ate ( roast beef, rare and thin with hots for him), and I drank, for free. He paraded up and down the bar making buddies with the customers. I got enough contributions that we stayed in a motel that night, and hitched on to Boston the next day.
Oh my goodness, he sounds like the most amazing cat ever!
I loved reading this and it brings back so many things I wish I could have done with my life but to be honest, as staid and sedate it would seem to an outsider, life for me has been full and interesting. It brought to mind the song from OneRepublic that I think we should all embrace. I’ll copy the link here if you are interested. I play their music almost daily. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0rxydSolwU
I have no desire to hang glide or take wild risks but still experience as much as possible while here. Your wife is so patient with you. 😉
I’m no longer a wild child, just a wild old man. And my wife is a saint who puts up with me.
OneRepublic has interesting music. And I wouldn’t put you into the conventional category. You live life fully, are creative, and are a careful observer of life. Many people just glide on by most of the major things in life without taking time to appreciate them, and then get a bucket list, when all the really neat things went right by them. Which of course reminds me of the kid in the video – he’s not letting anything go by him. I think you are like that too- you don’t let things pass you by without examining them, tasting them and enjoying them.