Tag Archives: aging

65 Things I have learned in my life

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As I reached my 65th birthday, I sat down and reflected on the things that this life has taught me.  This is not an all-inclusive list, but it is a list 65 Things I have learned in my 65 years of life (not in any particular order)

  1. One size does not fit all.  I have been many sizes in my life.  I was only 5’1” tall when I started high school.  They ordered my letterman’s jacket two sizes larger so I could grow into it.  They ordered a 36.   I wear a 48 L now. Very few caps I have had have enough give in the adjustment to fit my melon sized head.
  2. There is never enough time.  You think you have time to do all the things you want to do.  You think you have time to meet with an old friend.  You think you have time to sit with a dear family member to share family stories. 
  3. Be proud of who you are.  You are who you are.  Don’t let anyone tell you that that you are anything less than a child of God.
  4. Don’t let anyone identify you.  To my Mexican family, I was the little “gringo” or “huerito”.   To the Michigan side of the family, despite my Anglo name and pale skin, I was the little “Mexican kid.”  I identify with the culture I was born in and raised around.  The Chicano Law Students at UT Law School did not believe I was Hispanic and that I did not deserve the scholarship that I received.   Somehow they thought that if my parents’ background was reversed, and my name was Rivera instead of Bullis, then it would be ok.  That was just dumb.  So despite the appearance, I absolutely identify with the Mexican side of my heritage.
  5. You are never the same after the birth of your first child.  Becoming a parent changes your life forever.  The “perfect” parent becomes totally selfless at that point.  I haven’t always been perfect, but my children’s needs became more important than mine.
  6. It’s worse after your first grandchild.  You think having children changes your life?  Having a grandchild increases that change 100 times over.   As much as I love my kids, I absolutely adore my grandkids.
  7. You can’t take back those words – Words have immense power.  Good words can uplift, console, encourage, and express love.  Bad words have sharp edges.  Words I have said in anger and frustration cause a deep wound, and no amount of apologies can ever heal the scar you created.  As someone once said, if you put a nail in a board, you can remove the nail, but the hole will remain.
  8. Europe is a great place to visit.  Don’t wait 60 years to go – Part of being a parent is taking care of your kids and the immediate needs of the family.  We put off doing things for ourselves for too long.  My trip to Europe a couple of years ago was amazing. I want to go back, and I want my kids to enjoy it as well.   Erica has the right idea about travel and adventure.
  9. Laugh – If I always seem to be telling jokes or making light of situations, it’s because laughter is the balm for just about any situation.   Laughter uplifts, laughter releases endorphins, laughter lightens the load.    It may not make the problem go away, but it helps you deal.   Laughter is the best medicine, indeed.
  10. I am a great believer in the following quote – To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” ~ Lewis Smedes.  I have for too long carried grudges that were only hurting me. 
  11. Smells can bring back instant memories.  The smell of honey almond lotion instantly brings back the memories of my grandmother.  Certain perfumes bring back memories of individuals.    The smell of talcum powder reminds me of the barbershops my grandfather took me to.  Liver and onions, well, that is not a good memory.
  12. Friends – you find out who they really are when you are at your lowest.  The goods ones stick around when you are least able to do anything for them.
  13. The older I get, the smarter my parents were.  The things I ridiculed or laughed at as I grew up have come back to bite me in the butt.  My parents were right.  I wish they were here to tell them.
  14. Simple things are often the most satisfying.  A grandchild’s giggle, the Milky Way in the middle of the night at a rest stop in West Texas, beautiful wildflowers on the road in the Hill Country.
  15. Spiritual needs must be filled – I feel no need to apologize for or excuse my faith.  I have found what satisfies my soul and makes me happy.  I begrudge no one their beliefs, and I expect the same from others. 
  16. It’s ok to cry – This has been hard for me.  Growing up, especially in grade school, I was ridiculed because I cried a lot.  As a result, I hardened my heart and became a stoic.  Very little could make me cry, especially in front of others.  This is a horrible way to go through life.
  17. I am truly a child of the Americas.  My mother was born in Mexico, my father was born in Michigan, his father in Canada. 
  18. Related to a lot – come to find out I am related to a lot of people. I am related to 23 US Presidents, Winston Churchill (and Princess Di as a result), the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Lucille Ball, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne.
  19. Depression – Drives me crazy when people say “just get over it.”  Anyone that has suffered from clinical depression knows that it is not as simple as “cheering up.”  If only it were that easy.  Depression cost me two marriages, my legal career, and years of wasted time.  Knowing how to ask for help, and getting over the reticence in asking for help is the key.
  20. Take a chance – Life is not meant to live playing it safe.  You have to stop being scared.  It either works out or it doesn’t – that is what life is all about.  As they say, you miss all the shots you don’t take.  There are some girls I wished I had asked out in high school and college.
  21. Yes sir/no sir and Yes ma’am/no ma’am – It’s the way I was raised and I can’t and won’t change that.  It is a matter of simple respect.
  22. It is not your job to make everyone happy. This is something I wished I had learned a long time ago.  The corresponding rule is that you can’t make everyone like you.  See #45.  Some people don’t want to be happy or don’t know how to be happy.   Sometimes people just won’t like you.  Move on.
  23. Don’t be afraid to be the first one to say I am sorry.  Pick your battles.  Some things are not so important that you leave somebody with hurt feelings.  Suck it up and let it go. Especially if you might be wrong.
  24. Remove negative people from your life – I don’t care how positive you are in your life, a negative person sucks all the joy out of your life.  Keep them away from you.
  25. Don’t argue with a fool.  It’s like wrestling with a pig.  You both get dirty and the pig likes it.
  26. There is no such thing as a free lunch –A favorite saying of my economics professor.  There is usually some sort of strings attached. 
  27. Sometimes the answer is just simply “I don’t know.” – Self-explanatory.
  28. 3-D baseball cards “will” melt.  And some of the plastic will drip off onto your hand.  When you remove it there will be a hole that will create a scar for the rest of your life. Don’t ask me how I know.
  29. Something horrible happens when you drink half a bottle of Karo syrup.  I– Three years old and I wanted more of what I always liked on my pancakes.  Too much of a good thing can’t be bad, right?  Boy was I wrong.
  30. Stay curious and never stop learning – I still love history, documentaries, and anything that stimulates the mind.  If I was retired I would work on a degree in History.  Just because. 
  31. Sometimes saying nothing at all is the best response – see number 25.
  32. Knowing two languages is awesome.  I want to learn Mandarin. – This is something I really appreciated when I was in Europe.  People spoke 3 or 4 languages.  Why not us?
  33. Reading is the most amazing gift you can give yourself. – Next to laughter, reading a good book is the best way to take your mind off of issues, concerns, etc.  I listen to a lot of audiobooks, but holding a book in your hand and perusing the pages cannot be duplicated.
  34. Sometimes you learn more from failure than you do success – At the very least, you learn how NOT to do something.  Building on that failure makes you stronger and helps you make better, more informed decisions.  The key is to get up off the floor and try it again.
  35. A good sense of humor will get you places – Laughter is good, as I said earlier.  Having a good sense of humor has opened doors, made difficult conversations easier, and it has gotten me a date or two. 
  36. A goal is only a wish until you write it down – Don’t remember where I learned this, but it is absolutely true.  Writing down my goals helps me realize them a lot more often.
  37. True friends don’t grow apart even if they don’t talk on a regular basis – I have a number of friends that I have known since elementary school and others from high school.  We often go months without talking and pick up where we left off.  Norbert, Richard, Hugo, you know what I am talking about.  Hugo and I have known each other since 1968.  He is as close to another brother as I have.  We go a while without talking, then when we do, or when we get together, that connection comes back immediately.
  38. Kidney stones hurt like hell – I certainly won’t compare it to childbirth.  I don’t know what that feels like, but if it is worse than a kidney stone, then I owe all moms my unlimited respect.    I can tell you that after my last one that required hospitalization, I was thankful for whoever formulated Demerol.
  39. There is a reason that dog is God spelled backward – I have had a lot of dogs. Pure, unadulterated, unconditional love.  My Irish setter Viking got me through a divorce and my illness. Elvis, my dachshund, helped fill a void after Viking passed away.   We told ourselves we weren’t getting any more dogs after the last of our three dogs passed away.  What a loss that would have been.  Our current dog Max has been an integral part of our life lately.
  40. I know a lot of people with a lot of money.  Money can’t buy integrity. Or decency. Or values.  Or empathy. Or . . . . . .
  41. Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles, it takes away today’s peace. Don’t know where I got the quote, but I wrote it down.  It makes all the sense in the world  Still working on learning this skill.
  42. Trust that is built up over years can be destroyed in a second – I have always been faithful in my relationships, but I have seen how breaking that trust destroys a relationship.  Been on the wrong end of that.   Beyond that, losing the trust of a friend, or child takes forever to rebuild.
  43. You can be angry, but that does not mean you have to be mean or cruel. – Again, a hard lesson to learn.  I am getting better at it, but not where I need to be.
  44. There is nothing that hurts more than seeing a child hurting when you can’t do anything to stop it.  –  I have seen my kids suffer through some horrible things.  Divorce.  Illnesses. All sorts of struggles.  All the hugs, prayers, and best wishes can’t take away the pain.  Parents know that you hurt as much, if not more, than your kids.
  45. You can’t make anyone like you.  Or love you. Don’t change who you are, what you believe, or what you stand for.  If they don’t love you for who you are, or where you stand, then it’s not worth it.  Period.   You lose a bit of yourself if you make that change.
  46. Learn how to dance.  It’s fun. And the ladies like it. My first real date was at a dance (the prom.) It was the first time I danced and I sucked.  But it was fun.  She married me anyway.   My first date with my current wife was dancing. 
  47. Lies are like cockroaches, for everyone you discover there are many more that are hidden.  —Gary Hopkins.    Another quote that I have tucked away.  It can’t be any truer.

48 – 55 I learned as a child.  They still apply

48. Share everything.

49. Play fair.

50. Put things back where you found them.

51. Don’t hit people.

52. Clean up your own mess.

53. Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

54. Wash your hands before you eat.

55. Flush.

  1. Nap.  I used to hate to be forced to nap.   How I wish I had 30 minutes to nap every day now.  
  2. Everyone matters or nobody matters – Stolen straight from Hieronymus Bosch, a character in a series of Michael Connelly novels.  The adage could not be any truer.   If we consider others to be of less worth, we devalue ourselves.
  3. Debt can consume your soul – You can become a slave to debt.  I have seen marriages flame out because of debt.  Business fail because of debt.  Live within your means
  4. Camping – there is laughter and reading, then there is camping.  One more way to bring your life back in balance.  Watching the stars, or nature, or just experiencing silence is a great healer.
  5. Beach – OK, add this to laughter, reading, and camping.  The sand in your toes, the salt air and the soothing noise of the waves naturally restores your sanity.  Or in my case, restores sanity as much as is possible.
  6. Change is good, you go first.  The “you go first” part is me being facetious.  Change can be very good.  It’s how you handle it that matters.  It’s like waiting for a school bus.  You can stand in the way of change and get run over.   Or, you can get on the bus and go along with the change   Or you can watch the bus drive off and leave you behind.  I have a fourth option. If change is inevitable, then get on the bus and “drive” the bus (drive the change.) 
  7. Teach – It is something for which I have a passion.  Nothing is more satisfying that watching that light bulb go off in a student when you explain something.    To paraphrase César Chavez, you can’t uneducated someone that has learned something.
  8. Work is more important than family – No one ever died wishing that they had spent more time at work.
  9. I open doors and pull out chairs.  Thank you to my abuelo.  Some people say chivalry is dead.  I hope not.   I open doors for ladies.  I pull out my wife’s chair when we sit at a restaurant.  I walk on the outside of the sidewalk when I walk with a lady.  Is it old fashioned?  Maybe so.  But it is part of who I am and it isn’t going to change.  I expect the young men involved with my daughters (and in the future with my granddaughters) to do the same.  I used to say that I did it because my abuelo would come back and haunt me if I didn’t do what he taught me.  Now I know that I do it because he taught me well.
  10. Music is an important part of my life.  I already talked about laughing, reading, camping and the beach.  Music is another source of comfort.  I have a wide variety of tastes in music.  If you know me, you know that Chicago is my favorite band.  I have seen them 26 times in concert.  I love classic rock, jazz, classical, some country, reggae, Tejano, mariachi, and R&B.  You never know what will be playing on my IPad when you walk into my office.    I thought that I would only like classic rock.   I worked as a DJ for a public radio station that played jazz.  I fell in love with it.  My dad played classic country-western music at the house all the time.  I didn’t realize at the time that I liked a lot of it.  Tejano – well I like dancing so that came naturally.  Classical music is just beautiful.  I will try listening to just about anything at least once.  But I like what I like.  My daughter Erica has introduced me to more than one band that I really like, like Ozomatli.  Jessica led me to Imagine Dragons and Walk Off the Earth. 

Let’s see what I learn by the time I am 70.

He Chose to Love Us

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He came to meet my mom on Thanksgiving Day.  He joined us for dinner, and afterwards he took my mom out on their first date. He came back on Friday and gave my brother and I both a model car kit for us to put together.   When we told him we did not  know much about cars (we were 10 and 8 at the time) he took us out on Saturday to have cheeseburgers and to go look at cars.

Less than a month after this set of events, he and my mom got married.  To this point we had been raised solely by my mom, with occasional help from my grandmother and grandfather.   My grandfather, who we called Papi, was the only male influence in our lives.

We asked him what he wanted us to call him, since he and my mom were married now.  He said we could call him Don.  We asked if it was OK if we called him Dad, and for the next 35 years he was our “Dad.”

People were often confused about our relationship.  We never called him our stepfather – he was our Dad.    He never talked about his stepkids, we were his “boys.”  So when they called him “Mr. Bullis”  or they thought we were the “Simpson” boys, we just shook it off and kept on going.

Life was not always easy with this new relationship.  At times we were quite downright ornery with him, and I regret that to this day.   While our friends played on Saturdays, we were fixing up used cars to resell or collecting scrap metal for extra money for the family.  We had chores to do everyday before my mom and dad got home.  We were not allowed to have the TV on during the day and had to keep ourselves busy. We had an old swimming pool in the backyard that needed to be torn down and filled in.  Guess who did it?  Yep, my brother and I.

So was he a tyrant?  As kids we thought so.  But when we change out a clutch in a car, rebuild our brakes, or do major repairs around the house now, we have him to thank for our acquired skills.  When I find myself working my rear end off on a project, I know I got my work ethic from him.

After my dad passed a way a few years ago my brother made an amazing statement.  I don’t remember the context, but he said that the most important thing that he learned from my dad was how to love.  What an awesome legacy.   And my brother was absolutely right.

You see, he did not have to love us.  He loved my mom, and we came with the package.  Too many step-parents don’t realize that much of what they see in their new spouse is the love that they have for their children.  My dad chose to love us.  He chose to call us his boys.  He chose be our dad.    And that is what he will always be to me.  My dad.  I had a biological father that I don’t really remember all that well since he left when I was less than two years old.  But my dad was there as I grew up, got married, and had a family of my own.

Today my dad would have been 80 years old.  I wish he was still around to see what my life has become.   I wish I could share with him the joy of being a grandpa.  I want to show him how I built my raised garden beds from the lumber of the deck that I tore down.  He probably would have shown me how to do it better, but I would have loved the feedback.

Three days from now will be Fathers Day.  I don’t need a special day to remember him.  He remains in my heart every day.    I miss you Dad.

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The Carrasco School of Medicine (how my Mexican mom and grandmother got us through childhood)

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My knees were hurting me the other day due to the arthritis which is such a wonderful family tradition.    As I reached for the ibuprofen, I remembered the various remedies that my mom and grandmother used on me for my aches and pains while growing up.   My grandmother, Mauricia Carrasco Rivera had a ton of remedies for whatever ailed us.   She passed those down to my mom.

As far as they were concerned just about anything I had wrong with me could be solved with 3 primary remedies –

1.  Vicks Vaporub

2.  a 7-up  or

3.  a lavativa (enema).

When I mean everything, I pretty much mean anything.  All colds, flu, sniffles, muscle aches, headaches, etc. required what seems like 2 inch thick layers of vaporub on the bottom of our feet and all over our chest.  If it made you sweat, that was a good thing.  For good measure they stuck it in our nostrils too.

If it was stomach related then the answer was to drink a 7-Up.  All you had to do was burp and you would feel all better. I remember hearing George Lopez mention this in one of his stand up routines and it surprised me that someone other than my mom and grandmother followed this line of thought.

The final remedy was the worst of all.  Somehow my mom felt that the root of all problems that I ever had were the result of toxins and poisons that I carried in my colon.   Those horrible toxins needed flushing out with an enema.  Today the mere glance at a hot water bottle gives me the chills because I expect a long white hose to be coming out of the end of it destined to go where no man has gone before.   My mom would get very upset with me because I kept kidding her that I hoped I never broke my leg because an enema would be her first treatment option.
Other treatments included olive oil (either straight out of the bottle or heated), a big paper cone that they stuck in your ear and lit on fire (seriously, I am not kidding) and copious amounts of Karo syrup.   Of course no good Mexican mom would be without manzanilla, yerba buena, epazote and canela.  And for good measure, a headache needed some Mejoral and a Coke.

Don’t get me wrong.   They never tried to hurt me.  Every little bit of treatment they gave me came with a great amount of love.  Whether or not it had a placebo effect is unknown.  All I know is that when they finished doctoring us I usually felt better.

A big part of what they did was purely financial.  Doctors then, as now, were pretty far out of a single mom’s budget for two little boys.   It was much cheaper to buy a few herbs that would otherwise do the trick.

My mom was a very smart woman.   She became one of the very first Certified Respiratory Therapists in El Paso,  despite the fact she never finished high school.   Despite all my efforts, however, she would never answer my “scientific” questions that I asked about those remedies.  I took a lot of Biology and Chemistry classes and had my doubts about what she did for us. Her only response was “You’re not dead, are you?”

And you know, she was right.  I am still counted among the living.  I still drink manzanilla when my stomach  is upset, and a 7 Up or Sprite never hurts when I have a tummy ache.

Mexican moms, you gotta love em.

The Grandparent Transformation

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As I walked in the front door of my parent’s house 20 years ago, my dear departed mom told me to be really quiet and follow her to the back room.   I had no idea what was going on, after all I was just there to pick up my two daughters that had spent the afternoon with their grandparents.  My mom continued to hush me and told me to sneak a peek out the back window at my dad and the girls.  Wow! was I in for a surprise.   There in the back yard was my dad, wearing what looked like a tutu around his waist, doing a  hula dance with Erica and Jessica.

This is the same man who was too embarrassed to dance with my mom at my wedding.  This is the same man who had little time to play silly games with this sons because we had “too much work to do.”  The same man who thought that the world of music stopped at the death of Hank Williams was dancing with my daughters to some silly 80’s song on the radio.  (I know that saying silly and 80’s music in the same sentence is redundant.)

What on earth happened?  What did they do with my dad?  Who is this imposter in the tutu?  He most certainly is not my dad.  From talking to many of my friends, I know now that this is not an isolated incident.  Becoming a grandparent changes people.  Usually drastically.    My mom and dad both worked long hard hours as we grew up.  My mom had little time for cooking big fancy meals, but what she made was filling and nutritious.   We learned early on that “this is not a restaurant, you eat what I fix you or you don’t eat!”    This rule echoed in my mind as I watched my parents take orders from my girls for the special soup they made for them whenever they wanted.   Darn, where was that when I was a kid?

Then I realized that I am slowly going down that path now.  I have done a lot of camping and fishing with the Boy Scouts over the last several years.  I have done my share of fishing with the scouts and had pretty much exhausted my enjoyment with that activity.   This summer, while my grandson Trey was in town, I went fishing with him, and stayed out with him for a lot longer than I expected.   Even when he no longer wanted to bait the hook and just wanted to cast out an empty hook into the water, I had a blast  just watching him do it.  When a fellow fisherman left and gave us his box of worms, Trey dropped all interest in the fishing pole and just wanted to play with the worms.   Did I lose interest or patience?  Absolutely not.  I just sat back and enjoyed watching this little boy have the time of his life while I sat in the hot sun sweating like a little pig.

What causes this kind of change?  Well, I think that there is a lot of things.      Grandparent love is not restricted by  parental constraints. A Grandparent gets to have all the fun and not have to worry about all that discipline stuff.    When my dad would not take the time to play “silly” games with us, he was training us in the art of a good work ethic.  He did not have to teach that to my girls, that was my job. As a result, he got to open up that part of his heart that he kept closed.    The older I get, the smarter and smarter my parents seem to get in my mind.

I am expecting that Chloe, my granddaughter that is due in November, will get a lot of that unvarnished Grandpa attention.  I know that she can count on having a grandpa that is ready to spoil her rotten.   I should probably be fitted for a tutu.

Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.  ~Welsh Proverb

I have a photographic memory – but I am out of film.

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The Skippers name in Gilligan’s Island is Jonas Grumby (his character’s name).  The four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are Raphael, Michaelangelo, Leonardo and Donatello.  My phone number from the time I was in fifth grade till I moved out of my parents house was 915-778-2252.  I can tell you the first words my former law associate Richard Contreras ever said to me when I met him in fifth grade.

But where the heck are the keys to my truck?   What was it I told my wife Molly I would do before I came and picked her up from work?  Did I really leave my folder full of papers on top of my truck before driving off today?     My mind can recall amazing details about trivial stuff (I dare you to play Trivial Pursuit), but I no longer remember simple things that I should.   Thank goodness my wife is here or I would probably forget to feed the dogs.  .

They say that there are three things that go with old age.  The first is memory, and I can’t remember what the other two were.  Thank goodness for smart phones (which I still occasionally forget at home).   When I had one of the first PDA’s, a new generation Palm Pilot, it sat on my desk at home 5 or 6 days out of 7 because I would forget to bring it with me.  Molly bought Ginkgo Biloba to help with memory, and you guessed it –  I would forget to take it.

Now there are many of you that know me that say I have always been a bit absent-minded – and I concede the point.    But forgetting the names of people I have known for years?    Having that word sit on the tip of your tongue just taunting you and not being able to spit it out?     I often compose a text and forget to hit the send button.

One of the biggest fears I have in life is dementia or Alzheimer’s.    I have seen people just disappear with those horrible diseases.   Because I keep “forgetting” things, I finally brought it to the attention of my family physician.  You know what that arrogant “Doogie Howser” looking doctor called what I had?   Age Accumulation.   He says that it is a natural progression of aging and that I should not worry about it.  Gee, I wonder if he makes me pay up front because I might “forget” to pay before I leave?

All kidding aside, my doctor and others I have talked to says that the adage “use it or lose it” is very appropriate in this instance.  So I make an effort to resist just vegetating in front of the TV and I read a lot, still try to do the occasional crossword puzzle, and study presidential history (still a nerd).   My hopes and prayers are that it will be enough to ward off my worries.

(I am adding this paragraph 10 days after I wrote the above.  When no one had commented on this article I was a bit surprised.   Well surprise, surprise, surprise.    This genius forgot to hit the publish button.)

Senior Citizen Discount

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I was quite struck the other day as I purchased some fast food at Carl Jr.’s and noticed that I had automatically been given the “Senior Discount.”   For the first time ever I was not asked if I was old enough to get the discount, if I wanted the discount, or even if I deserved the discount.   This came as quite a shock to me.

Why was it a shock?   Well, I frankly do not know.  I started going gray in my mid-thirties.   At my 20th reunion I was one of the two finalists for the person with the grayest hair.   People have asked me for a long time why I did not use Grecian Formula.   So appearance wise, I guess I had it coming.  But why now, and not 5 years earlier when I had as much gray hair as I have now?

Then I looked at the mirror to see if I could see any difference.  Oops!,  I don’t remember that bunch of wrinkles, and when in the heck did I get a turkey neck? Maybe the fact that my beard is almost all gray convinced that poor, unknowing, benevolent fast-food worker that I deserved a 10% break, because after all “damn he looks old!”  (My words, not hers).  Oh no!  Are those age spots on my hands and arms?   Certainly she couldn’t have mistaken my limp from my recent Achilles surgery as a sign of my advancing years, could she?  Did the fact that I ordered a turkey burger instead of a big, fat, greasy cheeseburger convince her that I was watching my cholesterol?

Then I remembered a conversation with a co-worker where we discussed the different types of medication we took every day,  and how we both decided not that long ago that playing basketball with a bunch of 20-25 year olds at church was not such a great idea.  After all, unless you are making 7 figures shooting hoops then you can’t justify having to ice your knees down every time you finish playing.

So what do I do now?   Absolutely nothing.   The age thing is not an obsession.  In fact, it is downright fascinating to watch my friends and me gradually “Slipping into Senior Status.”  My wife Molly constantly reminds me that getting old is not a big deal.

I gained a passion for writing after having survived  Honie Lou Laster’s Senior English class in high school.  That was 1973-1974.  She told me to write what was in my heart and on my mind without a thought about what anyone else said.  All she asked was that I observe proper grammar and that I avoid starting more than one sentence per paragraph with the word I.  After graduation Honie Lou became a client and a friend, and she loved to write letters.   We wrote back and forth for many years, and every so often she would send me back my letters with corrections in grammar and suggestions about how to improve my writing style

Years have gone by with no real time or energy to do what I have always wanted to do – write.   Molly always encourages me to do it.  There is no illusion that I have the skill and talent to become a world-class writer, but again, Honie Lou said to write what I felt and what I know.  I know about growing old.  Certainly I can write the occasional blurb about my observations of this journey into old age, both the good and the bad.   In fact, it might be somewhat therapeutic.

So, here it is.  The start of my blog about getting old.  A way to quench the desire to put my words down so others can see them.  It is my sincerest hope that someone out there will enjoy them.   Let me make one more quick thank you to someone else for inspiring me to write my thoughts.  My daughter Erica and son-in-law Shaun are backpacking through Central and South America.  I look forward to the posts on their blog at www.overyonderlust.com.   They have inspired me to take a crack at this blogging thing.

I can’t promise how often I will post, but I promise that I will continue to put my thoughts down as they come.

Here’s to old age!