I haven't learned all that much along the way. I have learned that life is like a box of chocolates. Sometimes the best way to tell what it is, is to let somebody bite into it first. This comes to mind as I cross the line past youth and become a wily, grizzled veteran. With age comes experience, wisdom, knowledge, maturity, and receding gums.
You are only as old as you feel. And some remain lucky enough to feel at all. They say the first thing that goes are the eyes. Mine went in the third grade. The next thing to go are the ears. Mine were never the same after the tornado of '81. The next to go are the legs. Mine betrayed me sometime this past summer. The hair? Went goofy in junior high. The mind? Still as sharp as a tack.
At some magical point in the time line, things change, and they change over night when you're not looking. A job becomes a career, dreams become fantasy and the intangible stuff you one day wished for take on a whole different flavor. A shooting star is replaced by a decent, working fluorescent desk light; moonlight on the water is no more desirable than luke warm, soapy bath water; red sails in the sunset seem pointless compared to hitting the stop lights right on the way home; a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow can't compare with having the proper change stacked on top of your futon frame for laundry night.
With the passing of time, you can learn to better appreciate what you are lucky enough to have. We live in a wacky country during its wackiest time. Only in America, can a man named Newt grow up and become an influential political figure. The hustle and bustle, the rapid changes that are taking place every day all around us, this can be a confusing time, especially for us older folk. We sometimes need lists to help us organize and remember things. With this in mind, I have compiled a list of thirty things that have touched the untouchable, that have disturbed and affected the life of one individual. Let's hope that one day, there are thirty more.
Frank Sinatra's Young At Heart
There used to be a game called baseball
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3, featuring the smash hit, Dignity (Will there be a volume 4?)
Sandra Bullock and her predecessors
Liz Phair's Super Nova
Bicycling to the moon
A best friend
Babylon Revisited
Old Weller
Dr. Beverly Crusher
Pulp Fiction
Yes, Prime Minister
L7
Pistachios and the cool refreshing taste of Lemonade Sunkist
Paul McCartney's Little Lamb Dragonfly
The Maeda Family
Cappuccino
Worldwide Pants
Nicholas Cage
Wise Blood
Patrick Reusse
Zippy the Pinhead
A Keys Everything Omelet
Captain Furillo
Working for the Phatest Music Company in town
Elasticity in the old boxer shorts
John Hiatt's Straight Outta of Time
Simpsons repeats every night
A kitty that drools (Get well soon Alex)