It has been more than 50 years since I:
* Turned all the glasses in the kitchen cupboard upside down to keep scorpions out.
* Found a copperhead snake sleeping coiled up on top of a laundry basket full of clean clothes taken recently from the clothesline.
* Went skinny dipping in a neighbor’s pond.
* Lived in a house that didn’t have indoor plumbing.
* Owned a pig.
* Drove my Dad’s irresistible 1952 Plymouth into an immovable hundred-year-old oak tree.
* Had a lime phosphate at Mayfield’s Drug Store after school and then walked two miles home in the blazing sun.
* Fed chickens.
* Rode on the back of Spike Austin’s motor scooter to the bank and deposited money collected for Senior Class Rings.
* Made a valedictory address.
* Played a clarinet solo.
* Played an alto saxophone solo.
* Marched in a half-time show in the pouring rain at a high school football game.
* Sat in the end zone seats at Texas Christian University on Band Day with a band that played the national anthem in a different key from all the other bands.
* Cleaned white suede shoes after marching in a big-city rodeo parade behind many horses who heard Nature calling frequently.
* Danced on American Bandstand in Philadelphia and breathed the same air as Dick Clark.
* Filled a paper bag with bat guano at midnight in a limestone cave on a scavenger hunt just to make my fraternity brothers happy.
* Drove onto a small wooden pier to wait for a ferry to take me across the Wabash to Vincennes, Indiana, and discovered the pier was the ferry.
It has been more than 40 years since I:
* Shoveled snow off a sidewalk.
* Bought snow tires.
* Saw icicles more than eight feet long with my own eyes.
* Flew 1500 miles in the back seat of a very loud, four-passenger Cessna 180 from Omaha, Nebraska, to Orlando, Florida, with a refueling stop in Memphis, Tennessee.
* Climbed to the top of the Statue of Liberty with two small children.
* Ate at a Chinese restaurant on W. 57th St. in New York City with Angie Dickinson and Burt Bacharach sitting at the next table.
It has been more than 30 years since I:
* Rode on Space Mountain at Walt Disney World.
* Visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
* Drove on Lombard Street in San Francisco.
It has been more than 20 years since I:
* Threw a snowball on the second of July at Mount Rainier.
* Saw eagles in the wild in British Columbia.
* Found someone with my surname on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
But I have:
* Held a grandchild in my arms.
* Watched a man install a satellite dish on my roof.
* Taken a dog to the vet.
* Walked along a beach and gathered seashells.
* Attended the launch of a Space Shuttle and felt the sound waves pass through my body.
* Shown a child Orion’s belt and the Big Dipper and the North Star.
How about you?
40 years since i drove my dad's 57 chevy impala into my fron't slding glass door at the end of my dad's car port...well you asked din't you????said something like what about you????
ReplyDeleteno that has been 50 years ago
ReplyDeleteactually 53
ReplyDeleteburma shave
ReplyDeleteI'm still being impressed with the valedictory address and horrified by the white suede shoes (go Pat Boone!)being desecrated with horse hockey.
ReplyDeleteFascinating nostalgia walk! Thanks for sharing your life in word pictures!
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness. I don't think I've done a single thing on your "It's been fifty years" list. I'd love to know what lime phosphate tastes like.
ReplyDelete