Bucket List

One of the best things about my job is the people I get to meet. I know, I know. You're surprised I like people. I like interesting ones. The older they are, the more interesting they tend to be. Maybe it's because by then they've figured out how to pull their head out, but at any rate. Some of my greatest friends have been in their eighties.

Take Jetta and Sherman for example. We would play cards every week. She was beautiful, intelligent, and full of spunk. Plus she decorated her walker with a custom floral arrangement. How perfect is that? And did I mention she was eighty-nine? She was a Southern Lady to the core, and a complete crack up. Sherman was a quiet guy completely smitten with Jetta. We had such a good time getting to know them and becoming friends. They had led full and complete lives and were so happy.

They stand out to me most, but there have been lots and lots of people that I've met that have done things they make movies about.

I met one of the first women who visited China when it opened to the West. She was 106 when I met her and we became good friends.I've met two Japanese Americans who were placed in Japanese internment camps during the War. I've met and played Black Jack with the first woman CEO for Bank of America. I was friends with a man who worked as a driver for the studios back when Hollywood was the place to be. And there have been many, many more.

Just last week I met a woman who was 101 and going strong, and a man who served three years in Italy during the War. The thing I've found most in common in all of these people is #1. They were happy and #2. They lived life. They didn't sit around waiting for life to happen. They made it happen.

I added Bucket List to my Netflicks queue just this week. So in anticipation of a sappy movie night, I made my own bucket list. But I've tweaked it a little so as to not get overwhelmed.

Fifteen Things I Want to Do in the Next 15 Years

• Enter in a magazine contest
• Hike the John Muir trail with John
• Publish a book
• Cruise Alaska
• Have six pack abs
• Be Tri-lingual
• Be able to play Ballad Pour Adeline on the piano. I'm already searching Craigslist for a piano. And if you know any good piano teachers in the area...
  
• Visit 75 temples
• Learn to grow orchids
• Be able to do The Crow and Side Crow yoga poses

Not all of us will get to be old. It's a blessing and luxury to live a long healthy life. But should I be lucky enough, I don't want to get that old and wrinkly and be full of should'a could'a would'as.