Thinking about what to get done (11/19/2008)

I have no "bucket list," no list of things to do before I kick the bucket.

But as I pass the 60 milestone this week, there are a number of things I'd still like to do before, as Garrison Keilor once put it, the final credits roll and the lights come up.

Skydiving used to be one of those things, and Sally and I actually talked about doing it together on one vacation, much to my wife's consternation. But these days, as my knees feel a bit more fragile and my back aches, the idea of jumping out of an airplane has less and less appeal.

Skiing, surfing, and boxing are all pretty much out of the question for similar reasons.

What would I like to do?

Sometime, I'd like to take a canoe or other small craft from the upper reaches of the Salamonie River to the other end of the county. Timing would be important. Too dry and the river is not navigable, too wet and it can be a pretty dangerous stream for a novice like myself.

Sometime, I'd like to take a walking tour of the entire county, carving out a route that would hit scenic and historic spots and other places of interest and doing it over a period of several days or weeks.

Sometime, I'd like to go tent camping again on the Maine coast. We did it as a family years ago, but we got out of the habit. The time has come to do it again.

Sometime, I'd like to make a trip to California just to visit old friends. I've been there numerous times over the years, but never with the time I need just to stop by and visit my old AP buddy Andy Lippman or track down high school friends like Gayle and Tom and Kit.

Sometime, I think I'd like to take a gourmet cooking course, not seriously for a change in career but just for fun.

Sometime, I'd like to take the Orient Express or maybe the Trans-Siberian Railway, having the freedom to stop along the way whenever something caught my interest.

Sometime, I'd like to find the dedication to try to play a musical instrument on something more than a rudimentary level. I have tremendous admiration for someone like Judge Joel Roberts, who started taking piano lessons after an interruption of more than a few decades.

Sometime, I'd like to devote hours and days visiting the great art museums of the world without a deadline or a purpose other than to enjoy the works before me. I'd wander the halls of the Louvre or the Hermitage or the Met, hoping that I'd never get my fill.

Sometime, I'd like to be able to hold up my end of a conversation in a foreign language. My high school French always fails me, and though I understand some Romanian and a tiny bit of Russian, my speaking abilities are roughly equivalent to a tree stump.

You get the picture. If you're like me, the possibilities change constantly. Some things have appeal one moment and have none the next.

The best ones are the ones that aren't easy, that you can't buy. Those are the most important ones. All they take is dedication, a will, and time.

My inspiration, at the moment, is my old friend Jim Klopfenstein, a guy from the old west Portland neighborhood.

Last week, while most of us were going through our usual routine, Jim was on a hike.

His location? Peru. His destination after a four-day climb through the jungle? Machu Picchu, the "lost city" of the Incas, high in the Andes.

Something tells me, it was on Jim's list.

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