44. For me, a life is like a book divided into chapters. Each is an adventure and more than likely, never to be regained. Though we try and we try till we are finally too old or too used up. So we just start new chapters.
45. Don’t SMOKE!! Okay, no one listens. I didn’t. Did it for 50 years. Got lung cancer. However, welding for 30 years didn’t help, either. Lost my left lung. Wasn’t any good anyway. Went on with life the best I could. Didn’t smoke or weld any more, though. Learned one thing. Getting
cancer is one way to quit smoking that works. As of December 21st 2008, it will be 15 years.
Not bad years, either. Just slower. Kind of an epilogue or re-run of all my preceding chapters going through my mind. And then I realize it isn’t over. Perhaps, there is one more chapter yet.
46. I was a medical corpsman while in the Navy. I wanted to be a mechanic. They said I wanted
to be a corpsman. They won. Actually, we both won. I really got into it and it became a better
place for me to be in the Navy. Another one of those chapters I’ve mentioned.
47. Had my first beer when 11 years old. First cigarette at 12. Last cigarette at 62. First sex at last!
48. First girlfriend was Shirley B. I was 17. Met her at a drug store counter. She was a waitress. I was on my first leave from boot camp. Wound up sending her a “Dear Shirley” letter from Italy. Mistake # 42 already and I was only 18 years old. Not a good start in life!
49. Had only 3 good friends that mattered in my life. Wayne K., Whom I grew up with and Larry S. whom I spent most of my time in the Navy with and Gloria whom I have spent 40 years with.
50. I should have died at least 3 times in my life:
I once ran my 1964 ford falcon convertible off a slippery road in the rain and hit a telephone pole going about 30. I went through the windshield but not all the way through. 27 stitches and I went home the next morning. Yeah, I had been drinking.
Another time, when I was thirty-something and yeah, I was drinking, I was depressed enough to take a whole bottle of aspirin. Fortunately or unfortunately, I simply spent the entire night
throwing up. The whole long, entire night.
The third time, it was my wrists. Yeah, I was. And that we won’t talk about.
51. I always wanted to be an artist. I have the soul of an artist, I have the heart, I have the desire to be creative and the passion (and I am left-handed), but, alas, perhaps, not the talent.
52. I never went to kindergarten but started school in the first grade. Got sick. Don’t remember what but missed a lot of school and couldn’t read so they kept me another year in first grade. I could read better than the others in my class in that year.
53. I read most of the classics when I was very young. I was a voracious reader in my younger years while growing up. My favorites books were and are “The Grapes of Wrath” by Steinbeck, “Watership Down”by Richard Adams, “The Winter of Our Discontent” by Steinbeck, “Travels with Charley” by Steinbeck, “Lost Horizon” by James Hilton, and anything by Phillip Wylie. Believe it or not, I read "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" when I was in 6th grade and actually enjoyed them. So many more. Oh yeah, and “Gods Little Acre” by Erskine Caldwell. Whew! That was a keeper.
54. Regrets:
Wish I had learned to speak fluent Italian.
Wish I had seen the Matterhorn in person and up close.
Never got to see inside the Louvre Museum. It was Tuesday and it is closed on Tuesdays.
Wish I had payed more attention to and explored more the places I did get to and the adventures I did have.
I had so much more to see and to experience and it makes me sad sometimes.
Sometimes I wish I had just stayed in the Navy. Sometimes…
Should have taken better care of that 58 Chevy “chick magnet” Convertible.
Wish I’d kept contact with friends I made through the years. Particularly, Wayne K. from Rock Island, Ill., Larry S. from The Dalles, Ore., and a girl from Casagiove, Italy, Gary F. from Rock Island, ILL. Never been good at that.
55. To everyone. Don’t put off. Do it. You will regret it eventually if you don’t. Trust me on this!
56. I really love Limburger cheese. The only problem is that you have to eat all of it fairly quick
because, how do you know when Limburger cheese has turned bad?
57. I had a Beagle in Montana named Heidi. She was the only dog I knew of that would let out
the most stinking farts you have ever encountered and then sulk away in shame when you said something.
58. Perhaps this is related but when I would open some of that limburger cheese I mentioned before, her eyes would get big and her tail would go crazy. We would share a good deal of it together. She was a good doggy but a bad farter.
59. When I was about 9 yrs old, I was bit by a neighbors dog and to be safe, I went through the
Rabies shots. This was in about 1941 0r 1942. Then they gave the series of shots in your stomach. I remember that pain till today. It took my dad, a nurse and a cop to hold me down.
60. Another “Best Lesson” learned. 10 days into boot camp, the company ACPO (acting company Petty officer) gave me an order I couldn’t obey. So I punched him out and wound up in the brig for 3 days on bread and water. I learned then that I could do anything I wanted if I was willing to pay the price. The navy never had another problem with me after that.
61. Cemeteries are peaceful places to slow down in. In Bonner Springs, Kansas I used my Sunday afternoon’s at the cemetery to sit and read and wind down and listen to the quiet.
62. There is no doubt in my mind that if I had another lung and lots of money that I would go
to live in Italy and spend the remaining time traveling until my body gave out. Preferably
right after the money ran out.
63. One of the hardest and dirtiest jobs I ever had was underground in the copper mines in the upper peninsula of Michigan. The Houghton and Hancock area, actually. I worked there one year down in the 2000 foot level. One year too long.
64. Once while on liberty in Toulon, France I walked in a noisy club and sat at the bar and ordered a beer. When I looked up at the mirror, with beer in hand, I saw a topless dancer behind me on a stage. Not unusual? Not today. but this was 1954 and I was 20 and this was the first time for me. I about choked on my beer. But, I recovered and , of course, enjoyed.
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