A Look Back on a Life … well … Lived
As I come up on my eighth decade of existence, it’s time for a reckoning. Or not. What is a reckoning anyway? <dictionary break>. Ah, a calculation of a ship’s position. I see the edge ahead where I will fall off into the setting sun before too long. The older you get, the flatter it gets. Don’t that sun look good going down.
Now, a reckoning on decades and actual years of the decade. So, take the 19th century. Seems like it would cover 1900 to 1999, but NO! It covers the 1800s. But when we say the 1960s, that epic decade, is it about the 1950s? NO! It is actually about the 1960s. So when I say I’m coming up on my eighth decade, which is it? My 70s or 80s? It’s my 70s. I think. Who makes these rules up? <rewrite> As I come up on my 70s, it’s time for a reckoning. Now that that’s cleared up (I think) … let the reckoning begin.
Here are the accomplishments I have not made.
I have not climbed Mount Everest. I mean, like, what the hell. You risk your life to get up there to the summit so you can freeze your ass off? What do you do once you get there? Turn around and come back down. Who needs it?
I have not swam the English Channel. <grammar break>. I have not swum the English Channel. See, I have this ear condition where it gets easily infected when it gets wet. The ear canal, that is, the eardrum. When I was a kid, Mom put a woman’s bathing cap on my head when I went swimming, but not before she put some kind of ointment on lamb’s wool and stuck it in my ear. I guess it didn’t work out all that well. I had my left eardrum removed when I was six years old and it was replaced with skin from my hipbone. That’s why I have a hip ear. It’s also why I’m an old deaf bastard now. Anyway, if I coulda swam the English Channel and I woulda swum it, but I can’t and that’s all I have to say about the English Channel.
I have not won the Nobel Peace Prize. Not yet anyway.
I have not won the Pulitzer Prize. Who wants to win a prize named after a guy whose newspapers whipped up a frenzy over the sinking of the Maine battleship in Cuba and helped start the Spanish-American War? President McKinley read the papers and prayed and decided the Filipinos needed to be conquered and “Christianized,” then had a good night’s sleep. I need to do something and in a big hurry to win the prize just so I can turn it down. Maybe a poem could do it.
The Maine done sunk
Joe P got drunk
McKinley had a dream
Rule the western seas
With prayers and Bibles
And cannonballs and rifles.
There. That should do it.
Let’s see – what else have I not accomplished?
I have not bowled a perfect game.
I have not achieved sainthood.
I have not dreamed the impossible dream.
I have not gone where the brave dare not go. That would just be stupid.
I have not liberated a country.
I have not won American Idol.
I do not own a mansion on the hill.
I have not pitched a perfect baseball game.
I have not won a marathon.
I have not run a marathon.
I have not created a bucket list. That would be way too depressing.
Really, the list could go on and on. And on and on. The things I have not accomplished could fill a whole library.
It’s not that I haven’t accomplished anything at all, you know. Like, I got into the National Honor Society in high school. I checked and had the lowest GPA of all the honorees. Grade inflation, probably.
I won a merit-based competition in college two years in a row – the Mr. Ugly Contest. Probably my all-time highlight. I am not making this up. “Won Mr. Ugly Contest Two Years in a Row” will be my epitaph.
I graduated college Cum Laude. I didn’t know until my name was called before I received my diploma. After the ceremony, my best friend, we called him Hotline, yelled “Johnny Clack, Come Loudly!” I yelled back, “That’s tonight, Hotline!” And so it was – Becki, the one that got away. My parents didn’t know I was graduating Cum Laude because I didn’t know myself and hadn’t told them. They were so proud and thought I was some kind of genius, so that’s good I guess. Other than the “Come Loudly!” it didn’t mean that much to me. I am utterly lacking in self-promotion.
I have a good wife who puts up with me, two lovely daughters and the four most beautiful granddaughters in the history of the world. Now that’s something right there.
Well, I reckon I’ve made a reckoning. I need to get started on my memoir, “The Things I Didn’t Carry.” Tim O’Brien won the National Book Award for his book “The Things They Carried.” It’s based on his experience serving in Vietnam. Mine will be an extended list of all the things I haven’t achieved. The title alone should make it worthy of Nobel consideration. I will accept nothing less.
I’m old and need to take a nap. I’ll check back in before my ninth decade. That’s when I’ll be in my 80s. I think. If I haven’t croaked by then. And to all a good night.
~~~
Postscript
I have learned recently that medical science is starting to focus more on the technical and biological aspects of the aging process. Currently, the focus is on the treatment of the aging process – hospices, palliative care, and the like. Work is starting on slowing the process of aging itself. Meaning, extending life expectancy to as much as 150 years old. So I might not report back until the 14th decade of my life. That’s when I’ll be in my 130s. I think. My book, The Things I Didn’t Carry will be much, much longer then than if I croak at, say, 99.
Copyright © Johnny Clack 2022
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