When Your Bucket List Becomes a Thimble List

On the Chilkoot Trail, summer 1993

I've realized in recent years that I'm not going to get to see a number of the things that I'd hoped to. So it goes.

I have seen some amazing things: the summit of Vesuvius near Naples, the summit of the Chilkoot Pass on the border of Alaska and Canada (let's get the summit stuff out of the way early!), the re-built Globe Theatre in London (I toured it--no production, but our son and grandsons managed that one for me), the graves of Shelley and Keats in Rome, the grave of Mary Shelley in Bournemouth (England), every U. S. state except Hawaii, Stratford-upon-Avon, Mont Blanc (the mountain, not the pen), the residence of Lord Byron in Cologny (Switzerland)--the place where occurred the ghost-story competition that resulted in Frankenstein, the farm in north-central Oregon where my father was born, the town in W. Virginia where my mother was born, the graves and homes of many American writers (Hemingway, Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin, Tennessee Williams, Emily Dickinson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many others).

But, oh, the things I've not seen: Scandinavia, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, China, Russia, Iceland, the polar regions (north and south), South America, Central America, Mexico (I dipped in there once, quickly, but just so I could say I'd been there), the Philippines, lots of countries in eastern Europe ... I'll not go on: don't want to deepen the depression I feel swelling with every character I type.

There's no way I could travel much distance these days--mostly because of my instability and dizziness. Even local jaunts to the grocery store are ... dangerous (is that too strong a word?). Fortunately, I am not bothered by it when I drive--or lie down. It's just that being on my feet very long is, uh, stressful.

Sitting doesn't really bother me, either--not until I stand. And then ... watch out!

Enough whining. I have been incredibly lucky to have done all that I've done. Until I was in my mid-sixties I never even considered not doing something I wanted to do (unless, of course, $$$ prevented it). I remember back in 2005 (I was about to turn 61 and had just had cancer surgery) Joyce and I were out in Nebraska looking at Willa Cather sites, and, on impulse, I said, "Let's go out to Idaho and see Hemingway's final home and grave!"

Joyce was game, so off we drove with nary a second thought: From Red Cloud, Nebraska (where Cather grew up), to Ketchum, Idaho (where Hemingway died), it is about 1050 miles--and then back to Hudson? About 3000 more miles.

Why not?

In the summer of 1979 we were living in Lake Forest, Illinois, but were going to return to Ohio in the fall. Joyce was working at the college, and I said, "I think I'm going to drive Steve out to Oregon to see my parents!" Joyce was game. And so seven-year-old Steve and I headed off--about 2200 miles each way. No problem. (Steve was always great fun to travel with.)

Now, I have to think twice about whether to go get a Diet Coke at McDonald's after supper.

Thank goodness for Memory, though. I still have a pretty good one (unless you ask me what I had for supper last night). So I can still remember standing atop the Chilkoot Pass, atop Mt. Vesuvius, where I looked over the gorgeous Bay of Naples and thought about how Charles Dickens had once stood there--and Mary and Bysshe Shelley, too. In Dickens' case, it was night; sparks were flying, smoke too. Yet he crawled to the edge and looked into the boiling pit of the volcano.

Braver man than I, C. Dickens.

Anyway, as the title above indicates, my bucket list is now a thimble--not because I've done almost everything that I ever wanted to do (I clearly haven't) but because it's foolish to put into that container dreams that cannot come true.

Instead, I'll stay here and share my time with the greatest dream I ever had, a dream that blossomed in the summer of 1969.