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Friday, January 8, 2021

The "So, How Did I Make It This Far In Life?" Story

 It was an ordinary day.  Reading once again about how to live until I am...very old or dead!  A few suggestions were (1) Don't smoke, (2) Don't drink, (3) Exercise daily, (4) Eat little red meat, and (5) Believe in God!  Now, I have made it to a year past the 3/4 century mark so I must have been doing something right along the way.  I can't claim that I never smoked, since I did in high school...so I would look neat!  It worked!  But then while in college I met this good looking girl and asked her for a date.  After a ride on my Honda we headed back to her place and I asked her if she would mind if I smoked.  She said she wouldn't date me again if I smoked so I never smoked ever again.  Honest!  As for drinking, I never cared for it in the first place.  Yeah, I know I'm sort of odd, but it's the truth.  Only ever had one beer in my life and after drinking it I just couldn't understand why anyone could drink that stuff.  I do enjoy wine and rum, but that's because they are two of the easiest drinks to find in the Caribbean.  Now...as far as exercising daily...I used to!  When I was younger and participating in athletics I exercised daily.  But then old age came along and he didn't treat me very well and...well, I have difficulty walking due to a bad back, even after 4 surgeries to try and correct it.  I now have two feet that are dying, as my doctor says to me.  My toes are curling under and I have numbness in my left foot which is slowly creeping into my right foot.  As for eating red meat...well I do enjoy a burger from time to time and can eat a good steak once a week.  My weakness though is seafood, but I just assumed that as long as it wasn't red, it must be good for me.  As for believing in God...that's not hard to do.  How else did I get here?  Who provides the sun and the rain and the warm and the cold?  Who else gives the airline pilots the nerve to fly a plane full of people to a beautiful warm Caribbean island so they can get bright red and have to peel off a layer of their old skin?  And who else could have given me a chance to teach school and continue to work with my hands after over 3/4 of a century?  I have enjoyed many years of singing in the church choir as well as getting married in the same church.  I have been helped in making the right choices many, many times in my life.  And, someone gave me a fabulous wife, three great kids, a beautiful daughter-in-law and a loving son-in-law as well as three special grandkids.  I believe that God did all that for me.  Now...the question is...why!  I sometimes speed while driving.  I sometimes swear.  I'm not always nice to everyone.  I spit on the sidewalk.  I forget to shower sometimes.  I sometimes eat too many cookies and eat too much candy.  And...the list goes on and on.  But yet HE still watches out for me.  The other day I read an article titled "FREE YOUR INNER GEEZER!"  Story led me to write this story today.  I got my list of 5 things that will lead to a long life from the story.  And...I believed everything that the author said.  Then I realized that the guy who wrote the story was a minister.  Wow, I saw myself in the guy whose story I was a reading.  Maybe, just maybe, I should have become a minister.  But then, I think back to having to learn all the books of the Bible before I could be confirmed into the church.  That's what helped me decide not to be a minister.  I'm hoping for many more years of living, but just hope I can remember what I did in those years after I have lived them.  Someone told me that writing helps your mind...so you can count on reading stories for a long, long time.  That is as long as I get help from my best friend!  Any idea whom that may be?  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

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