My step-sister Kimberely asked me to identify twenty things I wanted to do before I died. I decided to think up ten but could not get past eight. I did, however, come up with a lot that I had already done or did not wish to do.
Here is the list:
Read all the major Jane Austen novels, as well as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Little Women with my daughter when she is a pre-teen. I have always had difficulty with these tomes of feminine literature, but to plow through them with my daughter could be a shared joy. I look forward to it!
Retire someplace outside of California. Enjoy the autumn and winter of my life somewhere other than a place with a Third World dynamic of huge numbers of uneducated poor, a few filthy rich, and no middle class.
Give my daughter away at the altar… …on the day of her wedding.
Bicycle from New York City to Los Angeles. Truly it will be an adventure!
Bicycle down from San Francisco to Laguna Beach. Perhaps as a warm-up for cross-country trip.
Enjoy a romantic trip with Maria to Italy. The Amalfi Coast and a vespa!
See Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri die violent deaths. Hopefully at the hands of their coreligionists, if not the U.S. Government.
Make games out of memorizing famous poems with Julia… …as a routine part of her childhood.
I enjoyed making up this list which took much reflection to come up with, although I have no immediate plans to expire.
Good times!
3 Comments
Roscel
Oh, Mr. Geib!
You are definitely a captivating man!
Joseph
“See Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri die violent deaths. Hopefully at the hands of their coreligionists, if not the U.S. government.”
“Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.”
James Anthony Froude
quoted on “Voltaire” [https://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/voltaire/voltaire.html]
Joseph
If it’s only about protection from a deadly threat, does it really matter if their deaths are violent or not? And since bin Laden received funding and training from the US Government (perhaps not the current administration, but definitely from previous ones), don’t you think that the US government is partly responsible for the establishment of this deadly threat and should likewise be held accountable. Furthermore, if killing the bin Ladens and the al-Zawahiris are made the ultimate goal of the “War on Terror”, isn’t there the very real possibility that, in the process of killing them, we will be arming and training the future bin Ladens? If that’s the case, the only way to end this kind of terrorism is to change our method of neutralising threats, that is, to change the focus from hunting and killing ringleaders, to something that stops threats arising in the first place.