News I got later yeaterday evening

There is a guy that I have known for years that has been somewhat a wet blanket regarding the way I have lived my life even though it has never been any of his business.

He retired a while back and to tell the truth I was not all that sad to see him retire and get off of my back.

He was always telling me how I should have buckled down and gone to college gotten married and raised 3.2 kids in a house in the suburbs with a little white picket fence around it.

My sailing and fishing days were ‘too dangerous’ for his taste. He was always telling me I should have played it safe.

When I met him after I had spent a glorious afternoon in a Stearman biplane he asked me why I would do such a dangerous thing.

If he wasn’t telling me how to stay safe then he was telling me how I ought to see the light and join his church and be saved and change my life.

I’ll make no bones about things. It would be pretty nice to be able to drop in on a couple of grown kids and visit a couple of young grandbabies.

Over the years I have had a number of people tell me that I would have made a pretty good father, but for me it simply wasn’t in the cards.

My lifestyle and career choices were not conducive to it. Raising children would not have been fair to the kids as I would not be around enough to do a decent job of being a father. Now that it is too far along to start over again I have to sit and think of all of the could haves, would haves and should haves.

All in all things have worked out pretty good for me when I look at the big picture. I’m reasonably content even though there are a few regrets. On the other hand I wonder about those that have no regrets. Maybe my basic contentment is just a part of my DNA or something.

For several years I have heard all this talk from the guy about how wonderful his life is as a father and grandfather and how I have wasted my time.

This man seems to never have had a bad day in his entire life if you listened to him.

I have heard him go on and on about how wonderful it was that he married at an early age and started his family right off and how happy he is with his family his home and his church.

I sit here wondering about all of his happiness as I write this because yesterday evening shortly after I got home a mutual acquaintance told me that this guy is no longer collecting his pension. About a month ago he took a shotgun and put it in his mouth and blew the back of his head off.

This spring I am going for a hot air balloon ride in his memory. That or skydiving.






my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/