As spookily specific as that might sound, since Yom Kippur falls on Sept. 27 that year, if I don\u2019t make it to the end of the month, at least I won\u2019t have to endure another fast.<\/p>\n
In any event, my 77th birthday gives me ten more years, actuarially speaking. And that got me to thinking (something I still do, albeit abetted by a smartphone or an attentive spouse when names and words don\u2019t readily come to mind).<\/p>\n
Some sedentary aspects of retirement hold undeniable appeal, like screening a favorite movie for the seventh time or heading to bed Sunday night, knowing there\u2019s nowhere I have to be Monday morning.<\/p>\n
But part of demonstrating an appreciation for how eventful and productive, fortunate and privileged those first 70 years were also involves a resolve to avoid wasting what\u2019s left \u2014 to go places, stay involved, connect with people.<\/p>\n
Travel?<\/h3>\n
In the six years before the pandemic parked us in Portland, we hit an eclectic mix of sights and sites in 28 countries and 19 states and provinces \u2014<\/p>\n
Machu Picchu and Alhambra, Monticello and Vieux-Quebec, Bermuda and Majorca, the Big Dig, and Hoover Dam. Krakow\u2019s market square and Tokyo\u2019s underground, Lake Tahoe and Coeur d\u2019Alene, Sintra\u2019s gardens and a Costa Rican rainforest, Joe\u2019s Stone Crab and Katz\u2019s delicatessen, Belvedere Palace and La Sagrada Familia, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Dali museum in Figueres and the Wynwood art district in Miami, Franconia Notch and the Grand Canyon, Tivoli Gardens and the Winter Palace, the races at Saratoga and the Trailing of the Sheep in Sun Valley, Budapest\u2019s Great Synagogue and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial, the Statue of Liberty at dawn and Ka\u2019anapali Beach at sunset.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s still mostly about communication. The Scorekeeper<\/em><\/a>, my memoir, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and has been the basis for 20+ lectures in New York, Florida, and Oregon.<\/p>\n I perform on stage, and more recently online, with the Portland Storytellers Guild. I\u2019ve judged journalism\u2019s coveted George Polk Awards for 44 years now. A couple of my opinion columns stirred a bit of a ruckus here in Portland. And, perhaps seeking assurance that my diminished instant recall might not be a harbinger of dementia, I finish the week\u2019s most challenging Times crossword most Saturdays without help.<\/p>\n It starts with family. I continue to watch with thankfulness and pride as Leah weaves away in her studio and ages so gracefully. A daughter and two stepsons make their way into the world. Three grandchildren tackle preadolescence with gusto, and my sister offers judicial compassion to people when they least expect it. And I remain in touch with old friends and have made new ones.<\/p>\n Despite that Gulliver\u2019s litany of locales, we\u2019re not into bucket lists or a grand design. There\u2019s no imperative to check off Beijing, Capetown, Melbourne, or any unseen destination.<\/p>\n Instead, I greet each day with gratitude, occasionally recalling contemporaries who departed the planet before experiencing the Internet or even flip phones, talking to a TV remote, driving with directions from a voice in the sky or gleaning the benefits of research to overcome diagnoses like those that threatened to saddle Leah with debilitating pain or turn my IRS projection into a lie.<\/p>\n How much of this is really random or, for those so inclined, a gift from the god of our choice?<\/p>\n This much: We were heading home from (what else?) a medical appointment in January when an SUV suddenly came at us head-on before its deranged driver swerved at the last moment, going on to kill a woman blocks away.<\/p>\n That led me to recall a college classmate whose impressive start in New York politics was cut tragically short late one night a half-century ago by a tow truck speeding to beat the competition to the scene of a wreck.<\/p>\n To paraphrase John Lennon\u2019s take on an Allen Saunders line, no matter the plan, life has a habit of finding its own destiny.<\/p>\n On turning 77<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11306,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[139,140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-summer-2021","category-spring-summer-2021-columns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11217"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11526,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11217\/revisions\/11526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/collage-750.jpg\")
Apart from such signature attractions, lots of unlikelier settings etched lasting memories, including the four pictured above \u2014\u00a0a vanquished bull elk sulking as his conqueror tended to a half-dozen cows just over a rise in mating season in Jasper, Alberta;\u00a0a weathered old hand eating breakfast in a diner around the corner from the Western Folklore Center in Elko, Nevada; building facades in Riga, Latvia, adding to Leah\u2019s list of art nouveau finds, and \u201cMatrix,\u201d an art installation on Naoshima Island in Japan with meandering rivulets of water evoking enough emotion to bring us to tears.<\/p>\nEngagement?<\/h3>\n
Connectivity?<\/h3>\n
So seven years on, what\u2019s left?<\/h3>\n
Edward Hershey<\/a> has spent six decades in journalism, government, higher education, and organized labor. His memoir, The Scorekeeper<\/em><\/a>, was a finalist for the 2018 Oregon Book Award.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"