We are indeed the people our parents warned us against! Our generation, the Boomers, have been through a lot - some of it joyous, some of it painful. We are now approaching the autumn of our years. Part of that stage of life is reflecting on what we have done and what we will do with the time we have left. Jimmy Buffett does that in his best-selling book, A Pirate Looks at Fifty. As I read it, I'll try to pick out some interesting quotes and thoughts and put them here. Jimmy turned 60 in December - Ed turned 60 in January. We are growing older, but not up.
The man who views the
world at fifty the same
as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years.
Muhammad Ali
Not everything goes as we had planned when we were younger. I had prostate cancer which was removed in October of 1999. Read Pacing the Cage.
Sunset is an angel
weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it's pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you've lived too long
Days drip slowly on the page
And You catch yourself
Pacing the cage
Jimmy Buffett
Follow the Equator - Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Don't Stop the Carnival - Herman Wouk
Winds of the Carolinas - Robert Wilder
One Writer's Beginnings - Eudora Welty
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
A Gift from the Sea - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
The Fables of La Fontaine - Jean de la Fontaine
West with the Night - Beryl Markham
A Collection of Poems - Pablo Neruda
The Road Less Traveled - M. Scott Peck
No One Writes to the Colonel and Other Stories - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Age is of no importance
unless you are a cheese.
Billie Burke
Sonnets of the Portuguese - Elizabeth Barrett-Browning
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
The Great American Bathroom Book (Volumes 1, 2, and 3) - Stevens W. Anderson, Editor
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
A Gift from the Sea - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
Moby Dick - Herman Mellville
Tales of King Arthur - Thomas Mallory
Constantly searchin'
Oh my eyes have seen some horizons
And I've crossed the ocean for more than just thrills
No I'm not the first
Won't be the last
You lust for the future
But treasure the past
Jimmy Buffett
Fifty. A mind-boggling thought for a war baby
like me.
Fifty is not "just another birthday.
It is a reluctant milepost on the
way to wherever it is we are meant to wind up.
It can be approached in only two ways.
First, it can be a ball of snakes that conjures up immediate thoughts
of mortality and
accountability. ("What have I done with my life?")
Or, it can be a great excuse
to reward yourself for just getting there.
(He who dies with the most toys wins." I
instinctively choose door number two.
Jimmy Buffett
Sail the main course
In a simple sturdy craft
Keep her well stocked
With short stories and long laughs
Go fast enough to get there
But slow enough to see
Moderation seems to be the key
Jimmy Buffett
Fifty years of planetary occupation does not
come without its share of bumps and bruises.
Like most other survivors of the sixties, I
traded my drugs
and bad behavior for sleep, stretching, and physical activity.
Jimmy Buffett
I'm growing older but
not up
My metabolic rate is pleasantly stuck
Let those winds of change blow over my head
I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead
Let those winds of time blow over my head
I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead.
Jimmy Buffett
"My teachers called me a daydreamer." (Ed's teachers called him a daydreamer too - and it was true!)
Jimmy dreams
He's a child to the end
What a joy
When you are your best friend
The world's such a toy
If you just stay a boy
Jimmy Buffett
Oh, yesterday's over
my shoulder
So I can't look back for too long
There's just too much to see waiting in front of me
And I know that I just can't go wrong.
Jimmy Buffett
Learn to play the guitar or the piano.
Learn to cook.
Play tennis.
Learn another language.
Surf.
Read.
Take flying lessons.
Travel.
Swim with dolphins.
Start therapy.
Go to New Orleans and Paris.
Learn celestial navigation (or least how to find the planets in our solar system).
Go to the library.
Floss.
Every man dies, not
every man really lives.
Mel Gibson in Braveheart
|
The Southern Cross - Crux. |
Ed asks, "What is on your list?"
The proper function
of Man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not try to waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.
Jack London
Don't miss the book reviews of A Pirate Looks at Fifty by Jimmy Buffett.
The literary connection contains all of the references to books and authors in Jimmy Buffett's songs.
You don't stop playing because you are
grow old,
You grow old because you stop playing.
George Bernard Shaw
At age fifty, every man has the face
he deserves.
George Orwell
Join the Boomers International Club on
Yahoo! 
|
|
|
|
Previous
|
Next |
The wallpaper photo was taken by me
at Disneyworld.
Although it isn't a parrot, it does capture that tropical attitude of the lower
latitudes...
