Before I Die

I’ve been thinking about the full lives that my Mee Maw and Paw Paw led, and I’ve been thinking of things I want to do before I die.

I’m starting a list of things I want to do before I die, and I’ll take your suggestions. Some of these are going to seem weird to you; you’ve been warned.

While I won’t be adopting a hardcore Carpe Diem philosophy, I think I will also look for other awesome experiences as they arise. Being too tired to do something (including “well, I just don’t feel good”) is often a lame excuse, which I will seek to eliminate from my vocabulary. I was once too tired to go squid fishing, and by the end of the night I was singing “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” at the top of my lungs during a storm on the bow of a fishing boat in the South China Sea. Avoiding the “too tired” excuse let me release a baby sea turtle in to the ocean and also see the world’s largest ketchup bottle.

These are in no particular order.

1. Be the first man in the capture of a crocodile or alligator

2. Visit all 50 states in the USA

3. Stand under the Northern Lights

4. See a river dolphin (hopefully they won’t be extinct)

5. Get married

6. Fish on Loch Ness

7. Win a poetry contest

8. Visit Edinburgh

9. Shake hands with Andrew Peterson

10. See a musk ox

11. Road trip up the East Coast

12. Have a mohawk

I don’t know how many people read this, but I will consider any suggestions made to me.

EDIT:

13: Ride a Bactrian camel (a two-humped camel).

14. Get bitten by a snake.