Taking Stock

       More Letters From Paradise

             Taking Stock

      Now, in my 77th year, I thought it best to take stock of my life.  I have been blessed.  I have survived an incident with my heart, and two brain operations.  I enjoy a very happy marriage.  I have sired four children and have three beautiful grandchildren.  I have been loved, and I have loved.  I also have known moments of great joy, and great grief.

      Many good friends I have, and a few enemies.  Someone once said that "a man without enemies is lacking in character."  I received an excellent college education for my profession of teaching for 30 years.  I served in the Navy for four years.   

      I have done some things that I am not proud of, and some things that I am very proud of, such as running in several 26 mile marathons.

      Travel has played a large part of my life.  I have stood at the rim of the Grand Canyon and gazed in awe! The marvels of the Sistine Chapel, the vaulting of the great Gothic cathedrals, are mine too. I climbed the hill of the Acropolis and stood in the center of the Parthenon.  The Colosseum and Pantheon in Rome are also mine. The Elgin marbles in the British Museum, and Notre Dame in Paris, I claimed them as my own. 

      I have walked the silent streets of Pompeii, yelled at the bullfights in Madrid, and sang with the crowd in a beer hall in Munich.  

      I have seen the birth of both the atomic and hydrogen bombs, television, computers, and a man on the moon.

      I evidenced the genocide of millions of innocent people.  And WWII has been followed by several other wars.

      I have seen the election of the first black president, and the assassination of another. 

I became acquainted with great classical music, opera, and great literature. I also developed a taste for a medium-rare steak, red wine, and 12 year old Scotch. 

      I have greatly enjoyed the art of the great masters. The smell of pine, and turkey roasting in the oven, are to be remembered. I have sailed on the great oceans of the world, as well as Lake Erie, and the canals of Venice. 

      I have felt the touch of snow flakes on my face, and the soft touch of a baby rabbit in the palm of my hand. Oh, there has been so much in my life.   I was a Justice of the Peace,  a pastor, farmer, photographer, apiary inspector, and leather craftsman.

      Tahiti, Bora Bora, and home here in Hawaii.  

In spite of Pascal's Wager, I hope for the promise of an afterlife.  I have no regrets, I have had a rich, full life. 

    

         Aloha

         Grant