Walking Ten Miles to School

It's not easy getting older.  When you're young, in your teens and even in your twenties, you really don't think about getting older... it's almost unfathomable.  And when you're older, you can't stop thinking about when you were young and how you wished you knew then what you know now.  The mid-life crisis is a reality.  As your friends and relatives get older and get sick  and die and you, yourself, develop health issues, you're smacked in the face with reality.  Having my Dad live with me has been a rude awakening and now dealing with clearing out my Uncle's house after his wife died last year and he's not healthy enough to live there by himself.  As I clear out drawers and closets, the reality is that what you have kept your whole life, to show for your life, becomes someone else's burden to clean up.  70+ years of money spent, memories had and things amassed are stripped away, thrown away and emptied out.

Life was simpler then.  No responsibilities, no goals to be met, no pressures and no stress.  Your biggest problem was what you were going to do with your Saturday.  Those were the days.  We had it so good and we didn't even know it.  Things that I miss:

-  My Mom calling me in the kitchen to lick the beaters after she made a cake (with raw egg in the mix).
-  Playing with my Rolls Royce Matchbox car without worrying about having to make car or insurance payments and whether it'd be stolen or dinged up in the Wal-Mart parking lot.
-  Walking to the bus stop with a foot of snow on the ground, your nostril frozen shut and not worrying about frostbite or being stolen by a guy in a van.  And what's a 2-hour delay?
-  Taking in some sunshine laying up on the back window ledge of the car, without being seat-belted in or in a car seat.
-  Leaving the house at 8 a.m. on a summer day and not coming home until dark, walking into the house with the back door open and the screen door unlocked and parents asleep in the living room.
-  Lathering on baby oil for a few hours in the sun to get that cancer-free, deep, dark tan.
-  Torching model cars by spraying something flammable, like hair spray, while holding a match in the other hand.
-  Getting a big bag of candy for Halloween without having to check it for pins or razor blades or having to test your blood sugar for diabetes.
-  Playing doctor with the neighbor kids and not having to collect a copay or turn someone away for not having adequate coverage.
-  Being able to dream about being an astronaut, fireman or police officer when you grew up without even considering the danger involved in your career choice.