WHAT TO DO WITH LIFE AFTER ............?

Seems to me, as I sit here day after day that we older people continuously look back in time. It's a far cry from when we were younger where we always looked ahead.  Have you ever asked yourself why?
Start out with when you were 5 or so and how you looked forward to that first day of school. Each year thereafter, you would look to the next year of school and how you would program yourself to this expectation.  Finally, the basic school comes to an end, BUT it doesn't stop ........now you begin to question yourself......work or more school.  First real life transition to think about but it still needs and urges for expectation.  
I, personally tried to compromise and do both....still at the age of 81 not sure if that was good or bad but must say it has been interesting.
I sit and think about days gone by and if all my decisions were good. I never try to think that any of them were really bad.  I got, what I think was just the right amount of formal education ....for me and worked for one of the most fantastic companies that I could ever consider.....................and earned more education in a very special way...............SEEING and DOING  things that many people spend money and time doing on their own.  Regardless of what one chooses  to do, you always have the tendency to look forward.  If you work, you always look forward to that first day of retirement and planning that stage of your life.  If you choose school, you always look forward to that second graduation day and the start of a work career.  Seems we are never really happy but always looking forward.

In over 40 years meeting some of the most fascinating people around the world, visiting sights that were just words in a book, experiencing different cultures and just plain enjoying life, it came to an end at the age of 58. A buyout from MY company that any mafia boss would consider " a deal you just couldn't refuse"  (especially coming from after refusing 5 previous retirement programs.) Then a new part of my  life began. Retirement.  Could not seem to really get use to it, so I ended up starting a company, then bought another company for added revenue and responsibility.  Just was not able to meet all my highly developed expectations but kept the cobwebs out of my head.  Started to loose interest in it after 20 years and finally began to look forward to enjoying the benefits earned. That's where this part of the story ends.

Now a year later of doing...............NOTHING............expectations are beginning to sprout once again. Now, though, physically fit as I might feel, the legs and arms just don't want to admit failure. A friend has put me onto a great after, after, after retirement endeavor. Why not CONSULTING????
Simply choose a topic you consider yourself to be an expert in and teach other like thinking people how to reach their goals using your method and experience. One more expectation, one more try at recognition,   and best of all ...............what do I have to loose?

This morning I really put my head into it and the only thing I could come up with is..............FANATIC SEX or was it FANTASTIC SEX, or perhaps CHRISTMAS FINALLY, SEX. I completely lost all concentration, once I began to think about it.  so I guess it's back to the drawing board.

After all,  I'm 81 years old, enjoy life..... live it with the expectation of ...........one additional day.....each day....and most of all  those days gone by will live on..........in pictures.

EIGHTY-ONE AND STILL WITH A BUCKET LIST.

I guess it was about when I turned 50 and heading over the hill, that I sat back one day......just to see what I actually have done with my life, how far ahead or behind times I was and what I intended to do to make things interesting ................in my old age.
I came to the conclusion that building a "bucket list" might be the way to go, just to be able to keep my mind working. I believe there were perhaps 10 or 12 things that started this list. Now at 81 I have 3 remaining things, two of which I guess I will never be able to do but one that I am working on now.

The two remaining that I just don't think I will ever be able to handle are:

1. participation in the iron man run

2. running with the bulls............unless they were bulldog puppies.
Now that my bucket list has been noted, we will continue on with other things.

WHY AM I CONFUSED?????

I must admit, this can be interpreted as political, but don't take it so serious. This actually started during the Bush years when dubya said that he had looked into Putin's eyes and could see..............."something" Now with all the nonsense from the present administration I ...............opened my face book one day and found the following posting. Now, the question is simply.............how is going to be related to anything?  I just don't have a reasonable answer. I just want to be able to accomplish understanding why people can't figure things out by thinking for themselves.

"   If you take your age
add it to the year you were born
you will get 2017
this happens only once in 1000 years."


I looked at this and began to wonder..................is this REALLY FACT or is it like 90% of the stuff on face book ................exaggeration?  What will happen if I post this , will other people wonder also or will they check it out? I did this with that one thought in mind, "How can people believe all the nonsense we  hear about the administration and still think we got the best slice of bread" My attempt is to basically see if my brain is still active or do I need rubber walls in my house.    Now, I have heard back from some people I consider a hell of a lot smarter than me  but from one that actually showed me something that most people will miss.  Just goes to show you that you can come to good reasoning if you stop for a second think about the problem and CHECK IT out.  Perhaps Trump would have a lot less votes.  It certainly is NOT my intention to make this blog a political writing.  I understand totally, that people did not like Clinton, and that's ok,   I also understand that people were searching for change and that too is ok.  What I don't understand is the lack of voters to totally checkout the correctness in statements candidates made about themselves or other candidates..................... We know that ALL politicians will make all kinds of statements whether true or not.  It is OUR responsibility to prove it correct or incorrect. This past election, this was not done and so we find ourselves in this situation with what I personally consider a poor administration.
Now, back to the original question.  Did you read it carefully?  did you try it? did it work? did you try to disprove the thought? or did you simply accept it and pass it on.  Hopefully , depending on which point you stopped at will  prove how far you actually went to select a candidate that was good for YOU...........but is he?  

things related to the question you should have found.


...(1) It only works if you've already had your birthday this year. (2) Will only work once EVER, unless you have another 2017 in your future. (3) You will always get the year you are presently in when you add the year you were born and your age.,and only after the birthday for that year.



Have a nice day. Check back for more .
Vito

EIGHTY AND GOING STRONG..........For being eighty

Birthdays.......................never really paid to much attention to them since I was 21, but at the time I hit the "over the hill" mark of 50 they had once again become a relevant marker of time. Started to see more and more proof of this once I came onto social media.  Now, growing up birthday's were one of my three favorite days of the year.  Christmas was number one, birthdays and then the last day of the school year.  Christmas and birthdays primarily because it meant .................a lot of presents.  The last day of school meant .....a two month vacation.  I longed for the age of thirteen just because it sounded like a new era for me........being a teenager, rather than just a kid.  Sixteen meant............I could now drive ........alone.  Eighteen meant ..............working or college and 21 meant drinking.  After that I seem, along with many others, to forget about birthdays and they just meant another day for a card attached to a shirt, tie or some other piece of clothing, primarily from your parents. The celebration part seemed to take a vacation   Twenty-nine years later the ugly number of 50 came into being............"over the hill 50" "downhill 50" "better do it now while you still can 50".

Social media seems to have brought back some glimmer of birthdays but only for the years I previously mentioned.  Very little is said about birthdays from 21-50.  Now, I do remember by 50th, 60th,70th and especially my 80th birthdays, that being only 4 birthdays in 40 years. Is there a meaning for this...................I don't know, why ask me?
I do remember my 50th, simply because I had begun talking about "silk sheets" and how that would put spark back into................you know what.   My prays were answered. Someone actually gave me BLACK, SILK SHEETS for a gift.  Now what??
At 60 I was now two years into retirement, people were beginning to talk about, how, after retirement if I had nothing to do, or no job to go to, I would die.
At 70 a grand celebration was made in Malmo, Sweden. It was right after a road trip around Europe and before returning home. People came from Stockholm, Copenhagen to help in this passage.
Most of all my 80th will always be remembered. Margot told me that Swedish custom was to have the person celebrating   this day pay for taking everyone out to celebrate .  I did just that, I called a family meeting to find out where everyone wanted to go for dinner.  We all ended up in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a week long party.  It was well worth it, My entire family with me for this time. Now you have to see the video.

See you all at NINETY,  when I will run with the bulls, or from the bulls or whatever.

(come back soon)

THE PAST COMES TO LIGHT !!!!!

Just so you don't think of me as a palagomist, I will admit from the get go that I did not write this. A friend sent it to me some time ago just to give me some kind of an idea on what to write about.  I just took this list out not long ago to see if there were some things I could add to my list of things that might be of some interest.
As I thumbed through the list it became more and more evident that life is so very much different now......then when I was growing up. No wonder people just shake their heads over what this wonderful world is going through at this time. The longer we live the more things get screwed up.  No wonder our kids and the new generation just can't believe what we tell them about our days of growing up. They probably never thought life could be so great.

WE ARE AWESOME !!!  OUR Lives are LIVING PROOF !!!

To Those of Us Born  1925 - 1955:  

   First, we survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank  While they were pregnant.

   They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

   Then, after that trauma, we were  put to sleep on our tummies  in baby cribs
Covered   with bright colored
Lead-based paints.

   We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets,  And, when we rode our bikes,  We had baseball caps,  Not helmets, on our heads.

 

   As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes..

 

   Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

   We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

 

   We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

 

   We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter, and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar.
And we weren't overweight. 
WHY?

   Because we were always outside playing...that's why!

   We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.  No one was able to reach us all day.  --And, we were OKAY.

 

   We would spend hours building  Our go-carts out of  scraps  and then ride them down the hill,  Only to find
Out we forgot the brakes.. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned  To solve the problem..

 

   We did not
Have Play Stations, Nintendos and X-boxes. There were  No video games,
No 150 channels on cable,  No video movies
Or DVDs,  No surround-sound or
CDs,   
No cell phones,  No personal computers,  No Internet and
No chat rooms.

 

   WE HAD FRIENDS  And we went
Outside and found them!

   We fell out of
trees, got cut,  Broke bones and
Teeth,  And there were
No lawsuits  From those accidents.
 
    We would get
Spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping-pong paddles, or just a bare hand,
And no one would call child services to report abuse.

 

    We ate worms,
And mud pies  Made from dirt,
And  The worms did
Not live in us forever.

 
   We were given
BB guns for our 10th birthdays, 22 rifles for our 12th, rode horses,made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and
   -although we were
Told it would happen- we did not put out very many eyes.

   We rode bikes
Or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just Walked in and talked to them.

  

 

Little League had 
tryouts  And not everyone
Made the team.  Those who didn't
Had to learn  To deal with
Disappointment.

   Imagine that!!

 

   The idea of a parent bailing
Us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! 

 

   These generations have
Produced some of the best risk-takers,  Problem solvers, and
Inventors ever.

   The past 60
To 85 years have seen an explosion of innovation and new ideas..

   We had freedom,
Failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all

 

   If YOU are
One of those born  Between 1925-1955, CONGRATULATIONS!

   You might want
to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids before the lawyers
and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

   While you are
at it, forward it to your kids, so they will know how brave and lucky their parents
were.

   Kind of makes
you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it 

 AH.....................THOSE WERE THE DAYS

Come back again

Vito

IT'S BEEN A GREAT LIFE

Some people have written me and asked, what the reason is that I'm writing a blog.....................especially about me.  Who in the world do I think I am.   Well, my friends, this started as a little challenge to life. A way of passing down ...................to my daughter, son and my twin grandsons a little bit of life factors..........that they may not have known about the old man. I wanted it to be just oral and photo vignettes of what life was about growing up in another era.  I wanted it to reflect basically four periods of life.
1. from what I can remember from infancy to collage
2. working years
3. retirement years to present
4. my prospectus on present day issues and my thoughts

I wanted all of this BUT in the humorous light of things rather than the harshness. After all. life is to be enjoyed. 
So far it has worked out that way. I can honestly say that the things I may have thought were bad  when they were happening, actually turned out to be funnier when I really thought about them. I try to relive some of them every time I need to fill an hour of time.  I remember sitting my grandsons down when they were at the age of being interested in what grandpa had to say .........and telling them some of "the stuff".  They would immediately turn to grandma and  ask " Is that true grandma" almost as if they thought she was there for everyone of those days.  I have led  life filled with all kinds of friends and have broken bread with people that some would only be able to dream about.  Sure, there are many things I wish I had done better or differently but I have very little regret for the way things have worked out. Now, I can look back and honestly say "been there, done that and moved on".

When I say.  "grandpa walked a mile to school in 10' of snow."  grandpa did that.......oh sure some might say...............and take that as SOME LITTLE imagination   Right after the snow plow had been down the road and pushed the snow to the side of the road where it then measured 10' it was all true.  The snow was 10' and the distance 1 mile. The comparison is very simple, now a days, the bus will not run in more than 10" of snow and school is now closed for a snow day. Proving      the youth are wimps.

Now, it's time to write that book...................not that I plan on selling a lot of copies..............I just want to have a Christmas gift to give with a bottle of my homemade  Vito's Vino.  What I've tried to do is go back over all my blog postings and put them in some kind of  chronological order.  That is a job in itself.  Seems that the almost 40 years I spent with SAS certainly cries out what my life was totally about.  Second comes my "growing up" years (school)  followed way in the rear is my retirement years. They just didn't seem to catch on................so that's the reason I just dabbled into anything I could get my hands into.  I just find that it gives me just the right amount of time and ATTITUDE to make my life still something to crow about.   I find myself totally involved in fact checking everything politicians are doing...............this administration has certainly increased my mind power to searching out information.  That leads me to the final chapter of my book. Now I have to find a name for that chapter.......................oh so much is going through this mind of mine right now.  It's like creating something of beauty and putting it down in pencil then turning into pen  and finally into the written word .  I have tried to self-draw my photo and it will soon be finished..


 Perhaps I will wrap up this part of my life and begin anew......................then again maybe I should just continue along the same road.



Before I go for this one.   Enjoy the video.  Perhaps I should consider show business.                  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrlKxJ7yQbo

come back again.

WHAT FEELS GOOD FOR ME



One day last week, I decided to take a lite nap just before dinner. I turned the TV on just to have a little noise in the background and found myself nodding off in less than the usual 5 minutes it takes. Twenty minutes later l was awake, my back was killing me from laying on the couch, legs stiff from hanging over the side of the couch so not to get the couch dirty from my shoes. I was more tired, felt lousier than before I started the nap and totally out of sinc. That's when I finally asked myself........"myself, why did I ever take that nap" I really feel tired.now.

This brings me to another part of the day.  Morning........oh what a glorious part of the day, just to be able to feel your eyelashes s l o w l y separating letting in a hazy start of daylight little by little, feeling the warmth of the bed covering close to my stretching body.  STRETCH stretch .... legs reaching for the end of the bed. My feet wanting to point my wiggling toes even further that I know they can go.  Slowly rotating my feet, first in a simultaneously same circle direction and  then each foot turning into opposite directions simultaneously ...........ah  what a glorious feeling..........my arms stretching reaching for the ceiling.......it's  like..........like my whole body is waiting to feel the start of the day, poised to be lifted out of bed and my feet touching the softness of plush carpeting caressing almost hugging my feet as I stand preparing my whole body for the first movement forward.   AH    what a glorious feeling.  That first step, a Little wobbly but well worth it, heading for the bathroom turning on the shower water while I relieve your body of liquids stored up over the past 7 hours, slowly stepping into the rushing  cold water but now feeling it getting warmer and warmer....................goose bumps now gone as you lean into the stream of water and feeling the warm water hitting my head and quickly rolling over my whole body.  The occasional squirt of the liquid soap being released by the automatic soap dispenser.  Finally rubbing shampoo into my hair and feeling it running down my body......................oh what a feeling. Just standing and feeling the water splashing on my face and quickly reaching my feet. I have the feeling that...........what's the rush to leave this................but I know that on the other side of the shower doors awaits the heavy terrycloth towel and the heat lamps to dry my body.............oh heaven. After this the day awaits for me. The rest of the  "waking up" is about to begin. Now dried and almost fully awake, I  let the final stage begin. Smell, the richness of the Arabic beans brewing my first cup of the day. A rich black cup of Zoegas (Swedish) coffee today, two eggs sunny side up, two slices of crisp bacon and one slice of lightly buttered Jewish rye bread.  What more can one person possibly ask for.  I better pinch myself just to confirm I have feeling.  Now to check to see if this was just a dream.  Open the newspaper to the obituary.  Lets see now.  Rizzo,     Rizzo,    Rizzo,    nope  not listed  let the balance of the day begin.

As I look out the window onto my deck, I can see that it is still to early in the season to enjoy my breakfast and my paper there. I must admit, once those days arrive, Seattle the rain capital of the USA turns into heaven on earth. The spot for all my serious thinking takes place on my deck and many of the world's problems are solved there.



It's always so much fun to find and publish a video of some sort.  Here is one that may put some people off but let me say,   NO ONE WAS HURT............it's just funny.

Little piggy

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/k1bG2EPGmI0?autoplay=1&vq=hd720&rel=0&showinfo=0&start=82&end=321


Just goes to show you how very concerned people are  about certain things.

come back again

I APOLOGIZE TO MY FRIENDS (NON POLITICAL CONTENTS)

I want to sincerely apologize to all my friends who read this blog about the way that I have used Facebook  to blow off my feelings about the Presidential election that has just taken place. I know my facebook twits were somewhat insulting from time to time but for those that did not want to read them you could have just  deleted them from your timeline.  Even though all of you are either family or good friends, I now have a third category so that I may eliminate those that do not wish to read those posts. Just another something to remember when I post on face book. At my age another thing to remember, which sometimes can be forgotten, just adds to a life or trying to remember everything.  HUH???  Margot tells me I should write things down,  I tried that and ended up with all kinds of scrap paper and sticker post notes pinned up in all rooms and on all the walls of our house, simply because ...that no matter where I was at the time I remembered to do something I knew that I had better write it down at that moment and not try to wait until I could sit down and write it on my list.  By then I would have forgotten it.  Finally, I have now become so organized that if something happens out of order my day immediately comes crushing down.  That happened about a month ago.  Margot asked me to take out the garbage. I figured that since I would take the garbage, I might as well take the recycles also...........so garbage bag in one hand and recycles in the other I headed for the door leading to the garage. Now, there are two steps to walk down and no handrail.  I have very good balance, walk OK, use no cane, walker or anything similar. First step no problem, second step I must have lost my balance for some reason and fell.  Garbage went flying along with recycles, Ended up breaking a  glass flower pot (Margot asked me to put away two days earlier, that I didn't write down so forgot to do that) and cut my right thumb at the knuckle.  YELLING for Margot  with that familiar phrase    ..........I'VE FALLEN AND CANT GET UP but no reply.  finally able to get up and noticed that my hand was now covered in blood, ran for the water tap to wash it out and discovered that the cut seemed a little deep and long.  When I finally was able to locate Margot it was determined, by her, that it probably needed stitches but she could drive me to urgent care instead of a call for 911 ambulance............Off we went.  Only three  minutes away going 80MPH  but Margot thought it best  to go the speed limit so I settled for 20 minutes, including stopping for two red lights.  WHAT A WASTE. Had to wait for a room at Urgent care and I tried to tell them all that this was a life threatening issue, even to the point that when this happened at home I moved so quickly that I forgot my walker...................but at this very moment  I DISCOVERED THAT I CAN WALK.  What a miracle.  Anyway 15 minutes with the doctor and I had 5 stitches  ( I think there should have been more)  and a bandaged thumb to the point where I could not bend my right thumb for the next week.  This also led to more complications. I can do NOTHING with my left hand including bathroom breaks.  Now that's really a hard chore, if you know what I mean, try sometimes using the opposite hand.  Long story short, a week later went back to have the stitches removed at which point it was discovered that two stitches were put in so tight the wound had to be reopened to remove the stitches.  Now a clamp would take the place of the two stitches for the next week.  This time they put a thumb brace on me so that I could not bend the thumb. Oh , the agony.  All in all four weeks without a thumb but happy now the see it working.
Now, I don't really know what this story has to do with remembering except that I could not remember what I wanted to write about when I saved the original start to this post so just added this in. This is not a confession that I am senile or any such thing.  I read the complete newspaper each morning, do the sudoku puzzle, start the crossword, and complete two other puzzles each and every morning so I am totally with it........brain wise...............to the extent that sometimes I forget.
JUST KEEP WRITING IT DOWN !!!!!!!!!!!    is the way Margot sees it.  She still feels that if I had written it down to clean the flower pot and put it away,  this would have never happened.   Oh the irony of it all.