Grugger’s Way

I don’t recall when I first fantasized about traveling around the country in a motor home, wild and free, I imagined, like a wandering saddle tramp in the Old West. But it was probably during high school in the 1960’s. I wanted to buy a used school bus, fix it up (PAINT!) use it as a place to live at college. I figured I could take it camping on the weekends and then take cross-country trips during the summer months. Ha Ha. Reality check, 18-year-old. Every thing takes MONEY! So I joined the Navy.

Yesterday, I found myself telling a former co-worker that I am bored now, and beginning to think about a part-time job.

When I thought about it some more I realized that I am not bored. That’s not the correct word. I am simply living in a rut.

Unlike when I was an employee and someone was Paying me while I worked on a boring project, I am now free to schedule my own time and I can’t justify (or blame someone else) for being in a rut.

I follow virtually the same routine each day–house chores–house pets–paperwork to attend to, and then…sitting here at the computer until noon.

Afternoons are for working outside or in the garage on special projects, and then, more often than not, a trip to town to run errands. That trip takes about two hours.

Once home again, the routine kicks in, with pet needs, other chores, preps for dinner, checking in by phone with other family and friends, then dinner with the wife when she arrives and three hours or so of television, often ending with both of us falling asleep in front of the TV, (like I am exhausted from all the work).

Perhaps this experience should be teaching me something about routine: it is how we measure our days, find some discipline in the otherwise unstructured and unscheduled lifestyle that is retired life.

I realize that a part-time job would detract from the variety of activities that we look forward to as springtime arrives. Most part-time jobs involve working evenings and on weekends. Spring and summer are our times for getting out in the Montana wilderness and enjoying our free time. Fishing and camping and day trips are planned for almost every weekend. A part time job would deprive me of the time my wife can spend with me.

Her full-time job is what enables me to remain retired, so I need to ensure that her free time is my free time too.

I know some people don’t like the term “older folks,” but it beats the heck out of “the elderly” or even “the aged.”

But this blog post is about blogging for “folks” like me and maybe like you: Over 50 or over 55 or somewhere above that (like me).

I started my first blog just one year ago, on January 19, 2008.  Interestingly enough, in looking at that first post, I talked about my WEIGHT, the entry was entitled, Weighty issue .

I could be writing that very same post today, because nothing much has changed in the past year.  My weight has been up and down some, 5 to 10 pounds, but today I am right where I was a year ago, needing to lose 6 or 7 pounds so I can fit into a decent pair of dress pants to attend my wife’s business Christmas party.  It’s always about the third week in January, after everyone else’s big “to do’s” are over with.

I’m going to be overweight, so I am accepting that.  I don’t look really bad; I just can’t fasten the pants.  I had a colonoscopy on Christmas Eve and I thought maybe the “preparations” for that would help me lose 5 or 6 pounds, but it really doesn’t work that way.  A guy has to eat.

My Blogging has been up and down this year too, with too many blogs, trying to do too many things, writing about too many subjects, trying to figure out how to make some money for all the TIME that it takes.   I’m not making much money.  Advertising clicks are few and far between.  Lots of “views” but very few “clicks.”  A blogger needs clicks on the Google Ads to make any money at all.  I joined up with a social networking site for bloggers called EntreCard, and that has resulted in quite a lot of visitors to the blogs, but many visitors just check out my most recent posting and then move on.  (no clicks on ads, ha ha)

They say there are over 77 MILLION blogs world-wide.  I don’t know about that; the number is so crazy high that I could not begin to comprehend what all those people write about!  EntreCard has over 40,000 blogs.  That is quite a lot for me to consider visiting.  Obviously, I will not visit 40 thousand blogs.  I visit the ones who visit me.  Visitors “drop” by clicking on the EntreCard widget, and that shows up in my account.  Most of the readers of this blog already know this.  Maybe my Mom doesn’t. She is my most reliable and unfailing reader.  I love you, Mom.  Now we need to get you blogging too!!

I am going to hold off on putting a “total” number with the names of places I would like to see; so this post is not entitled “Top Ten” anything.

There are many famous landmarks around the world that I HAVE seen, and the experiences were usually wonderful.  I am kind of a geography/history/architecture/archeaology/el corrida afficionado, so landmarks, “wonders” of the World, and such are big in my mind.

First of all I want to see Wrigley Field.   Okay, so it may not be a “wonder” of the world, but who knows how long it will stand?  For that matter, who knows how long I might stand?  In all probabability, Wrigley Field will be here (there–Chicago) way after I am gone from this world.  But then, that is what I always thought about Yankee Stadium too, and know I’ve had to just scratch that off my list!  Fenway Park is another landmark that I MUST see.  Since Boston is on my main list for Many Many reasons, Fenway Park is a good possibility…so long as they don’t demolish it for some brand new, chrome-y, stainless steely, concretee edifice that lacks all memory of Carlton Fisk, or Jim Rice (by the way, congratulations to Jim on Hall of Fame this year).

Before this gets all out of whack–sizeways. Here is my list.  I won’t add a lot of comment because…well, who cares WHY I want to see something before I die?  This is just a list that you might find interesting and consider for your own “bucket” list, so to speak.

• The Great Pyramid and the Sphinx
• Morocco
• Ghana
• New York and the Empire State Building
• Great Britain, London, Dublin, Glasgow
• The Fjords and Oslo Norway
• Paris and Eiffel Tower
• Castles in Romania, Austria and Germany
• The Matterhorn, Geneva and Zurich
• Copenhagen Denmark
• Hearst Castle (California)
• Boston and Fenway Park
• Chicago and Wrigley Field
• Disney World and Epcot

So that you don’t think I have left off some of the great places, I will mention that I have been to the French Riviera, Rome, Barcelona, Valencia, Malta, Athens, Crete, Tokyo, Nagasaki, Manila, Perth, Australia, Mexico, Hawaii, Seattle, New Orleans, San Antonio, Dallas, El Paso, Corpus Christi, Omaha, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Rapid City (Mt Rushmore), Pensacola, St. Augustine and Daytona, Myrtle Beach, Kitty Hawk, Virginia Beach, Philadelphia and Washington DC and points in between.