THIS OLD BEAN WILL NEVER BE 86 AGAIN.

      That's right . I recently turned 87.  86 had a nice ring to it. It was a nice number.

     However,  87 is what it is. I enjoyed being 86 and I will enjoy 87 as well.

    The hardest thing about being 87 is to wrap your head around the number. It's hard to realize one is 87. We have it in our head that we are much younger. Do you think your much younger than you actually are? I have been guilty all my life and looking at people in their 80' and think they look old. Once in a while it hits me that I'm in my late 80' and I look just like those old people. 

    In reality, I'm in excellent health and am thankful that I am fortunate to have the good health.

MIEUX

         Mieux vaut prevenirque guerir.

                            From my Chinese saying in my cookie

     So most of you will run to change this to English. I feel  little mean on this one but thought I'd have some fun. My daughter will not change it to English and will probably not notice that it's French.

SADNESS

         I have one memory of my son's sadness that remains with me.

        Me !  of all people went to cub camp. There were about 50 kids and we were at a permanent scout facility 

. We were tenting and I was with my son and two of his friends. The tent and tenting was chaotic. They had a hard time getting ready for tent inspection. Many good  activities were organized for the kids. 

      One activity was archery. Supervisors took a few kids and showed  them how to shoot with a bow and arrow. the kids plunked away at some targets and had a good time except for one kid. MINE!

      When the activity was over and the equipment was being put away, I found my son in great distress. He did not have any success in archery. I could always tell when my son was in distress. There were sobs and tears. I suggested to him that we get the archery equipment and go by ourselves and try archery.

     Brian is a lefty. Right handers were teaching the kids to use the archery equipment. He could not function from the right. It was hard for me to show him how to shoot right. Somehow we got the proper procedure. You guessed it. He nailed some targets and immediately he was happy with his success. 

     I will never forget how absolutely crushed he was by not being able to use  archery equipment.

MUSIC

              In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am.

                                                                     Charles Mingus

              This is a very deep thought of an artist. Charles Mingus was an American Jazz artist.

MEMORIES

           Our children give us  some fantastic memories over  the time we have them. Well, I still have my children. They just don't live with me.       

         Both of my children have given me one striking memory.  I will describe these memories in separate posts.

         One pleasant summer evening I took my daughter on a bike ride. I think she was only seven or eight and we rode 18 miles. I don't know what I was thinking by taking her an such a long ride. We had just finished a major city park development plan. One of the parts of this plan was a major trail system. There were several areas where the trails went through old gravel pits. On my own I would often stop in various areas for a look.

      So I stopped with my daughter in a quarry. All of a sudden I saw two very young fawns lying in some sand. They never moved. I nudged Michelle very quietly and told her to look. When she saw the new fawns her body froze. We watched the fawns for several minutes. They never moved. We moved on.

     I will never forget the instant freezing of her body when she saw the fawns. She knew that it was an important sighting and was something many people do not ever see.

WRITING

                   I like to write when I feel spiteful, it's like having a good sneeze.

                                                         D.H. Lawrence

                Well I can write easier when I'm not spiteful.

LIFE

        What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?

                                                               George Eliot

        Excellent suggestion,