PTom

Gee, retired twice, have gone back to school, am now overseas as a contractor in the Mid-East for the second time…what’s next to do? Guess I’ll have to grow up and settle down…nah, I may grow older, but I refuse to grow up! Heck, I’m not even out of my 60’s yet! But I would go back to flying helicopters again in a heartbeat!!

I think the true worth of a person is if he/she is truly missed by friends and acquaintainces when they’re gone. The money you made, the things you’ve built, really don’t mean that much, at least for the vast majority of us. But if people, hopefully many of them, have a memory of us pass through their thoughts after we’ve departed and that memory makes them smile for having thought of us, then we’ve probably done pretty well in life.

A couple of years ago I called up an old friend I hadn’t seen or spoken to since we graduated from college (42 years ago now!). He wasn’t there, but called me back in 2 days when he returned and we talked for about an hour. I didn’t know it, but he and his wife were planning on coming up to WA state for a visit that next summer (they lived in Louisiana and summered in Colorado). I found that out when I heard from his widow about a year later. He had died 2 weeks after we had spoken. That was the third time I’d lost a friend. The other two had passed away before I got in touch with them. Wish I’d have contacted them long before!