fighting damien

Some years ago, I heard the term “bucket list” for the first time. I understood immediately what it meant. Since then, several friends and family have shared with the Cancer-Boy what the bucket list means to them. And, to be honest, as a stage-four pancreatic cancer patient, I get asked quite often what is on my bucket list.

When Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson made the movie “The Bucket List,” I had to see it. I’m worn out with Jack Nicholson, but will go see anything with Morgan Freeman.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when the two men are sitting atop an Egyptian pyramid and looking out over the desert.

Spectacular. Beautiful.

While Patti and I don’t talk about bucket lists often, or ever, she pulled one over on me a few weeks ago.

She made the following arrangements and surprised me with them. She managed for us to go to the Grand Canyon. Knowing how often I fall, even with my cane or walker … on a flat surface, for a fleeting moment, I thought this may be a life insurance ploy.

We flew to Flagstaff and took a cab to nearby Williams, Arizona. At Williams, people can take an old-fashioned train from Williams to the South Rim of the canyon. While on the train, people keep you entertained with skits and comedy, while you look at the spectacular scenery passing by you. Pine trees, wind farms, desert areas and mountainous areas. It was beautiful.

Once at the South Rim, as soon as we disembarked from the train, there were motor coaches within a few steps. Their purpose is to take people along the South Rim and make periodic stops at beautiful locations, for visitors to leave the bus, walk for a little and take marvelous pictures. All the while focusing on the safety of the customers.

On our day at the canyon, the weather was beautiful — loads of sunshine and periodic clouds. The rails along the paths are perilously close to the canyon cliffs. If someone were so inclined to step over the rail, to the cliff side, it would be a painful death. The trails were occasionally smooth and others were craggy and more of a challenge to someone like me who used either a cane of a walker.

Soaking up the beauty of the Grand Canyon

At the first stop, Patti and I stepped out and walked to the rail. I lost it at the first stop. Teary-eyed like a new-born. Right in front of my eyes was a true miracle of nature that God had worked on since the beginning of time and, judging by the speed of the Colorado flowing rapidly beneath us, He was still at work.

The geographic layers of the exposed mesas and craggy rock formations were truly impressive. Did I want to hike to the bottom? No. Did I have a respect for those who did, or those riding the Colorado in boats? Yes, definitely. Did I enjoy the views from every stop?  Absolutely. They were beautiful and incomparable.

As we were enjoying the spectacular beauty, Patti and I soaked up just about every site that came our way. Funny thing, though. I never thought of this as a “bucket list” event. Not once.

Later that afternoon, we rode the train back to Williams, satisfied that we had been witnesses to such wonder and been affected by it.

While we were riding back to Williams, I silently began thinking while I was watching the landscape pass before us. I have had a full     life. I have seen loads of national parks, like Yellowstone, the Badlands, Carlsbad Caverns, Devils’s Tower, the Everglades, Pike’s Peak, Rockie Mountain National Park, Mt. Rushmore among others.

And, I am thankful for the opportunity to travel when I was younger. I climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower; saw Napolean’s Tomb; climbed very partially up the Eiger in Switzerland; got high as a kite off grass in a park in Amsterdam; saw Jersey cows on Jersey island off the English coast; was overwhelmed visiting Le Mont St. Michel, an abbey in the ocean just off the French coast; loved viewing the Kon-Tiki in Oslo and taking the fjord-riddled train ride from Oslo to Bergen.

But when I think of “bucket lists now”, those images usually don’t appear much any more. But, every day that God gives me, I can wake up and see Patti smile, my “bucket list” is full … even overflowing.

Grayson Mae Reed with an Alfred Hitchcock profile

Back in J-school, the first thing we learned was that the lead paragraph should have the who, what, when, where, why and how — or at least as much of those as you can know.

Yesterday, my youngest daughter, Casey, and her husband, Rick, had a gender-reveal party at their home to announce that the child they are expecting in March will be a girl, and her name will be Grayson Mae Reed. The two of them really pulled this off well. Ever since they announced they were expecting, friends and family have been asking about the gender and suggesting names — but they never budged.

It has been quite exciting. For weeks now, we have been guessing on the gender and supplying suggested names to consider ad infinitum. At the gender-reveal party, guests were asked to wear either blue or pink, depending on whether you thought she was going to have a boy or girl. I wore a white shirt and pink tie. I have thought ever since Casey and Rick announced they were expecting that it was a girl. There was a lot of blue at the party.

So, when it was time for the reveal, they brought out a box with balloons in it. After some teasing from the guests, they opened the box to reveal a set of pink balloons. Very cool. Then, the cajoling for the name began. They told us the name and said she would be called Gracie Mae. She will be named after a few members of both sides of the family. Very well done and, for me, truly a beautiful name.

I know this appears to be rather matter-of-fact, but it was truly an emotional event. And, sometimes, these events, like a gender-reveal party, are part of something much bigger. I like that. I celebrate that. I revere that.

Here’s what I mean. Years ago, when I was a twenty-something living in Houston, I was shaving at the sink in front of the mirror in the bathroom and the radio was playing. I will listening to KILT-FM, a long-time pop/rock station there. Well, they were playing Steely Dan’s hit “Hey 19” just one too many times. At the time, it seemed like every song I heard on the radio was “Hey 19.” So I flipped the station to a country western station and the first song I heard was a Lefty Frizzell and Dottie West hit called, “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma.” I loved it. It made me smile. I was smitten.

Well, yesterday in the morning of the gender-reveal party, I ran an errand, and on the way back, “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma” came on the radio. I smiled, I chuckled and then I did something I have never done ever. I turned the radio up AS LOUD AS IT WOULD GO and let it play. I sang out loud to every syllable. When the song was over, I laughed out loud.

For someone born in Oklahoma, it was a truly wonderful moment. While I don’t think my parents had a gender-reveal party when they were expecting me, I have to believe there was just as much enthusiasm among friends and family of my parents as there was later in the evening for Rick and Casey. And, as it turned out, Grayson Mae Reed, has some of my relatives in there, and they were all born in Oklahoma.

And, there was an additional occurrence yesterday that had me stopping and thinking. Patti and I have been in our house here in Buda for two years this month. There is a small flower bed in the front of the house that is sustainable. For the first time in two years yesterday, I went out and pulled some weeds, trimmed the bushes and raked up the debris.

While I was raking, I stopped a moment to rest. As I stood there, a blue balloon came from out of nowhere and floated across our front yard. It then flew down the street and just kept on going. Knowing we were going to a gender-reveal part in just a couple hours, I stood there and went, “Huh?” As you might imagine, I wondered if this had anything to do with the gender-reveal party, or nothing to do with it. I had been pretty settled in my belief they were having a girl, but the blue balloon could have been a sign, or it could have been nothing.

After the party was over later in the evening, I told Patti about the chain of events for that day. We both smiled. I know there is a God that watches over us all the time, and God has a great sense of humor.

And I know He will reveal himself in His entirety to Grayson Mae Reed at the right time, and she will be all the better for knowing Him.

God bless you all and your family and friends.

Last week, I used fightingdamien.com to share with readers a posting that I read every Friday from the New York Times that focuses on books. While the book update from NYT gives the latest on books, it also hosts a mini-interview with a known writer, and asks the following questions:

1) What books are on your nightstand?

2) Who is your favorite novelist of all time? And your favorite novelist writing today?

3) If you could require the president to read one book what would it be?

4) You are hosting a literary dinner party. Which three writers do you invite?

5) What is the last book you put down without finishing?

At the conclusion of the posting, I asked readers to share with me their responses to these questions. My friend, Marion, was very quick with her responses to these questions.  Here are Marion’s responses, which I really enjoyed.

1) What books are on your nightstand?

2) Who is your favorite novelist of all time? And your favorite novelist writing today? 

Answer the same for both, Pat Conroy.

3) If you could require the president to read one book what would it be?

4) You are hosting a literary dinner party. Which three writers do you invite?

Pat Conroy (he is the BEST oral storyteller ever! when he portrays his Bible-thumping relatives, it is hysterical) William Goldman (had such a crush on him long before “Princess Bride”), John Irving.

5) What is the last book you put down without finishing?

Marion and I go back to college days, 1968 to be precise, when we met and worked at Astroworld, a popular amusement park in Houston, Texas. We both worked the first summer of the first year it opened, and we both worked at the entrance to the park. I was a groundskeeper, which meant with a long-handled brush and trash container, I swept up every cigarette butt and piece of trash that hit the grounds of Astroworld, from the Astrodomain parking lot, which was nestled next to the Astrodome, across the walkway that rose over Loop 610 to the entrance to the park. Plus, I also covered “Main Street,” which is what Astroworld visitors first saw after they paid and made their entrance to the park. I had a blue and white-checked Sherlock Holmes hat and short-sleeved, button shirt, just like every other groundskeeper who worked throughout the park.

Astroworld when it opened in 1968

Marion was ‘the’ Map Lady. Just inside the park entrance, Marion had a very highly decorated cart. With her extroverted style and outgoing manner, she was perfect for this job. She sat at, or walked around, the cart throughout her shift and sold maps of the park layout to those visitors who wanted some information that would help them decide where to do what and where to go to get there.

We became friends that summer and stayed friends as we entered college after the summer was over. Marion went on to Texas Christian University and I went to Southwest Texas State University.

And, for years after we both moved on to other things, Astroworld grew and became more popular. In years after Marion and I left, Astroworld built an old-fashioned white wooden roller coaster, just like you might expect at Coney Island. And, it continued to grow in size.

In 1975, the original owner of Astroworld, Judge Roy Hofheinz, former mayor of Houston, sold the amusement park to Six Flags. Six Flags then ran it as one its popular and profitable theme parks. They were successful until October 2005, when they closed the park down. From late October through early 2006, the park was bulldozed and demolished.

Astroworld today

Today, there is nothing but scrubland where the park used to be. The only thing that continues to exist that might remind people where the huge amusement park used to exist is the walkway that took visitors from the Astrodomain parking lot across Loop 610 to the entrance of the park.

Plus, the millions of memories people of all ages created when they visited the amusement/theme park during its heyday.

Marion, thank you for your answers to the questions, and for being part of the memories of a bygone era that I really enjoyed.