Farther West

Old age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill.

I didn’t believe that when I was young, even though Waylon and Willie recorded a pretty cool song about it.  But, how things change when the beard turns gray.

Getting old is great!  Discounts, lowered expectations, increased free time, grandkids… and the life-changing revelation that so much of what kept us panty-wadded for so many years is just a pile of poop.

Take money for instance.  When you’re young there’s never enough… and then come kids.  How will we ever pay for their college?  Then it’s how will we cover the weddings?  Finally, you worry about your retirement years.  Ruin is on the horizon!

Have any of you ever starved to death?  See?  All that worry for nothing.

My dad, who is 89, says that mentally he feels just the way he did when he was 17.  And don’t you?

I spend a lot of time now gazing off into the horizon.  Some call it the "1000 yard stare," but in true Knagg style, I’m looking a little farther west.

There are so many things in our lives that are really important… thing that have an eternal value… while there are other things that are just passing through.

I could make you a list of which are which, but that would be cheating.  You have to do your own starring off into space.

For me looking back, I wish I had spent more time being quiet out on a beach, or sitting on a mountain, or leaning back against a pine.  Have you noticed that’s what dogs do when they get old?

So, yeah, I’m getting to be an old dog.  Arf!

Slow down.  Take a breath.  Take another.  Then move on.

Thought for the week:  “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.”  Tom Russell