Telluride, February 22, 2024—Surprising my wife yesterday for her birthday who was on a ski trip with our nephew, I chose to use the remaining day of the journey to do a snowmobile tour, while they took to the slopes.
It has been 30 years since I snowmobiled, during a VH1 Celebrity ski event in Crested Butte. I was looking forward to it and remember I was pretty good at it.
As we started on our ‘three-hour tour,’ the first mile was on a narrow trail. To the left, slanted mountains; to the right, steep drop off about 1,000 feet to certain death, not to mention being responsible for the Polaris snowmobile.
Panic set in and I slowed down to a crawl, dropping to the back of the pack.
This was odd to me as I had done this many times but this time I was 71, not 41.
I did quite well, but It raised the question: Do we get bolder as we get older, or do our fears creep into our abilities?
Do we take our experiences in our lifetime and carry them forward to today, or do we realize the obvious: when we’re 41, we have decades ahead of us? When we are seniors, do we realize that, for the most part, we have at least a decade and maybe not much more?
Let’s look at skiing. Having started when I was 15, I traversed and snowplowed until my mid-20s, then again, in my late 30s when I met Hope, and we had friends who skied and it was a thrill.
Yet in the past few years, I chose the easier of the trails and chose not to take a spin on trails called the Devil’s End, Purgatory, The End, Satan’s Slalom, Trail of No Return and Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
I have nothing to prove, and some will say we need to continue to push our limits. I don’t feel that need. I like to try new things such as some of the travels we enjoyed but I take greater care in the ones that challenge my mind and heart, but not my mortality.
In the play “Auntie Mame,” the main character says: ‘Life is a buffet and most poor bastards are starving to death.
A la carte is my choice when I look at the menu. And they are my choices and at my age, I stopped listening to those who say ‘Come on, don’t be a wimp’ 55 years ago.
I ‘may’ do the polar plunge when we go to Greenland in August but we’ll see how far my boldness takes me. I may surprise myself and then again, the great philosopher Hillel said: “If I am not for myself, who will be?
I think it’s also a matter of conservation of energy.
I refer you to the joke about the old bull and the young bull standing on a hill above the pasture. The young bull says, “Let’s run down the hill and f**k one of those cows!” The old bull says, “Let’s WALK down the hill and f**k them all.”
I completely identify with your feelings on risk taking & pushing the envelope now that I’m in my 70s. My body is perfectly content taking the “easy” road although my mind is still not ready to admit that my age is an issue. Thank you as always for so eloquently speaking your truths .