An Amazing Life

I was thinking tonight about my life. I'm 65 now and I was sort of amazed at just how many different things I have been able to do in my life when so many people my age are already gone.

I think the best way to describe my life is that I am someone who always survives everything no matter how bad it gets or how good it gets. I think surviving ones successes is even harder in some ways than surviving ones failures. For example, I have survivor's guilt that God saved me from the Viet Nam War because he had already almost killed me twice already, once with whooping cough and once with blunt trauma childhood epilepsy.

But, it is what happened in my life despite almost dying all those times maybe that matters the most:
SCUBA diving lessens at age 12 that I paid for by working as an electrician's helper summers with my Dad. I convinced him to become a certified SCUBA diver so I could get a license too at that age in Los Angeles County. Then SCUBA diving off of Catalina Island from a dive boat and seeing moray eels, sharks and going into a 50 foot deep cave and finding lobsters there and confronting a Moray Eel that also liked lobsters at age 12.

Flying gliders at El Mirage when I was 16 and the feeling of when we released the plane towing us and we glided free and then actually started going up on the desert Thermals.

Buying my little Mini-Bike (small 2 1/2 horsepower centrifugal clutch 2 1/2 to 3 feet tall) 30 mph top speed 8 to 10 inch wheeled vehicle when I was 12 that my older cousin (a mechanical genius)  tuned up to the max while riding shorts at about 40mph  peeled himself completely while riding it in the desert by flipping it.

I remember the worst accident on a motorcycle was a 5 mph on the mini-bike when I was teaching my then 5 year old cousin to ride and but instead drove one of the foot pegs into my shin. It hurt for months and I still have a dent in my right shin from that.

Riding down dry washes in the desert with all the desert flowers in bloom on this mini-bike when I was 12 to 16 years old. My Dad buying 2 1/2 acres in the desert above Yucca Valley and building a house with him on weekends 1968 until 1980 when he retired there with my mother.

Owning and riding several off rode dualsport types of motorcycles from 600 CC to 250CC that I owned for 20 to 30 years or more and also riding my DAd's Honda 90 trail bike that could climb a mesa at under 5 mph in low range going almost straight up.

Mining with my Dad in his old Jeep Truck he towed down from his Dad's place in Seattle. Remodeling my Dad's 1946 Spartan 28 foot trailer to stay in while we built his house in the desert on weekends from 1968 until 1980.

Surviving my Dad's passing in 1985 and 6 months later going to India, Nepal, Thailand and Japan for 4 months with my family and how much that permanently changed all of us and made us citizens of the Earth like never before.

This only begins all the amazing things God has allowed me to do and to survive in my life.

I was getting my teeth cleaned today and I realized how adaptable you have to be in life to survive this long. All the changes you have to deal with and adapt to to still be alive still at age 65 when so many relatives and friends are already gone.

Maybe that's the best gift Christmas is giving me this year, to be grateful for how blessed I have been already in life with 3 biological children that are all healthy, 2 step kids doing well, two God Daughters doing well etc. etc. etc.

Life has blessed me even though at the time sometimes I thought I was going to die from the things happening in my life. But, God has blessed me and luckily I listened to God and angels and because I listened I'm still alive and still going strong.

Whatever you do don't panic especially after you are 50. Life is an adventure! Enjoy it whenever you can!

Note: If you want to see photos of the remodeling process of a 1946 Spartan Trailer here it is:
http://www.taildraggeraviation.com/restotrailer.html

Here is what my Wren Min-bike by Bird looked like:
. I had a different seat on it that my Dad custom made for me out of Gold Plastic wrapped around 6 inch foam but other than that it looked pretty much like this one. It had a centrifugal clutch so you pushed with your feet at first until you got up to about 5 to 10 mph. Then from about 10 mph you rocketed up to about 30 mph if you were in a situation to do that.
However, you had to be very careful and coordinated if you rode it on dirt or sand and most of the time if the dirt was loose I would keep my legs and feet ready to stick them out to prevent a crash. But, for a 12 to 16 year old it was great fun. I taught 20 or more friends over the years to ride it. It was my very first motorized vehicle that I ever owned at 12.