ADVENTURE I suppose that, in a technical sense, a person with ninety-plus years belted away as his or her very own, no longer experiences a sequence of events which can be called an "adventure." So much of that which we do today, whatever we try today, seems to fit into the pattern of what everyone else either is doing, of has done.
6, 2006 This past week end I attended a family reunion at Hickory some five or six hours south of our home in Virginia. How could some as mundane as that qualify as an "adventure"?
One point, and a main one,is my age is now "Goin' on ninety-one." At that age one is not supposed to go wandering around the countryside without good reason. I had several such points in mind. One was that the reunion was planned for here in Virginia but had to be changed. I decided I was going anyway, but I guess I didn't talk it over with anyone so when I overheard plans being made to leave daughter Barbara here to take care of me and send my wife Vivian off to be our representative at the family conclave.
I realized, of course, that I have had hospital adventures which might minimize my movements. I don't get around as well as I once did. I am cane-bound, chair-bound, pill-bound but also still ready and eager to "go."
On the trip down,I found I was so afraid I might miss something passing through areas where I grew up that I could not "nap" as had told myself would do. In Hickory, N.C. while staying at the same Hampton Inn we have before I became aware of the fact hat I have become a home-body, used to routines, schedules; lean-upon furniture and the other amenities of retired, post-operative living. Sleep evaded me. The adventure came in staying with it all, having a good time talking and listening to young and old alike. In spite of the fact that I was the oldest person present, I had a comfortable feeling that I was holing my own in conversation, conviviality, and consumption of elegant foodstuffs.
There were moments when we I had uncomfortable feeling as well. I have to admit I had some doubt concerning my travel-ability qualifications which underlines the hint of what we might call "adventure" or ninety-year oldsters.
It may well be that the reunion pathway for a family is that it gives the old folks a chance to see the young people maturing into individual personalities while at the same time it gives young people a once-a-year checkpoint to learn where
they came from and keys to to remarkable tomorrows yet to be.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 6-26-06 [c474wds]
