5. Are there any experiences on your bucket list? Can we do them together?
The generations should think carefully before asking each other about doing bucket list activities together. I recently heard some of Warrior Queen’s, and they all noisy and/or strenuous. In turn I shared some of mine with her and she wasn’t keen on hearing ‘all of Verdi’s operas” let alone one of them.* A shared bucket list item such as ‘going to Aruba” is OK provided the oldsters can wave the youngsters goodbye from their lounge chairs (drinks in hand) while thems with good knees go running off to jet ski or whatever they do nowadays on holiday.
Probably more interesting is to tell them of the grand adventures and follies you had when you were that age. This often leads to puzzlement and disbelief as young ones often find it out hard to imagine you as anything but your old boring self and not as once upon a time a young, daring, and impetuous person (like my men). Mercifully there was no internet or social media while I was growing up to record for eternity all my disgraceful doings. True, there are a few photos but happily not many and the owners have been paid to keep their mouths shut.
Another nice thing about no written records or survivors from my childhood is when telling about that time you and your buddy went on a whim to Austria without thinking or when you rolled down a grass hill into the muck you can allow yourself one or two small evocations. One can be a General McBrag about the whole sordid matter or completely expunge the tale if the audience is of a faint heart.
Alas, Babylon! I have no grandchildren with whom to share a bucket list item. My siblings wisely didn’t hand off the niblings to me when they needed a break lest Auntie Mame-like I gave them back long after the agreed upon return date. I would be happy to take Princess Goddess and Warrior Queen to Paris provided I get to see the museums while they attend the Paris nightlife. We would keep separate hotel rooms of course lest there are hommes jolies gentleman callers for either party and no none of us would post on the internet merci beucoup Let them grow up and tell their own niblings of fun times past.
*Worse, she didn’t know who Verdi was. Oh the pain.
20 comments
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June 27, 2024 at 7:07 AM
jefferyrn
My granddaughter went to Europe by herself. I gave her money to spend as she wished and she went for six weeks. Something I dreamed of at her age.
June 27, 2024 at 7:23 AM
Urspo
Good for you for letting her do something like that; I hope she always remembers you doing this for her.
June 27, 2024 at 7:26 AM
Alicia
It’s difficult to come to one choice when it comes to bucket lists and multiple people. One idea I read about was to each write down 10 or so things you want to do and then compare lists and hope that you all had at least one thing everyone wanted to do and then do it. I too have no grandchildren as yet and I’m ok with it, not that I have a choice!
June 27, 2024 at 9:15 AM
Urspo
hey, not a bad! That’s a splendid idea.
I wish I could get Someone to do this.
June 27, 2024 at 7:35 AM
Robzilla
I’ve never had a multiplayer bucket list, but it felt great to check off the last two items on my automotive bucket list with one car two days ago. In a rare color like Caribbean Aqua, to boot.
June 27, 2024 at 9:16 AM
Urspo
I feel contrite I have not had an opportunity to drop by and have a look-see at your new baby. I hope by week’s end.
June 27, 2024 at 8:45 AM
Anonymous
I remember two things my mother said she had wanted to do–go to Alaska and to own a robin’s egg blue convertible. Of course, I was a little shocked my mother had wanted either. Now, I wish I had the means to make the first one come true. She did tell me she rode from Memphis to DC in the sidecar of Daddy’s motorcycle. That was shocking, especially since she was pregnant with me. I don’t know if there were cruises to Alaska in the early 40s.
I suppose I would have liked to go to Stonehenge on the solstice so I go close and to Hawaii, and to land of Wordsworth–the Lake District when there were fields of daffodils.
June 27, 2024 at 9:17 AM
Urspo
Nice images, these
I am quite fond of daffodils; I have often said I would like to die when the daffodils are in bloom.
June 27, 2024 at 9:08 AM
Debbie W.
For better or worse, I have no grandchildren. Neither my adult son nor my elderly mother maintain a bucket list, and I have no bucket list either. Perhaps we are all dull people, or we are easily content with our lives as they are. I’d like to think it’s the latter.
I love the mental image of you taking Princess Goddess and Warrior Queen to Paris. Please do it someday, and discreetly share a picture or two. 😊
June 27, 2024 at 10:25 AM
Urspo
Yes, it is better to be content than to have a sense of undone/didn’t do things/regret list. Good for you!
About the nieces, they are too polite to say out loud they would sooner eat rats at Tewksbury than travel with their silly old uncle.
June 27, 2024 at 10:21 AM
David Godfrey
After my grandfather(s) died, one of my grandmother’s and I checked a few things off of her bucket list, including visiting Washington DC, St. Louis, Mammoth Cave. I have very fond memories of those experiences. I took her to the Jack Daniels Distillery.
June 27, 2024 at 10:45 AM
Urspo
What a good tale that is I hope gran was grateful for the tour.
June 27, 2024 at 10:27 AM
Anonymous
I was able to take two of my nieces to London and Paris when they were in elementary school. Hotel points allowed us all to stay in very nice digs. Which unfortunately, made their stays 4 to a room
in Hampton Inns etc during travel soccer tournaments suffer in comparison. I suggest you and Someone do a scouting trip to Paris this fall. Once you do due diligence and check if the hotels have “decent” hairdryers, you can count on the city working its magic on you now and all of you when you all go.
June 27, 2024 at 10:46 AM
Urspo
I have a provisional plan to go to VA this fall to see the sights and visit dears well over four feet. This has the advantage I won’t have to mind two adolescent girls.
June 27, 2024 at 2:00 PM
Anonymous
Virginia is for lovers was their tourism tagline for awhile. So enjoy.
June 27, 2024 at 1:29 PM
Debra She Who Seeks
Comparing separately prepared lists is how a friend and I used to pick the plays we would go to at the Stratford Festival. That’s a good memory in and of itself!
June 27, 2024 at 1:31 PM
Anonymous
My grandparents , maternal and paternal save one died in the late 90s and one in 2002 . I have nieces who I could travel with but their politics is just like my brothers so that would be a short trip. DwightW.
June 27, 2024 at 6:34 PM
Anonymous
I don’t believe in bucket lists because they reduce what should be an experience to a task, which I do not believe are the same.
Nevertheless, a trip to Paris is always appropriate and should be savored. Your plan of separate suites so gentlemen callers or jeune filles can be entertained is sound. Just imagine the petit dejuener (sp?) with stories with suspended silences as certain details are omitted.
Will Jay
June 27, 2024 at 9:55 PM
Old Lurker
Small evocations? Inconceivable. I am sure that Someone will back me up in asserting that you are such a no-nonsense truth teller that you should have been a Boy Scout.
I am also certain Princess-Goddess and Warrior-Queen (not to mention Posthumous Thomas) would be delighted to travel with their favorite guncle, so long as it is not a trip to the opera. If not Gay Paris, they might be interested in visiting you in the desert.
June 28, 2024 at 10:50 AM
BadNoteB
My grandparents were of a generation so focused on just having a reliable bucket that the luxury of a wishlist to place in one never crossed their minds. Looking back, it seems unreal to imagine lifetimes spent never traveling over 25 miles from one’s birth place in an isolated community where anyone with less than third generation local lineage was suspect as a carpetbagger.