Sibling Assignment #60: Accomplishments At Sixty Years Old

For Sibling Assignment #60, Silver Valley Girl assigned the following task:

I realize some of us are closer than others, but, never the less, what are 10 things you would like to accomplish by the time you celebrate your 60th birthday?

Silver Valley Girl's hopes are here and InlandEmpireGirl's are here.

My first response to Silver Valley Girl's question is, very honestly, I don't have the slightest idea. Very, very honestly, my mind doesn't work this way. I am not goal oriented nor do I peer very much into the future with accomplishments in mind. I've never been very good at this. BUT, I signed on to these Sibling Assignments, so I am going to do my best to list ten things I'd like to accomplish by 12.27.2013.

1. Dark as it sounds, I'd like to be alive and healthy. I never know if the damage caused by the gas I inhaled at the Zinc Plant in 1973 is going to assert itself and become a cancer or something. The meningitis I suffered in 1999 has reduced my kidney function by 70%. So far, I've not experienced further decline, but I wonder how long my kidneys will stay at this level of function and keep me going well.

2. I want to keep coming back to Kellogg as often as possible and enjoy my mother while her health remains sound and enjoy my sisters and my friends in and around Kellogg. It's one of the deepest joys in my life to have free time in the summers and come back home and be where I think I belong.

3. I'd like to finally read Charles Dickens' novel Bleak House. I've started it several times and have always become distracted and I'd like to tie myself down and finish it.

4. I'd like to learn to use my current camera, and maybe future cameras, more fully and have a better understanding of what is possible in taking pictures with a camera.

5. I'd like to continue to learn as a teacher and continue to try new things and continue to mature as a teacher. At my age and with my experience, it can be tempting to fall back on classroom practices I've always employed, but at the age of 54, I continue to teach new books, focus my courses differently, design new assignments, and stay fresh and stimulated.

6. I took a drive in 1992 that I called the Richard Hugo tour. I traveled to many of the towns his poems are set in and walked the routes that some his poem's follow in those poems. I'd like to do that again and visit some of the small towns I didn't go to before.

7. In January, I found out that I live fairly close to Kellogg, Oregon. I've lived in Oregon for almost thirty years and I never knew about Kellogg, Oregon. I must go there and see what the other Kellogg looks like.

8. I've never hit a slot machine jackpot. I'd like to.

9. Harlan County, USA is a documentary film I am deeply moved by and I have a strong urge to travel to Brookside, KY where the movie happens and explore that part of Kentucky and on over to West Virginia and see the scraped off hilltops, a result of hilltop mining.

10. I'd like to find a joint here in the Eugene area comparable to Smelterville's Johnny's Bar or the Kingston Exxon station where guys get together every morning for coffee. I'm afraid that here in Eugene this will be the hardest thing on this list to accomplish. At these places in the Silver Valley where guys get together, they've know each other for decades, from when they were young.