'Life is good today, Life is good today'

Personally, there’s nothing like the crashing waves, the bubbling of a moving river or the pure solitude of a high mountain meadow to be able to reflect.

While many seek church, I’m sold on God’s creations in Mother Nature.

As those waves crashed night and day — and another spectacular, yet rare, sunset due to VOG, volcano-induced sulfur dioxide nasty air — it offered the perfect cocktail for serious thinking time.

Oh, that’s along with the fleeting thoughts of favorite song lyrics from those beach philosophers, Jimmy Buffet and Zac Brown.

It’s a milestone birth year for me, having reached Medicare age back in late April. That offers plenty to think about in its own right with the circulating joke amongst my many friends 65 and older, we’re getting it while it’s still there.

That thought often brings to mind one of my favorite lines from “Growing Older But Not Up,” where Buffet refrains: “So let those winds of time blow over my head, I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.”

At 65, my parents were both pretty much housebound and had all kinds of false teeth in in their mouth They never walked anywhere because their smoker lungs would not let them. In fact, my dear, dear step-dad was six-feet under not long after he turned 65.

Me, well thoughts of going back to the top of the 9,600-foot high Eagle Cap to celebrate 65 with buddies were bounced when a bucket-list invite Rogue River surfaced. Life’s choices can be darned tough.

But even bigger personally is 2018 means my wife and I have realized one of those notable, and perhaps rare these days, mileposts in our personal journey, 40 years being married.

Zac, chime in please. You know the lines, “Life is good today, life is good today.”

And that’s what brought us to the shores of Kona, Hawaii — well along with a killer condo deal from my wife’s cousin — to celebrate that seemingly distant past, June 17, 1978.

Our party this time fell way short of being surrounded by a bunch of friends closing down a long-gone dancing spot in Dishman, Wash. That, mind you, was after two previous shindigs.

Like all long roads, be it behind the wheel of your car, or life, all has not been completely smooth. Suffice to say there have naturally been a few potholes. But those have been at least paved over and the journey continues.

“Life is good today, life is good today.”

Not only have we been blessed with beating the marriage odds, along the way came forming our own family with two daughters. Healthy and as happy as life’s ups and downs dictate. We joke that they DO NOT live at home in their 30s and have careers for which they actually went to college to obtain degrees.

And then came grandchildren, where the old joke about spoiling the heck out of them, loading them up with sugar and sending them home has at least some rings of truth.

But most of all we are fortunate because the little critters are smart and healthy. It’s just so scary that the swift cycle of life moves on at seemingly even a quicker pace than ever.

All of a sudden, they are 9 and 4. Yikes, where did THOSE years go?

Personally, I don’t even want to think about it right now, because next time I look they’ll be teenagers.

Zac, take it away.

“Got my toes in the water, ass in the sand;

Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand;

Life is good today; Life is good today.”

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.