Choices

I have enjoyed a long life that spans from the Great Depression of the 1930s, to the COVID-19 virus of 2020. I want to share my memories with my friends, family, and also the young ones. I want them to understand you don’t have to be rich to be happy. I never concerned myself with what I didn’t have, but with what I could have. This was taught to me by my Mother, as the book will demonstrate.

I write this book, not about walking in someone else’s footsteps, but about the tracks I made myself. Footprints left on a sandy beach will get washed away by the rising tide, but will never erase the enjoyment you had making them. I will refer to choices I made and roads not taken. My second favorite singer, George Jones, sang about “Living and dying with the choices I’ve made.” My first favorite singer will be revealed later on.

The last two lines of Robert Longley’s poem, “The Next Chapter” says it all: “It is you who writes your story, and you who controls your fate.”