The next time you hear or think about the numerous clichés that the “Golden Years” aren’t so golden, the years can also mean that you’re alive and living fully. Many families have unfortunately experienced the devastating heartache of the prematurely deceased. A couple of my high school classmates came home from the Korean War in coffins. Several friends and relatives died of dreaded diseases when they were young. My father died of Lou Gehrig’s disease when I was 10 years old, after several years of extreme suffering.
Here’s another cliché: count your blessings!
When I was 21 years old, I had an experience that has followed me, in a very positive way, into my golden years. It was 1951 and I was in the Navy during the Korean War, at sea on a destroyer, a small ship which usually operates with an aircraft carrier, a very large vessel. Destroyers can provide additional protection for aircraft carriers because they have depth charges, torpedoes and anti-aircraft guns.
We were on a practice mission with an aircraft carrier, and about 3 o’clock in the morning I was awakened by a loud, barking voice over the ship’s loudspeakers: “Stand by for collision! Stand by for collision!….” My small, folding cot was attached to the metal wall. I could hear the ocean pounding against the side of the ship.
I jumped off the cot, stood on the deck and braced myself against a stanchion, figuring I had maybe about 30 seconds to live or until something else happened. A couple of inches of the ship’s metal separated me from the ocean, as my cot was below the waterline. I would have had to scramble up two decks of stairwells to reach the main deck, and I thought I wouldn’t make it before a collision, and perhaps I was better off staying where I was.
I suddenly found myself cursing to myself, frequently using the F-word, as I thought that I would never be married, never have children, never have a life or career, never again enjoy a steak or lobster….
Suddenly, the loudspeaker voice barked: “All clear! All clear!….”
The aircraft carrier had narrowly missed crashing into us. In 1952, the USS Hobson, a destroyer-minesweeper, collided with an aircraft carrier, the USS Wasp, which literally cut the destroyer in two, and 176 crew members lost their lives. Shortly after my incident, I started trying to analyze my thinking at the time. I concluded that my anger at potentially losing my life and all those years that would follow overshadowed the fear of death. I had felt no real fear of the unknown – the real fear being of losing my lifetime.
And that thinking has followed me to the present, always trying to live as fully as I can, regardless of any flaws or failings.
A previous, long-ago neighbor of ours, once said: “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” His name was Albert Einstein and he lived in Princeton, in a house at 112 Mercer Street, from 1935 until his death in 1955 at the age of 76. I like what he said.
You remember Al. He used to make those unusual markings on blackboards, even in his golden years. They had something to do with a Theory of Relativity.
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