50 Ways to Leave Your 50'S

By Scott Ludwig

In my fourth book, In it for the Long Run, one of the most popular chapters with the readers was You can call me Al. It was all about my good friend Al Barker, the only person Ive ever met who brakes with his left foot. Wanting to capitalize on the popularity of using titles of Paul Simon songs, I reviewed his repertoire for an applicable title for this book. Since the book is about my last year on earth before turning 60 years of age, I initially considered Slip Slidin Away but thought that might project a negative connotation towards getting older. Instead I chose one of Simons more popular songs and gave it my own slant as I wanted to do 50 things Id never done before in the 12 months leading up to becoming a sexagenarian (dont get the wrong idea--it just means a person between 60 and 69 years of age).

On my 60th birthday (December 10, 2014) someone asked me how I felt. I said just like I did when I was 59. Heck, it was only yesterday (although my grandson calls it lasterday which if you really think about it makes a lot more sense).

As for the 50 things Id never done before. dont expect anything outrageous (jumping out of an airplane), dangerous (wrestling an alligator) or spectacular (making a dinosaur appear--but if I could my grandson would be SO impressed). Just 50 things pretty much anyone could do...as long as they have the right attitude. And by right attitude I mean sometimes you just have to say what the ___.

Just because I turned 60 doesnt mean I reached maturity overnight.

After all, maturity is for old people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491760987

Scott Ludwig

Scott Ludwig became a grandfather at the tender age of 54. Six years later he has a new ‘best friend in the whole wide world:’ Someone to run and laugh with and finds the audible passing of gas every bit as hysterical as him. Scott lives, runs, writes and is a grandfather in the beautiful countryside of Senoia, Georgia. The perfect setting for life...as a G-Pa.

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Copyright © 2015 Scott Ludwig.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-6097-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6098-7 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 02/18/2015

Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Chapter 1 No Effing Way

Chapter 2 All Bets Are Off

Chapter 3 Quite A Stretch

Chapter 4 No Way Out

Chapter 5 Deep In Enemy Territory

Chapter 6 The Emperor’s New Shoes

Chapter 7 Kind Of A Drag

Chapter 8 Bet My Sweet A**

Chapter 9 Running To Extremes

Chapter 10 Biting Off More Than I Can Do

Chapter 11 Couch Potato

Chapter 12 Sweet Tooth

Chapter 13 Bent On Lent

Chapter 14 An Even Dozen

Chapter 15 Made To Be Broken

Chapter 16 Multi Multi-Task

Bonus Track The Ultimate Runner’s High

Chapter 17 That Little Boy Smell

Chapter 18 Cuckoo For Coconut

Chapter 19 Yes Man

Chapter 20 Sleeping And Driving Don’t Mix

Chapter 21 Easter Service

Chapter 22 Get High

Chapter 23 Run With The Horses

Chapter 24 Professional Sports, R.i.p.

Chapter 25 Fair Weather

Halftime Better Left Undone

Chapter 26 Never Too Old For Young

Chapter 27 The Senoia Road Six

Chapter 28 Long Way To Run

Chapter 29 Letting Go

Chapter 30 Just Words

Chapter 31 Toot My Own Horn

Chapter 32 Sir Edmund Hillary Has Nothing To Fear

Chapter 33 Be Like Mean Joe Greene

Chapter 34 Fartleks With The Fox

Chapter 35 My Mister Magoo Moment

Chapter 36 Moving Violations

Bonus Track Indoctrination To Country Living

Chapter 37 Put A Fork In It

Chapter 38 Take Me Out Of The Ball Game

Chapter 39 Where Cell Phones Go To Die

Chapter 40 Psychopathic Symptoms

Chapter 41 What S.i. Jinx?

Chapter 42 This 1812 Was No War

Chapter 43 In My Skin

Chapter 44 Epicenter Of The Universe

Bonus Track Just Plain Stupid

Chapter 45 Take One For The Team

Chapter 46 Nevermore

Chapter 47 Kid In The Hall

Chapter 48 Country On The Rocks

Chapter 49 Color My World (Orange And Blue)

Addendum Karma Comes In Colors

Chapter 50 Age Gracefully

Solo Performances

The Calipari List

My 10⁰Th Blog 100 Things I’ve Never Done (Or Don’t Remember Doing If I Did)

Last Call At Wakulla

The Time Is Now

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

DEDICATION

To my son Justin, a constant reminder I’m getting older; and my grandson Krischan, who helps me to forget.

FOREWORD

In 2013 I tried something I’ve never done before: I wrote every single day of the year. I ultimately published those ‘chronological chapters’ in two books (My Life: Buy the Book Parts 1 and 2) that quite honestly could have been broken down into four books since they totaled well over 1,000 pages. But since hindsight is 50-50, what’s done is gone and there’s no use in crying over water under the bridge (I suck at clichés, incidentally) I looked ahead to 2014 and realized I would soon be doing something else I’ve never done before: Turning 60. On December 10, 2014 to be exact.

But anyone can be 60…or at least anyone who has the health, desire and good fortune to last six decades on this planet can. ‘So,’ I thought to myself, ‘what other thing could I do in 2014 that I’ve never done before?’

Then it hit me. Why not do 50 things I’ve never done before as a tribute to leaving the 50’s behind? Not like the 50 things you might find on the lists of someone like Tiger Woods (win a 19th major championship, buy Nike) or Richard Branson (find Sasquatch, buy Planet Earth) of course, but 50 things I—with limited means and abilities—could do while maintaining a full time job and keeping up with everything that crossed my path as a husband, father, grandfather, homeowner, writer, runner and cat wrangler (my wife Cindy and I have five).

Fifty things I’ve never done before…within reason, of course. It’s not like I was going to strip naked and run free in the middle of nowhere or anything. (Let’s try this again.) It’s not like I was going to build a spaceship and fly to the moon or anything. (There, much better.)

Now that 2014 is over I can honestly say it’s been a lot of fun. As you’ll find out in the pages ahead Cindy and I moved to the country after having lived in various cities for all of our lives. Best move we ever made. Just this morning a little after 4 a.m. as I was running along a country road near our new home in Senoia, Georgia a truck pulled up alongside me and stopped. The woman driving said she admired my dedication (apparently she’s seen me more than once—I’ve run pretty much the same time and route since we moved here a little less than six months ago) and really appreciated seeing me each morning on her way to work. Do you know how many times that happened to me in the 36+ years I lived in the city? Let me think for a minute. I’ve got it: NEVER!

Like I said earlier: Moving to the country was the best move we ever made.

It’s also one of the 50 things I’d never done before that you’ll be reading about in this book. As for the other 49, you’ll just have to keep reading and find out for yourself.

Scott Ludwig

January 13, 2015 (6:32 a.m.)

Senoia, Georgia

CHAPTER 1

No Effing Way

Swear off Profanity

I thought I’d start the year with something I’ve never truly done; something I thought would be relatively simple to do requiring very little effort or thought to accomplish. You know, something simple like picking the low-hanging fruit, shooting fish in a barrel or getting a degree from the University of Georgia. How hard could it possibly be to stop swearing for the next 365 days and finally fulfilling the one resolution that—year after year, I just can’t seem to keep? I mean, if I put my heart and soul into it and gave an honest effort to refrain from saying anything I’d be embarrassed to say in front of my grandmother (God rest her soul), then surely doing it for a mere 12 months couldn’t be that difficult, could it? Well, let’s give it a try and find out.

January 1 - Cindy and I had just spent the long New Year’s holiday with her two brothers and their wives at a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina. We would be driving the three-and-a-half hours back to our home in Peachtree City after I returned from my morning run. I headed out at 6:45 a.m. to run a hilly eight-mile course in a robust 24 degrees. The initial Arctic blast of icy cold fresh air caused me to mumble a couple of S-bombs to myself in the first 200 yards; I immediately wondered if I had already broken my resolution not to swear. I decided that since no one was awake within 10 miles of me—let alone within earshot—I hadn’t broken my resolution since no one heard anything I said (I’m using the ‘If no one hears a tree falling in the forest, did it make a sound?’ analogy). Once I got back to the cabin I quickly packed my bags, showered, loaded the car and waited silently and not-so-patiently but no one could tell because, like I already said I’m waiting silently and the best way to ensure I don’t swear is to be absolutely quiet. I carry on my silence once we were (finally!) in the car and heading home and considered a few subjects for casual conversation. I ultimately rejected every one of them in my mind because I had a very strong opinion on every single one of them and suddenly realized that when I verbalize strong opinions is when there is the highest probability of me using an S-bomb, an F-bomb or the worst of them all, the dreaded GD-bomb. I have a tendency to use them as adverbs or adjectives. For example most people would say a runner is ‘very fast;’ I’m prone to call that same runner ‘F-bombing fast.’ (I’ll stop here; I doubt you need any more examples.)

So I made it all the way home with my resolution still intact. So far so good: Only eight more hours until bedtime and I could say I made it through an entire day without swearing.

Around 3:00 p.m. Cindy asks me how much of the pound cake is still left on the cake plate in the kitchen. I removed the glass cover and as I set it down on the counter it banged against a large dish, made a loud CLINK that had I heard blindfolded I would have expected to hear the sound of shattered glass next. Fortunately nothing broke. I told Cindy there was still pound cake left and replaced the glass cover. Around 6:00 p.m. we finished our dinner and as I was taking the dirty plates to the sink Cindy asked me to get her a piece of pound cake. I walked over to the counter, removed the glass cover and as I set it down: CLINK! Two seconds after it happened I’m saying a silent prayer because once again nothing was broken (that’s the good news). However, one second prior to that I said perhaps the loudest GD-bomb in quite a few years. Remember me saying the GD-bomb was the worst of the lot? Well, the look on Cindy’s face (keep in mind she knew nothing of my commitment to keeping my ‘no swearing’ resolution this year) said it all: A combination of ‘Same old Scott’ and ‘It just KILLS me when he says that!’ Translation: LOO-ZER!

‘It’s a good thing I kept my resolution to myself,’ I thought to myself. If only I could keep my swearing to myself. I walked into the living room and saw the Georgia Bulldogs force a turnover against Nebraska, giving them hope of pulling out a victory in the Gator Bowl. ‘S-bomb,’ I yelled. (Surprise! I hate Georgia.) Cindy barely noticed; after all it’s just the same old Scott doing what he does best.

Tomorrow is another day. Surely I’ve learned from my mistakes.

Then again tomorrow is the day I am returning to work after being off for six days, a recipe for disaster. This might get ugly.

January 2 – I headed out the front door for my run at 4:10 a.m. It was not only cold; it was raining as well. I hate it when I have to start my run in a driving rain, especially when I’m leaving a warm, dry house behind. ‘S-bomb,’ I muttered to myself aloud for no one to hear but me, all the time remembering the falling tree in the forest from yesterday. I finished my run, shaved and showered (in that order; not the more commonly-said ‘showered and shaved’) and got dressed, impressed that over two hours had passed and I hadn’t said any naughty words except for those couple of initial volleys when I left the house for the first time. I woke Cindy before I left, intentionally avoided any sort of dialogue that might encourage the use of colorful adjectives and headed to work. I rode in the car, listening to the ‘70’s station and being alone with my thoughts when some a**clown in front of me waits until the last minute to move over one lane into the turning lane and caused ME to slam on my brakes and wait until someone allowed the a**clown to pull in front of them. As I always do when this occurs, I laid on the horn until I was able to move again. When I finally could I pulled up beside the a**clown and again, as I always do when this occurs, I looked him in the eye and shouted ‘F-bombing a**hole.’ Naturally with the windows up (it’s raining, remember) the a**clown (a**clown, a**hole—same person; sorry if I confused you) couldn’t hear me (falling tree number two); I had now gone a total of about two-and-a-half hours since waking up without uttering a bad word; at least not one that anyone else had heard.

Yet.

I called my supervisor on my cell phone to see how the day was shaping up. Although it’s the day after a two-day holiday, we’re going to be busy: Very busy, in fact. The kind of busy my supervisors and I are accustomed to calling ‘F-bomb me’ busy. This was going to be one of those days and as God is my witness I never stood a chance of not swearing: The words just flew out of my mouth. ‘F-bomb me.’ The split second I spoke those two words I realized what I had done. The next word, in retaliation for my slip of the tongue: ‘S-bomb.’

Realizing the day was already a total loss for my new resolution, I spent the next 10 hours using my regular colorful assortment of adverbs and adjectives, with the intention of making January 3 the beginning of the new me.

After all, tomorrow is another GD-bomb day.

January 3 – I woke up at 3:30 a.m. to outside temperatures in the mid-20’s and a wind chill that made it feel like it was in the teens. I drank my morning coffee and walked through the laundry room so I could get my running shoes out of the garage. When I opened the door to the garage I was hit in the face with an Arctic blast similar to the one a couple of mornings ago, causing me to mumble ‘it’s f-bombing cold’ under my breath, knowing I had ‘the falling tree’ in my back pocket. But then I noticed Morgan the cat in her litter box out of the corner of my eye, looking at me with disappointed eyes and making an audible ‘tsk tsk’ for my poor vocabulary choice. That surprised me, mainly because I had no idea Morgan was in the laundry room at the time but also because apparently even she disapproved of me using an F-bomb.

Three strikes, I’m GD-bomb out. I surrender. Profanity: You win.

POSTSCRIPT: For those of you with a similar condition I did a little research and found various suggestions for breaking the habit of using words you wouldn’t want your grandmother to hear. Things like:

• Recognize that swearing does damage.

• Start by eliminating casual swearing.

• Think positively.

• Practice being patient.

• Stop complaining.

• Use alternative words.

• Think of what you should have said.

• Blah blah and more blah.

It’s almost as if someone actually believes some of that shit might actually work.

PARENTS: Should you use this story in the character development of your children, please have them reference the key below, as it explains the meaning of the abbreviations found in the preceding narrative:

• S-bomb = shoot

• GD-bomb = gosh darn

• F-bomb = fudge

• A** = apple

• Shit = shit

CHAPTER 2

All Bets are Off

Win the Office Betting Pool

In 1985 I started a pool at work for the NCAA Basketball Championship Tournament, better known as ‘March Madness.’ The first year we had seven participants. The winner was determined by the total number of tournament wins your five chosen teams had during the course of the tournament. There was a two-way tie for first place that initial year. They decided to split the pot; all $14 of it.

Over the years the popularity of the pool grew. One year the prize money (winner take all) amounted to $395, the biggest payout ever offered. A woman who entered for the first time—and selected her teams by virtue of the appeal of the names of their mascots—won. In 1988 ‘John’ (maybe/maybe not his real name) picked the Kansas Jayhawks as one of his five teams. I distinctly remember mocking him mercilessly for picking the team with the most losses (11) in the field of 64 teams. Not only did Kansas win the tournament, ‘John’ won the pool. That was the day I had the confirmation I had been expecting: Betting Karma hates me. Last year was the 29th anniversary of the March Madness pool, and as you might expect I am oh-for-29.

I started another pool in 1985 as well: the NCAA College Football Bowl pool. The winner is determined by how many winning teams you can pick amongst all of the post-season bowl games. In the event of a tie there is a randomly chosen tiebreaker to determine the winner. In 1997 I was tied for the most wins heading into the final game of the year; we both selected Florida to beat Florida State in the Sugar Bowl. Florida won in convincing fashion, winning 52 – 20 so we had to resort to the tiebreaker to determine the winner, which was total passing yards for Florida’s quarterback, Danny Wuerffel. My guess was 440; the other guy guessed somewhere around 300. After three quarters Wuerrfel had already thrown for 306 yards, well on his way to the 400-yard mark. However, Florida had a commanding lead entering the fourth quarter so the need for Wuerffel to pass was gone, he was taken out of the game and the other guy won the pool, proving once again Betting Karma hates me.

I decided this year things were going to change. After this year’s bowl season Betting Karma would be kissing my ass: I was going to win the football pool and avoid matching my oh-for-29 record in the basketball pool. There was no way—NO WAY that I was going to be a composite oh-for-58 in the three decades of the two office betting pools.

After 33 bowl games I had 23 victories; the next closest person had 21. (I looked like a genius selecting Nebraska to beat Georgia in the Gator Bowl. Truth be known I hate Georgia so much I would never in a million years pick them to win anything. Then again I looked like an idiot for picking UNLV to beat North Texas. I wish I had taken the time to do a little research prior to making my selections; if I had I might have noticed that North Texas was favored over UNLV by something like a zillion points.) Regardless, even though I spent barely more than a minute selecting my 35 winners, I still had a two-victory lead with two games still to be played. I liked my chances.

My last two predicted winning teams were different than my rival, so I had three chances to win the pool: My team winning the 34th bowl game (Go Daddy Bowl; I picked Ball State; my rival Arkansas State), my team winning the 35th bowl game (the BCS Championship; I picked Auburn; my rival Florida State) or me winning the tiebreaker (total points in the championship game; I predicted 73 while my rival predicted 67).

Bowl game #34: Arkansas State beats Ball State 23 – 20. There goes my first chance of winning the pool, but not to worry: I still have two chances left. I feel as if I’m playing tennis and I have three match points and my opponent just fought off the first one.

Bowl game #35: Auburn against Florida State with the National Championship at stake. To win the pool I need Auburn to win. Should FSU win I need a minimum of 71 points scored in the game to win. Auburn takes a commanding 21 – 3 lead in the second quarter, but FSU closes the gap to 21 – 10 by halftime. In an exciting fourth quarter the lead changes hands several times until Auburn scores with 1:19 left in the game and pulls in front, 31 – 27. I won’t need the tiebreaker: Auburn would win this game outright and I would win my first office betting pool since the days of Ronald Reagan and MTV! ‘Turn the lights out, the party’s over’ as Dandy Don used to sing during the golden age of Monday Night Football. I thought the lyric was appropriate since this just so happened to be a Monday night, it was almost midnight and I was ready to turn the lights out and get to bed since I had an early alarm set for the following day (try 3:15 a.m. on for size).

But then…IT happened. Florida State made an incredible last-minute drive to score the go-ahead touchdown, taking a three-point lead and leaving a mere 13 seconds on the game clock for Auburn to retaliate. In other words, in another 13 seconds Betting Karma was going to kick me to the curb for the 60th time. Sure, my rival and I were tied with 23 bowl victories, but by virtue of the 65 total points in the game he won the tiebreaker.

I spent a restless 45 minutes or so in bed, finally falling asleep around 1 a.m. One-hundred-and-thirty-five minutes later my alarm reminded me I was a loser, and that it was now time for me to start preparing for this year’s March Madness office pool. After all, Betting Karma will be ready to flex its muscles again by then and will be looking for its most dependable fall guy.

However, it wasn’t a total loss as I had a ‘first’ I wasn’t expecting: After only two hours and 15 minutes of sleep I went for a 10-mile run at 4 a.m. in five-degree weather with a wind chill that lowered the temperature to a robust minus 10 degrees. I’m fairly certain I’ve never done that before and if there’s a God other than Betting Karma I doubt I’ll ever have to do it again.

Postscript: Later in the year I didn’t win the March Madness office pool yet again, extending my lifetime record of futility to 0-30. I’d be lying if I said I was surprised, because I certainly wasn’t.

CHAPTER 3

Quite a Stretch

Take a Yoga Class

When I signed up for my first yoga class last month I was the first person to sign up. That made me a little concerned for two reasons: (1) The lone requirement for the course—other than the $27 registration was that ‘students should be able to move from standing to the floor without assistance’ and (2) if that is the only requirement for the course, how difficult could it possibly be? The class was