Don't Go Quietly

Somewhere out there is a birthday/friendship card about the friend you want is not the one who will bail you out of jail but the one who is sitting there with you in jail talking about how much fun you had. I want to be the instigator who got us arrested for something like 'public embarrassment' and I have a couple of friends who would be sitting in jail with me.

I have two old friends who might be sitting in jail with me (you know who you are - don't deny it). One is a friend from college and one is someone who I started working with in the mid-1980s - you know who you are!

Back in 1981 I was told I had thyroid cancer and I should take it easy for the rest of my life, get plenty of rest, eat right, blah, blah, blah. I then thought about it and decided I would not play in traffic but I wasn't going to stay home and do nothing. (Hence, 10 Club Med vacations by myself but that's another story.) I have also done a lot of other travel, adventures, and finally some medical mis-adventures.

But I have also learned to cultivate a list of heroes, of people who I admire who have not gone quietly. Just last week, I learned about another person who did not go quietly. That is how I want to go. I'm still working on the details.

Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.