Twice in 7 Days

I never ceased reading and enjoying the Lone Prairie Blog. Its excellence is a credit to my Home State for this expatriate North Dakotan.

So now for the second time in a week I find something stirring that merits comment.

The question posed is, “will we fade into nothingness when we are gone. Will we become a shade of forgotten gray”?

Read the post.

At 31 years old legacy matters. At 61 years old, not so much.

My legacy for better or worse is made. I’m more dangerous now because I have less to lose. In the movie with Sean Connery, “The League of Extraordinary Gentleman” from the comic of the same name there is a quote:

“Old tigers are the most dangerous, they know that their next hunt could be their last so they are more abandoned and take bigger risks.”

I have butchered the quote. The sentiment is intact. I’m an old tiger and know who I am. That’s more difficult for younger people.

I am fully aware and accepting that a hundred years from today I will be an entry in a birth and death page from an old Bible. A line in a family tree. A faded memory from a great grandchild in their old age.

Perhaps that’s why I write, why I teach, why I preach, why I invest myself in others.

That’s why I plant, why I till, why I try to change things.

It’s why I try to foster improvement in things with a sense of creative discontent. Happy but not satisfied, never satisfied.

I’ll not be famous, not in a real sense any more. I’m not sure even famous people really are. Name 20 influential politicos each or writers or business people from 1906.

Tough question. You’ll get a half dozen and hit tilt. I did.

Most of the “Famous” people of today, Sunday on Oscar Night, will die in marginal obscurity and be completely forgotten in 30 years.

I hope to be remembered in 31 years by a few.

But maybe not. It’s a great question and as a motivator for the right reasons a good reason to try to make life better, fight for right as I see it, make a little difference in someone’s life and someday step from time into eternity with a smile on my face.

He won’t forget my name, ever. It’s in his book.

You won’t be forgotten Julie.