A Bucket List

Much ado was made yesterday on my coming-home-from-work radio station about the death of Dave Freeman, author of 100 Things To Do Before You Die. He left the world at the all-too-young age of 47, having been to only half of the places he mentions in his bestselling book.

Mr. Freeman's book spawned a lot of imitators and got a lot of people talking about the things they most want to do before they die. It inspired many people to create their own "bucket lists."

In honor of Dave Freeman, I want to share my own list of things to do before I die. (Don't worry, I won't bore you with 100.) When I was sick five years ago, I started making my own informal list in my head and have done a few things off that list: Take a trip on an airplane. Walk down the Las Vegas strip. Eat in Paula Deen's restaurant. Learn how to cook a beef roast (don't laugh; it's one of my favorites and until about 3 years ago the one thing I consistently screwed up in the kitchen.) Write something every day. (Even if that something is just a blog entry and not the Great American Novel I thought I would write years ago.)

But I have led a rather meek existence, so there's still a lot left on my to-do list. You will probably laugh at some of the things I have never done, but please bear in mind that I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure seeker, or a gunfighter...but I am proud of what I am. I...am a librarian!

OK, enough of The Mummy quotes.

My bucket list is as follows; please chime in with a few of your own.

1. Get a tattoo of a purple ribbon (the cancer survivor emblem) on my foot.
2. Drink a pint of Guinness in a pub in Ireland.
3. See Stonehenge.
4. Place a rose on the grave of Will Shakespeare (methinks 2,3, and 4 could be accomplished in the same trip, no?)
5. Visit a "gentleman's club" to see what all the fuss is about.
6. Try that one thing that I've never tried but most of my friends (and even my mother) have that may or may not involve an herb frequently grown in my home state.
7. See U2 in concert.
8. Renew my wedding vows in a tacky chapel in Vegas (preferably with an Elvis as a witness) and then go play blackjack with a few of my closest friends (who's in?)
9. Travel out west and see in person some of the places Ansel Adams photographed so beautifully.
10. Tour the Louvre.
11. Have a drink in a bar on Bourbon Street.
12. See my own country's capitol.
13. Eat a Maine lobster. In Maine.
14. Be in the audience for a taping of The Daily Show. This would require me to...
15. Spend some time in New York, New York.
16. See the Pacific Ocean.
17. Take an African safari.
18. Run the Flying Pig half-marathon (I would dream big and say a whole marathon, but let's not go crazy. I don't think my brittle body could take the whole 26.2.)
19. Fire a gun (in a range, under the supervision of people who know what they're doing, of course.)
20. Spend a week in the California wine country.
21. Drive across the Golden Gate bridge.
22. Experience weightlessness in one of those plummeting airplanes.
23. Read Ulysses. I've been told by smarter people than I that you need an English professor to walk you through this one, so I have been waiting until that old Centre reading group reunites and contacts a learned sage...
24. Go storm chasing. See a tornado. From a safe distance.
25. Be an extra on a movie or TV set.

Those are my top 25, anyway.

What are your top bucket-list picks?