The Bucket List

If you pholks haven't seen the new film “The Bucket List,” you should.

I'm usually not the kind of guy who touts films since I often go a year without going to the theater. I'm a sporadic movie goer. Two or three in a couple months then a dry spell is my pattern.

“The Bullet List” is the story or two men, played by great actors Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman who are diagnosed with terminal cancer. “The Bucket List” turns out to be Freeman's character's jottings of things he has always wanted to do before kicking the bucket. The list ends up being a combination of the both men's wishes woven into a funny flick and also a tear jerker. It's a great combination.

It got me to thinking of my own bucket list as it probably did with most pholks who have or will see the film.
I've been blessed with opportunities to do a lot of things most people don't get to do, including walking the wing of a flying air plane, two flights in hot air balloons, being on the scene of major news stories, such as the Chowchilla kidnapping, covering major arrests and court trials, riding in vintage airplanes and the Goodyear Blimp, being on the field at Dodger Stadium and assorted other journalistic endeavors.

“I've spoken with at least one president, a vice president, two or three governors, several congressmen and senators and other high governmental types. I've talked with and photographed famous people including Clint Eastwood, Bob Hope, Flip Wilson, Don Drysdale, Don Sutton, Arnold Palmer, Al and Bobby Unser and other sports greats and stood next to lots of others, including a number of film, television and music superstars at the annual AT&T National Pro-Am Golf Tournament at Pebble Beach. I saw and snapped pictures of Bing Crosby when it was the Crosby Tournament. I even talked briefly with his widow, Kathryn, several years later as she posed for a quick photograph.

There have been lots of adventures, some of which will make the pages of that book, or books, I plan to write. The actual writing takes up quite a bit of space in my bucket.

Also in that bucket list are three major items which already are turning a little brown along the edges. They are:

-Riding in a P-51 Mustang, the coolest and perhaps the fastest-ever propeller driven fighter plane;

-Screaming through the skies in a jet fighter;

-Driving or riding in a Formula One or Indy race car.

The ironic thing is that, with just a little effort and luck, I very likely could have accomplished two of the three, and at least part of the third.

The P-51 ride was the closest. During a promotional gig for a local air show I was lined up for a War Bird ride. When the time came, I had to make a choice of taking the next available ride, a ride in another great vintage war plane, a P-40, or waiting for a possible P-51 rode. I took the sure thing and a friend got the P-51 ride.

I went with the “bird in the hand” but the lost dream ride still bugs me. Of course, if I ever find an extra $600 to $1,000 in my pants pockets I will blow it on paying for one of those rides.

The jet fighter plane deal is another of those “coulda, shoulda but didn't” things. If I had pushed for a media ride with the Navy's Blue Angles or other military precision flying groups, I very likely would have fulfilled a dream along with a barf bag. It would have been a small price to pay. Much better than paying good money to a deep sea fishing boat operator to take me out to toss my cookies to those fish whose eyes bug out when you reel them into the boat while having no desire to catch the darned things anyway.

If the Blue Angels schedule another local event, I plan on quickly getting on the ride list, age and physical condition allowing.

My chance of getting an Indy car ride was sort of an iffy thing. I had cocktails with the one, or was it two Unser brothers and Gordon Johncock, in Visalia years ago when they raced near Hanford. I probably could have talked one of them into letting me sit in a racer, maybe even rev up the engine. But even my charm would not have won me a lap or two around the track. No 100 percent satisfaction but enough to have a taste.
Of course, if a few thousand extra dollars turn up someday, I could wind up at one of those pay-to-drive-a-racer operations.

Certainly, that is not the extent of my Bucket List since I have decided to actually get to work on a more practical one. Having the means and health allowing the love of my life, my wife Kathy, to see more of America and parts of the world, we have only been able to dream about would fill my bucket.

Miles can be reached at mshuper@valleyvoicenewspaper.com