Mississippi: Reflection

So, I'm back in Illinois now. I've been working on a few home improvement projects here and there, and i found an ultimate club that plays 3 times a week.

Anyhow, the other day I drove my grandma to the nursing home because one of her friends is sick there. Nursing home's are awfully depressing places with people in wheel chairs slumped over with blank looks on their faces waiting for death. It's hard to imagine behind all these people there are family's, loves come and gone, adventures, and stories. It's easy to pass the people there off as sub-human or already dead.

Getting old scares me, but working with the bro's in Mississippi was a really great experience. Most of the people i worked with on a day to day basis were older than 70. They were still happy and hard working. Many of them i could picture dying doing what they love. I guess General MacArthur said it best:

"Youth is not a period of time. It is a state of mind, a result of the will, a quality of the imagination, a victory of courage over timidity, of the taste for adventure over the love of comfort. A man doesn't grow old because he has lived a certain number of years. A man grows old when he deserts his ideal. The years may wrinkle his skin, but deserting his ideal wrinkles his soul. Preoccupations, fears, doubts, and despair are the enemies which slowly bow us toward earth and turn us into dust before death. You will remain young as long as you are open to was is beautiful, good, and great; receptive to the messages of other men and women, of nature, and of God. If one day you should become bitter, pessimistic, and gnawed by despair, may God have mercy on your old man's soul."

So here's to the bro's in Mississippi, my grandfather, and everybody else who may never grow old! I salute you!
-mike