What a Ride!

In my too-careful life, I’m sometimes drawn to a contrasting philosophy*:

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming, “Woohoo! what a ride!”

I don’t know when Senator Ted Kennedy embraced this philosophy -- maybe after his three brothers arrived at their graves with bodies hardly broken in much less used up -- but I liked Ted Jr.’s remarks along these lines at his father’s funeral last Saturday:

...Ted Kennedy the statesman, the master of the legislative process and bipartisan compromise, workhorse of the Senate, beacon of social justice and protector of the people [...] The storyteller, the lover of costume parties, a practical joker, the accomplished painter. He was a lover of everything French: cheese, wine, and women. He was a mountain climber, navigator, skipper, tactician, airplane pilot, rodeo rider, ski jumper, dog lover, and all around adventurer.

And I loved this line:

Our family vacations left us all injured and exhausted.

There’s so much life in a philosophy like that.

* author unknown; variously attributed on the Internet