Step Off!

33Chill Ride? Nah, I'll Take the Thrill Ride

I've found that after you turn 50, the majority of parents I know understandably look forward to sailing off into the proverbial sunset. Retirement is right around the corner, the kids are grown and almost gone, and you finally get to do what YOU want to do again. They see the light at the end of the tunnel. That's the goal for the majority of people my age, but there's a little snag. First off, why are you in a tunnel? Is it because that's the quickest way to get to your destination? If so, then therein lies the difference between us. I've always embraced the belief that it's more about the journey than the destination. For that reason, I've chosen to skip the tunnel, drive up the front side of the mountain of life, BASE jump off the back, and enjoy the view on the way down.

I guess I'm not like many guys my age—actually, I don't think I'm like any guys my age, or any other age for that matter. To be real, I'm a little weird, it's kind of what I like about me. I think you'll be hard-pressed to find another 52-year-old wearing a Dreft-washed, sleeveless Wu-Tang Clan t-shirt and flip flops who's strapped with a toddler in a Baby Bjørn talking Enrico Morricone movie scores in the produce section of Ralph's. Sorry, Whole Foods, I inhaled poison working at a steel mill in Pittsburgh. If that hasn't got me by now, I don't think a nonorganic apple will.

I bring all this up because I find that I'm at a point in my life where I want to put ...