Before You Croak…
Listening to a drive time filler segment on 104.5 The Zone, Nashville’s premier Sports Talk Radio, gave me the idea for this post. They invited listeners to call in and name their two or three absolute must see before you die sport venues. Since my audience is tremendously more intellectual than The Zone’s, though relatively diminutive in size, I decided to expand the question to include places to go, things to see, or experiences to have before you check out. I will not put the meme label on this by anointing others as Winston’s chosen few, but sincerely hope that one or more of you enjoy the idea enough to voluntarily pick up the torch and run the next mile.
NEYLAND STADIUM on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville, on a crisp autumn afternoon when the Volunteers are playing a major rival like Florida, Alabama, or Georgia. If you are a football fan, this is truly a slice of nirvana. There is nothing more exciting than being in the midst of 107,000 screaming Orange-clad fans. If football is not your bag, there’s plenty of people watching to do, cheerleader and dance teams to see, and the usual battle of the bands. From pre-game festivities and tail-gating, visiting the pubs and shops and restaurants up and down Cumberland Avenue, to post-game parties, this makes for an exciting and fun-filled day and weekend. Especially when the Vols win!
MID-TOWN MANHATTAN DURING THE HOLIDAYS
can be an absolutely unique fairyland experience. Stay at one of the elegant hotels on Central Park South, take a horse-drawn carriage ride in the snow with your honey, dine at some of the world’s best restaurants, and cap the evening with drinks under the huge Christmas tree at rinkside in Rockefeller Center, watching children and lovers of all ages gracefully gliding across the ice. Take money. Lots of money! And plastic…
SIMULTANEOUS MUTUAL ORGASM with someone you love deeply is something that exists in cheap pulp novels and the minds of dreamers. And on extremely rare occasions, it actually happens. Some couples learn to speed up or delay the arrival of la petite mort, but that works only momentarily for most. Traveling different circuitous routes, it takes a lot of luck and perhaps divine intervention, for lovers to arrive at the top of the hill at the same instant. There are no words to describe the feeling. Everyone should be skilled enough or lucky enough to experience it once.
SAN FRANCISCO is a quaintly modern American city that offers a few sights and delights not found elsewhere. Midst the neat shops and boutiques there are numerous bakeries pumping out fresh sourdough bread as long as people will line up to buy it. As a morning treat with fresh creamery butter, honey if you like, and a nice cup of robust coffee, or later in the day as an accompaniment to cheese and wine, it is 
better here than anywhere else I’ve been. Just a few blocks away is Ghiradelli Square where the aroma of rich chocolate permeates everything. And of course you must do the touristy things while there, like the Golden Gate Bridge, a trek through wine country, at least a short ride on a cable car, and the guided tour through Alcatraz.
CREATE SOMETHING, ANYTHING, THAT IS UNIQUELY YOU. Each of us 
has the ability to create an expression of ourselves. It may take the form of artwork, crafts, a house you designed yourself, music, a sound, a look, a feel. Writing, including a blog, can be a perfect expression of our individuality and uniqueness. Even the most challenged of us, including children and adults with special needs, have it within themselves to conceive and give birth to an expression that is theirs alone. Little in this life is more satisfying than the culmination of the creative process, looking back at our handiwork and realizing that, yes, that was and is me.
Those are a few of the experiences I think everyone should have before checking off the planet. If you have others you would like to share, go blog your own and link back here. Alternatively, spill it in a comment below.
14 Comments so far
for me… to love and be loved… followed by the ’simultaneous mutual orgasm’ thing.
Pondering a post to expand this intriguing topic…
This is very interesting Winston. I love your list…especially the ‘mutual orgasm’ and the ‘create somethng that is uniquely you.’ Hmmm…what are the chances of that being one in the same?
Well, one out of two ain’t bad. Uh,uh,uh….you know what they say about assuming.
Great post, Winston. Like Jean, I shall ponder and try to post later.
Winston, I’ve been told that the reason you can’t find sourdough just like that anywhere else is the starter. The San Francisco sourdough starter only grows in those exact humidity and temperature ranges. Once it is started, the day-to-day weather variations don’t affect it, but it won’t live long outside of that zone.
It is the best sourdough bread I’ve ever eaten and I would stand in line for weeks to get a loaf.
Beautiful descriptions and a neat idea. I’ll have to give this some thought.
The adrenaline rush of watching your favorite football/basketball/sports team win a really hard fought and evenly matched game is certainly up there with the mutual orgasm experience. There are books about going to all the major league baseball stadiums or golf courses in the US that might be a goal.
Traveling to new places and discovering new and unique experiences has always been one of my yearly resolutions and I just bought a book of 1000 places to see before you die….I didn’t agree with them all.
Certainly the joy of creating something…a child, a work project, an education, a garden, a work of art or music or literature or architecture,or anything that elicits a sense of accomplishment….is necessary more than once before you die.
But Jean nailed it….to love and be loved is the one thing we all need. Fortunately that can take many forms and consist of many types of relationships.
Winston, the size of your chosen few is not the issue.
I really enjoyed your answers and the idea when I saw this yesterday, Winston. Meant to put a few of my own up on my own blog, but haven’t had time. So here goes:
PLACE: View of Hong Kong from the top of Victoria Peak
SHARE YOURSELF: volunteer for something for a definite period time and show up. Spend time with old folks - a lot of lonely ones out there, comfort animals in a shelter - lonely and frightened, feed the homeless in a soup kitchen.
PAY YOURSELF WITH EVERY CHECK: Most people promise themselves to save whatever is left at the end of the month and, no matter how much they earn, have little or nothing at month end. Pick a number or a percentage and stick with it every check. Trust me, you’ll never miss the money going out and be amazed how much it amounts to in a few years’ time.
Winston - this is a great post. I’m going to plead the “pondering” plea and I’ll return later with comments!
PS - you always make one think!
I love San Francisco….one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen…but not crazy about the people there..but then it could be the Cowboys tshirts I wore and that at the time the Cowboys had just beat them in the play offs and went on to the Super Bowl, that caused them to be less then friendly to me..although shouting out of their car windows “go back to Texas you F#%^@#% bitch was uncalled for….
I would like to see a college football game at every stadium and pro football game at every stdium…oh man..the food…sigh*
I’ve had the pleasure of all of the experiences you listed, except spending the holidays in Manhattan (I’ve enjoyed Manhattan in autumn but not winter).
Sadly, the volume of chocolate made at Ghiradelli Square is no longer sufficient to overcome the smells of the bay, traffic, and fog; the actual factory is now in Oakland and the smell of Ghiradelli square is pretty much the same as any other outdoor mall in the North Shore.
I’dd add to the list: 1) making or accepting a marriage proposal (for love); 2) a three-hour lunch in a basement cafe in Volterra; and 3) winning a hotly-contested lawsuit against a powerful adversary.
[...] couple of oarstrokes behind us, there was a post titled Before You Croak… which I had been honing, off and on for a month or more. For some strange reason I wanted to name [...]
Well, I did it finally and put it in my own blog– http://rainydaythought.blogspot.com/2007/10/once-upon-time.html
I just came over from Rain’s blog where she credited you with posing this question so I figured I would come over and post the answer I put on her blog and yours references sports venues which I also referenced before even reading your original post. Kind of spooky. Anyway here goes, just the other day I saw an ad in a magazine that was titled Things to Do Before You Die and the first thing on the list was go to the Superbowl. Well I have been to a Superbowl so I was feeling pretty good about myself, but most of the other things on the list I had not done and many of them I will never do. I should mention the Superbowl was in San Diego which is hard to beat in January when you can wear shorts until 10:00 at night. But one thing that I really want to do that I have never done even though I have been in the area before is go to the Grand Canyon. Over the weekend I was looking at some photos of my nephews and niece at a scenic overlook there and it reminded me how much I would like to see it.
Some other things that I have done are swim with wild dolphins off of Lanai. Seen the lava flow at Kilauea and stand on top of Haleakala on Maui where you can see Lanai, Molokai and Hawaii. I have also skied the summit at Mt. Bachelor Oregon in the spring time when you can see for hundreds of miles. Lets see what else is there been to Mayan ruins in Tulum, been to Fenway Park in Boston, saw the Blue Angels in Pensacola. Saw Old Faithful erupt, been to Disneyland many times, those are two things everyone should see before they die. One other thing that I want to do is sail through the Panama Canal. My son and I have been talking about taking that cruise for about 5 years now and some day we will do it. Anyway I could probably go on and on, but that is plenty.
Rain directed me to your blog and post, “must see places before I die”. In response, I painted a picture of me walking barefoot in the sand carrying an empty painting canvas. I believe where ever I am the act of painting gives me a must have vision of nature. The painting is posted for today October 17 in my blog - http://umbrellapaintingjournal.blogspot.com.