Life

I don't know if this is instructive in any way, and there certainly isn't any reason why it has to be, but here's an incomplete list of some stuff I did by the time I was 25, just as a way of demonstrating that you can do an awful lot without actually "accomplishing" anything.

• Lived for 2 years in Zimbabwe (my parents' doing, not mine, and I remember nothing of it, though I have an interesting scar as a souvenir)
• Two years as fraternity president, the most interesting moment being when one of the house members came out of the closet, and the ensuing debate as to whether he should continue to live in the house
• Saw the final game of 2 World Series, the Mets 1969 win and the Yankees 1978 Reggie Jackson 3HR game (I slept outside Yankee Stadium for those tickets, so it was particularly sweet) and 2 NBA finals, including the famous Willis Reed game
• Had an Orthodox Bar Mitzvah in a Boro Park shul made up almost entirely of WW I veterans, average age about 70
• Drove across the US 5 times, passing through all 48 states. Had a head-on collision near Mt. Ranier in Washington. Drove the car all the way back with a steering column that was so bent that if you turned the wheel all the way left it would just stay there and you'd drive in circles.
  
• Ran a floating craps game in high school made up of all the honors math kids. I guess we were hooked on probability. After we got caught I taught them all to play bridge.
• Won my college bridge championship twice and played in a national tournament at U Penn (my phirst time in Philly)
  
• Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge about 50 times (something everyone ought to do), including once in a peace march
• Worked as a copy boy in a newsroom the day Richard Nixon became president
• MC'd a weekly trivia show, and had my own college radio show from 2AM to 4AM.
• Ran over my own dog (maybe the worst thing ever). Wasn't my fault, she ran under the rear wheel after I'd driven by
• Won a bicycle on a TV show. This is actually a good story. My whole Cub Scout pack went to a TV kids game show. The minimum age was 10, but a bunch of us (myself included) were only 9. When we asked the Scout Leader what to do, he told us to LIE and say we were 10. Don't think that's part of the scout pledge. Anyway, I won the biggest prize on the show. The bike got stolen from me at knife point 2 years later.

Off to a Bat Mitzvah. More to come...