The Back Nine

I am sitting here looking at the screen, thinking, do I have anything worth saying today. I sit a little longer, take a walk outside and look at the leaves beginning to fall and now I am back. It dawns on me; I am lucky to be back and so are you. As I walked around the yard, I did an inventory of friends we have lost too soon. So many–Steve Stanko, Gerry Goggin, Terry Moloznik, Dan Ross, Frank Stanley, Al Koranda, John Hall, Carl Pedersen, Pete Racine, Jay Mabrey, Bruce Eggert, Tim Barth, Gary Hayden, Donna Hayden Neece, Bob Cox, Steve Bainter, Suzi Miner, Derek McPherson, Carol Steward, Sean O’Toole–all lost too soon. These names probably mean little to you but they do to Diane and me; we are diminished by their passing. As I close in on age 80, I wonder how many more will leave my “train of life” before the conductor says “All aboard” and Gordy Taylor is no longer on the train. Fall is my favorite time of year, and I ponder, how many more beautiful leaves will I pick up, look at, amazed by their uniqueness, each completing a journey of its own before my last Autumn is no more.

Then I tell myself, as Cher so eloquently said to Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck, “Snap out of it,” and I smile and realize that like everyone else, I have countless blessings to count. My journey is not over and hopefully has many more Autumns yet to come. I reflect on what I would tell my students in one of my lectures, “You are the only person who will always be with you until the end of time, at least your time, so remember to savor and appreciate every day you have above ground because you will spend a very long time on the other side.” Really simple advice but also apropos.

Life is not always easy or even fun but it is certainly worth living and enjoying as best we can regardless of the challenges that come our way. The people we meet on our journey enrich us and make us better for having known them and we should be grateful for that. None of us is perfect, yet we all have something to offer to those within our universe. We each are the best, most unique model of ourselves. I always like the words of Lucy or maybe it was Charlie Brown, one of whom said, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.”

For a guy who sat down in front of the screen an hour ago, I ask myself, where did all this come from but then time to move on before I second guess myself. Most of the people in receipt of this Blog are either baby boomers or within a couple of years on either side. A few months ago, a speech delivered by George Pepper, Editor of Golf Magazine, came across my desk and reading it made me appreciative of the life I’ve lived and I want to share it with you.

Talking to golfers, he said, “We are members of the Baby Boom generation–those born between 1946 and 1964–the largest, best educated, and most financially fortunate demographic in American history. Basically, we all hit the generational jackpot…Thanks to a combination of divine providence and our parents’ timely moment of carnal passion…each of us was handed one of life’s golden tickets.

I mean, think about it. We dodged the bullets of WWII…We missed the misery of the Great Depression. Instead, we were born into an endless American summer of prosperity and possibility. College, back when we went, cost pennies, jobs were easy to find, homes were affordable, and the stock market was about to take off on a 40-year tear that turned modest pensions into fortunes. (Unfortunately missed ahe Taylor household.)

Modern medicine conquered polio just in time for our childhood and now has delivered robotic joint replacements just in time for our retirement. Our cultural timing was equally impeccable. We came of age with The Beatles and Motown, we were treated to cinematic genius, from Hitchcock to Scorsese to Spielberg, we saw TV evolve from Ed Sullivan to Saturday Night Live, Leave it to Beaver to Modern Family, Gunsmoke to Yellowstone, and Lassie to Paw Patrol. And now we have streaming services that put it all at our fingertips.

We were present of both the first moon landing and the first personal computer. We raised our kids, and now grandkids, in an era that gave us both rotary dial and smart phones, vinyl and Spotify, road maps and GPS, handwritten letters and zoom calls. We have spanned not just two centuries but two millennia–and we lived through 14 Presidents, 8 Popes, and perhaps most impressively, 7 James Bonds.

Bottom line, we boomers showed up at the party just as the drinks were being poured, the music was getting good, and the buffet was fully stocked. For half a century we have partied hearty-and soon we’ll be heading home without having to do any of the cleanup. If that’s not perfect timing, I don’t know what is.”

To me, Pepper hits the proverbial nail on the head. As we continue down our own individual fairways of life on the back nine, we have probably gotten better than we deserved and enjoyed every, well, almost every, minute of the journey. So, keep your head down, don’t swing too hard and hitt’em straight. It’s been a great round.