The Old Oaken Bucket List

Do you have a bucket list? Do you even know what a bucket list is? That crumpled yet still inspirational piece of yellow-lined paper with items listed in No. 2 pencil from 1-50 of things you plan to do before you (ahem) can't do them anymore.

What? you ask. Are you one of those people who can't say the word die?

Oh, I can say it. I just think there are better ways to say it. More theatrical ways, like "to expire. To pass on. To perish. To peg out. To push up daisies. To push up posies. To become extinct. Curtains, deceased, Demised, departed And defunct. Dead as a doornail. Dead as a herring. Dead as a mutton. Dead as nits. The last breath. Paying a debt to nature. The big sleep. God's way of saying, 'Slow down.'"

"To check out."

"To shuffle off this mortal coil."

"To head for the happy hunting ground."

"To blink for an exceptionally long period of time."

"To find oneself without breath."

"To be the incredible decaying man."

"Worm buffet."

"Kick the bucket."

"Buy the farm."

"Take the cab."

"Cash in your chips." (from film Patch Adams)


However you refer to death, bucket lists are a good way, or so I've been told, of helping people focus on living and living well while breath still resides. Consequently, when we come to die (if we have done our very best to do the things we set out to do and whic are outlined on our list), we shall not be faced with the cruel and icy fact that we have not lived (a paraphrase of Henry David Thoreau's Walden, Chapter 2).

So, how does one begin to construct such a list? Further, how does one avoid the discomfort which associates itself with such a list? After all, the list is not solely about doing, but doing with a deadline in mind (No pun intended, and I mean that). Well, you can't fully escape the thoughts, no matter what Thoreau says about "[putting] to rout all that is not life" (Ibid.). It may be uncomfortable at first, but if you muddle through those feelings, I am certain that the thought of death will lose its sting, swallowed up in the excitement of achieving goals and objectives you have always wanted to attain.

Now, back to the first question: how does one construct such a list? Well, some might tell you to be practical; after all, the items on a practical list are more easily marked off. However, it is your list; you are in charge of what you put on it. If you want to dream, go ahead and dream; as long as your objectives are achieveable in some way, shape, form; by bell, book, and candle; by hook or by crook; by magic or miracle, you can put them on your list "and damn'd be him that first cries, Hold, Enough!" (from Shakespeare's Macbeth). Obviously, if you want to go to Alpha Centauri or Betelgeuse in your own starship, you'll probably want to think twice before putting it on your list because it may not happen in your lifetime (of course,you could have your remains cryogenically frozen and transported to Alpha Centauri in two thousand years when humankind has discovered that technology. Just something to think about). However, if that lovestruck Romeo from A Walk to Remember was able to help his girlie be in two places at once (he cheated, of course, but she was happy with it), then you can surely fly safely past quite a few of the road signs that say "You Can't" and expand the nigh-unlimited realms of what is possible.

Let me show how this is done by illustrating some of the items on my list.

Ride a bike down the Great Wall of China.

Catch a marlin in the Caribbean.

Write a book which unexpectedly lands on the New York Times best-seller list.

Appear on a Food Network TV show. I'd make burgers wrapped in pancetta and smothered in gouda and grilled portabello mushrooms. And instead of a bun, I would use grilled eggplant.

Teach in a university classroom on the twentieth-century authors who have received a Nobel Prize for Literature or Peace. That includes, Marquez, Wiesel, Camus, Soyinka, Beckett, and Hemingway.

Attend a Baltimore Ravens football game.

Sit on a bridge overlooking the Seine, eating baguettes and Emmentaler Grand Cru.

Sing "London Bridge is Falling Down" on the London Bridge.

Be somebody's wish.


Perhaps, you've noticed that some of these are not entirely in my power, and you may think that is unwise of me. Well, you may be right, but I believe that one the great definitions of a bucket list is "an itemized list of dreams." These are some of mine.

What are yours?