I love to strike up conversations with US Veterans. I share a kinship with them not because I am one but because our son is making a career out of the military. On Sunday there was a guy standing in line in front of me and he had a hat on that said 101st Airborne. That is the group our son is attached to right now. It was an easy conversation to strike up. He did two tours to Vietnam. His first was in 1968 at the start of the Tet offensive. He said on that first tour he was surrounded by men who had dropped in on Normandy. The 101st made a name for themselves on D-Day and long after.
I did some quick math to determine this guy who was standing in line to enter the competition pool was 76-78 years old, happy and fit.
The picture of the puppy above takes me back to a discussion I had with my step mother. She is a wonderful woman and I would not be who I am without her in my life. The puppy is replacing Buster the dog she and my father got just before his passing. My visit to meet the dog was also a couple days past my fathers birthday. My step mother brought something up that was totally out of the blue and also disturbing in a way. She said “your father was such a disciplined man, he always wished you kids would have more discipline”.
My Dad spent 2 years in ROTC and then 2 years in the US Army. He was an officer and he learned discipline there I guess. I didn`t reply to my step mom but I have to say her comment has been eating at me. Talking to a 76 year old Vietnam Vet brought her comment to the surface again. My father did not see his 76th Birthday.
Our father left our family when I was 8 years old. He and our mom sat us down and told us they were divorcing and that he was moving out. He first moved not far away then he moved with his new wife (his former secretary) to Bogota, Colombia, where I was born. There they had my little sister. My memory of my father from basically birth to 18 was one of absence. In the first 8 years he was always traveling. His stories of travel were legendary. Then of course he moved to Bogota before internet and cell phones.
Discipline 1
One of my vivid memories of my father was drink in one hand and cigarette in the other. On nights he was home for dinner, he would always come home and pour a martini. I was young and did not pay attention but I am certain it was the first of a few. He would not give this practice up (he later switched to beer) long after his first heart attack.
In my teenage and adult life I have not shied away from alcohol. I spent a number of nights in college stumbling my way across campus doing a face plant in my bed. I still like to tie one on from time to time with my wife or our son. But never did I come home from work and grab a beer and rarely if ever on a daily basis do I have more than a single beer or glass of wine. My discipline of wanting to start the day fresh and raring to go far outweighs any desire I have for alcohol.
Discipline 2
Both my mother and father smoked. I believe he introduced our mother to smoking. We sat in smoking sections on trans -continental flights, our parents threw parties at our house where everyone was smoking. My dad would smoke while playing golf. He finally quit when he married (3rd Marriage) my step mom with the puppy. I think I was 18 at the time.
This one was easy. Not a single one of his kids or step kids smoke. We were so turned off by what it represented that none of us ever started.
Discipline 3
The heart attack that killed my father was massive. It was the second. Between his first and 2nd my Dad and I became the best of friends. We rarely went a day without talking. He helped us raise our son. He became the father my wife Mary never had. My step sisters and their cousins all regale what a wonderful man he was and how much of a father he was to them.
I train my ass off, watch what I eat, get regular blood tests, take my HRV daily and wear and Oura Ring. People always ask me “what are you training for”. My answer is always “For the rest of my life” The discipline I have for this borders on obsession. I want to be that 76 year old guy standing in line waiting for the pool to open. I want to run at night with our son even it means falling on my face from time to time. I want live longer than my disciplined father who died way to early. He was 72.
