My Football Bucket List

By: Sean | February 26th, 2009

Curse you both, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.

You may be giants–nay, legends of American cinema–but I have a grievance to air with both of you.

You have stolen my catch phrase. Kind of.

Back in 2001 or so, one of my co-workers and I were talking about cool things we wanted to do before we died. I can’t remember if the discussion was born of a book title we had heard about–I think it is called “1000 Places to See Before You Die”–or if the drudgery of drawing toilet room details on CAD simply became too much to bear, but at some point we started to rattle off stuff we wanted to accomplish. This idea of a list stayed with me long after quitting time and so I went home and started to write it down. Scribbling feverishly, I came up with about ten solid items that I thought would represent a life well lived, so I titled the list “Ten Things to Do Before I Die.” (Not very clever, I know.) Not a minute had passed when a half dozen more ideas sprang to mind, so I had to amend the working title to “Ten Things to Do Before I Die (& Then Some).” My entries run the gamut of life opportunities: “1. See the aurora borealis.” “~~7. Watch Old Faithful erupt.~~ August 2002″ “12. Design my own house and have it built.” “~~13. Try haggis~~. 1/25/09.”

The list is dynamic and I’m not afraid to edit it every few years to reflect my life station and personal interests. Back in 2001, I was really into climbing and so many of the entries were related to mountaineering: “3. ~~Summit Mt. Rainier~~ – 7:01 a.m., 7/16/03, 14,410′.” “8. Climb 5.10C”. Since I’ve hung up my rock shoes for good, freeing a 5.10C is no longer a priority and so it got changed to something else. As you might imagine, a few of those entries got changed to…football. Currently, of the twenty-three items on the list, only two are relate to the Beautiful Game: “~~22. See Manchester United play at Old Trafford~~ – 8/6/08, 0-0 Juventus” and “~~23. Score a goal for FC77 Rangers~~ – 5/21/06, 8-0 win.” Given how much I obsess about soccer, that seems disproportionately low, but with time running out to see a space shuttle launch (new item #8), that could easily be changed to something else. Maybe “Score a hat trick.”

Which gets me back to my beef with Jack and Morgan. For years I could smugly drop little nuggets of life goodness in casual conversation or at parties when the talk stalled. I could happily exclaim, “Another Thing to Do Before I Die done!” Now, when I brag about eating two helpings of haggis and the significance of that, I get a “oh, you mean your Bucket List.” It has become pointless to insist I had come up with my catch phrase a good seven years before the movie came out, so now I begrudgingly acknowledge, “Yes, my bucket list.”

So how about you, Weekend Warriors? What would be on your Football Bucket List? I would love to hear about it. Oh, and in the interest of blatant self-promotion, my wife recently bet me I couldn’t garner twenty-five comments to a post. Can you help a brother out? I know you have something you want to do on the pitch/beside the pitch/because of the pitch, so feel free to drop a comment.

Category: Orange Slices and Aspirin

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My Football Bucket List

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