All I ever wanted to do was go fishing (standard:Inspirational stories, 907 words)
Author: Godspenman	Added: Jul 22 2012	Views/Reads: 3132/3	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
I just celebrated another birthday, which got me to thinking about the "good old days." You can usually tell how old a person is by how many times they refer to the "good old days," or the phrase, "when I was a youngster."

I just celebrated another birthday, which got me to thinking about the
"good old days." You can usually tell how old a person is by how many 
times they refer to the "good old days," or the phrase, "when I was a 
youngster." 

I have come to the conclusion that getting old is not something to be
ashamed of in the least. A person reaches a certain age simply because 
they have not died yet, which is nothing to make a person feel guilty. 

Although I do not think too much of birthdays, I intend to have as many
as possible. Don't get me wrong. I am ready to go when my time is up, 
but, in the meantime, I am going to enjoy life. 

My recent birthday got me thinking about the "good old days" of my
youth. Memory is a funny thing. For the most part, we remember the good 
of our youth and rarely the bad. I often hear some old geezer say, "I 
wish I were 16 again." If their memory was serving them correctly, 16 
was not a very good year for any of us. I am glad I have gotten beyond 
my 16th birthday. As I remember it, it was a terrible year. 

I can honestly say that the best years of my life are the ones I am
living now. 

Sure, I have some regrets. I have done things I probably should not have
done, and I did not do some things I probably should have. If I had to 
live my life over again not only will I make the same mistakes but also 
I probably would add to the list quite significantly. I do not want to 
live my life over again. Once is enough for me, thank you. 

But as I was thinking of those "good old days," I could not help but
think what I was thinking about back then. It went something like this. 


When I was in school sitting in Ms. Ammon's class, I was daydreaming
about going fishing. All I could think about was what kind of fish were 
biting out by the lake this afternoon. Ms. Ammon would call upon me and 
I would have no idea what she was talking about. In my mind, I was 
fishing. In my body, I was suffering under classititis. It is what 
students, especially boys, get when they are bored with the class they 
are in at the time. It involves a lot of jittering. 

"Where was your mind?" Ms. Ammon would ask. "I hope you weren't fishing,
now, were you?" 

One thing about good ole Ms. Ammon, she could read a boy's mind like a
book. Maybe because there are so many blank pages in a young boy's 
mind. 

I would suffer through counting down the hours and minutes and seconds
until the school day would end. 

You did not hear it from me, and this is not a confession, but on those
rare occasions when I would skip school and go fishing, I had another 
problem. I was where I wanted to be, doing what I wanted to do, but 
then as I threw out the line waiting for a bite all I could think of 
was what was happening back in school I was missing. I often wondered 
if Ms. Ammon was missing me. 

I would smile and then the fish would bite and my attention would be on
the task at hand. 

It was not long before my mind would wander back to the classroom. What
were they doing? What was I missing? For the life of me, I cannot 
understand why, but I could never enjoy fishing and when I was playing 
hooky from school for thinking about what I was missing back in school. 


One of the advantages of getting older is developing a sense of
maturity. Don't ask me to define maturity, because I am not quite sure 
what it really means. As a person matures, he begins to learn how to 
enjoy the moment. This, I say, comes with age. A lot of age in some 
instances. By the time you learn to enjoy the moment, it is gone. 

I have come a long way from good ole Ms. Ammon's classroom. I will not
tell you how many years it has been, let's just say a lot. I still find 
myself doing the same thing. 

I am in the middle of doing one thing and I begin thinking of what I
could be doing. I could be home reading a book. Then when I go home and 
begin reading, I think about what I could be doing in the office. 

I have tried to take a day off for many years. I just cannot seem to
manage it. I take a day off and think of what I really could be doing 
if I was working. When I am working, I think of how much fun I could 
have if I was taking the day off. 

I hope to live long enough to be able to bring these two opposites
together in some magnificent activity. I have not got there yet. I am 
aspiring, to be sure. 

David was right. "This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will
rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalms 118:24 KJV). 

The only thing I need to do today is to rejoice in the goodness of the
Lord. 


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