175 Things Every Man Should Do Before He Dies. (Abridged)

This is slightly altered from the magazine article.  The ones that appear in blue are my modifications.  I left many "borderline" items, albeit against my better judgement. I also marked the one's I completed, and offered explanations where I thought they might be interesting.

X 1. Date an older woman. 

X 2. Stand up to a bully. 

_ 3. Fly in a Learjet. 

X 4. Jump out of a Cessna. 

X 5. Talk to God. 

X 6. Hear God reply.

X 7. Vote in anger. (or something more noble than apathy).

_ 8. Anonymously help fund a mission or

 education. 

_ 9. Feel the recoil of a

 warm Kalashnikov. 

_ 10. Save a life. 

_ 11. Lend a hand,

 especially as concerns those hard-to-reach areas. 

_ 12. Shave a woman's

 legs.  (Ready, Lisa??)

_ 13. Take a schvitz. 

_ 14. Go around the world. 

_ 15. Unplug your TV for a month. 

X 16. Climb a mountain--not Everest--without the slightest urge to write a

 book about it. 

_ 17. Sail alone the ocean blue without the slightest

 urge to write a book about it. 

_ 18. Write a brief autobiography without the slightest urge to publish it.

_ 19. Read the last book your wife read, unless it

 was by Maya Angelou. Discuss. (anyone have a

 spare copy of Charley by Jack Weyland?).

_ 20. Read all the books on your "Books to read before I die" list. Someone will

 have to check this one off for me posthumously.

_ 21. Circumnavigate Corsica on a bright-red (black) Ducati. 

_ 22. Learn a useless language: Dutch, say. I choose Portuguese. 

X 23. Have a hero.

 

X 24. Meet your hero. 

_ 25. Be a hero. 

_ 26. Gobble a meat-loaf sandwich at Graceland. 

_ 27. Ride a burro through the agave fields of Oaxaca. 

_ 28. Take a Greyhound from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine.

_ 29. Work for food. 

_ 30. Assemble a rock band. Be the lead singer. Pleasure the groupies (vocally). 

_ 31. Get booed (by the audience, not the groupies). 

_ 32. Trash a hotel room.

X 33. Get fired, especially (but not limited to) when you're getting fired because you want to get fired. 

_ 34. Quit a job, loudly and righteously and with great streams of triumphant profanity. 

_ 35. Build a valuable business. Sell it. Enjoy. 

X 36. Buy one spectacular loser of a stock--and never, ever forget it. Microsoft- 1998.

X 37. Dye your hair. Sure, frosted tips count.  Why not?? 

X 38. Change your haircut. (Not to a mullet. Nor to a caesar.) Monthly for me.  The all-time highlight: Rat Tail.

X 39. Shave your head. Quarterly.

X 40. Grow a long and flowing beard. 

X 41. Live under an assumed name, someplace far away, like the Jordanian desert, which, incidentally, is not a bad place to have a long and flowing beard. (Mexico, under the assumed name Elder Harris) 

X 42. Audition for something. Poston Jr. High's presentation of Beauty and the Beast.  I was the beast.

X 43. Write a poem. A haiku will suffice. Here's one to get you started: Doggy got the mange / Biscuits rise all by theirselves / In the valley: Woo! 

_ 44. Wear a little black dress in public. (Once. And only once.)

X 45. Pay for sex. (Once, and only once--and don't bargain-shop.) How are those jeans working out for you, Lisa?

X 46. Get paid for sex (by your spouse, please). Again- spouse.  And barter qualifies as currency: articles of clothing, concert tickets, otter-pops, a watch. 

X 47. Have sex in public. 

X 48. Sew on a button. I had to use a suture and surgical instruments, but it's held quite nicely.

X 49. Catch a fish. 

X 50. Read Moby Dick. Spoiler: It's awful.  You'll wonder why it's a classic.

_ 51. Fast for a week. 

X 52. Get yourself into the best shape of your life. First time with a six pack: age 29.  Last time I had a six pack:  Age 29. Sigh.

_ 53. Get fat as a house, and feel no regrets. 

X 54. See a country music concert in Nashville. 

X 55. Dress up for, watch, and bet on a horse race.

X 56. Spend an hour in a mosh pit. 

_ 57. Spend a night in jail.

X 58. Settle down. 

_ 59. Take a vow of silence for a week. 

_ 60. Leave something behind.  This one deserves a good deal of thought.

_ 61. Bet everything on the trifecta. 

_ 62. Meet Prince, and repeatedly call him "Prince." (What's he gonna do, slap you?)

X 63. Hit a home run.

X 64. Test-drive a car you can't really afford; take up the salesman's day with lots of questions; and, after a goodly amount of time, in class-action payback for all car buyers against all salesmen everywhere, say, "Thanks, but no thanks." 

X 65. Buy a vehicle you can't afford, and immediately alter it in a way that voids it's factory warranty.

_ 66. Assist a blind man. 

X 67. Look a mobster in the eye. 

_ 68. Cross a police line.

X 69. Get married. 

X 70. Surf.

_ 71. Buy a guitar; learn to play it.

X 72. Let someone else take all the credit. Repeat often.

X 73. Subject yourself to a severe ass-whipping.  Maybe volunteer to be a sparring dummy for an MMA fighter. 

_ 74. Blame a completely innocent bystander.

_ 75. Take the rap.

X 76. Learn to sing. 

X 77. Do a puzzle with a four-year-old. 

_ 78. Pay off your Visa.

X 79. Design a house. 

_ 80. Build the house.

X 81. Failing that, someday, stop renting and buy a house. 

X 82. Take a year to live with the monks of Tibet. Or your in-laws. 

X 83. Tell the truth when you'd be better off lying. 

X 84. Avoid lying for one whole day. 

X 85. Take a job that involves a shovel or a hammer. 

_ 86. Drive an 18-wheeler. 

_ 87. Replace the carburetor on a small-block straight six. 

_ 88. Surpass your father at his greatest skill. 

_ 89. Become a true connoisseur of just one thing, exotic lettuces, for example. This thing--enjoy it quietly, all by yourself.

X 90. Sell Women's Shoes. I sell Lisa's on ebay when I need extra cash. She never even misses them.

_ 91. Arm-wrestle a stranger in a bar. Win. 

_ 92. Deliver a eulogy (the later in life the better). 

X 93. Sit courtside, ringside, on the fifty, or front-row center, and then, afterward, find yourself in the locker room, backstage, in the dressing room, or at the cast party. 

_ 94. Make a toast at a wedding--a short, funny, thoughtful toast.

X 95. Once, watch yourself on television, so that you know what you look like on television. Then stop.

Click www.harrisdental.net.  Then click on the Wellness Hour link at the bottom of the page.  You'll see why it wasn't even tempting for me to watch more than once.

_ 96.  Change careers.

X 97. Change diapers.

X 98. Get in touch with a long-lost friend.

X 99. Call the person you think you've most wronged. Apologize.

X 100. Call Brown & Williamson (800-578-7453) just to hear the outgoing message, which contains this sentiment: "We're a giant corporation, and you make us feel like a little kitten."

X 101. Canoodle with an Icon.

_ 102. Write your own obituary and include an intentionally misspelled word. Encourage your friends to do the same so that upon their passing, your grief can be blunted by a fun game of "find the misspelled word in the obituary". 

_ 103. Refuse to pay for a lousy meal. 

X 104. Dine and dash. 

_ 105. Stiff a bad waiter. 

X 106. Give a panhandler a hundred bucks.  

X 107. Take a vacation without a camera. On accident, unfortunately.

X 108. Take a vacation without making reservations. Also on accident.

X 109. Take a vacation without a guidebook. People really buy those?

X 110. Let her drive. Every chance I get.

X 111. Roast a pig. 

_ 112. Learn to play the accordion. (At your house, windows closed.) 

_ 113. Take the wife to the fights.  

X 114. Throw a punch.

X 115. Take a punch.

X 116. Break up a row. 

X 117. Be the most charismatic man in the room.  Usually I'm the only man in the room.

_ 118. Patent something. 

_ 119. In the hanging valleys of Glacier National Park, suck in great, greedy drafts of Montana air.

_ 120. Climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in time to see the glacier intact.

X 121. Three peaks that are still snow-covered in June, in three separate states, in three consecutive days.

_122. Call in to a radio talk show, and cause the host to laugh at or agree with you. 

X 123. Kiss your dad. Love you, Pop.

_ 124. Have a suit custom-made.

_ 125. Have shoes custom-made.

_ 126. Failing that, at least buy a really nice suit and pair of shoes. 

_ 127. Make a million dollars.

_ 128. Pass down your favorite cuff links to your son or son-in-law. 

_ 129. Fight a slash-and-burn fire in the Peruvian rain forest.

X 130. Hike the Grand Canyon. Rim-to-rim-to-rim.

X 131. Eat food you've grown.

_ 132. Eat food your neighbor has grown, without his permission, at night, and let the juice dribble down your chin. 

_ 133. Eat psilocybin mushrooms.  Read Carlos Castaneda's book The Teachings of Don Juan.

X 134. Eat something you have killed.  Bonus points for giving it a piggy back ride. 

_ 135. Join a picket line. 

X 136. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. 

_ 137. Write a sensuous letter to a prison inmate. (Use somebody else's name and return address.)

X 138. Swim beyond the breakers.

X 139. Free ball.

_ 140. Cook chateaubriand for twenty.

X 141. Perfect the mixing of a killer cocktail. Make this your signature drink. One handful fresh organic spinach, 2 cups white grape juice, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, 3 teaspoons hemp nuts, 2 teaspoons BCAA, a glass of water, and a splash of agave nectar.

X 142. Kill something bigger than you with something other than a firearm. 

_ 143. Sign over a full paycheck to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

X 144. Call an old friend, one you promised yourself you'd never speak to again.

X 145. Fake a siezure in public.

_ 146. Enter a hotel lobby and leave a threatening, angry note for room 143 (without knowing who is staying in room 143).

_ 147. Repair a toaster.

_ 148. Coach a team.

X 149. Give yourself an injection.

_ 150. Select a nickname (i.e. Cap'n Kickass Sledgehammer, Ziptron, Sillyputty McGillicuddy).  Use it each time you fill out a form that requests a "preferred name".

X 151. Deliberately choose a favorite number- one that has an interesting meaning. (My initials- Eh are forty three when viewed upside-down).

_ 152. Travel to a visually inspiring place.  Lie face-down on the dirt for several minutes and soak it up.

X 153. Own and wear an expensive watch.  This seems materialistic, but if you own one, you know the goodness of it.

X 154.  Go Green in at least one major aspect of your life.  Buy a hybrid, make your own auto fuel, put solar panels on your house, eat organic, or recycle.

_ 155. Only 3% of people do all four things that classify a person as healthy: 1) don't smoke 2) keep weight below clinical obesity 3) exercise 3 times a week and 4) eating well.  Be part of the 3% for one full year.

_ 156. Take a homeless person to lunch.  Sit and eat with them as you would with a friend.

X 157. Forgive a substantial debt owed to you, for no good reason at all.

X 158. Shoot a bow and arrow at something that's moving.

_ 159. Poop your pants. No man has truly lived until he has pooped his pants as an adult.

_ 160. Pick the music for your funeral.

_ 161. Commit an act of civil disobedience. 

X 162. Commit a prank. 

X 163. Buy a hat that is not a baseball cap. 

X 164. Cheat death.

_ 165. When you get home from work and your kid wants to play ball, play ball.

X 166. Help a stranger.

_ 167. Get a shave, in a barbershop, with hot lather. 

X 168. Go an entire year without cutting your hair.

_ 169. Learn the names of birds, trees, flowers, insects, topographical features, and constellations. Impart this knowledge to children. 

X 170. Entertain the possibility that there is, indeed, a heaven and a hell, and treat people accordingly. 

X 171. If you've already treated people poorly, prepare for what's coming to you. 

X 172. Feel no pressure to do a long list of things before you kick just because you read it on a blog. 

_ 173. Except this: Think about this quote by Hafiz: "I am a hole in the flute through which the Christ's breath blows.  Listen to this music."  Now be the harmonious hole.

_ 174. And this: Live large.

_ 175. And, finally, this: Repeat as needed.