Posted by
AudiR10TDI on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 12:52:42 PM
January 23, 2008 -- Next month I turn 60 (right after my sister turns 58 and a few months before my foster sister turns 60). I barely remember turning 50; i had just arrived in Canada and was far too busy to consider the implications of a half-century of life behind me. In the past when Nought Birthdays arrived, I was inclined to obsess about how many things I had yet to accomplish and how short the time was growing. Not so with this birthday. In point of fact I have accomplished everything in life that I set out to accomplish, so it's all gravy from here on in!
Yes, that does sound as if perhaps I set my goals too low. Nevertheless, it happens to be the truth.
My main goals in life were set on first reading Eloise by Kay Thompson, sometime in the 1950s, and Auntie Mame not long after that. "I am a City Child," said Eloise as she walked into the Plaza Hotel in downtown New York City, past the doorman. Although I lived on the outskirts of New York, I knew I wanted to grow up to be a City Child. ("New York is where I want to stay! I get allergic smelling hay! I just adore a penthouse view...") I wanted to live in a high rise building in a city that never slept, not drive a car (well, when young I wanted to have a sports car that I could race), and get into a job that was recession-proof, portable, and didn't require math. And once I was settled in that, i wanted to travel. My family always travelled -- from weekends to two-week sojourns; I learned quite young to sleep wherever I was told to sleep, sit still, be quiet and exercise patience in a crowded vehicle, and look upon a hotel room without parents (they were next door) and with access to a swimming pool as the height of luxury. Travel waited for no time, tide or financial windfall; it only wanted Daddy coming home and shouting, "Pack the car! We're going to Duquesne!" So when I finally earned enough money to start travelling, I was able to do it on the cheap and enjoy it. (Once I returned from England with 12 cents.) I am on my fourth passport and counting; when I took my sister to England for her first trip, a taxi driver asked if this was my first trip to England and I told him that actually it was my fifteenth. I have been there more than 20 times now. I have also been to Holland, Portugual, Spain, France (only to the 24 Hours of Le Mans: 6 times), Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Morroco, Tunisia, Gibraltar, Guinea, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Antarctica, Peru, Mexico, Australia (twice), New Zealand, Switzerland and Nepal. AND 42 of the 50 states including Alaska but not Hawaii. I have lived in various cities in high-rises ranging from vertical slums to luxury I could barely afford; currently I live in a nice high rise near a large park. The last car I owned was a 1974 Ford Gran Torino painted in Stasky & Hutch style; the last vehicle I owned was a motorcycle of similar vintage. I have done motocross (and have the scars to prove it) and have taken a turn round Brands Hatch as a passenger with a Mexican open wheel driver. I have climbed Ayers Rock in Australia, been interviewed by the newspapers (twice) and on a radio show. I have written for publication and once had my own fan club (I happen to have the same name as a Doctor Who character and during my Doctor Who phase I wrote lots of fiction.) I have interviewed scores of famous racing drivers, and got the last interview with James Weaver that he gave, the day before he announced his retirement. I nearly slapped Jacques Villeneuve in the paddock at Monza (Its a long story) and congratulated Jean Alesi at Silverstone for a fifth place in Montreal in a Prost, which was one mile an hour faster than a brick in less experienced hands. I was there when the German and Italian press booed Michael Schumacher for his disgraceful behaviour at the Austrian Grand Prix, and heard a German journalist ask him, "Do you want to win the championship because you are the best driver or because you have the best lawyers?" a question he did not answer. I attended the first press conference in CART that Alex Zanardi gave after he lost both legs in an oval race in Germany in 2001.
I was snowed into my office in Buffalo NY for three days during the Blizzard of '77; I was in an earthquake in California and had forest fires come so close to where I lived that the traffic lights turned blue; I was on choir tour in the South in the aftermath of the assassination of Dr. King, and saw first hand how thin the veneer of civilization runs. I was evacuated in a motorboat from Hurricane Hazel, along with my sisters (none of us older than 5). Bob Hope gave the commencement address at my university. I was at Fontana when Greg Moore was killed. ( I spoke to him the day before and we laughed about the fact that a girl could come from Canada to an American race and the only people giving autographs were the Canadians.)
Are there things I would like to do that are yet undone? You bet. I would love to attend the Monaco Grand Prix and I mean to do it first class when I go; I want to take the Orient Express; and I yearn to meet face to face with Alain Prost some day.
And if I ever get enough money to go to Singapore just for a couple of days, I want to stay at the Raffles Hotel, see the Cricket Club, and see the billiard room where the gentleman shot the tiger.
I probably have another 15 to 20 years to accomplish those few goals. And now nobody will expect me to "settle down" and buy property and get married. Instead, their prayer for me will be the same as it has probably been since I turned 25. "I pray to God she doesn't break her neck."