February 28, 2022: This is Curtains for the Blogger

2/28/22: Well, it’s curtains for me. You know what Alex Jones said. If we got vaccinated for COVID, we’d be dead in a year. 

Today is my expiration date, like milk curdled in the fridge. One year ago today I had my first shot.

 

Well, don’t mourn me when I’m gone. I had a good run. I never voted for Trump. I’m proud of that. 

Unlike Trump, I volunteered to join the Marines. Even volunteered to go to Vietnam. Twice. 

Because I was dumb. 

Lucked out. I didn’t get sent. But, unlike generation after generation of Trump’s, my patriotism is not just in my tongue.

Me - boot camp - January 1969.

I had a great time teaching middle school for 33 years. I tried to teach my 5,000 students to have empathy for others, something someone should have taught President Trump. I can’t name five kids I didn’t like in all those years – and if you ever want to restore your faith in humanity, work with the young. (I hope none of my old students comes by and spits on my grave.)

 

On my tombstone, I want the words, “Things could be better,” carved in stone. I think my former students, who will remember my rules of good writing, get the joke.

 

I’ve had a blast in this life, and I hope I don’t come back in the next as a cat (I hate cats), or a slug, or a friend of Matt Gaetz. 

If there’s a hell, I don’t want to go there, because I’d be spending the rest of eternity with Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. And the former president. I Trump would be talking about the “stolen election” non-stop.

 

Well, like I said. It’s been fun. I finally got to see the Bengals in the Super Bowl before I died.

Seth Viall, and me, in Los Angeles, February 13, 2022.

 

My wife is still cool after all these years. My four kids – I love them all and they make me proud. They’re all honest in dealing with others and that’s important to everyone in our family. None of them has ever had to go to court and plead the Fifth five hundred times, either. (You know: Like Eric Trump.) The three grandkids are shaping up well. I hope climate change doesn’t make the world they live in significantly worse; but at least I was never dumb enough to call it a “hoax.”

 

Anne and I hold our daughter Emily's twin boys.

I’ve committed my share of sins along the highway of life, but I’ve done my best to atone whenever I could. 

I got to pedal my bicycle across the U.S.A. twice, and raised $35,000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund in the process. I was going to do another cross-country ride in 2024, when I turned 75, but now I’m doomed. 

Guess I won’t have the chance.

Highway 50, "The Loneliest Highway in America."

 

Anyway, I can say I’ve been happy almost every day for the last 72 years, 10 months, and 23 days. You’re lucky if you can say that about your life. I only have a few hours left. So, I better practice my last words. I want them to be good. 

I tend to use profanity, so I hope my last word is not an “f-bomb.” That would really be f---ed up.

 

I’m thinking more along these lines: 

“Hey, why does this escalator only go down? And is that brimstone I smell?” 

“I wish I’d eaten more vegetables…” 

“Too late, Anne, for sex?” 

“Whodey.”

 

Well, love you all, and hope if you’re reading this you live happily ever after. 

I hope Ukraine holds out. 

I’ll see you all on the other side someday.

 Abby Viall, my first child.

Ellora Viall, my first grandchild.

Emily Viall, with Ryan, her main squeeze.

Sarah Viall, right, gets her Masters degree from Yale.

Whereas I proudly finished in the bottom of my high school class.