Looking at new Ski Doos can be expensive. A few years ago, I found a 900 Ace Ski Doo with two seats that would be great for seeing the wintry sights of Island Park. After a little swappie-talkie, I left with the agreement that I would buy two if they would work a screaming trade-in deal for a newer model. I was just purring to myself, feeling like I was 20 years old again, dreaming about riding across untracked miles of new powder.
Driving back to Pond’s Lodge for lunch, my wife, Mary Kay, seriously asked me to help her plan our funerals. What?! POP! There went the dreaming. She wanted answers then and there about funeral speakers, burial plots and music selections. I wondered if there was something that she wasn’t telling me, maybe something beyond the usual state of borderline obsessive compulsive disorder that stirs an otherwise sensible women like her into a lather worrying over EVERYTHING. Not me, I just worry over practical things like new Ski Doos. I did take her over to see the Island Park Cemetery, the only cemetery in the world with a “No Snow Machines” sign. She was not impressed. The docent was not there to explain why the sign had been placed, but I can imagine, with snow machine tracks everywhere else in Island Park, some yahoo saying to his friends, “Hey, dude, hold my beer—watch this!” The Island Park Cemetery is also the only cemetery in the world with a stunning view of Sawtelle on the west and a Nature Conservancy Ranch on the east, full of wild flowers and Black Angus cattle. I have a suspicious feeling that if I go first, Mary Kay will not choose the wide open fields of Island Park with the stunning view. She will choose the Lewisville Cemetery, adjacent to Vaughn Walker's feedlot. When my brother-in-law, Wes, passed away he had left instructions that he was NOT to be buried in Lewisville. He purchased a family plot at the Annis Cemetery and wanted to be buried there. When his obituary appeared in the Jefferson Star, it said that his internment was going to be at the Lewisville Cemetery. Uh, oh! When his widow was questioned about this, she said, "Well, I'm here and he's not." If you want to choose where you will be buried, go last.
Being a man who has been married to one woman for 50 years, I have come to understand the value of just listening. Sometimes the problem that is actually causing all the lather will just evaporate while I simply sit there doing a very good job of not doing or saying anything at all. And so it was that I heard all the questions about what she should do if I assumed room temperature. Rather than discuss or debate, I just nodded with an understanding look on my face. I could have smiled softly and remained silent, but noooo—thinking that she valued my perspective, I told her that she didn’t really need to worry about anything. I explained that if I passed first, she could do anything she wanted and I promised that I would never complain. Then I told her that if she passed first, things were already taken care of. Stunned, she said, “What?” Then I outlined a plan where she would go to Packham Mortuary for cremation and then I would scatter her ashes around the second floor of Nordstrom in Salt Lake City. The look on her face told me that this was not what she had in mind when she suggested funeral planning.
Mary Kay still wants to plan our funerals and I still want to buy Ski Doos. I looked into the mirror on my birthday this week and concluded that I was still very much alive. Some of my friends can’t find themselves with both hands and a GPS unit, while others are looking at new Ski Doos. I want to remain in the Ski Doo group as long as possible. Mary Kay took a picture of me, sitting on a new bright yellow 850 Turbo Ski Doo Summit—a beautiful machine. I just drooled as I imagined riding it into deep powdery places that only 200 turbocharged ponies could take me. I dreamed about that machine all that night. Funny, how you can sort things out as you dream. When I awoke, I realized that I would rarely, if ever, use the very wonderful, expensive and sophisticated features that were so appealing. Sometimes, I just feel like a teenager in an old man's body. I texted a picture of me sitting on this race-ready, bright yellow turbo-screamer to Brooklyn, my teenage granddaughter from Texas, and asked her if I should buy it or act my age. She told me that I should act my age. So, I went right out and bought a new snowmobile---the same machine only without the turbo.
Ever Vigilant,
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Roger H. Tall, M.D
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