“I am doing absolutely nothing today. I like to sit here and watch. There is a ship coming in that appears to be empty. I have done everything from being a dishwasher and plant manager to a chief financial officer. Mainly management and finance. I made my living working inside in big cities and now I just enjoy being outside. My hobbies are over with now. I used to run and then took up hiking a backpacking. I ran a marathon and walked 1300 miles of the Appalachian Trail and now I am just a fat and happy old man. Hiking was a lot of fun and it was hard letting it go but it became harder and harder. The last time I hiked on the Appalachian Trail, I was in Vermont and a northeaster moved in and I spent 42 hours in a hammock. I came home and said that was enough. I was 75 then, I am 86 now. I hiked the bottom of the Grand Canyon and the Olympic Peninsula. It is a feeling of complete independence when you are carrying everything you need in a backpack on your back. You are on no schedule, some days you hike 20 and some days you hike four. I felt good about myself doing it.

I am an atomic bomb survivor, there aren’t many of us. I was in the Marine Corp in 1952. They were doing nuclear tests in Nevada and they pulled two people out of each company and I was sent out there. I was young and dumb and always looking for new experiences. The test was an exact replica of Hiroshima, scheduled to detonate at 1500 feet. We were the closest troops had ever been, three miles away at ground zero. We were in foxholes and I don’t remember noise, but there was tremendous heat and light. When we walked over ground zero, the desert sand had been fused into glass and we were walking on glass. I haven’t missed much in life. My goal now in life is contentment and I am there. I have been married 61 years. I can hardly remember life without her.”