Good morning, everyone,
I need your help. I really do.
More precisely, I need you to dig deep down into your . . .
I know you’re thinking, He’s gonna say “pockets!” Crap, he’s getting ready to hit me up for money! What has the world come to? Won’t anyone just leave me alone?!?
But it’s not your pockets I’m after. It’s your soul! Today, I am asking you to dig deep into your heart, your soul, and your dreams and pull out just a question or two to share with me. (I realize this sounds a little quirky. But, hey, consider the source!)
I have been working feverishly of late, like a little squirrel saving his nuts for the winter, building a new website for my adventure stories. It is a place to share tales from my bike ride to New Mexico, stories from the Appalachian Trail, and yarns about many more adventures yet to come.
This site is called (drum roll, please) AfterFiftyAdventureMan.com
Catchy, huh?
The thing is, and I believe I have mentioned this more than once, I ain’t getting any younger.
After the Appalachian Trail adventure this fall, I realized I needed to make a few decisions. Like, what will I do when I grow up? How would I like to spend my golden years? What kind of trouble can I get into next? (Did I say that out loud? Oops.)
AfterFiftyAdventureMan.com is the answer to those questions.
But let me back up a step. . . .
One cheery afternoon, about a year ago, I was at Marshall’s buying a pair of jeans, and I took a peek in the mirror. You know. One of those floor-to-ceiling models that makes your nose bleed just looking at it. At first, I thought something was wrong with the lighting, or that maybe the store had installed one of those fun-house mirrors that makes you look like Fred Flintstone.
Marshall’s would do something like that, I thought, so I started looking for the video camera. When I failed to find it, I just stood there with the jeans I had pulled on dangling around my knees, squinted at the mirror again – and got a power jolt. A hit that measured BIG on the Richter scale of my life. “Who the f**k is that?” I asked. Because the fellow staring back at me from the mirror was older than I remembered being. Fatter too. Much older, in fact, and much fatter.
I was appropriately shocked. Overwhelmed. Gob-smacked. So I did the only thing I could. I dropped onto the cold, hard, plastic bench in that shitty little dressing room – and got a pin in the ass for my trouble.
It wasn’t pretty. But a shock like that can mobilize a person to make big changes in their life, and sometimes even reinvent themselves entirely. In my case, however, that is exactly what did not happen. Instead, I left the store, jeans in a heap in the shitty dressing room with the faulty mirror, and drove home to sulk over a nice bowl of Talenti gelato. (Banana Chocolate Swirl, if you must know.)
It took me a year before I figured it out. Sort of. And got my sorry (large-ish) ass on the Appalachian Trail.
Which pretty much brings us up to date.
At this point, I am attempting to do several things simultaneously.
1. Stall any further advancement in the aging process by engaging myself in wild, erratic, impulsive, mid-life adventures.
2. Reassure my beautiful, understanding wife, Elisabeth, who wants nothing more than for me to be happy, that I have, in fact, retained all of my marbles.
3. Start a conversation with men and women who have the same wild, erratic, impulsive mid-life notions as me, because there is strength in numbers.
4. Entertain you in the process.
This is where AfterFiftyAdventureMan.com comes in. While the After-Fifty Adventure Man is a fictional character, who just happens to bear a striking resemblance to yours truly, whether you’re a guy or a gal, he may be a lot like you, too. Because at my age (our age, that mid-life age) it seems questions arise and start running around in our old noggins. Questions like the ones I asked myself after hiking the AT. Questions like the ones I want you to dig into your adventure-lusting heart for.
You see, from now on, I am going to wander off on adventures big and small and write stories about my travels, like I did this fall.
“But what about me?” I hear you saying. Exactly. It won’t be just my stories up on the website. It will be your questions, too. And my answers – in my, um, Advice column. Which will be called, Ask the AF Man (“AF” standing for “After-Fifty”). Which is where you come in. I hope.
Because, like I said at the beginning, I need your help. I really do. The website is not live yet, and I wish to launch with a bunch of lively questions from my mid-life or future mid-life friends. Help a fellow out? I need just a question or two!
What kinds of questions? Inner adventure questions! Outer adventure questions! Hiking questions! Biking questions! Ask about anything from how to slake your secret wander-lust, to ways to create a mini-retreat in the midst a too-busy life, to what gear will give you the most bang for your hard-earned buck. Or ask questions about the biggest adventure of all – navigating the rapids of mid-life.
Just message, email, or snail mail me your questions (anonymously if you wish), and I, in the role of The AF Man, will answer.
Thanking you in advance,
Yours truly,
The After-Fifty Adventure Man
Ways to contact:
FB messaging:
Text the question, etc., and I will follow up.
Email:
afterfiftyadventureman(at)geemaildotcom
Snail Mail:
The AF Man
28 West Castillo Drive
St. Augustine, Florida 32084
TeatimeOnTheAT 
Though I asked an awful lot of questions in my prior life, the answers were usually known prior to the asking. I just wanted o see if the schlump would lie to me. They mostly did. Then the dance would begin. The verbal and psychological dance of truth. Quite often it ended in failure. But that was usually only temporary and further dancing, this time while the questionee was sitting in a detention cell and his well paid lawyer went home to dinner, set the course for a future truthful revelation. The lesson is patience and determination. This has prepared me well for my “guy over sixty” adventures. Patience and determination. I don’t have any questions for you but I will be watching you as you respond to others. Sounds like a hoot.
For a look at a “guy over sixty” take on an upcoming adventure, look here http://mikefullerauthor.com/2016/02/28/guest-post-at-2017-maybe/
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