When I was 20, if you gave me a million dollars, I might have drank myself to death.
When I was 30, if you gave me a million dollars, I might have bought a Ferrari and drove it into a tree some night.
When I was 40, if you gave me a million dollars, I might have bought a mansion.
When I was 50, if you gave me a million dollars, I might have wandered all over the world and forgot about home.
When I was 60, if you gave me a million dollars, I might have gone into politics and tried to turn that million dollars into a billion dollars.
Now that I am over 70, if you gave me a million dollars, I would help my son and daughter and then look for needy people (and animals) to give the rest to.
Not because I am a good man, but because I am a satisfied one. And that came about in spite of, or maybe because of, the absence of your million dollars.
I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.
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