LIFE INGREDIENTS NOT THE SAME AS LIVING? WHERE’S THE LIST

If there’s a list for life ingredients that make a better life, I haven’t seen it.

And, strangely enough, I’m alive. If you’re reading these words, you are too.

But you don’t have a list, either?

How can that be?

We live in a list world. From grocery lists, to honey-do lists, errand lists, project lists, laundry list.

Shouldn’t there be a list of life ingredients when there are lists for everything else?

“Who, what, where, when, and why? We learn early in life these questions. Today, we want to know the Top 10 on almost any subject. Whether pleasant or not, having a Top 10 list is always on your mind. Explore and discover the greatest and best lists of everything in the world. What is your favorite Top 10 List?”

Top ten? Let’s start a life ingredients list with a Top Three and go from there.

First, a look at what made successful people a success, or what might have done it.

If Hugh Hefner of Playboy fame had a life list, what was on it?

Bathrobe, pipe, typewriter?

Playmates, baby oil, hot shower?

Wives, kids, money?

The Hef started out as a role model for loosening up the too-tight fifties. His new magazine broke ground with Marilyn Monroe.

After the 1980 Playmate of the Year was murdered by her pimp husband, the editor in chief took a turn down Creepy Road. A nude memorial issue for a dead woman seems over the top, but maybe that’s just me.

A life ingredients list looking back:

No pimps, no grooming, no guns. If a guy is a woman trafficking pimp with delusions of grandeur, and a shot gun, don’t open that door.

Cooking Ingredients Not The Same As Food

Kid: What’s to eat?

Parent: Look in the fridge.

Kid: That’s not food, that’s ingredients for making food. I need food.

Food, like life, takes some preparation.

The difference between ingredients in the fridge and dinner on the table? Cooking.

The difference between sixteen and twenty-six? Experience.

A list for sixteen:

Stable home, good grades, drivers license.

A list for twenty-six:

Job, apartment, girlfriend.

At sixteen we ate at Chun King Chinese food from boxes and cans. I thought I didn’t like Chinese food. I remember getting the bail-out hamburger at Ming’s Chinese in North Bend, Oregon.

After a visit to my first Chinatown in Philadelphia, I loved Chinese food.

At twenty-six I had a go-to Chinese restaurant in Portland, The House of Louie on NW 3rd and Davis.

Now It’s closed.

A couple weeks ago,(owner) Leong said campers in his doorway started a fire, breaking windows and filling the restaurant with smoke. 

“I just don’t like it,” said Leong. “Too many homeless people giving me trouble. Trouble every day.”

At the Oregon Historical Society Museum, Executive Director Kerry Tymchuk weighed in on the closure. 

“You feel a little loss, a loss of history,” said Tymchuk.

In the late 1800’s, Tymchuk said Portland had the second-largest Chinese population on the West Coast, behind San Francisco. Many Chinese immigrants built railroads, worked the docks and lived in what would become Chinatown, now a shell of what it was.

“It’s a loss of culture,” said Tymchuk. “You can’t force businesses to continue or to succeed, but there’s a little something that makes you sad to see it go.”

Life Ingredients For The Long Haul

At some point we get a nostalgic mood and reflect on what got us to where we are.

For some, the list looks like this:

Hometown, old friends, beer.

Or,

New town, new friends, beer.

Or,

Wife, kids, books.

A good reflection includes parts of all the lists.

Friends, family, love? This list is an umbrella list for all others to gather under.

Work, family, travel.

Education, home, giving back.

Kids, grandkids, pets.

Food, party, garden.

Fashion, beauty, art.

Faith, trust, money.

For The Short Haul, Because This Is A Killer List

In an Either/Or world, doing the wrong thing is still wrong. Two wrongs add up to wrong, for the math-impaired like me.

The short haul list is pretty grim.

Hate, bitterness, blame, guns. Do you know these people?

Lie, cheat, lie about cheating, guns.

Betrayal, deception, insurrection, guns.

Bigot, racist, demeaning, guns.

America promises the sort of freedoms other countries strive for. A drive out of town isn’t the same as crossing an International border. No papers to file, passports, or proof of intent, just a drive for the sake of driving around.

However, gun violence makes taking a drive more risky in some neighborhoods.

What’s it take to improve these lists? I live a pretty cushy life these days, but work to make it harder with ideas on how to make things better.

When I speak up about problems, I get reminded how cushy I’ve got it, as if I’m a spectator watching a parade. That’s not me.

As a single guy I made my way on cheap rent and low paying jobs to feed my writing habit. If I had enough to get by, I had everything I needed.

I had the couch in a shared apartment in Philadelphia that ran $60 a month for my half of the rent. Not very cushy.

A studio apartment in NW Portland without a roommate ran $155 a month. Perfect, but still not cushy.

Neither was a place for a wife and kids. My first family apartment was $240 for a three bedroom flat in inner Southeast.

The first family house was a three bedroom suburban ranch. I think the apartment was bigger, but the house has a yard.

A Cushy List Of Life Ingredients

Things changed when we moved into the Sandwich Generation house where I was the beef between wife and kids on one side and aging in-laws on the other. It was where I worked to make it cushy for everyone else.

Parkinson’s disease, mental health, caregiving.

Instead of the funky environment of assisted living and nursing homes, I created normalcy with death knocking at the door. But we ignored it.

Celebrations, living, happiness.

I turned a man ready to cash in from a hospital bed into an athlete. The doctors I spoke to had done their best, now it was a matter of time. They estimated two days. I brought my father in law home to die so his wife wouldn’t suffer the anonymity of institutional mourning.

The pep-talk I gave him on the second day was to remind him who he used to be, which was a Marine in the island hopping days of WWII in the Pacific.

Like that Marine, he rallied. He transitioned from dying old man to family sage. From old and decrepit, he gained twenty pounds and joined in the family activities.

Married, hopeful, respect.

I gave him the business every day. Did he like it? No. Did he want to die? I asked. Could I send him back to assisted living? No.

Duty, responsible, compassion.

Go ahead and make a three point list of Life Ingredients. Leave a comment on what you come up with.