Opportunist achieves senior status

By David Simmons

Today I officially become a senior citizen. I doubt anyone could look back over sixty-five years without stumbling on a bad memory, a moment of regret. I’m no exception, but those moments, at least the ones I remember, are remarkably few.

Of course there were foolish things I said, and things I foolishly didn’t say. Friendships I pursued or maintained with insufficient vigour, or that I should not have initiated at all. But who knows how many of those errors in judgment, embarrassing missteps, and flawed choices set in motion something positive, made me wiser, even happier, days or years or decades down life’s long and winding road?

I’m not adventurous, not a risk taker, but I do like to seize opportunities as they present themselves.

I’ve had the opportunity to see some of the monuments to mankind’s cruelty and folly – Dachau, a Somosista dungeon, Alcatraz, the Colosseum, Pol Pot’s Killing Fields, the Berlin Wall, even Armageddon itself  – but also to the best of humanity: the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem and the Statue of Liberty in New York, to name only two.

I’ve had the opportunity to see the icons of some of the world’s great religions – the Dome of the Rock, the Western Wall, the Holy Sepulchre, the Sistine Chapel, Angkor Wat and Borobodur – and great monuments to mankind’s quest to make its own way beyond the guidance of ancient scriptures: the parliaments in Westminster and Ottawa, to name only two.

I’ve been awed by the power of nature: driven through violent thunderstorms in Montana, blizzards in British Columbia, sandstorms in Arabia; gazed on the destruction wrought by Mount St Helens, stood (as long as I could) at the edge of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Climbed one of the Coast Mountains (not a very big one) in BC and stood on its peak, stood on a glacier in Alberta, swum across a lake, and snorkelled in the Red Sea. Seen bears in Banff and Jasper National Parks, macaques in Khao Yai, geysers in Yellowstone.

Angel Falls.

I’ve played slots in Las Vegas, toured movie studios in Hollywood, basked on beaches on four continents, spent months on a kibbutz, slept on a park bench in Monaco, visited a vegetarian clothing-optional commune in California. I jumped out of a light airplane, and rode in a different light plane (and stayed inside) that buzzed the world’s highest waterfall. I took a vintage train into the centre of Jamaica to sample the wares of a rum factory, and rode in the back of a truck across the spine of Central America (huddling down to avoid attracting the bullets of Contra snipers) to visit a Sandinista boot camp. I’ve driven Corvettes and big bikes and powerful boats and tractors and a Cadillac hearse, and once competed in a drag race.

Natnicha "Lukyi" Simmons.

I’ve been inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, climbed the Eiffel Tower, stood on top of the World Trade Center. I’ve seen the Mona Lisa (she’s small), Michelangelo’s David (he’s big), Venus de Milo (she’s disarming – sorry, old joke), and the Phantom of the Opera. Basked in the beerful bliss of blues clubs in Bangkok and San Francisco.

I married late in life, and adopted a little girl.

But I did miss one opportunity, and it is the only regret that stands out in my memory: the chance to circumnavigate the Earth.

Before I had the idea (and took the opportunity) to become a journalist, I was a surveyor, reaching the minor rank of junior instrumentman. In that capacity I travelled with a crew to Kuwait, where we did preliminary layout work for a telephone microwave network. Our employers, a Vancouver engineering company, paid our two-way airfare, but left it up to us which route to take on our return – they would pick up the tab for the basic fare, and if our chosen route cost more, we would pay the balance out of our own pockets.

Travelling west to east, the distance from Vancouver to Kuwait City as the 747 flies is 11,200 kilometres. We went via Toronto and Amsterdam, which totals 13,700km. If I’d chosen to keep going eastward after our job in Kuwait was done, crossing Asia and the Pacific to go back home to Vancouver via, say, Seoul, the distance would have not have been much greater – about 15,300km.

But even if I could have afforded the fare, there didn’t seem much point if I couldn’t make a few stopovers on the way (I had not yet been to East or Southeast Asia at that time). And I could not afford to do that. So it would have been a circumnavigation for no purpose but the right to say I’d done it.

Ah, well. Maybe I’ll have another opportunity. There’s still time.