“Don’t Take the Boy Out of the Man”

This is what my friend’s wife always tells him. And I love that. Even though he’s 86, he’s still trying to find that boy inside of him.

Over coffee last week, my friend, Tom, told us one of his wife’s lines: “Don’t take the boy out of the man.” Me and Greg, both in our mid-sixties, smiled and thought, yeah, that’s a good one. (left to right, Tom, me, and Greg)

Tom’s been very successful both in business and in life. He has a huge family, he’s a man of faith, and he and his wife adventured more in the mountains throughout their life than anyone I know. And he’s still trying to hang onto the boy that’s still inside of him.

As we walked out of Starbucks I asked him, “Wasn’t it about age ten that you were most boy? You know, wide eyed and big hearted.”

He agreed, “Yeah, all I could think of was adventures and building forts.”

I thought about it on my way home…looking for adventure and building forts. That’s exactly what I did at ten. But now that I’m 64, I’d like to cycle back to my ten-year-old self and recapture those wide eyes and big heart.

When I was ten years old, I lived in Monterey, California, on the Fort Ord army base.

• I swam for the Monterey Marlins and set a record in the 10-and-under breaststroke. I started dreaming that I’d be the next Mark Spitz with Olympic medals wrapped around my neck.  

• I practiced tennis against a springy backboard at the Meadowbrook Tennis Club and dreamed that I was in Wimbledon. It was in the fifth set and I was serving for the match, I whipped it in, then sliced a nice backhand, then topspinned a powerful forehand, and my opponent missed his shot. I won, I won, I just won Wimbledon!!! (arms upstretched, dancing around the court, fans going wild, family with tears in their eyes, the trophy thrust into my arms…you get the picture)

• I built forts in a small wood a half mile from our house. We dug a deep hole in the earth and covered it with plywood and created a little dirt room with cubbies to hold drinks and an earthen chair to sit in. I dreamed it was My Side of the Mountain.

Dream, dream, dream…that’s all I did when I was 10. My imagination knew no limits.

Well, now that I’m on this side of competitive swimming and tennis…and this side of fort building…I don’t want to be on this side of dreaming. I want to keep my imagination alive. I want to have something to live for. I want to, as Tom said, “play hard, laugh a lot, adventure with my friends, and resist being controlled.” I can go for that.

For me, right now, my dreams are about writing. I’m working on something that is big, and multi-year, and ambitious, and kind of like playing Wimbledon. It’s way out of my league and something completely out of the blue. One night I was stargazing with my grandson in the jacuzzi and he gave me an idea for a book. Poof! The concept was born and it hasn’t gone away. So now I’m chasing that rabbit and dreaming of a Pulitzer. (Well, not a Pulitzer, but at least publishing success.)

For Tom, age 86, he’s still dreaming. Not about mountain adventures anymore (after a hiking accident nearly took him out), but he dreams of going to the mountains to paint and dreams of going to Taos to play bridge with his wife. “To not have dreams is to just give up,” said Tom. “Life is serious enough. But if we lose the ability to laugh and play and dream, the joy is gone and so is the living.” 

Amen, my brother. You get to those mountains. You get to Taos to play bridge. And you keep dreaming like a ten-year-old boy and we’ll follow in your footsteps.

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