14 In ’14

I did these 14 things in 2014.

“But wait!” you say. “There are 15 things on this list!” That’s because I’ve added one more “thing” that I didn’t actually do … but I’m not telling you which one, so I can preserve my deniability for the other 14. Got it? OK, here we go.

•   Saw two of my three sons move out of the house. Both landed well, with good jobs and impressive maturity. Two down, one to go!

•  Ran 572.8 miles. Small potatoes compared to some of my marathoner friends, I’m sure, but it’s more than I did last year, and definitely less than I’ll do in 2015, barring injury.

•   Read 20 books and 93 short stories. My goals were 25 and 100, so the good news is, I can use this goal again next year!

•   Rode my bike naked through the streets of downtown St. Louis. What can I say? It was a hot day.

•   While fully clothed, dumped a mixture of ice and Mississippi River water over my head. I guess this will go down in history as the year we all dumped ice water on ourselves.

•   Won big money in Powerball. Depending on your definitions of “won” and “big money,” there might be two things on this list I didn’t do this year.

•   Won $568 in a 50-50 drawing. Hopefully I didn’t use up all my luck!

•   Took almost 2,700 pictures. Down from previous years, probably, but …

•   Took 371 pictures of one person in one morning. Don’t worry: she knew about it.

•   Visited every public riverport on the Arkansas River over the course of four days in August. More fun that it sounds, actually.

•   Flew to New Orleans—the day AFTER Mardi Gras. Hopefully I can work out the timing a little better sometime in the future.

•   Tried to explain the barge industry to a ballroom full of retired carpenters. Did OK, I guess.

•   Nearly finished writing the first draft of the next Great American Novel. The book will be done in, say, 20 years.

•   Swam in one ocean and one Great Lake. I’d sure like to add another ocean in 2015.

•   Voted. Several times.

So it was an … interesting … year. Here’s to an astounding year in 2015! Cheers!