Good point, I've decided to start making more out of the dash between my birth date and death date!!!
Told my wife that I need to start writing down many of the life episodes and jobs that I've survived. You would be surprised at how much kids and grandkids wish they had some of those details, LONG after their parents and grandparents are around to tell them.
I don't have many, but still have a few regrets. One, that I didn't get my Granny's picked beet recipe, although there's a brand on the Walmart and grocery shelves that's almost identical. Also that I didn't get my Grandaddy a bottle of the GOOD moonshine I was getting in my teen years. My father would get him a pint of Sour Mash every so often, he just took a sip every so often, just before bedtime for his nerves, he said. He made moonshine during the depression and told me MANY stories about his escapades. He evaded the "revenuers" many times, only had one shotgun pellet that went thought the cartilage in his ear, always got away, LOL. He said that one time, he spent all night hiding in a tree, sun came up, he looked all around and shinnied down that tree and boogied back to his place. He was 60 when I was born and in his late 70's, he and I cleaned part of the high school. I helped him as janitor after school almost all of my high school years. The man NEVER stopped working. When he passed at 80, he had the local Doctor's and the Pharmacist's push mowers in his little basement area. He would've had them fixed by spring. Never went to school a day in his life, his Father put him to work at 8, walking miles between log cutting camps with meals and orders, sometimes he said it was after dark before he would even get home! The State bought that area in the 40's, I think. It's the largest State Park in TN. He knew every trail around that area.
INterstate 40 goes right through the middle of it and we have a family cemetery in the Park. Me, my kids and current wife are about the only folks that ever go there. My 3rd Gr. Grandfather is the oldest burial in the cemetery. It was grown over in '81 when my Grandfather, Granny and parents re-found it and the State cleared it and put some timber type fencing around the graves.
3rd Gr. Grandfather migrated from the Cary, NC area (Cary just happens to be our last name as well) to that spot in the 1830's-40's and he had a 160 acre land grant. I-40 goes right through where his property was, he had 11 children with the same lady!!! His youngest child was younger than his oldest grandchild!!!! All his children survived!!! I found a copy of that land grant as a young teen in the local COUnty Court House basement in the early 70's while doing genealogy research with my Mother.