Zooming with the Aces #36, What’s On Your Bucket List?

March 14, 2025:  What’s on Your Bucket List?

Skip Granger, Sun Valley, AZ – I have a unique list.  We love to travel, and I wanted to take a Viking River Cruise with talking and site-seeing but no biking.  COVID forced us to cancel that. I want to be able to travel again. Last year we did the Utah parks, which was fun.  I actually have a Reverse Bucket List; that is, getting rid of things I once really, really wanted and got. I’ve sold homes and a painting that I bought while traveling in Southeast Asia. I have more paintings and other souvenirs to sell. When we sold our last house and downsized, we gave away furniture and other household goods to needy people.

Glenna Stearman Park, Montgomery, DC – I’m trying to get rid of my stuff so I can play. I’m trying to find everything that can go, but I have stacks of paintings everywhere, and they’re not really organized. My house looks like a junk dealer’s.  I am unloading things slowly.  A former art student of mine, now a successful lawyer, offered to buy all my artwork, but I won’t do that.  One thing I want to keep is a carving of a nude man with big ears that resembles Obama in political cartoons. I have a Chinese bed decorated with people at desks. I plan to keep it as a remembrance of my sons who were all good students.  From now on, I’m going to feature more quirky art. I heard that downsizing seriously sometimes causes death due to the strain of tossing things. When we downsized from 5,000 square feet to 2400, it felt good. I’ve never been a person to categorize or organize. I just acquire. Now I’m going through De-Acquisition, emptying the bucket.

Dan Tontz, Dallas, TX – Basically, after thinking, talking with my girlfriend and with my daughter, I decided that I do not have a bucket list.  I’m happy and content. I’ve done almost everything I wanted to do.    I would love to ski again, but that’s out of the question. Then, household projects never occurred to me. I came up with three categories for a bucket list. My plan is continue to continue. I do want to continue to travel, as long as it’s easy with no pressure. My friend Frances and I just had a wonderful trip to Mazatlan in Mexico. It was a big place, but you could phone for a golf cart that arrived in three or four minutes to take you to wherever you wanted to go, a restaurant or whatever. I like easy trips and will probably do more car trips. I will continue to continue to enjoy patio dining and eating out, mostly in my zip code. Right now it’s 83 degrees in my backyard and I’m sitting here enjoying the sunshine while we Zoom. I also enjoy the companionship of my golden doodle, who is a lot of fun to watch and likes being outside as much as I do. I’d like to take a river cruise and maybe visit Canada. From the pictures, it’s really beautiful country. Something for the future.

Kay Ellen Consolver, Litchfield, CN – I’m trying to step back into my life since my husband John died. Now in my third act, I’m writing my own play. I’m exploring how to re-engage. You’ve heard the old saying, “Death must be one morning when you wake up dead.”  Before then, I’d like to get involved again in the theater and find a way to contribute.  Friends are important to me, and I have them all over the world, having worked in or visited 68 countries.  I would like to travel and visit many of them in person. The East High reunion next fall is part of this, as well as visiting friends in London, France, Italy, and Argentina. A trip I would love to take is to Mongolia for a fishing expedition.  John loved to fish and had wanted to do this, but if I do it, I won’t fish.  I would also like to see India. I’m hoping to make more friends in my community here in Connecticut. I get energy from good people.  I want a very long third act.  Each of you have a starring role. No auditions.

Diane Rusch Zinn, Lawrence, KS – For the most part, my list is family-oriented. But first, my goal is to remain in this house six more years, so my time here will exceed the 32 years Dick and I lived in our former home. I would love to see all my seven grandchildren graduate from college and launch careers. (Two already have.) I would love to have a great-grandchild to hold and enjoy. A new project I am working on is to develop a way to identify all the things in my home that belonged to parents, etc. so that when my kids must sort through all my stuff, they will know what is special and who it belonged to. Traveling is still on my list – hopefully two significant trips each year.  I would love to see Croatia, more of the British Isles, and maybe even the Faroe Islands.  Another goal is to maintain my body so that I don’t have to have any joint replacements.

Marilyn Tompkins Bellert, Sycamore, IL – Like Diane, I would love to hold a great-grandchild in my arms and rock. My oldest granddaughter is getting married next summer at age 29, so maybe I’ll be able to check off this item in the next few years. I look forward to continuing to travel. Next Thursday, we are flying to New Zealand, and we will be back in France in June. Still on my list are places in the British Isles, Germany, and southern India. Like Dan, I am happy and contented. Fortunately for me, I have wonderful friends here in this community and many opportunities for service. I am currently  on the board that supports a terrific high school for girls in Kenya and spend a lot of my time working on fund-raising and communications for this group. It’s rewarding. Most of all and always on my list, I hope to spend time seeing more of my children and grandchildren.  De-Acquisitioning? Now that is an item that I really need to work on!

Lee Ayres, Fresno, CA – Lee wasn’t able to join us, but kindly sent in his bucket list. He hope to visit each of his three children and 11 grandchildren 1-3 times a year.  The children live in southern California, northern California, Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska, all some distance from him. He plans to continue to improve their house and landscaping and complete writing his personal story.

Bucket List Items We Accomplished

Kay Ellen – I’m trying to get through this journey with the help of a therapist. She asked, “Have you done anything you have NOT wanted to accomplish?” My answer was NO. I made the decision not to have children because my own childhood was so troubled. I had no model for being a good parent. There are some things I wish I had not done, but that’s different. I never had a game plan. When I was five and saw the Wizard of Oz at the Boulevard Theater, I was shocked when Dorothy wanted to go back to Kansas after being blown into the land of color, I felt suffocated as a child. Thanks to organized serendipity, I got to create a life I enjoyed.

I got married three times, but very briefly until I married John. Every night and every morning, I listen to Kenny Rogers singing ‘Through the Years,” a song about his partner, how entwined they are, and what a difference they have made in each other’s lives.  It helps me remember things that have been good about my life. 

Glenna – I’m really proud of the five years I spent living with my oldest son, caring for his seven kids while his mentally ill wife dragged us all through seven trials to get them divorced. Basically, I moved to Barrington, Rhode Island and helped my son move his children out of that terrible environment and into a small but two-story condo. I cared for children from age two years to a college senior almost 20. We got everybody into therapy, but meanwhile I gave them as normal a childhood as possible. I drove kids to lessons and games, to movies, and to go shopping.  For five years, it was quite a trip. I did not trust myself to carry the baby upstairs to bed, so other children took him. Every night for three years, the children talked to Grandpa Joel in the evenings. The baby would choose a book, which I held up to the camera so Joel could read him a bedtime story. They developed a relationship with Joel that would not have been possible otherwise. And I got to know – and they got to know me – very well.

All I wanted to do was to be the grandma. We started out in wild ways, all sleeping on air mattresses on the floor in the three bedrooms. We kept one bedroom free for Dad, because he was a doctor and was earning our livelihood. We built many funny memories that they all still laugh about today. At Baby Donovan’s 2nd Birthday party, he leaned forward and barfed on the cake. I scraped off the barf and told them they could eat the bottom part. They didn’t. All of this was nothing I ever imagined doing.

The trials were tough experiences. John Van Slyke and Gene Carter helped me through the whole time. Sometimes, I would call John, tearful. He would say, “Who’s in jail? Who’s in the hospital? Is anybody stoned?” He was great at putting things in proper order and really helped me. John actually  attended one of the main trials and translated it for me, because by that time, I wasn’t going to court anymore.

My son wasn’t even fighting for custody. In the end, the judge reversed all  previous decisions and gave him everything – house, kids, retirement money, and even alimony. His ex-wife couldn’t earn money to pay alimony. She’s crazy. This worries the children, but we have explained that one genetic load among hundreds does not mean that they will be crazy, too.

Basically, when I left Rhode Island after five years, I had a heart attack on the Mass Turnpike on the way home. I got over it well,  but then I had cancer. That was wild. Then knee surgeries. Cascading events. Somehow, I stayed on top of everything. My oldest grandson lived with us for two years and just graduated from law school. We have had really good fortune with those kids. All of them except one went to college and graduated,  So far, pretty terrific. Donovan the baby, is now a senior in HS. He is a straight A student and terrific soccer player.

I don’t know that I could have done anything more worthwhile with my life.

What a story.  Applause for Glenna!

Skip – I had always wanted to interview for a tour director position through the KU Law School.  I did and my whole life changed after that.

We hope you will join our next Zoom on April 17 at 2:00 pm, Wichita time.