12 things to do, or not to do, in 2024
I’m not a make-a-list kind of guy because of a personal failing that I seem to share with many others: I frequently don’t follow through on my promises. For instance, I was going to be fluent in two or three languages by this time in my life, live abroad at least once, and settle down near a beach.
One, two, three strikes and I’m out.
But we’re more than a week into another new year, and I got the bright idea to make a list of things I will not do, which suggests a better chance of success. I had no trouble coming up with a compilation, but because it makes me sound like a curmudgeon, I’ve created two separate lists: things I won’t do in 2024, and things I will. Perhaps a bit of positivity will allow me to avoid the indignity of a permanent cranky-old-man classification.
Things I won’t do in 2024
1. Make lists. I’m not sure when listicles became so popular, but enough already. We are not far off from reading about the 11 best places at the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum to stand on your head, or the 17 best ways to lick an ice cream cone in an elevator.
And then there’s the annoying odd number thing, based on the specious notion that readers are more curious about the specificity of, say, nine and 21 than 10 and 20. Since this is my first — and last — list of 2024, I’m defiantly going with even numbers, although there might be one or three or five reasons I might change my mind.
2. Stand in line, except maybe at the DMV. At the risk of cliché, I think there is an age at which you hear the clock ticking and decide you aren’t going to waste time doing things you don’t want to do. I understand that younger folks don’t mind standing in line and mingling at a hot spot. But most cities have a million restaurants, and I’m a fan of the ones without lines.
3. Set foot in a loud restaurant ... unless I’m with people I don’t really want to talk to. A few years ago, I hit my lifetime noise accumulation limit at a Middle Eastern restaurant. I couldn’t hear what the specials were, I couldn’t hear what anyone at my table was saying, and if an asteroid had plummeted from the heavens and wiped out the kitchen, nobody would have heard the crash.
4. Watch the Golden Bachelor’s televised wedding. I will, however, if it’s televised, watch the divorce.
Things I will do in 2024
1. Cheer for Benny Wasserman. Early in 2023, I went to the Home Run Park batting cages near Disneyland with Wasserman, an Albert Einstein look-alike actor, and watched him hit 90 mph fastballs. The column caught the attention of the Topps baseball card company, which made him his very own cards.
Wasserman is fighting cancer but hopes to achieve his “90-90” goal. He wants to be able to handle the fastball when he turns 90 in early April, and I hope to see him do it.
2. Visit the West’s oldest survivors. As someone who writes about aging in a state that has what might be the oldest tree in the world, a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains — along with countless senior citizens of the redwood and sequoia variety — I’m obliged to make a pilgrimage.
I’ve reached out to the Save the Redwoods League for guidance, and for connections with the oldest known experts on the oldest known trees, so stay tuned.
3. Realize my dream. As a man with a guitar and modest dreams, how can I say no to multiple offers from Jose Bautista, including this most recent?
“Steve, it’s not too late. Let’s start a garage band. You and I play guitar.
“I know a mandolin player. We … need a bass player, a drummer and, ideally, a keyboardist. We start small and add people as needed.”
4. Check my story list twice. I never got around to two of the topics on last year’s list of story ideas. One was on the rewards of volunteerism in retirement. The other was a visitation with people who have lost friends and family and are aging in isolation. In a best-case scenario, maybe we can help forge a connection between two groups that need each other.
5. Hike with Pete. When my phone rang the other day, it was Pete Teti, reminding me I have an open invitation to join him and his buddies on their daily 7 a.m. hikes.
Teti, who is studying fractal geometry for the fun of it and using computers to create music and art, turned 100 in November and told me not to fret about the state of the world, which will always cycle through the good and the bad. After I wrote about him, I got an email from Morrie Markoff, an amateur sculptor who had his first art show at the same age and is now 109.
“He and I have many things in common,” Markoff said of Teti. “I would like to meet him. Can you arrange it?” I’ll work on it.
6. Call Dr. Saxon. This is just a personal reminder. My pacemaker battery is running low, and I need to schedule an appointment with my cardiologist.
7. Keep my eye on the ball. As the age wave accelerates in 2024, millions of people will struggle with finances, housing and health care. I’ll be looking for new angles on this epic global demographic shift, and I’m eager to hear how you’re getting through these challenges.
8. Take you to dinner. In fact, the most enjoyable aspect of my first year on the aging beat was the back and forth with readers. To show my appreciation, I’m going to sift through the January mailbag and take the person who sends me the best idea to dinner.
It will, naturally, be an early-bird special.