Living The Bucket List

In 2007 Warner Brothers released the movie "The Bucket List". In the movie two older men with terminal cancer compose a list of things they want to do before they kick the bucket. The pair then began an around-the-world vacation, embarking on racecar driving, sky diving, climbing the Pyramids, and going on lion safari in Africa. The movie was only so-so but it got me to thinking what is it I want to do before I kick the bucket? Am I living life to the fullest or am I holding back? When I embark upon my golden years will I feel a need for a bucket list?

The answer was a lot simpler than I had thought. Yes! I was holding back! When I was a young boy my father and I would stay up late Fridays to watch the "Friday Night Fights". I remember seeing Muhammad Ali floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. I even had the official Muhammad Ali children's boxing gloves. As I grew up boxing became less a part of my life. When I was first married and living in the Chicago suburbs I remember driving past a bar with my wife. The bar had a big sign out front "Amateur Boxing Night". I had than told my wife how I had always wanted to try my hand at boxing.

Fifteen years later a friend of mine was promoting "The Toughman Contest". In the past I had never given the possibility of fighting in it much thought. As I am a little guy at approximately 155 pounds I knew no matter how tough I thought I was I would never be able to beat a 300 pound mad man in a no-holds-bared fight. I was then informed all my assumptions about the Toughman Contest were incorrect. Toughman was kick boxing not no-holds-bared street fighting. They also had weight classes. Deep inside me I knew I now had to give it a try. More realistically I knew being in my early 40's now and having lost a step or two one of those 20 year olds were going to knock me out.

My friend came up with a solution. He would set up a grudge match between myself and one of our mutual friends. It would sort of be an intermission between the real fights. I now start what I believe to be a good hard boxing training routine and keep it up for the next four weeks until it's now time to box. I get to the stadium early that night for my physical and the weigh-in. As I'm sitting there and sitting there I begun to get worried where is my opponent? He ends up being a no-show! The fight promoter than asks me if I still want to fight and I let him know yes I did. He says he will find someone for me to fight. After a few minutes he comes back with a kid in his early twenties and says to me meet your opponent. It's to late to back out now so I grab myself a seat and wait to be called for my fight.

I ended up losing the fight in a split decision, but feel I really won! I got to cross something off my bucket list.