Editorial

Could today be the best day of your life?

Saturday, April 30, 2016

I noticed an internet story this week - which was also featured on a morning talk show - about a group of four young Marines posing 50 years ago for a picture on a sandy California beach just before being deployed to Vietnam.

Posing with a surfboard and the earnest gazes of men heading into the unknown, the four young men were frozen in time during a much different era, during a much different war.

So fast forward and the four no-longer young men recreated the exact pose recently to mark 50 years since that first snapshot.

As would be expected, the four had added a few pounds to their once-lean frames and what hair remained was thinning or long gone. Yet, the smiles were the same.

One of the men in the group was asked about the photo recreation and said words that stuck with me. He said the day the new photo was taken was the best day of his life.

The best day of his life.

What he meant, of course, was that day was special because four men, bonded by war, had survived the conflict and the following 50 years so that the photo could be remade. The joy of reuniting with his fellow travelers marked a very special day in his life.

But it prompted me to think of what the best day in my life might possibly be.

For the sake of argument, let's omit those special days when a child is born, or a grandchild, or your marriage day.

Leaving those highly personal moments aside, what day sticks in your mind as the best day of your life?

The truth is, at least for me, not as simple as you might imagine.

Here's one for consideration.

For some reason, I remember a beautiful, warm spring day in about 1967 while in college. It was a Friday, classes were through for the week and the war in Vietnam was far from our minds, at least for that day.

A group of us sat sunning on a perch overlooking the college campus watching with high attention as the coeds strolled by in their springtime finery. Not a care in the world.

Full-time employment was around the corner and the responsibilities of the world had not yet fully presented themselves.

Nothing but warm sunshine, pretty girls and few, if any, cares of the world.

That may well not have been the very best day of my life but for some reason, it remains in my memory nearly 50 years later.

I've met Muhammad Ali, shaken hands with Sam Walton, talked golf with Willie Nelson and had a column or two featured on Fox News.

Those were neat experiences but far from the greatest days of my life.

But maybe, just maybe, the most special day of my life still lies ahead.

So just to get you thinking, what is the best day of your life?

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