“The first flight lesson is usually cheap, the drug-dealer business model.”

The above comes from a quirky-yet-solid “55 Things To Do Before the World Ends” list in the May issue of Popular Mechanics. For those of us who are of A Certain Age, lists like these are red meat: satisfied grunts of “Been There, Done That” (I earned my private pilot’s license when the world was young) plus challenges of “Dammit, I’m going to have to check this out.”

Popular Mechanics (born in 1902) is, of course, all about mechanics. Or used to be. Tools. Things that turn. Souped-up cars and DIY helicopters. So I was happy to see “Buy some decent screwdrivers” on the list. I’ve been saying that for years, still think that my Stanley’s are high quality, 11 bucks for a set of 10. (PM doesn’t agree; they recommend the $53 Channellock set.) And socks! Best investment you’ll ever make, Good socks. (I say No Nonsense, PM says Fox River for everyday.)

Oh dear, I’m not happy about #43 on the list: Shit in the woods. Illustrated by a roll of TP in the midst of leaves. Skip the paper! Poop where you can get water; clean yourself up nature’s way. Your butt doesn’t need to be wiped with dry abrasive paper that takes a couple of years to decompose. The French, who understand assholes, use bidets.

#32, Ride in a sleeper car. One of my sweetest memories was taking the overnight train from Trincomalee to Colombo, Sri Lanka. Louisa and I had an old-fashioned wooden sleeping car (for which we paid practically nothing in dollar terms), carriage windows open to the smells of the night — frangipani, jasmine and tuberose — clanking along at a good 30 mph over the central highlands. At dawn, the chai wallah brought us a breakfast of sweet tea and biscuits. Don’t get no better.

Visit a dark sky site is #28. I occasionally teach an astronomy class and am regularly disturbed by the fact that many adults have never seen the Milky Way. Folks, this is our home! Get out there! It’s not that difficult — we were camped at 7,500 feet last week (Summit Lake, Trinities) and our galaxy, edge on, was splayed across the moonless night sky. And, straight up, another galaxy, a dim fuzz to my LASIK’s eyes, the most distant object any of us can see: M31, Andromeda. I was seeing light that left there at the start of the ice ages here.

See a rocket launch. Yup. Space Shuttle Columbia. STS-87. Awesome.

November 19, 1997. The Cape, Fla. | Barry Evans

Then there are all the “I’ll pass” items on the list:

• Mush a pack of Alaskan huskies,
• Quarter-mile your Camry,
• Shave your head (nature’s taking care of that, thanks),
• Donate a kidney (okay, circumstances change, I know),
• Sleep at the top of a giant sequoia,
• Play pond hockey,
• Ice fish

… many more. But then there are the ones that aren’t on the list that I absolutely recommend:

• Get a passport, keep it current. (You’ll go nowhere if you can use the “I don’t have a passport” excuse)
• Perilous Plunge
• Meditate
• Fire a rifle
• Stand up paddle on our bay
• Eat chapulines (grasshoppers) or crickets—preferably fried in garlic butter
• Jump out of a plane
• Night walk
• Do mushrooms