Granville's philosophy was always simple. "What was is, what is is," he would say in as many different ways as a Mainer could say without getting beyond eight words. "What was is, what is is" tells us simply that we are today because of what we did, or didn't do, yesterday. After spending five years of my teens under Granville's roof, my pea brain somehow knew that the choices I made daily would influence my tomorrow and that I couldn't change today but I could change tomorrow. If my translation is right, that's the way Granville saw it.

Of course there are those chance happenings that we seemingly have no control over. Terry Burnett, whom some of you know from our previous articles/photos as the lady who has fulltimed for 20 years while working as an innkeeper in many nooks and crannies throughout the west, was recently diagnosed with asbestos cancer and has a short time to live. As a girl, she apparently picked up the fiber culprit from washing her father's clothes — he worked with asbestos. Terry accepts this as one of those things that we have no control over: simply one of the many risks of living. She has prepared herself to leave this life by giving away her valued possessions to her relatives and friends. She simply shrugs and says, "It's just another adventure." She would have loved Granville.

As I look back over my choices and the chance happenings, I can see a definite pattern that has brought me to the ripe age of seventy two. I chose to live with Granville and Minnie (who is still alive at eighty-nine) when I could have moved to the city with my parents. I loved the farm. Organic farm-cooked food of the greatest variety, daily exercise as I performed chores like milking cows, hauling firewood with a pair of young steers, haying every summer, weeding or shoveling snow depending on the season, and the various things that needed to be done to keep an active dairy farm functioning, has helped me to "live long and prosper". And since I loved fishing — I fished, fished, and fished. As I get older, the list of choices gets longer, as I'm sure it does with you.

So choice was, and still is, a factor — even if it isn't always the final word. In RVing, or whatever lifestyle you are in, you have many choices to make. Adherence to solid personal philosophies and disciplines will make a difference as to what will happen tomorrow.

Another example that involves both RVing and "real" life: Judy, our local librarian, decided she needed a new bookmobile. She asked others about the change and finally made a choice — a very wrong choice and one you would never make. She surrendered her older long-wheelbase, front nose, bookmobile for a snub-nose, under 50% wheelbase-to-length ratio pusher. It wobbles and porpoises all over the highway — and she fears for her life. Even though she knows Connie and me from our weekly visits and has our publications, this librarian failed at basic research. If an accident happens, her choice will become an important factor.

Choices are not over once you've retired and purchased your RV. Now you must determine how to live with the choices you made yesterday while making other choices that you think are best for tomorrow. Home, home base, or base camp? Study those technical manuals or leave them in the envelope? Plan a new diet or stay with the same? Do aerobics or just a daily walk? Get high-tech equipment or keep it simple? All these questions and more will be actively answered or they will just answer themselves. As humans we are different from other animals because we can choose to plan or not to plan.

Even though I know that a ruptured cell or a freak accident can wipe me out at any time, I will not allow my quality of life to be diminished by the fear or as a result of a chance happening. Whatever days I have left must have some meaning — to me and to others. Because chances are that Granville's philosophy is still effective for all of us regardless of age or physical condition, you and I can make choices now that will affect our tomorrow. Things as simple as how we eat, exercise, and play will either lengthen or shorten the number of our tomorrows.

So go RVing — or stay at home. But as Granville would say, "If you gatta do it, do it good."

JD Gallant