Welcome to a new side of the multi-faceted "shurmanator". Whether you're just discovering that I exist or have encountered me as a business executive, owner/operator, talk radio host, politician or friend, I hope our relationship has been or is about to be an interesting one.
This website and the blog you're reading are brand new. They will showcase what I am doing but I can promise you that, as in all stages of my life, it will never be static. I am known for my "trademarked" opinions. Yes, I admit it...I always have one. So do most people...it's just that most people will never share their opinions broadly. I have, I do and I will continue to.
Expect me to blog regularly. Expect to read about what's going on now in the Middle East. Or in politics. Or the media. Or what it's like living in an ex-urban rural environment following 60+ years as a city boy. Or anything else that happens to come along that I find of interest.
I never stop learning...I am convinced it's the secret to a long and interesting life. Older people (80+) who are vital and active confirm to me that their longevity and sheer enjoyment of life comes as a result of living their lives versus waiting for them to end. I think, for example, of my very favourite and long time flight instructor Don Ireland who, in his mid eighties, continues to fly with me and improve my piloting skills. Why do I still trust a guy of that age to be my instructor and safety pilot in my small single engine airplane? Because he is fully competent and the irony is that if he weren't actually doing this work, he wouldn't be!
I just bought a guitar and began lessons. In your sixties, my friends ask? Yeah dumbass, I answer! I had a guitar briefly when I was in my teens but I just screwed around with it and sold it to buy the next play-toy. This time around, I want to play and sing and sometimes accompany my son who loves playing the guitar and ukelele -- he has several.
I have referred to age a few times. Let me address that subject directly. A friend of mine, Sid Margles, celebrated his 75th birthday recently. We worked together when I was in my 20s and he, in his 30s. I wrote to him and told him that my life had been better for having become fast friends with him and I still enjoy our visits. I asked him if we appear to young people like the old farts we thought 60-plus people were when we were those young men of 1966 or '67. He said that perhaps we might but that those young people would not think (as we did) that guys our age are "old"...simply "older". How wise! Why? Because we continue to work full time, or play tennis, golf, work out vigorously, fly airplanes, wakeboard...or, yes, take up a new musical instrument!
I am currently looking at several new opportunities and I am hoping one or two will materialize. I don't want a new 9-5, 'working for the man' job (never did too well with those anyway)...but I want to keep right on contributing as I did most recently in politics. I hope that, if you are in my general age range, you are having similar thoughts...and I equally hope that, if you're younger, you can clearly see that what I and my contemporaries have is experience and knowledge you cannot as yet possess because you will still be amassing it for the next couple of decades. People need to use the tools they have. It helps them but, more importantly, it helps so many others.
Check back here often...it's going to keep changing as much as I like to!
Peter
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