Top Ten Experiences

Since we are in the "Top Ten" genre, I thought that I would add one more personal list for your enjoyment, chastisement, what have you. These are the Top Ten Experiences (events, activities, or places) I want to have before I die. (Of course these experiences do not include the obvious ones like graduating, having kids, etc. All of these I want to do, but I think these are assumed.) As always, I welcome any of my readers' "experiences goals" or if you have done something amazing that ought to be on this list, please let me know. I am nothing if not malleable.

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1. Visit the Holy Land.

(Unfortunately this may never be a possibility in my lifetime due to safety precautions. This is unfortunate because I would love to walk those streets, to see the Garden of Gethsemanie, the supposed sights of all of the events of Christ's life. I'm sure that this experience would move me to tears.)

2. Visit Rome.

(Actually I hope to visit all of Italy. However, Rome tops my list for its history. I specifically want to visit St. Peter's Basilica and take the tour down to the original tomb of St. Peter. I would also hope to visit the Coliseum, where many early Christians lost their lives, and the Catacombs where they were buried and where the early Roman Church met.)

3. See a Sunday of the Masters in Augusta, Georgia.

(Actually, I'd settle for any day of the Masters. But my hope would be to do this when Phil Mickelson is still playing. I could give a rip about Tiger.)

4. Watch the annual two act play of To Kill a Mockingbird in the courthouse square of Monroeville, Alabama.

(Monroeville is the hometown of the book's author Harper Lee. She envisioned this square when she wrote the book and waxed eloquently of the sagging courthouse. Since my friend Matthew Eubanks is from the mecca, this might be a possibility sooner than later.)

5. Go to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York with my father and my son.

(I'm a sucker for sentimentality.)

6. Visit Paris

(Back on the traveling train - there is too much history, literary and otherwise, not to see it.

7. Attend a Papal Mass in Vatican City.

(This might go hand in hand with goal number one. Of course I would prefer to experience this while Pope Benedict XVI is still alive because I think he is amazing, but we will see. My friend Christine experienced mass in a small setting of about twenty people when Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict), and apparently he is a wonderful man.)

8. Have a short story or book published.

(The New Yorker has already turned me down. Perhaps I will aim lower next time.)

9. Visit Savannah, Georgia.

(The city that began my love affair with the South. There would be a lot of sweet tea drunk and perhaps a little bourbon.)

10. Watch a football game in Notre Dame stadium.

(Despite popular Catholic belief, this does not equate with #7 on this list, but it is still pretty darn good.)