Joe Scarborough, host of "Morning Joe", described as the token conservative at MSNBC, was asked in the NY Times Magazine section a number of questions.  One was about a yearning for the past.  His answer as a critic of Reagan was interesting: "I don't want to return to the past.  I don't yearn for when I was 18 years old.  I was in High School then.  I had acne.  I had a terrible hairdo.  I'm sure I was sporting polyester pants."  Mr. Scarborough, whose name I had not previously encountered, is a Republican who is not in love with Mr. Reagan and thinks that President Obama is Nixonian.  I don't want to get any deeper in this than what I have just written.

My question, which occurred to me before I read the page on Mr. Scarborough who was a Floridian Congressman from Pensacola, concerns: When will you be ready for the rest of your life? I think this has more relevance than looking backwards and commenting on the mornings of our life with the tides of feeling turning this and that way because we do live in interesting times.  Let us consider the end point of becoming ready for the rest of our lives.

I do this because I am older than I was when I wrote a High School poem for myself which dwelt on: "I am eating up my years".  I became very conscious of the fact that even though I did not become particularly interested in getting ready for the rest of my life that this was being taken care of without my consent - time marched on and I grew older and you sort of get the feeling that it is slipping away.

The Aspiring Class of people who want to make names for themselves by a certain age is well defined. It is peopled by high and low and old families and new comers.  Some will be defined by when they will have acquired their million (read billions, these days) or have become names that are encountered on the pages of newspapers frequently because they have become forces in politics, commerce or names on police blotters.  If they are in the scandal sheets, that is where they may not have preferred to be.  But there are those who do not mind.  They gain attention and that is what it is probably all about.

I think my question is a relevant one.  When will I be ready for the rest of my life?  Ask that of yourself.  The answer might be worth the time spent on it.  I said a long time ago that 'I was eating up my years' and that part is true.  Time has a way of sneaking up on you and you find yourself at a point where you did not plan to be.  Use your time wisely, plan for the future and welcome it with open arms - there are no other choices.