A life sort of well lived

Editor's Note: Commedienne Pam Stone writes her column for The Tryon Daily Bulletin twice each month from her office in the "Unabomber Shack" on her Gowensville farm. Want a chance to respond to this column? Go to Pam’s blog at www.tryondailybulletin.com.

Because I chose to drop out of college in my third year and move to Los Angeles in order to investigate the possibility of making a living as a stand-up comic, I've always thought, if nothing else, I've lived a rather adventurous life. Performing gave me an opportunity to visit nearly every state in the Union as well as throughout Canada and Europe. Because most of my friends know me as "Horse Pam" and as horses are all I generally want to talk about, they haven't really heard of this other, shadowy, life I've led.

There are wonderful stories to haul from memory to bore potential grandchildren, had I decided to spawn, so perhaps when I'm 85, I'll simply regale the stuffed bodies of my beloved terriers, Bonnie and Rosie, propped up against the back of the dining room chairs at Thanksgiving, with these true life tales. They'll look at me blankly.

I'll interpret that to mean barely concealed fascination. My one way conversational nuggets will begin something like this:

"Once upon a time I had a Pit-bull named Max that nearly pulled down Jay Leno's pants."

"I'll never forget doing a show from the back of a flatbed truck on a beach in Spain in front of 2,500 sailors...."

"You'll never believe this, but one night in London, I literally, on the street, bumped into the actor Christopher Lloyd and the American Ambassador to England. An hour later, the three of us were eating strawberries and sipping champagne in Christopher's suite at the Dorchester 'til 3 a.m.!"

Along with these name-dropping yarns are also tales of hot-air ballooning in San Diego, flying with eyes screwed shut in a glider above the Bavarian Alps and regaining consciousness in a dew-soaked vineyard somewhere in northern Italy. No, I shall not expand further. It's like an acquittal means nothing to you people.

The point of all these illustrations? Simply to provide a sprinkling of samples, gentle reader, so that you might agree, "Well, this will be nice to think of when she's in a nursing home..."

Well, consider me trumped. On all levels.

My English cousin, Hunter, has just returned to his West Sussex cottage after a week's visit here at the farm. He's an interesting fellow who has led a varied and interesting life. Like me, he is childless with adventures tucked away bubbling to be shared. His mother, my late aunt, worked for Orson Wells for over thirty years and that, in itself, is pretty amazing. The travel required by her spilled over into Hunter's life and gave him ample opportunities to live wondrous experiences. As a boy, he was sent to the same boarding school which was attended by Prince Charles. As a young man, he came of age in swinging London around 1964. Now, I ask you, what is cooler than that? However, not having spent any real time with Hunter for over a dozen years, there was much about him that I didn't know. I didn't know that he was a model railroad enthusiast. I didn't realize he had once been a surveyor. And I certainly didn't know the best story of all. The story that reduced all my adventures to a crumbling, dried arrangement.

"Did I ever tell you," he began, as I steered onto Highway 9 towards Lake Lure, "that I introduced the "Twist" to Romania?"

I merely gaped.

"Yes, I was part of a youth delegation allowed into this then Eastern Block country and the kids our age had never heard any Rock and Roll. I brought in a Chubby Checker LP, began to show them all how to do the dance and they went wild! Evidently, it spread like wildfire."

The lush countryside pouring along each side of the car turned as dull as two day old iced tea.

It's as if I've never lived at all....