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Previous Articles Exposing Hollywood's anti-German agenda I'm not ashamed to be religious or a liberal 'Beat Me with a Stick' Elmo and other great toys Making a difference: why I do what I do Telemarketing ban has ended a great pastime I don't rule the world, and that's fine with me Making the journey from prejudice to understanding There's no comparing genocide and killing geese All that's left is an empty feeling An unrequited love for some really neat words Foster dads offer hands and hearts ... for the time being. Thanksgiving dinner and other forms of ritual madness. Zen and the art of not getting run over by a Mack truck A lifetime of regrets as another year goes down the tubes Reform Party Convention ends in shoot-out Virtual immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be Insider's look at the Republican National Convention turns up many surprises Car Repair for Dummies, Part One: This is a Car Sadness marks the passing of a beloved mattress At last, something worse than 'Jane Eyre' Every town has a story. Tombstone has a fixation. Forget the Trekkies, the real nutcases are on the Luce Chalk one up for the faceless restaurant customers Feeling sick? Maybe it's time to get a shave. Guest Writer: Toto, I don't think we're in Mayberry anymore Guest Writer: The need for speed Does this mean we won't get free popcorn anymore? Out of the way, Martha Stewart -- I'm in the kitchen now How I'm surviving my brush with 'Jane Eyre' First blizzard of the year evokes frivolous memories, no deep thoughts Isn't it time to jump on the bandwagon with the Real Thing? Forward this column and you can turn e-mail into $300! Trips to the moon, disaster figure in mildew prognostications True confessions (more or less) of a closet survivalist Who understands what dreams may come? Hey, everyone, look -- it's an elephant! Wouldn't 'Senator Learn' have a nice ring? To my little girl: while you're sleeping . . . Special Report: Entering the Baby Zone Battling the suburban white whale Wanted: Politician to tackle key issues Something else to worry about this fall Wanted: Dumber Mice and Better Mouse Traps One More Stop on the Road to Adulthood Follow the fashion leads of the journalist from Krypton This is why naming children by committee never caught on Psoriasis may be ugly, but at least it doesn't leave scars Another casualty of the ancient family curse Quest for baby names too big to handle How the seniors taught me to get down And don't forget your scarf when you go inside Guest Writer: No room for Paradise as vandals force Dew Drop Inn to close The samba of the mad Vulcan Maybe I could be directed by Spielberg The aliens in Rhode Island don't want you to read this Voice of nostalgia is a call to destruction My wife is having the baby, but I look pregnant The end of the world as we know it Run for the hills - Y2K’s a’comin’ fast What's in a name? Shakespeare had no idea Don't waste your energy on the 'gas out' Career choice leaves a lasting mark One Easter leftover, hold the ham please

A lifetime of regrets as another year goes down the tubes By David Learn As I write this, I am only a few hours away from the big Three-Oh. Thirty really isn't that old. I don't feel much older than I did when I was turning 29. And it only seems like a few weeks ago that I was a 10-year-old delivering my "Grit" paper route, telling all my customers that it was my birthday and wondering why I was getting such big tips. Thirty years old. That's nearly half a human lifetime. That's how old Jesus Christ was when he began his ministry. It's nearly as old as Alexander the Great was when he died. And it's older than Peter Parker is in the "Spider-man" comic books. (But not as old as Batman. Bruce Wayne still has a few years on me, I think.) And as my brother recently pointed out, if I lived in the world of "Logan's Run," this would be the last day of my life, since the sandmen make sure no one lives past 30. Not even people who thought "Logan's Run" was a tedious movie with effects that make "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" look good. I don't know why, but something about round numbers makes us take notice. So I sit here, while the dials on my chronometer roll inexorably over to Three-Oh and I slide steadily toward ossification and old age, and I find myself wondering what I would do differently if I could live my life over. First, I would have sold out sooner. I graduated from college in 1992, just at the start of the longest economic growth period in American history. I spent the next two years living below the poverty line in Haiti, where I rarely had electricity and had hot water even less frequently. Even after I returned to the United States, I continued to work for a better world, first as a teacher and then as a community journalist. Eight years out of school, I still earn less than $30,000 a year, while friends of mine who graduated five years later are making twice that, with better benefits packages, at businesses like Lockheed Martin Co. I should have gone for the money and saved idealism and self-fulfillment for my retirement years, like everyone else. Secondly, I would have spent more time watching TV and surfing the Internet. Nothing is worse than listening to a group of other people talking about the previous night's episode of "Seinfeld" or "Survivor," and not having a clue what they're talking about -- especially when you still think "Gilligan's Island" is the funniest thing on TV. In the ocean of pop culture, I'm a desert island. I don't understand a thing people talk about anymore. The computer thing is especially galling. Companies like Yahoo! and Netscape, whose services and programs I use regularly, were founded by people my age who now are multimillionaires (see my earlier comment about selling out). I have only a beginning knowledge of HTML, and absolutely no grasp of JavaScript, although I do think that Usenet is pretty neat. And what really gets my goat is that only three people who read that last line even remember what Usenet was. Thirdly, I would have said "I told you so" more often, especially back in college when I frequently expressed the minority viewpoint. What's the point in being vindicated if you can't rub the other person's nose in it? And lastly, I wish I hadn't eaten that second cheeseburger for lunch today. I could have saved the money to buy myself a Coke later in the afternoon. If I had done these things, perhaps turning 30 wouldn't be so ominous. If I were rich, it wouldn't matter if saying "I told you so" drove away everyone I stumped at TV trivia. Rich people always have parasites and sycophants hanging about them. And besides, as a multimillionaire I could have afforded not only the cheeseburger and Coke, but an order of fries as well. Something to shoot for by the time I turn 40. You may forward this article, but please leave this notice intact. Copyright © 2000-2002 by David A. Learn.