Steve Moseley

Gazing back upon 76 years astride this spinning planet, highlights are stirred together in the pot with more than a few boneheaded regrets.

First on the latter list is sucking a pack a day of filthy cigarette effluent (Marlboro Reds until I couldn’t afford them anymore) into the only two lungs God gave me for 35 years.

That immature stunt when I was young and vulnerable to peer influence haunted my health and social standing (the stench!) until some 20 years ago when I finally kicked the cursed things. A grandchild soon to be born to our family did the deed. Shamelessly, I used then-fetal Dominic, now a senior at UNL, to pull me through the ordeal.

Looking back, maybe I should have said "no" as was my history for years instead of permitting Max the wiener dog puppy into the house. Didn’t say "yes" you understand, just failed that one time to say "no."

History since that life-altering day in 1992 added eight more tube dogs — all rescues — to our family tree. But never more than just three at a time, though I acknowledge three may seem quite a lot to you.

The upside to this regret is how the stubby-legged herd made Good Wife Norma’s life a hundred times better than it ever annoyed mine.

Mercifully, we’re down to our last mutt, the mostly deaf and blind Daphne, age 16. I visit the pill caddy faithfully morning and evening trying to survive her. A bonus year or two of wiener-free life here near my own pending demise would be nice.

Another regret is having old-poop eyelid reduction surgery. The procedure itself wasn’t horrible, but the permanent dryness, sand grit irritation and itching did not yield any peripheral vision improvement.

Also looming large on my "Geez, I wish I hadn’t done that" list are the caring, underpaid teachers who had wonderful influence on my youthful development but to whom I was oblivious at the time. A wide stripe of immaturity, obvious as I look back from the perspective of adulthood, is not something of which I am proud.

In retrospect, should I have purchased a 1999 Burb for too much to start with, then flushed good money after bad plowing in even more shekels? Perhaps not. The Burb and I are way underwater dollars-wise and settling together to the bottom of the sea with me strapped into the driver’s seat.

I thought the old gal held potential as a fishing and photo safari barge. Mileage (on the odometer, not the gas gauge) was decent. A couple photo buddies and I have trekked everywhere over several years from Yellowstone to the desert Southwest, so why not a mechanically solid, semi-beater you wouldn’t worry about scuffing up, say, on a 4WD jeep trail over the Bighorns or Beartooths of northwest Wyoming?

Get out and check … tires still up? On we go.

Then, a setback.

Not one but both — BOTH! — aforementioned shutterbugs bought dazzling, brand-spanking-new pickups with every bell and whistle known to the industry almost the same week. Suddenly a 25-year-old Burb trimmed in orange you can peel off with your thumbnail held little interest. Just then, an unexpected development: I found it truly enjoyable to drive this big, smooth, quiet, comfy hog.

So what I did next was bolt RUSTBUKT specialty plates fore and aft. Many times cheaper, research quickly revealed, than repairing the actual rust which we all know would have come bubbling right back. Now (and I’m not even kidding) The Beast is my preferred daily driver. That begs the question: Anyone out there Jonesin’ to own a black, 4WD, 2012 GMC Canyon crew cab truck in nice condition with low miles for its age?

There are, of course, many more decades of errors in judgment both great and small we might exploit. But let’s go way, way back and wrap this edition up with a visit to my sainted late mother’s memory.

Precisely as she predicted in the 50s, in adulthood I did indeed come to regret browbeating her into exasperation when I was a whiny kid until, finally, she let me quit piano lessons. Do I wish I’d hung in there? Upon reflection, not so much. Based on all my subsequent pathetic attempts to achieve musical competence, I would have been the world’s worst pianist anyway.