If you’re approaching the age when you qualify for the senior discount and you are also a writer, you will begin to feel a twinge, an itch, an inexplicable and suspiciously narcistic need to write your memoir. Just reading that sentence will send shivers down the spines of people everywhere who have lived through a parent or grandparent taking an adult education class entitled, Writing Your Memoir.

In an effort to forestall and perhaps satiate this impending impulse, I have written my memoir in list form. This is what must surely be an abridged version of everything I can remember being obsessed about or deeply interested in. It does not include the normal stuff, like family, or pop culture in general, unless my interest surpassed by a significant measure that of the average pop culture consumer, or the whole category of human desires.

Some of the things on this list still require an inordinate amount of my attention. Others were relatively brief, though everything on this list shown bright in my eyes for at least six months, is my guess. Like all autobiography, I have no idea if any of it is actually true. But this is, without a doubt, how I remember it.

Daniel Boone 1970

Baseball 1971

Odd Rods 1972

Wacky Packages 1973

WWII 1974

Ray Bradbury 1975

Beach Boys 1975

Amelia Earhart 1976

American Revolution 1976

Yo-yo 1976

Photography 1976

Pinkerton Detective Agency 1977

Skateboarding 1977

Neil Diamond 1977

Volkswagens 1978

Magic 1978

–Thimble Routines 1978

–Dai Vernon 1978

–Houdini 1979

Satire 1980

Macbeth 1980

Guitar 1981

Carl Sandburg 1981

Songwriting 1982

Frederick Buechener 1983

Theology 1983

Adolescent Psychology 1983

Hermeneutics 1984

The book if Isaiah 1984

Used book stores 1984

Kennedys 1985

Ephesians 1985

Psychotherapy 1985

Subjective Psychological Testing 1986

Crosby, Stills, and Nash 1987

Abraham Lincoln 1987

Salvatore Ferragamo (and shoes) 1987

Paul Simon’s Graceland 1987

Sprinkler systems 1988

Socks and ties and “braces” 1988

Richard Nixon 1989

Watergate 1989

Walt Disney (Disneyland) 1990

New Yorker 1990

Poetry 1990

Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints 1991

Disc Golf 1991

Jerry Brown 1991

Psycho-Social Rehabilitation 1992

Vegetarianism 1992

Nonprofit management 1993

Coen Brothers 1994

Grant Writing 1994

Seal 1994

Cigars 1995

Writing the Short Story 1995

Ephemera 1996

Ethan Canin 1996

Hamlet 1997

San Francisco 1997

Aikido 1997

Philip Glass 1997

Gnostic Gospels 1997

Coffee 1998

Coffee History 1998

Wine 1999

Presidential election 2000

Grilling 2001

Barista competitions 2001

Metropolitan Statistical Areas 2002

Archiving 2002

Fair Trade 2002

Mega-regions 2003

Branding 2003

Workflow Management 2004

Strategic Planning 2005

Leadership 2005

Accounts Receivable 2006

Home Brewing Beer 2007

Cash Flow 2007

Accounts Payable 2007

Instant Coffee 2008

Golf Clubs 2008

Golf Course Design 2009

Thrift stores 2009

Packaging 2010

Atlanta 2010

Sales Management 2010

Coffee Retail Design 2011

Mentalism 2011

Christopher Hitchens 2012

Container Gardening 2013

Novel Writing 2013

Birds 2014

Cast Iron Pans 2014

Vintage Cutlery 2015

Bernie Saunders 2016