Remembering a Hemingway quote

Sardar Tenzing Norgay, right, and Edmund Hillary at the British Embassy in Katmandu, capital of Nepal, on June 26, 1953.


Anyone who knows me will tell you how much I enjoy Hemingway and for what should be obvious reasons one of my favorite Hemingway quotes is, “There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”

How ironic that I just posted the previous article. One interesting fact I learned about Dyana Marlett is that she is much more than just a pretty face. Besides everything else she enjoys she is a very active mountain climber with many major climbs to her credit and I'm not talking about the escalator at the mall on white sale clearance day either. Besides training with Mark Tucker (six time Mt Everest summiter) not only has she climbed Mount Rainer, Hood, Grand Teton, Kilimanjaro in Africa but in fact has gone as high as 21,000 feet on Mount Everest and is soon to return to go as high as 23,000 feet.

The reason I say this is ironic is not entirely because Dyana enjoys racing as much as mountain climbing but rather because I as soon as I was done posting the previous article I took a look at the news only to read the following headlines... Sir Edmund Hillary, a Pioneering Conquerer of Everest, Dies at 88

I couldn't believe what I was reading. One of my all-time idols gone. Having been to Africa on hunting safaris one of my life-long dreams is to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and it was only last week that I asked Dyana for her advice and thoughts of such and adventure. My mother always told me people die in threes and this week I lost two friends and now this. Take my advice and find time to get out and fill your dreams now because it may not happen if you wait too long and there is no going back.