The F**ket List: Things I Will NOT Be Doing Before I Die

So, what’s a “F**ket List”? Just about everyone these days seems to be preparing a “Bucket List,” i.e., a compilation of all the things that they want to do before they die. Since he was retiring, after a long career in higher education, David Stameshkin thought he should probably have a Bucket List, too. As he started working on one, he recalled that there were things he had wanted to do earlier in his life—particularly alternate career paths—that perhaps he could pursue now that he was retiring and might have the time and resources to do so. Indeed, while many people reluctantly give up some of their most cherished dreams early in their lives, as retirement approaches, they sometimes start to think about pursuing those old ambitions and/or “reinventing themselves.” But, as the author relates through the stories in this book, he began to realize that (judging from his occasionally outrageous, sometimes disastrous, but always humorous past experiences) pursuing some of those paths would never work. So, in addition to making a Bucket List, he started making a F**ket List, i.e., the things he was not going to do before he died—the things that might have been on his Bucket List, but about which he would now just say: “F**k it, given what I know about myself now, there’s no way I way would be successful in trying to do those things.” For years, Stameshkin’s students, colleagues, friends, and family have heard these stories and have urged him to publish them. Well, here they are! Enjoy!