A different kind of "bucket list"

Sara and Lou begin a new day's work.

It was the start of a new week and although we'd lost one of our fellow harvesters from the French team, a new member had joined the American team.

Lou came to us from Florida and was, like the majority of the group, a first time harvester.  At 83 years young he was also fulfilling a longtime dream......to harvest grapes in France.  I imagine that he never thought he'd be filling THIS kind of a bucket on his "list".

Lou had been travelling on his own through France, meeting up with friends here and there along the way. He told Kristi and Jean-Marc that he would take time out to pay them a visit while he was in the vicinity and promised to lend a helping hand with the harvest for a few days before he had to move on.  

It's not as easy as it looks but the company is fantastic!

He quickly fit into our group and was soon telling us stories about his family, his previous life as a salesman, his time in the service during WWII and his secret to a long and vibrant life.

"I eat plenty of chocolate, drink lots of coffee and walk, walk, walk," he said, when I asked him how he stayed so fit.

He worked alongside the rest of the group for the remainder of the day, sharing with us the heat of the sun, the heavy weight of the grape filled buckets and the taste of a cold beer at the end of the day.

He returned the next day to do it all again, without any complaints of sore muscles or an aching back.  On that second day, one of the young ladies on our team who was a quarter of his age, asked Lou how he was feeling and wondered whether he had any pains like the rest of us.

He paused from his grape cutting, laughed and said, "when you get to be my age, EVERYTHING hurts all the time.  You just live with it and get on with life."

I'll try to remember those words when I roll out of bed....aching....tomorrow morning!

Lou and Jean-Marc taking a breather.
Photo by Elizabeth Parker.