I, Bernie Harberts, did not use generative AI to write or illustrate this article. Spell check and grammar check, yes. AI, no.
I met Bill Sailor as I was riding my mules up the road toward the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. He walked ahead of me and opened the next gate we came to. We parted a few days later and met again in Blackfoot, Idaho, where I was sitting out a patch of snowy weather. He and his wife invited me to breakfast at a local diner, and after that, he bought the mules a sack of feed and a salt block at the feed store. I will always remember how he lobbed that fifty-pound salt block over the fence like it was a brick. Bill was over eighty years old at the time and thought, "Damn, I hope I'm in that good a shape when I'm his age." Last week, four years after we met, I got a lovely Christmas card from him and his wife. Like I said, I hope to grow up to be like Bill.
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I just love the characters that you meet!! Staying active seems to be the safe tack to good aging… or maybe it’s nicotine…
Gives us all something to shoot for. I think dogs help, too!