"You gotta know when to hold em -                                                    know when to fold em - know when to walk away - know when to run."

After 80 years of living, if I had kept a diary, I wonder what I would have written in it.  Looking back on those years now my mind echos with the song Kenny Rogers once sang about a train bound for nowhere. The name of the song is The Gambler -                                                                                             "On a warm summer's evening on a train bound for nowhere, I met up with gambler,   we were both too tired to sleep. So we took turns a-starin' out the window at the darkness Til boredom overtook us and he began to speak - 

He said, Son I've made a life out of readin' peoples faces and knowin what their cards are by the way they held their eyes.

So I you don't mind my saying, I can see you're out of aces - for a taste of your whiskey I'll give you some advice"

-----The part of the song that strikes me is the advice he gives as he fades off to sleep. 

"And the night got deathly quiet and his face lost all expression - Said If you're gonna play the game boy, you gotta learn to play it right.

"You gotta know when to hold 'em - know when to fold em - know when to walk away and know when to run. 

"And when he finished speakin', he turned back to the window, crushed out his cigarette and faded off to sleep-and somewhere in darkness, the gambler he broke even and in his final words I found an ace that I could keep"

Looking back on all these years of living and all the wins and loses that go along with life I don't see myself "counting aces just yet.  The ups and downs of life have taught me that the dealings not yet done.  When it is I only pray that I'll go with "an ace I can finally keep."

"The best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep."