Article February 4, 2008 Issue

LIVING LIFE TO THE FULLEST

BY BARBARA GUILD

I GREW UP near the ocean and have been around it most of my life. Very early on, my mother taught me to bodysurf. I loved it, so going to the beach in the summer was important. When I was 16, during the Second World War, I got a summer job at a nearby aircraft parts factory using power tools and machines, from the afternoon until the late evening. It was perfect because I could go to the beach in the morning and still make it to a job I enjoyed, which eventually led me to major in mechanical engineering in college.

After I'd got my degree and returned to California, I fulfilled my longtime desire to learn to board surf, and then, in 1979, my husband and I began to windsurf. Although some people may consider us now too old for the sport, we still continue to enjoy our windsurfing, as well as helicopter downhill snow skiing (a sport where a helicopter drops skiiers off in a typically inaccessible location).

Instead of expecting a decline in activity as years go by, I've made a conscious effort to reject limitation based on age, and I'm convinced that my life expresses the infinite God, and that He provides us with the ability to do good things we want to do.

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