Life lists

To “Survivor” fans, Toms River, N.J., resident Stephenie LaGrossa is Wonder Woman.

Outlasting every member of her team on the show’s Palau edition, and voted first runner-up last month on “Survivor: Guatemala,” LaGrossa also managed to impress viewers as the sort of person who had been everywhere, done everything, and had no mountains, palm trees or ancient ruins left to climb.

They were wrong.

“Before ‘Survivor,’ I really thought I had accomplished so much in my life,” the 26-year-old LaGrossa says. “But it wasn’t until I got to Palau that I realized how untraveled I was and how not-very-well-rounded I was compared to the other contestants. Palau was the first time I had ever even been out of the country. Where had I been? What had I done? So, one day I went off by myself and wrote a list of all the things I wanted to do when I got home, and all the things I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”

They’ve been called wild, crazy, affirming, and the new “must-haves.” They’re also known as life lists, and if you’ve yet to make one, today may be as good a time as any to put pen to paper.

Unlike resolutions – which, like rules, peace treaties and your grandmother’s Hummels, seem destined to be broken – life lists are serious compilations of the things you want to do, see and experience in your lifetime.

The items on your list could be as adventurous as flailing around at the end of a bungee cord in New Zealand or zipping off to Norway to see the aurora borealis. They could be as indulgent (and bankbook-depleting) as staying in the best suite at a five-star hotel. Or, they could be as wacky as traveling to Fiji to stand on the international date line while warbling “Tomorrow.”

Go back to school. Complete an unusual collection. It’s your list. You’re the only who can write it and the only one who can bring the items on your list to fruition. Need some additional tips? Here’s a lifetime’s worth of suggestions, from some of the Garden State’s most tenacious list makers:

1. Start writing.

As life lister Peggy McGeady of Passaic, N.J., explains it, “It isn’t a life list until you’ve written it down. Having it on paper serves as a focus and a constant reminder. It makes it real, and it makes it more likely that you will realize the items on your list.”

McGeady’s own list contains dozens of items, from the things she’s already crossed off – backpacking across Europe, owning a motorcycle and sports car, skiing a black diamond slope – to things she’d still like to try – writing a book, driving cross country and celebrating New Year’s Eve in Times Square.

Having your list down on paper, McGeady adds, also allows you to share it with a loved one. It wasn’t until two years ago, after 21 years of marriage, that McGeady discovered the one thing her husband, John Cochran, had always wanted to do since childhood: Drive a train.

The two did some research and wound up celebrating Cochran’s 50th birthday at a railroad museum in Port Ola, Calif., where Cochran took a few hours’ worth of engineer lessons and, yes, eventually drove a real locomotive.

“Sometimes you feel silly telling these things to people – even your wife,” Cochran says. “But I loved it. I’ve always had model trains, took photos of trains, and then, finally, there I was, driving one. It was a hoot. And I’ll never forget it.”

2. Aim high.

Many life list devotees suggest making your list as long as you possibly can and including everything that pops into your head. You can always edit it later. And who knows? The most daring item on your list – the one that friends and loved ones think you’ll never do – may be the one you accomplish first.

That’s what happened to Joanne Campbell. On Oct. 28, 2004, Campbell celebrated her 63rd birthday by taking a solo flight in a Cessna 172 Skyhawk over the friendly skies of Bergen County, N.J., and the spectacular Hudson River Valley.

It wasn’t her first solo flight, but it represented a lot to her: the confidence, sense of accomplishment and sheer joy that began 13 years ago when she went to Lincoln Park Aviation to purchase flight lessons for her husband, Bill and, on an impulse, wound up signing herself up for lessons, too.

“My brother was a pilot,” Campbell says, “and flying was something I always wanted to do. But everyone told me it wasn’t going to happen – that, as a woman, there was no way I was going to get on a plane except as a passenger or a flight attendant.”

Looking back, Campbell says, the decision to take those lessons changed her life. She has since logged almost 500 hours in the air, and last year she became chairwoman of the North Jersey chapter of the 99’s, an organization of 85 women pilots in Bergen County. The group has 6,000 members worldwide and, like Campbell, some of those women thought they would never have the opportunity to fly a plane. But they made the effort and eventually scratched flying off their lists.

3. Be expansive.

Try to put at least 25 items on your list. And, as you write, do your best to recall places and activities that have intrigued you in recent years, as well as things that fascinated you as a child.

Bungee jumping is among the most common of life list items. But just because everyone else is jumping off a bridge doesn’t mean you have to. Instead, how about mastering a musical instrument? Tracking down every major league baseball card released during the year you were born? Or, as Jerseyan Fred Borchert did, go for a very long drive?

In May 1999, Borchert drove from the wilds of New Jersey to the wilds of Alaska with his Labrador retriever Dan. “When I was a kid,” Borchert, 45, says, “I read this book, `Travels with Charley’ by John Steinbeck, who had traveled all around the country with his dog, and that story always stuck with me.”

In 1988, Borchert began using his vacation time to travel to all 48 contiguous states. And 11 years later, he finally made it to the 49th state, which was also the 49th on his list. Today, in addition to the hundreds of photos he’s taken during his travels, he also has a map of the United States on the side of his Coleman tent trailer, with a sticker on each of the 49 states he went to – an additional reminder that he’s fulfilled a dream he’s had since he was 11.

4. Do some research.

If summoning up your inner child’s inner life list doesn’t work, suggestions abound in books such as Patricia Schultz’s “1,000 Places to See Before You Die” and its various knockoffs, including Richard Horne’s “101 Things To Do Before You Die,” Jay McDonald’s oft-e-mailed essay “10 Things to Do Before You Turn 50” and Colleen Rush’s book “Swim Naked, Defy Gravity and 99 Other Essential Things to Accomplish Before Turning 30.” Six months ago, the United Kingdom’s Sky News even compiled a list of the 33 things to do before you turn 10. (No. 25: “Find some worms.”)

In addition to offering list ideas, these compilations also offer plenty of encouragement. As Horne writes in the introduction to his book: “It’s better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you should have done, but didn’t.”

No. 28 in Horne’s book, and the item that appears on more life lists than any other activity, is sky diving. Why? Richard Roe, the 32-year-old general manager of Freefall Adventures, a sky-diving school in Williamstown, N.J., says word of mouth – his included – has helped make sky diving an “ultimate” life list adventure.

Roe made his first jump in 1996, and says, “I’m a relatively cautious, conservative person. But that first jump was the most awesome experience I had ever had. It changed my life forever.”

About 60,000 jumps take place each year at Freefall, Roe says, and memorable clients – who did tandem jumps with licensed instructors – have included a blind man and a paraplegic. “Oh, and a very nice lady who had never jumped before,” Roe recalls. “She was 93.”

5. Risk embarrassment.

Just as John Cochran felt a bit “silly” about sharing his desire to drive a train, Joyce Speziale of Ridgefield Park could never bring herself to tell anyone how much she wanted to learn how to belly-dance. “I’ve always loved going to exotic places and trying exotic things,” the 48-year-old Speziale says. “But belly dancing … I don’t know. People laugh when you say the word.”

Then, in June, Speziale was diagnosed with metastatic bone disease. “Cancer,” Speziale says, “really makes you look at your life. It reminds you that every day is important. And it also reminds you of all the things that aren’t important.” When she learned that Gilda’s Club offered a belly-dancing course, Speziale signed up, ASAP. She also took a karate class. As for the next item on her list: “I want to climb Machu Picchu in Peru,” Speziale insists. “And, believe me, I’m going to do it!”

Irene Franklin, 86, has been a list-maker since her teens and still makes one every day. She realized her first life list goal in the early 1950s, when she and her husband, Dick, built the four-bedroom Cape Cod home that she still lives in.

Even in 1951 it sounded like an odd idea – the ultimate do-it-yourself project – but Franklin was convinced it was possible. “My husband was an electrician. So that helped. And I did all the insulation, laid out the driveway, put in the lawn and did all the planting and painting. I didn’t know too much when we started, but I learned. It took us nine months to complete the first floor, but we did it. We built the second floor, bit by bit, as we were able to afford it.”

Franklin’s other life list item – and her greatest dream of all – took a lot longer than nine months. In her 50s, she enrolled in Felician College, part time, and, in 4 1/2 years, got her associate’s degree.

Some people are embarrassed by the prospect of returning to school later in life. But Franklin, who had been told as a teenager that “girls don’t have to go to college,” was thrilled by the idea. And in 1993, at the age of 74, she returned to Felician to earn her bachelor’s degree. A widow by this point, with more time on her hands, Franklin didn’t just take classes. She worked on the school’s literary magazine, sang in the chorale, and even took part in theater productions, before earning her degree – and graduating magna cum laude – at age 79.

6. Get organized.

After you’ve written down your Life List goals, edit down your list to “doables,” “maybes” and “probably nots.” Over time, certain items may move around to other parts of your list, but until that happens, put each of them into a category that seems most realistic.

To come up with a plan for making your doable items even more doable, go onto the Internet or visit your local library. Most schools, exotic travel destinations and sky-diving venues are easy enough to find with a Google search.

Pat Esterson, 78, of Teaneck, N.J., is a clinical psychologist who discovered canoeing in her teens. In her 50s, she reignited that passion after becoming involved with a Vermont-based group of canoe enthusiasts. Since making that connection, she has canoed in France and Costa Rica, taken part in a memorable steamer excursion down the Amazon River and gone whitewater canoeing – “It’s terrifying. You scream! I loved it!” – in Maine.

Looking to make a similar connection with like-minded hobbyists? Check the phone book or go to groups.yahoo.com, type in your area of interest, and join one (or more) of the groups you find. Members of these online communities routinely share information on everything from parasailing to breeding exotic birds.

“The Internet is the ultimate resource, especially if you know how to surf it correctly,” says computer whiz and extreme sport enthusiast Andy Steggles. Born in Birmingham, England, and a veteran of Her Majesty’s Navy, Steggles, 35, now lives in Hoboken, N.J., with his wife and 6-month-old son.

Steggles says that, thanks to his stint in the Royal Navy, he was able to realize several of his life list items. While traveling the world (he met his American-born wife in Hong Kong), he managed to find time to scuba-dive, ski, snowboard, river-surf and bungee-jump – twice. “The second time,” he says, “I persuaded my wife to do it with me in New Zealand. I said, ‘Honey, we have to get this out of my system.’ ” Steggles’ remaining life-list items include BASE jumping (parachuting off a stationary object), as well as learning how to play the saxophone and picking up some decent dance moves.

“I’m 35,” Steggles says, “I’ve done all these extreme things on my list, and I can’t dance to save my life.”