How Mush room is left?

Trainwrecker Neolentinus lepideus

 Everyone has moments in their life where things shift a bit. As I gingerly look to "retirement" from an extraordinarily wonderful job of 46 years and peer at the time (a year? a decade if I'm lucky) left for me, I wonder how I will craft that last chapter. My work life set a high bar. I hope to exceed it in my last chapter(s),,,stay tuned!

I am the first to admit I've been a lucky dog--working at Denver Botanic Gardens has been a blessing allowing me to far exceed anything I imagined as a youngster: the phenomenal opportunity to craft gardens that have been visited and loved by millions of visitors...to have grown tens of thousands of TAXA (let's not even count individual plants) that I have grown personally. If you don't believe that astronomical number, I am happy to email you my database of over 10,000 taxa I've planted in my home garden over the last 34 years*). And I probably grew at LEAST that many at Eudora and my previous homes...and let's not even begin to count the massive numbers I grew when actively gardening over several decades at DBG: tens of thousands of taxa--surely a dream come true for a desperate, devoted, possibly demented plant nerd. And let's not even talk about the 318 presentations beyond the Denver area (Symposia, lectures, trade shows) in 155 cities, nor the dozens of expeditions and explorations around the world. Nor the thousands of people I met on those travels, or the tens of thousands I've interacted with (staff, volunteers, visitors) locally and beyond in the course of my career. These are a few statistics I have actually tracked albeit in desultory fashion. Let me not dwell on these things--that probably will annoy some readers as much as they delight my perhaps overly robust ego...

What DOESN'T stroke my ego are my regrets...I am unfortunately not a Catholic and cannot confess these to a priest in a box to absolve myself--I have done a few dastardly deeds I recall vividly and blush for. Fortunately no homicides, and probably nothing felony-worthy--but juicy enough I will have to wait till I'm even OLDER and more decrepit to confess in a blog post.

I suppose there are a few Buddhists or just generally superior people out there who don't harbor regrets: but you'd have to be a frickin' saint not to have a few.  I am now going to itemize just a few of mine here:

1) I regret I went on strike as a 3 year old and refused to speak Greek for five years. As a consequence my first language is not really fluent (I speak Greek like a provincial, illiterate, slightly mentally challenged person prone to Malaprops and lacunae).

2) I regret I didn't pursue an advanced degree. My three siblings got M.A.'s and M.S.'s and my brothers-in-law were illustrious Ph.D.'s.

3) I regret I never learned Russian (although I have no problem reading Cyrillic and know hundreds--maybe thousands of words and know shitloads (sorry--the word is appropriate) about Mother Russia. I love Russian Literature, Art, food and music. I detest Putin and Stalin--and worry that I may never see light glint on the tower of the Peter and Paul fortress--or see children selling bouquets of yellow ladyslippers as my beloved younger sister Eleni did once on the Trans-Siberian railroad.

4) I regret I will never be able to call myself a birder, a lepidopterologist, a herpetologist or mycologist. These are four areas I have only dabbled in. I will not have time to pursue any of these seriously. I'm 76 and more than a half more year old. And I have other fish to fry. Add Ichthyologist to that list, come to think of it.

5) I am burdened (happily so) with over 5000 books in my libraries at home. I really need to weed some out--since I have two huge bookcases at work I will have to bring back to my over book-cased house. I have read a large proportion of these--let's say half. A thousand aren't really for reading (they're more reference and dip into books),  but that leaves between 1 to 2 thousand books I own but haven't read properly. The Japanese have a name for this: tsundoku (積ん読). It's not a derogatory word incidentally: I love lots of things about Japan and this is a great example. Did I mention I was just in Japan? Which is where I photographed the mushroom I-Naturalist identified as "Trainwrecker"...a wonderful name. To save you time, I looked it up: it's called that because it is saprophytic on wood--and can even colonize wood treated with creosote (i.e., rotting train logs so that the rails can therefore sag and can possibly cause a train wreck--I'll bet it's actually happened).

Yes--I particularly regret not knowing more about fungi.  

I attach two more pictures of mushrooms I have not yet vetted on I-Naturalist. They will remain a mystery for me, and you can wonder about my next 5,341,030 regrets I didn't have time to enumerate here...sometimes you have to get a grip!

Photographed in a planer box at bus stop after climbing Iwatayama Monkey Park in Arishahama, Kyoto

Saihoji moss garden in Kyoto

*I am curious how many plant nerds will follow up on this rash promise. The email you can utilize is displayed in the "about me" box to the upper right here. It's an Excel file--but pretty straight forward. I would LOVE to peruse comparable lists by equally demented fellow plant nerds: I don't think many are as systematically consistently crazy as me though: please let me know if you are. And share YOUR database with me: it could lead to some wonderful trades!