Local pensioner Jimmy ‘Jim-Jim’ O’Dea has expressed a sense of anti-climax after completing his bucket list by cutting some Japanese Knotweed from the verge of the road into town.
O’Dea (85), who worked for 40 years as an insurance broker, created his bucket list to experience the thrill of the illicit that had been missing from his life for so long.
“I had a very responsible job, and a family to provide for. But now Mildred’s gone and the children are all married off I thought it was time to have some fun.”
Among the items O’Dea ticked off were, putting his feet on the seat in trains, buses and the cinema, doing a cannonball at the local swimming pool, drinking milk past its use by date and skipping the queue at the post office.
“God, it was a great buzz working through the list,” said O’Dea. “Going 45 km/hr in a 40 zone was a real highlight. Now that I’ve everything ticked off I’m at a loss. I feel a real sense of emptiness.”
O’Dea’s children, who stated that his children disapproved of his “reckless” actions, told Down the Town News that he planned to plant the slip of Japanese Knotweed he cut in his back garden.
“That’ll give them something to remember me by when I’m gone, especially the eldest, who keeps coming around with the tape measure.”