In the 2008 movie "The Bucket List," two terminally ill men set out to do the things they wanted to do before they died. Critics gave the movie a mixed reception, but audiences ate it up.

Having Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as co-stars didn't hurt, but I wonder if the movie's success resulted from something more than mere star power.

Asking "What do you want to do before you die?" isn't just a macabre parlor game, because people's answers offer insight into what's important in this finite thing called earthly life.

So, with baby boomers reaching retirement (the 70s are the new 60s), and with everyone discouraged by our cool weather (the 60s are the new 70s), I asked some local folks to reveal three items in their bucket list. Some came up with more than three.

Kirsten Barron, Bellingham attorney:

1. See the aurora borealis.

2. Learn to sail.

3. Spend a summer traveling the world with my family.

Bill Quehrn, former KGMI announcer and executive, former executive director of the Building Industry Association of Whatcom County:

1. Visit the memorials to our veterans and other significant places in Washington, D.C.

2. Be there for my grandsons and/or other members of my family if they need me.

3. Volunteer with the cancer support group at our church.

Lanny Little, artist and muralist:

1. Dinner with Barack and Michelle.

2. Winter studio in south of France.

3. Avoid seeing the movie "The Bucket List."

Darrell Hillaire, director, Lummi Youth Academy:

1. Cop a Heisman pose next to the Roman statues in the Louvre, Paris, France.

2. Take center stage at Geronimo's' Cadillac to sing Muddy Waters with backup from all the boys - Bernie, David, Leroy, Rick ...

3. Swim under the glorious waterfalls with my beloved and pray.

Troy Luginbill, director, Lynden Pioneer Museum:

1. Storm a beach in the Solomon Islands off an LCVP (Higgins boat), just like the Marines in WW II. (Then tour the battlefield, ideally Bougainville or Peleliu.)

2. Take a riverboat up the Congo or the Amazon into the deepest darkest jungle and see an animal/insect that is so strange it just shouldn't exist.

3. Visit Singapore, Hong Kong and Manila and see all the great old pirate hangouts and drink rotgut rum in a pirate dive (even one from today.) I know pirates are bad people; it is just they are so good at being bad.

Lane Morgan, teacher, author:

1. Compete in the kayak leg of Ski to Sea.

2. Visit Iceland and soak in an ice-cave hot spring.

3. Learn to swing dance.

Becky Elmendorf, former Squalicum High principal:

1. Spend time in as many national parks as possible. (I've done 31 of the 58, but have visited all 50 states.)

2. Enjoy Australia, my sixth continent. (Don't think I'll make it to all seven, since I don't like cold weather much anymore.)

3. Accompany each of our four grandchildren on any trip in the world they want to make on their 18th birthdays. (Since the youngest is 2, that means I've got to stay healthy 16 more years.)

Mike McQuaide, writer, guidebook author:

1. Live overseas for a year or two.

2. Write a non-guidebook book.

3. Write and record the perfect song; must have elements of The Beatles' "She Loves You," Metallica's "Enter Sandman" and "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred.

Colleen Haggerty, program director at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Washington, author of articles about her experience as an amputee:

1. Raise my children to be loving, contributing members of our world.

2. Live each day with joyful acceptance and my arms wide open.

3. Inspire others by sharing my story. I hope that means getting my book published, but sharing my story could happen some other way. I'm open to that.

Carol Starcher, executive director, Miss Whatcom County Scholarship Program:

1. Zip line through the trees.

2. Ride a hot air balloon.

3. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Bruce Brown, writer, entrepreneur, author:

1. I hope to finish the huge amount of work on my desk right now, including "Conversations with Crazy Horse," the new fifth edition of "The History of the Corporation," plus a number of additional creative projects I can't talk about right now.

2. I hope to spend as much time as possible with my children and grandchildren - not on grand vacations or stunning adventures, but just doing the day-to-day things together that make up life.

3. Finally, I hope to close my "I" - meaning get beyond seeing myself as something distinct and separate from this grand and marvelous cosmos, and be at peace personally, with a minimum of old business and unresolved difficulty with others.

Tim Wynn, soon-to-retire director of facilities management, Western Washington University:

1. Obviously, the first one is to live 50 (????), 40 (???), 30 (??), 20 (?), OK, at least 10 more years.

2. The second is to climb Mount Rainier.

3. The third is to learn to sing well enough so that I can sing in the chorus for a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Marian Yunghans, former editor of Pacific Northwest Retirement magazine, community volunteer:

1. To reach the age of 95, fulfilling my doctor's prediction that I have 10 to 15 shelf years ahead.

2. Fly in a hot air balloon.

3. Cultivate a male friendship that shares the love of travel, world affairs and fine arts.

Flip Breskin, Bellingham musician, neighborhood activist:

1. Go through old family photos with my almost 88-year-old mom and save her stories.

2. Record an album of instrumental lullabies with local musician Richard Scholtz.

3. Get every block in Bellingham organized and ready to help each other in case of an earthquake.

Pam Kiesner, director, Bellingham Public Library:

1. Attend the grand opening of the new Bellingham Public Library, of course!

2. Camp in all U.S. national parks, spending at least one night in all of the grand lodges.

3. See where my grandparents grew up in Sweden, and visit relatives who still live there.

Bill Dietrich, prize-winning journalist, author, assistant professor at Huxley College of the Environment:

1. Living a meaningful life.

2. Figuring out existence. (Tombstone epitaph: "What was that all about?")

3. Having a cameo role in a movie made from one of my books. (And no, no movie deal, offered role, or even minimal acting ability.)

Tim Pilgrim, poet, associate professor of journalism at WWU:

1. Start successful social movements to shift half the U.S. military budget to fund free health care for all, turn all energy companies (gasoline, electricity, etc.) into nonprofits, and take news media ownership away from corporations.

2. Lead a national protest to stop space launches that carry or use nuclear materials.

3. Run my sixth marathon in under 3.5 hours.

4. Publish a dozen poems in The New Yorker.

Barbara Osen, director, North Puget Sound Branch of the Arthritis Foundation:

1. I would like to work with the community to assure that the warm-water exercise program for people with arthritis continues to stay available for a long time.

2. My second wish is to see Bellingham get our "second place" back in the national Jingle Bell Run/Walk standings. I will be retiring in January, so it would be nice to go out with a professional bang (or a jingle!). Getting 4,000 participants (or close to it) would do the trick.

3. The last one is something I wanted to do for a long time - learn Italian (I started already) and travel to Italy for at least a month. Also, take time to see a few other countries in southern Europe, and perhaps revisit my favorite Scandinavian places and Scotland.

Bob Witherspoon, officer, Whatcom Genealogical Society:

1. In 1982 I reached an altitude of 59,000 feet on a supersonic Concorde flight from London to New York. It would be wonderful to beat that personal best, but my "bucket list" is getting shorter, or at least must be modified as the chance for riding NASA's Space Shuttle to the International Space Station has dwindled away. Perhaps a suborbital flight on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two would satisfy my yearning for space travel with weightlessness and those spectacular views of the Earth.

2. Another trip to my ancestral homeland, Scotland, might be doable some day, now that I know the town where my great-grandfather was born. (I love the skirl of bagpipes at the Highland Games in Ferndale.)

3. Learning to scuba dive and observe the life around the Great Barrier Reef would break another altitude (or sub-altitude) barrier for me.

Bob Sanders, retired from a career in communications:

1. Personally aware of the devastating effects of Alzheimer's disease, my wife, Jan, and I plan to participate in studies being conducted in this battle of increasing importance.

2. Publishing a book of material taken from my weekly "Sidebars" blog is high priority. I recently had Australian interest expressed regarding 10 pieces written about Hugh Hefner and my experiences working for Playboy.

3. I'm going to take Jan back to Chicago to see the Cubs finally win a World Series. We were Bleacher Bums before moving to the Pacific Northwest in 1990, and cherish those times at Wrigley Field's outer limits where baseball maverick Bill Veeck, helping explain the mystique of the bleachers, suggested "the sun is hotter and the beer is colder."

JoAnn Roe, author of 15 books, and counting:

1. I would like to wake up some morning and know that no American soldiers were engaged in a war anywhere.

2. Sometime I would visit my ancestral relatives in Norway, from which both sides came in 1840! I know where the Roe family came from - Gol - but nothing about my mother's family.

3. Lately I have an urge to take one or more long train trips in this country or elsewhere.

Carl Crouse, pastor, Sumas Advent Christian Church:

1. It would be fun to take a few trips to Europe, particularly England. I would not mind seeing one of the African countries. I have had some friends doing Bible translating work in the South Pacific island of Vanuatu. I always thought that would be a fun place to visit because I have heard about it for 25 years now.

2. I really like my house, but in Nooksack we are too close to the foothills, so I don't see Mount Baker. If I were to ever move, I would want a picture-perfect view of Baker.

3. I would enjoy a trip to New England, particularly Maine, where I have family roots.

4. I want to write and publish a book - I have one that is half done, but needs a lot of work, a book of true short stories, "Red Pajamas and other Stories from the Grave."

5. I would not mind trying my hand at teaching a class or two on the mission field.

Milt Krieger, retired WWU professor of African and liberal studies:

1. Rolling back here and everywhere, everything leading to, related to, and derived from (Gov.) Scott Walker's Wisconsin initiatives.

2. Learning enough to play alto sax (no more lungs for baritone), as well as writing about jazz.

3. Attending the inauguration of whichever challenger and successor to Paul Biya finally dislodges his repressive, filthy, 30-year Cameroon presidential incumbency.

Frederick Su, former Marine, author of novel about a Chinese-American haunted by his experiences as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam:

I have pretty much done what I've wanted to do, in the following order, with No. 1 held in highest regard ...

1. Bicycled across the country in 1979.

2. Wrote and published a novel (2001).

3. Earned a Ph.D. (1979), and

4. Something I'm proud of, but something I would never hope to repeat: serve as a U.S. Marine (1969-71). No, I did not go to Vietnam.

MORE ONLINE

For Jimmy Fallon's bucket list, see the Parade magazine with the June 5 print edition of The Bellingham Herald, or click on this Parade.com link.