DOCTOR'S SWIM IS A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION

Most of us haven't reached the 80-year milestone yet, but most of us hope we make it that far. And, when we do, we hope we can be active and enjoy life. Few of us, at age 80 and beyond, would even think about jumping into the Mississippi River and swimming from the Illinois shore to the Missouri bank.

But Dr. Fred E. Rawlins, a Cape Girardeau obstetrician and gynecologist, has done it twice this summer. Rawlins has been making the river crossing every year since 1933, except for the eight years in the 1940s and '50s when he was in medical school and completing his residency.

Why does he do it? Rawlins isn't big on philosophy. Basically it's something he started doing, and once you've done it for -- oh, say, a half-century or longer, you just want to see if you can do it again. And again. And again.

For the rest of us, Rawlins is an inspiration, a living example of what each of us is capable of doing in our own lives. If we want to. For that, we thank the good doctor.