Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Live Long and Prosper


The Masoretic version of the Bible purported that Methusalah achieved the epic age of 969. His name is synonymous with longevity and no one in modern history has neared his nonacentarian record, although my great-grand aunt Bert lived to 103.

She circled the world in a sailing ship. One port of call was Bangkok and she was the first of my family to visit the Siamese capitol, but not the last. I lived there in 1998.

Other relatives have reached ripe old ages.

My father reached 89.

I expected to hit at least 110 if only because many more Americans are living longer and wrinklies are becoming the largest growing segment of the population.

Why?

People don't die as much as they used to die.

Once you get past 30, few want to live by the James Dean adage 'live fast and die young. Leave a good-looking corpse'." Not that they have much choice, since most young people in America aren't attractive after the age of 13.

Even morticians don't want to hump fat kids and those ghouls will hump most everything dead.

With that macabre phenomena in mind I'm living as long as possible.

I don't want anyone touching my dead flesh until I'm way pass my prime.

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