The Masoretic version of the Bible claimed that Methuselah achieved the epic age of 969. His name is synonymous with longevity. No one in modern history has touched his nonagenarian record, although my great-grand aunt lived to 103.
Bert circled the world in a sailing ship.
One port of call was Bangkok. She was the first of my family to visit the Siamese capitol, but not the last. Other relatives have reached ripe old ages.
My father hit 88. 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?
My father purported the rise in age to be the benefit of preservatives in our food, but in plain truth 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'. Most of the young I see 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.
The longer the better.
