Off the blocks

Getting to 100

As the NY Times reports in a really delightful article, Secrets of the Centenarians, it

Hazel Miller, still dancing (from the NY Times)

is getting a lot easier to find out the “how-to” to getting to be 100 years old because there are so many more people to ask. In 1990 there were 38,300 centenarians and now there are 104,099. That is some difference in just twenty years.

The article (and there is one to follow) gives a number of recipes for success, some of which I like and some that I don’t. For example, the lady getting the most ink, Esther Tuttle, acted on Broadway with Humphrey Bogart in 1934 and has been active throughout, still doing yoga and floor exercises for an hour a day. I love that.

 But I also have to read about extroverts jumping for joy after us introverts are deep in our graves. The extroverts have blood pressure in perfect amounts and cholesterol is something they just read about. Apparently, to be true to my introverted stripe, I need to put on some weight and buy a pack of Lucky Strikes (now that they’ve changed advertising agencies.)

It turns out that optimists do better than pessimists and that makes sense. I am hoping that the follow-up article profiles introverted optimists so I can get a  sense as to how long I’ll live.

Of all the people profiled, mostly ladies, my favorite “secret” comes from Hazel Miller who says “There is no secret about it, really. You just don’t die, and you get to be 100.”