Setting the table of longevity

As far as I can tell, the following are signs that are supposed to help you figure whether you’re destined for a ripe old age or a hasty death.

If you are short, fat, 76-years-old and easily provoked to anger, you should have been dead for at least 14 years.

If you have an outdoor job like bull roping, and are taller than average, you should live well into your nineties, unless you hold the rope too close to your body.  

If you’re an ornithologist, have long legs, but short ankles, are over 50 and sing Gilbert and Sullivan tunes in the shower, you’ll probably outlive your grandchildren.

The best way to live to be 100 — and it’s assumed that everybody wants to live to be 100 — is to be 5 feet 9 inches tall, weigh 150 pounds, have 3.2 children, avoid fats and starches, don’t smoke or have diabetes, and live out-of-doors. 

I keep reading in the news about folks who could be sitting on the porch rocking away the days but are outdoing people half their age. When Queen Elizabeth was 95, she still rode black Fell ponies wearing her signature trademark, a headscarf. Concert pianist Harriet Thompson ran her first marathon at 76, becoming the oldest woman to run a marathon. She competed in a race every year, finishing her career running a half-marathon as a 94-year-old. 

And Dorothy Custer became famous at 102 for BASE-jumping, the sport of speed, adrenaline, and danger. After her plunge from a 486-foot bridge, her husband made her retire.

I like to hear about older authors who churned out novels. Goethe finished “Faust” at 80, and James Michener typed more words each day in his eighties than McDonald’s cranks out burgers. Laura Ingels Wilder and Frank McCourt were both 65 when they wrote their first novels. 

I think about recent research gerontologists have come up with. It’s a survey that can be used to compute your “real age.” They claim lifestyle choices can make you appear and feel younger or older than your actual age. Most of us can guess what they’ve learned — good genes, healthy diet, plenty of sleep, and regular exercise increase your chances of a long life. And the very act of patrolling your health, they say, buys you as much as nine years. 

I’ve decided it’s better not to think about it. I like the philosophy of baseball legend Satchel Paige. He said, “Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”