According to a link provided over at The Old Coot, the world's oldest living person is just down the road in Shelbyville, IN.
Mrs. Parker was born in April of 18 and 93. Think about that for a moment: She was old enough to vote (21 back then) when Archduke Franz Ferdinand got whacked, except she couldn't because the 19th Amendment wouldn't be passed for another six years. She was fifteen when the first radio program was broadcast, and ten when the Wright Brothers flew.
From now on, every time I feel creaky in the mornings, I am going to remind myself that Mrs. Parker was 75 years old when I was born...
Gruss Gott, Miss Tam: you lied when you professed writer's block and depression an' stuff. You were marshaling all this energy with which to bushwhack your fans. Not nice to set up friends, Missy.
ReplyDeleteTC
Leatherneck
I've always envied people born in the 1890's. They witnessed mankind go from horse and buggy to man on the moon.
ReplyDeleteand the downside to me is that when I graduated high school you were only one. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm always amazed at the number of things that the "old people" have seen change.
ReplyDeleteMy great-grandmother walked behind a wagon from Missouri to Indiana. Then came moonwalks and space shuttles and...
That's why I want to live to be at least 100. I want to know what's going to happen next.
The tallest woman lives in Shelbyville too. Actually, I think they live in the same place. Tallest woman isn't in such good health if I remember correctly.
You know, somehow I figured you and I were about the same age. Funny that. I suppose its being exposed to the same or similar things as we grew up. I'm a 69'er myself.
ReplyDeleteTam,
ReplyDeleteMaybe to snap the funk (what funk??) you should make a pilgrimage to interview said oldster.
Maybe she'd like to go shooting? Surely something from your collection would remind her of her folks...
gwyqegla: Caligula's welsh cousin
I'll try to think of her tomorrow, when I have to apologize to yet another client because MY knuckles and joints are cracking and popping during the massage.
ReplyDeleteInteresting how we tend to date things by newsworthy events. I can recall the public unrest by the news of the launch of Sputnik. Many years later, when the subject of spaceflight came up, I mentioned sitting in the school auditorium watching the coverage of the launch of John Glenn. Got a funny look from my girlfriend, and then remembered she wasn't born 'till a couple years after. Whoops!
ReplyDeleteI just got a job at the Social Security Administration last week, and they mentioned her in Orientation.
ReplyDeleteThanks, now I feel old.
ReplyDeleteMy maternal grandmother, if she was still alive, would be older than her.
(And for the record Tam, I'm younger than you are, but not by much)
Thanks for the mention, Tam!
ReplyDeleteTomorrow (20 April) will be Mrs Parker's 115th birthday.
Mrs Parker died 26 Nov 08.
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