54, 75?, 127, 166

I just noticed that as of today, August 6, so far I lived about 30% longer than my father. He was born October 21, 1904 and died December 20, 1958 – 54 years, 20 days roughly. Excel says that’s 19,783 days. As of today my Excel-measured days total 25,786, or about 30% longer.

We live in better times. In my dad’s lifetime the person who did not smoke, exercised regularly, watched his weight, ate with health in mind, etc., etc. was a social freak. I have a photograph of my mother and father sitting at a table of 10 in a large banquet room at the Kansas City Club sometime in the 1940s, I think, and everyone at their table, and everyone else in the huge room, it seemed, was smoking. The air in the room looked like the air over a steel mill town. Being overweight – being “a man with a belly” – was the norm.

In the 1940s and 50s there was no discussion of cholesterol-reducing drugs, stent operations, etc., because medical science had not come that far. A Google search today told me that the first heart bypass operation was done in 1967. The first heart stent installation surgery was in 1986. The first “successful” human heart transplant surgery was in 1967. Lipitor, the big breakthrough statin, went on sale in 1997.

If I live to be, say, 75, then to keep the longevity ball rolling Rich, Pat, and Mike will have to live to be about 98 years old, and their kids to continue the progress would have to live to be about 127, and their kids to about 166. Good luck!