ALL'S FARE WITH SUPERCENTENARIANS

" ... When my father heard Lincoln speak at Gettysburg...."

Not something you hear every day, and a sentence not likely to ever begin again, with the reported passing recently of George Johnson, "California's oldest living person," who died August 30th at age 112, and whose father WAS in attendance at President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in 1863.

One hundred twelve years old, and his father "heard" Lincoln speak?

Still, this did not strike me as being George's most profound bio-anecdote, nor was it that he was born in a home without electricity (not because his family couldn't afford it, but rather, he once said simply, "because there wasn't any."). Yes, there was channeled electricity coursing about in 1894, but not for George Johnson households.

Consider what there was, and wasn't, when George arrived on the first of May, 1894. That's not the last century, mind you, but the one BEFORE:

Neonate George, for the first time in history, could get his formula Coca-Cola in a glass bottle (little George may well have been weaned on this, as you'll read).

In 1894, the world gained a Jack Benny and a Norman Rockwell, and lost a Robert Louis Stevenson and a Birdsill Holly --- the latter notable for his design of the "pot-bellied fire hydrant," and worth mentioning here because a name like Birdsill Holly should also not pass into obscurity. Many a dog had his day on a Holly hydrant, and we're all the better for it.

George's first glimpses of our human habitat saw air devoid of aircraft, land full of horse-drawn mail wagons, seas still dreaming of Titanic events, and Fred Ott --- a comedian and Thomas Edison employee --- caught sneezing in a motion picture. A silent film with a 5-second run time, and known as "Fred Ott's Sneeze," this Edison Kinetoscopic wonder consisted entirely of Mr. Ott pinching snuff and sneezing.

Movie reviewing in 1894 was a lonely business.

But, the next time you pass a fire hydrant or pick up a Netflix, you'll need not feel historically-challenged.

Today, doctors are acknowledging, and I'm sure reluctantly, that George's supercentenarian's (a person living to 110 or more) longevity was unencumbered by culinary caution. He subsisted largely on a diet of sausages and waffles. Moreover, he had no chronic illnesses, his organs presented as those of a man half his age, and "Clearly," as Dr. Stephen Coles of the Gerontology Research Group in California reported, "his genes had some secrets."

I suspect that George did have a Coke and a smile with his sausages and waffles on occasion, and at the expense of flying in the face of established dietary standards.

Now, don't get ahead of me. As a humor columnist, am I now recommending that we drop the broccoli and head to the nearest greasy spoon for a double heaping of a lumberjack breakfast? Would I suggest that we abandon calorie counts, balancing the food groups and sweating good cholesterol numbers in lieu of daily platefuls of starchy animal fat?

Would I advocate a return to birthing our babies in truly wireless environments and a retreat to the intimate charm of lantern & candle ambience? Should we trade-in nutritional care & caution for party platters of farinaceous frivolities?

Do I support a pre-nuclear age return of the nuclear family?

Should we start eating like there's no tomorrow?

Yes & no, and you'll have to sort out which. Mindful of Dr. Cole's summary, the George Johnsons among us do have some special, mysterious genetic privilege. The man who eschewed doctors all his life ("What can THEY do?") and the dogmas of sound nourishment, lived independently and in good health, drove his own car at 102, and did not even require the assistance of a caregiver until he was 110.

Let's hope, George, that doctors CAN find the secret to your path of a healthy, extended life, but for tonight, we may just power down, light a candle for you, and enjoy a five-score and twelve waffle & sausage tribute.

Copyright 2006 B. Elwin Sherman. All rights reserved.

(Photo of George Johnson courtesy of Lt. Col. Robert W. Johnson, USAF (Ret.) Adjutant, Department of California Veterans of World War I of the USA.)