For most homo sapiens with an intact mentality and even a minimal component of perspective, the attainment of nine decades of life is an almost impossible illusion.

While ninety is a reality for relatively tiny handful well-publicized exceptions to the widely recognized "life-expectancy" tables being meticulously maintained by the world's insurance companies, the reality is that it is not a sensible expectation for the vast majority of us.

Yet, the fact remains, that some of us will make it. And the tiniest sampling of our human family will even make it to the Century mark or beyond! But don't count on it. That you will be disappointed is a safely foregone conclusion. Doing the ninety thing is like winning the Big Bucks Lottery: Some lucky stiff will win it, but it won't be you. Count on it! The odds are too long against you - and our world is too full of life-shortening things, like lightning storms, hurricanes, cars, motorcycles, young widows and jealous husbands. Truly, it's a jungle out there!

But with this discouraging preamble to shape our sensible expectations, I now want to astound you with the fact that as of today - 15 August, 2008 - I have attained the lofty and totally unexpected age of *ninety!* Against all of the hazards arrayed against me: mechanical, social, genetic and accidental; personal participation in the "Last Good War" (WW-II) and "attendance" at three revolutions, I have cleared all of the low and high hurdles that threatened the chronological outcome - and I have done it! Everything else in this incarnation seems to have receded into the gathering mists, in the accomplishment of this single - almost unimaginable - fact. *I did it!!*

* *

Now it must be added that there is much more to the attainment of great age (and, presumably, the great wisdom that attaches to such an accomplishment), than simple arithmetic. Unfortunately, most of the folks who manage to beat the almost ruinous odds and actually grab the ninety-year brass ring, arrive at this distinguished podium with a regrettable assortment of ills, handicaps and chronic conditions that make the enjoyment of their certified senior citizenship more of a burden than a blessing. In view of this sorry fact, the aspirants to such chronological overachievement must pay meticulous attention to their health and physical maintenance on a day-by-day basis, every day of their lives.
It's part of the price to be paid.

Clean living, regular hours and careful selection of family and social associates are the hornbook principles to be strictly observed by the ninety-year aspirant. Doing this doesn't require removing one's self out of the public arena, in favor of a cell in a monastery or other isolation from the realities of life as it is served up a-la-carte. But it does require a great deal of prudence, social caution and strict avoidance of  late hours, strange bottles and snacks purchased off a street vendor's cart. It is also advisable to forego the attractions inherent in apparently unattached females who wear uniforms or sell magazine subscriptions door-to door.

When survival is the watchword, extreme caution in selecting risky exposures is a minimal requirement.

The benefits of such behavioral fastidiousness should be obvious as I recount the dividends such conformity to moderation and self-preservation have bestowed on your ninety-year-old author.

In terms of the obvious, this deponent celebrates his nonagenarian arrival with a full
head of naturally wavy hair, a mouthful of his own teeth, (thanks to cataract operations many years ago) eyes that only require spectacled assistance for reading small print and watching the Playboy Channel on T-V. A hearing-aid is an almost permanent fixture in his left ear, the result of too many deep SCUBA dives in his salad days. He walks on level ground and negotiates stairways without benefit of cane, crutches, wheel-chair or other orthopedic appliances, feeds and shaves himself without assistance and undertakes modest maintenance activities around the house.

These bonifacts are the dividends of a life characterized by moderation and careful selection of the risk exposures deemed acceptable. Perhaps it should be mentioned that your author flew airplanes until his 70th birthday, whereupon the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.) cancelled his pilot's license. He rode a series of motorcycles until giving up that indulgence at age 65, and disposed of his SUV and his driver's license at the tender age of eighty-five.

Now he flies in aircraft as a paying passenger. He keeps a photograph of his last motorcycle prominently displayed on his office wall, and his ground transportation is in the comparatively sterile upholstery of taxicabs, limousines or other public conveyances. These deprivations are considered notable assists in the senior citizen's devoted search for a leg up on theoretical "eternal life".

Life becomes almost meaningless without new challenges as the pages fly off the calendar. With Ninety Years tucked firmly under my existential belt, the status quo can only be satisfactorily displaced by moving up to the next plateau.

Having already finished most of the full hypothetical course, I view the *Centurion* mark as only a hop, skip and a jump away. Having completed nine-tenths of the hundred-year saga, I am sure that the ten years remaining will be taken at a trot!

May I have the next dance?

With a blood-pressure reading of 130/80 and no inclination to self-destruction or Bungee-cord jumping, the only inflexible rule is to keep on keeping on. One of my fearless healers has told me that, while I may be *Ninety*, my heart doesn't know it. I intend to sustain that secret as long as humanly possible.

Easy does it!

I hope this dissertation will serve to buoy the spirits of the downhearted and stiffen the resolve of the pessimistic among us. Life is an exercise in the possible. We have no real understanding or appreciation of the latitudes within which we exist until we find ourselves confronted by immutable evidence and ineradicable proof.

Life is not a squirrel-cage. It's a walk through an almost infinite fun-house.

Enjoy the scenery and be sure to get your share of the laughs. Regardless of how long the adventure lasts, it will probably end at least a few days before you are really ready. So try to be mentally and spiritually prepared for the denouement.

Make the best deals with fortune that you can arrange and try to leave some of the good stuff behind you for those who will follow in your footsteps.

With warm regards to my fellow-travelers......

Lorenzo Dee Belveal
15 August 1918 - 15 August 2008
Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
ldbelveal@terra.com.mx

------------ E N D -----------

  Lorenzo Dee Belveal

Copyright © 2008 Lorenzo Dee Belveal
All Rights Reserved
 

Send mail to estebanREMOVE@THISgoodfelloweb.com with technical questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2000Lorenzo Dee Belveal Article Database
Last modified: August 13, 2008