I have reached those happy golden years when this all-too-mortal flesh starts slowly falling apart.

Luckily, I have not had to replace any major parts so far, but the hearing is beginning to go, and I sometimes have a hitch in my giddy-up. Oh, and there are the cataracts that are making their presence felt on my sparkling eyes (I just thought everyone on the highway always had their bright lights on). And on that last visit to the dentist, I spent several thousand dollars for a root canal and a crown for a tooth that now really just needs to be pulled.

Oh, joy.

The waist has gotten a bit wider, the hair a bit scarcer, and I didn’t know that you could get wrinkles on your arms.  So cool!

As a very wise and famous T shirt once observed, it’s weird being the same age as old people.

I guess that we can just be grateful that modern medicine can patch us up so well.

Back in 1923, the average life expectancy for a man in the United States was 56.1 years.  Women’s life expectancy was 58.5 years. Now, 100 years later, men can expect to live to 76.4 and women to 80.2 years of age. We humans are now living over 20 years longer, thanks to advances in medicine, diet, education, and health care. Gone are the days when cigarette ads contained endorsements from doctors. Cars now have seatbelts, airbags, and baby car seats that might actually protect a young child. We also strictly enforce laws against drunk driving. 

However, life expectancy did not steadily increase every year. Most notably, it went from 48.4 years for men in 1917 to 36.6 years in 1918, and from 54 years for women in 1917 down to 42.2 years, thanks to the Spanish Flu pandemic. 

In 1918, one-third of the world’s population—500 million people—were infected. Of those, 50 million died. In the United States, 675,000 people died, according to World Health Organization data. By contrast, in our latest pandemic, Covid cases topped 756 million, with 6.8 million dying worldwide. In the U.S. there have been 101.4 million cases of Covid, and 1.1 million Americans have perished.

Of course, back in 1918, there were no vaccines to protect people. Now 712.7 billion vaccines have been administered all over the world, with 613 million of those doses given out in the United States.

We have the tools to live longer. And yet, I’m ever-so-slowly falling apart. I just hope it takes another 30 years before I fully implode.