Grow Old With Me

The two most interesting people I met at Doc's birthday party were a 103 year old man and a 80 year old woman. I noticed the man when I sat down at one of the picnic tables that had been set up under the pine trees near the meadow in front of Doc's cabin. As I sat down with a plate of food in my hand I glanced across the table and saw two older gentlemen sitting at the table just across from mine. Neither had any food and so after I set my plate down I went over to them and asked if they would like something to eat. One of them said yes so I fixed a plate and brought it back to him.

When I sat back down at my place I was asked if I knew who the man I brought the food to was. I shook my head no and was told that his name was Cole and he was 103 years-old. He and his friend Jack (age 95) had been driven up from Longmont for Doc's party. (They amusingly referred to Doc as "The Kid") Cole had been a pilot and was still pissed off that they had taken his pilot license away from him last year at the age of one-hundred and two. Jack, his young friend, was also pissed because Cole wasn't able to fly them up to the party. Further more, I was told, Cole had been mentioned in the Guinness book of world records as the oldest pilot in the world.

After we finished eating I went over to talk to Cole. I asked him when he first got his pilot license and he told me it was in 1917. I was going to ask him more questions about his flying career but somehow we started talking about the cane he was carrying. He told me he had bought the cane in 1925 right before he graduated from college. It had been the fashion at that time for all the men in the graduating class to buy canes and then have each one carve his own name into everyone else's cane. The cane was covered with the names and initials of all his classmates. Some names he still remembered and other he had forgotten long ago. At that point we got interrupted and I did not have a chance to talk to him again.

The other person that fascinated me was a friend of Doc's who was also 80 years old. In fact Doc always teased her and referred to her as "an old lady" because she was 4 months older that he. This woman was beautiful with large blue eyes and glowing skin. She looked her age but this did nothing to take away from her beauty. Just by looking at her you could tell she was one good-looking woman when she was younger. I was saddened when someone told me that this lovely woman almost didn't come to the party because she thought she looked "hideous."

It is even sadder to know that some women actually believe that just because they are older they do look hideous. Twenty years ago Sixty Minutes did a segment about 80 year-old women in Brazil undergoing the knife in order to look "younger." Let me tell you not one of those women looked younger after their surgery. They all looked like 80 year old women who had just had face lifts. I thought the whole thing was crazy and was glad that kind of thing was not done in the USA. Well, here we are 20 years later and it now is done all the time-just look at Joan Rivers.

Since we are looking at Joan Rivers let's look at Katherine Hepburn too. They are both about the same age in the photos below and I have to say I think Hepburn is more beautiful than Rivers.


















There is in true beauty, as in courage, something which narrow souls cannot dare to admire.
-William Congreve



FYI
I found this in the Guinness Book OF World Records 2002,page 56:

Oldest Pilot
Cole Kugel (b. 1902. USA) is the oldest qualified pilot in the world at 99 years old. He was born one year before the legendary Wright Brothers took to the skies, and has been flying for the last 71 years. Cole is a member of the International Flying Farmers- where he is also the oldest member.

And if you go here you will find an article about Cole on his 100th birthday.