Sunday Funnies 9-3-06

Sunday Funnies 9-03-06
R.I.P. Mr. Johnson

I wish they’d get it straight. What? I’ll tell you, thanks to George Johnson dying.

Huh? According to the AP, Los Angeles, “George Johnson, considered California's oldest living person at 112 and the state's last surviving World War I veteran, had experts shaking their heads over his junk food diet.” Come on, how many times do we hear of a person over 100 who has, some of the so-called bad habits many of us have? Even I groaned at the story, and before even hearing it, Hubby said, “Yeah, due to a shot of Tequila a day, a couple of stogies, eating butter out of the cow…blah-blah.” Close baby, but no cigar. The 5-foot-7, 140-pound Johnson died of pneumonia Wednesday at his Richmond home in Northern California? That will be excellent news to men of short-stature, (nudge to 5 ft. 7 inch Hubbydude) I would think.

Dr. L. Stephen Coles, founder of the Gerontology Research Group at the University of California, Los Angeles, said of Mr. Johnson, on Friday, “He had terrible bad habits. He had a diet largely of sausages and waffles." Yours truly, and a whole bunch of boomers are heading to their garages to find that old waffle-maker they got as a wedding gift umpteen decades ago… ”Hey, come back, but not before a quick jog, to get some Jimmy Dean ™ sausages!” Dr. Coles goes on to add, “A lot of people think, or imagine, that your good habits and bad habits contribute to your longevity, but we often find it is in the genes rather than lifestyle." Well sheesh…I put down the shiny waffle-maker, and stand there with my Jimmy Deans….what to do now?

Coles participated in an autopsy this past Thursday, designed to study Johnson's health. How do you study the health of a deceased person…can you die healthy? Just things I want to know. Coles states, "All of his organs were extremely youthful. They could have been the organs of someone who was 50 or 60, not 112. Clearly his genes had some secrets," Coles said. WHAT? Did you guys see that……… really comprehend it? I mean 50-60 is what was referred to as, extremely youthful......I knew it! Coles continued, "Everything in his body, that we looked at, key point I am sure, was clean as a whistle, except for his lungs with the pneumonia. He had no heart disease, he had no cancer, no diabetes and no Alzheimer's. "This is a mysterious case that someone could be so healthy from a pathology point of view and that there is no obvious cause of death." No obvious cause of death….hmmmmm…didn’t he hear himself? PNEUMONIA. Certainly seems that could have been it, to me. Cole continued, "This is a mysterious case that someone could be so healthy from a pathology point of view and that there is no obvious cause of death." AHEM…if not pneumonia, then possibly old age could be the cause? I mean come on…he was 112.

Johnson, who was blind and lived alone until his 110th birthday, when a caregiver began helping him, building his Richmond, CA house by hand in 1935. He got around using a walker in recent years. I suppose there are at least some health giving benefits to being blind, he never had to actually “see” Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfuntion during a half-time Superbowl a few years back!

The family was in favor of an autopsy. Relatives said Johnson wanted them to allow it if it would help science.

Born May 1, 1894, Johnson's father managed the Baltimore and Ohio Railway station in Philadelphia. Johnson was working in 1917 as a mail sorter for the U.S. Post Office when he was drafted into the Army. The war ended a year later, and he never served in combat. Obviously going postal was something unheard of then, thankfully. Two years later, he and his wife moved to Northern California. "It was a great adventure in those days. We were young and wanted the experience," Johnson said in a March interview with the Contra Costa Times. Adventure nowadays seems to be mustering a trip to the mall, sigh. The couple settled in Fresno and remained there until 1935, when they bought property in Richmond. They used lumber salvaged from dismantled buildings to build their house. They just don’t build houses like they used to.

During World War II, Johnson worked at the Kaiser shipyard in Richmond and later managed the heating plant at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland. Hey, I had my tonsils out in that hospital in 1972! I must say, the heat worked fine, obviously Mr. Johnson did a very good job. Mr. Johnson drove until the age of 102. Ummmm, I'm guessing that must be when he went blind!

Sadly, Johnson's wife died in 1992 at the age of 92. The couple had no children. Dang, apparently no longevity genes were to be passed on. Time for brunch!



*Note...The Fall Issue of B.A.N.G. is being worked on, so look for it in the next day or two...depending on how much I can motive hubbyspeaks, the guest editor, to get his brain in gear!