The secrets of longevity?

Hey, I am not a guru on the subject but I saw a documentary on one of the cable news channels about Henry Allingham, who was born in 1896!

That's not a typographical error - his life of 113 years actually spanned three centuries! He just died.... May his soul rest in peacr.

Several things struck me about the British world War veteran - he fought in the airforce in WWII certainly could have been in WWI.

He had been the reigning oldest man in the world. When asked how he would like to be remembered, he deflected the question and humbly said that it was the others who had fought alongside him and died who should be remembered....

He also had a ready quip when he was asked what his longevity secret was: wild women, whiskey, and something else I cannot quite remember right now....

Ha-ha....He might as well have added a large heart, public attention/gratitude, and a good sense of humor. I believe the recently late great journalist Walter Cronkite also had a similar disposition - may his soul rest in perfect peace at the ripe old age of 92 years.

You know, while watching the documentary on Walter Cronkite as The Most Trusted Man in America, I saw somehow a bit of CNN's Christiana Ananpor in him. The Most Trusted Investigative Journalist...Weird, isn't it?

Long may she live to give her powerful investigative reports. Amen. She is to Journalism what Elsa Klensch had been to Fashion, in my humble opinion...

I guess she too has her own nine lives to live through till old age -remember how she narrowly escaped a shelling/bombing incident some years ago on assignment in the Middle East, I think, before wisely getting married to start a family with the main Clinton-era Treasury Secretary?

UPDATE - Friday, September 11, 2009:

Abstinence and religion have been given as the twin peaks of her longevity by the recently-late Gertrude Baines of Los Angeles, USA, and erstwhile current oldest woman in the world at 115 years of age...

Read more: World's Oldest Woman Dies at 115‎.