Pickles by Brian Crane for June 20, 2023

Earl of that i have no doubt.

There were plenty of old men back then, just a truly appalling infant mortality rate. If you made it past age 5 or so, life expectancy wasn’t so bad.

I could still run when I was 33.

Luckily I surpassed the 15th-century life expectancy by six years.

nowadays though – with replacement parts and overhauls – refurbished guys can last a few years longer

Life is hard, and then you die…..after you’ve paid your taxes.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; or never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

It takes a close friendship to enjoy a moment of shared self-reflection…

There were times I kinda remember my Dad giving me a look that said I had already reached my limit . . . and his.

I graduated from college at age 59! Hooray!

“So many things I could (or should) have done” right Earl?!

Lifespan of 33 was due to infant mortality. If you made it past childhood, you’d likely live into your 50s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

I was thinking that’s why social and technological progress was so so slow. I think as folk’s lifespan grew, so did society’s progress. Look how long talking was the dominate form of communication. Then books. Look how long it took tablets and IPads to appear. The next generation of communication will occur before the end of the decade. But, it’s just an idea of mine. It’s all anecdotal. It could just be coincidence and not causation.

At 33, I was listening to all the “Y2K” hype…

As I pointed out in classes “average” is an artificial. The fact more than half the babies born died before age 10 drags down the “average.” Diseases and other medical issues took out a lot of young people who survived into their teens. There weren’t a lot of people living into their 70s and 80s, but people did.

(I’ve been known to scream at a commercial which talked about Romans being considered old at 38. No, they weren’t. Don’t believe average life span means everyone drops dead at that age.)

Even today, all too many die many years before they take their last breath.

My body says 65 with two artificial knees and a titanium braced neck, but my brain says I’m 35…with two artificial knees and a titanium braced neck.

My downhill plunge started around 70 and is currently picking up speed.

The low average was due to high infant mortality. If you made it past five, your life expectancy wasn’t too different from today.

Loser.

Back when just getting through the day might be considered burning the candle at both ends today.

I started to peter out around age 40. but that was mostly due to knee injuries and back problems.

I was pretty much worthless until I was 35.

Wow – that’s quite a life you had there Earl.

35 is the average at birth. Infant mortality was quite high. From: https://www.verywellhealth.com/longevity-throughout-history-2224054

It does not mean that the average person living in 1200 A.D. died at the age of 35. Rather, for every child that died in infancy, another person might have lived to see their 70th birthday.

Early years up to the age of about 15 continued to be perilous, thanks to risks posed by disease, injuries, and accidents. People who survived this hazardous period of life could well make it into old age.

Other infectious diseases like cholera, tuberculosis, and smallpox would go on to limit longevity, but none on a scale quite as damaging of the bubonic plague in the 14th century. The Black Plague moved through Asia and Europe, and wiped out as much as a third of Europe’s population, temporarily shifting life expectancy downward.

Yikes! Then Why did I work til 78?

There are several ways to define a lifespan, but if you eliminate the high infant mortality of the past, anyone living past age 1 could expect to live about as long as a modern American.Not that America does well in that department.

Hip replacement surgery stopped my running back in 95.

Male lifespans have had their ups and downs, way back.. Noah lived something like 950 years.

Noah, as the last of the extremely long-lived Antediluvian patriarchs, died 350 years after the flood, at the age of 950, when Terah was 128. The maximum human lifespan, as depicted by the Bible, gradually diminishes thereafter, from almost 1,000 years to the 120 years of Moses.

I was just getting started when I was 25. I taught in the community college system for 33 years. I like to think/hope that I changed a lot of lives during that time.

Fifteenth century? Still 33 at the time of the Revolutionary War in the late eighteenth century. Part of the reason Ben Franklin was known as the “old man”.

That’s better than the people who peaked in high school.

“….so just basically taking up space, food, and oxygen since then.”

(that’s okay, my grandchildren are fond of me, though)

Many of my management subordinates didn’t become creative till about 30.

This is the last day of the first of your life.

Today is as young and spry as you’ll ever be. My great great great great grandmother lived to be 104. Since the genes are there, I’m 80 now, so I have a lot of time left, if I’m fortunate.

Calm down folks. Enough bragging.

Sad to have given up so soon.

Earl could still get his peter out when he was 25?

Why they call those your prime years.

Earl started petering out after he married Opal.