I'm Going To Live Until I Die

World's oldest person dies in L.A. at 115
Enjoyed steady diet of crispy bacon, fried chicken, ice cream
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32799091/ns/us_news-life/?GT1=43001

I read this story and thought, see there you go. This woman had a steady diet of bacon, fried chicken and ice cream. Now see this is where in all due respect I have to say that just isn’t fair. Oh shut up I know life isn’t supposed to be fair. Nobody promised me it would be fair. No one called me up and said “Gladys just cause you’re so darn cute I’m going to make life fair.” Nope never got that call. I instead call the call that said Gladys, you will be grossly underweight until your 45th year of life, and then you will balloon out like the Goodyear blimp. Your cholesterol will be 4000 and you will be forced to give up everything you love. You must never again let bacon; fried chicken and ice cream pass you lips. You will not only NOT live to be 115 years old if you do this but you will be lucky if you make it to your next driver’s license renewal date if you do. Evidently Ms. Gertrude Baines didn’t answer her telephone the day that life called to tell her those things. Damn these cell phones and the obsessive need to feel connected.
She lived to be one hundred and fifteen years old. That is 1-1-5. Fifteen (not five) years more than one hundred. That means she was born in 1894. Let me repeat that, eighteen hundred and ninety-four. Just to get perspective lets see what happened that year.
1894 Jan 7, one of the earliest motion picture experiments took place at the Thomas Edison studio in West Orange, N.J., as comedian Fred Ott was filmed sneezing.
1894 Mar 12, Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time.
1894 Mar 25 Jacob S. Coxey began leading an "army" of unemployed from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington, D.C., to demand help from the federal government. Coxey advocated, as a way to provide jobs and increase the amount of money in circulation, a public works program of road construction and local improvements to be financed by the issuance of $500 million in legal tender notes. Coxey's Army of unemployed disbanded when Coxey and two other leaders were arrested for trespassing on the White House lawn in 1894.
1894 Jun 26, Karl Benz of Germany received a US patent for a gasoline-driven auto.

These are just a few of the events that took place the year Ms. Baines was born. Now I want you to reach into your brain and think very hard about what you learned in your history classes.
Think of the important events she witnessed either first hand or through the magic of a new media, the radio. Oh but remember not only did she live through the birth of radio, motion pictures, talking motion pictures, color motion pictures, television and finally the computer and with it the internet. How amazing a life she must have lived even if she thought it mundane.
Has it soaked in yet? The fact this woman witnessed a mountain of history is staggering. She lived through the Spanish American War, the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War, the Bay of Pigs, Desert Storm and the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars. Not to mention she was born when Grover Cleveland was president and experienced the long journey to Barack Obama. She lived through Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. She witnessed the assassination of John and Jack Kennedy. She saw the dust bowl and survived the Great Depression and even according to the news media survived the latest recession.

One hundred and fifteen years. Would you? Could you live to be 115? I am certainly going to try.