Day Will Come When a 100th Birthday Is No Big Deal

Published February 25, 1988. U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop was in the state a few days ago. He spoke at a conference on aging sponsored by Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. During his speech, Koop observed that a 100^th birthday will be a common place event by the 21^st century.

We often hear or read about people who live to be 100 years of age. Most will get their name in the paper or even have Willard Scott show their picture on national morning television. But the observation that turning 100 will be a “common place event” in the near future causes some interesting thoughts.

Suppose we all jog, wear our safety belts, and cut down on our cholesterol intake. How long can we expect to live? What is the likelihood of living to be 100? It may not be as far-fetched as we think.

One of the nation’s experts on the topic, Dr. Kenneth Pelletier of the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco, has written an interesting book titled “Longevity: Fulfilling Our Biological Potential.”

The Bible states, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow” (Psalms 90:10). Yet, despite the widespread belief that we will live to be 70 or 80 years of age, Pelletier notes that the human life span has much greater potential.

He notes the report of an Englishman named Thomas Parr, who was reputed to have died in 1635 at the age of 152. There is also the claim that Christian Drakenberg of Norway lived to be 145. In 1970 the Novosti Press Agency reported A Russian woman, Ashura Omarova, who lived to be 195. Charlie Smith, a former slave, lived the longest of anyone known in the United States; he died on October 7, 1979 . . . at the age of 137.

In 1799 a man known as J. Easton published a book titled “Human Longevity,” which contained the names of 1,712 individuals who had lived at least one hundred years between 66 A.D. and 1799. More recently, Representative Claude Pepper of Florida noted that the number of centenarians in the United States had risen from 3,000 in 1969 to well over 10,000 now.

What if living to be 100 soon becomes commonplace? What implications does this have for marriage? We may be moving into an era when 60 to 75 years of marriage may also become the norm.

If we are going to live to be 100 years of age, we might rethink or reconsider some dimensions of our lives. What are we doing, or not doing for that matter, right now that might have great impact later on? If we retire at 65, what will we do with the other 35 years of our lives, assuming we live to 100? What habits do we have now that will likely affect our physical health, our minds, and metal capabilities, our work or employment and most important of all, our relationships by our 100^th year?

Susan and I will be married 23 years next June. But according to Koop and Pelletier, we may not yet have completed the first of three laps of married life. I can foresee 50 years of marriage and our golden wedding anniversary on June 5, 2015. But what will married life be like for us during the last lap, between the years 2015 and 2040?

Along with 100 years of life, will 75 years of marriage also become the norm during the 21^st century? It’s an interesting thought with a multitude of implications.