“Hey, guys, we are in the 1% club.”
That comment came from one of my college roommates, class of 1959, during one of our monthly Zoom calls. He pulled out the factoid that only 1% of American males reach the tender age of 88. Eight of us had roomed together, and only two have passed on. Since most of us can’t make class reunions anymore, we decided it would be fun to stay in touch on a regular basis.
We had been friends since our freshman year 70 years ago. The six of us were pretty amazed that we are still here and still wanted to be connected.
We had become aware of a growing amount of research on people like us. People like us are now called “Super Agers.” Social and medical scientists wanted to learn how we had made it this far and stayed relatively sharp and active. The first and obvious finding has been that there is a huge variability in how people fare in their twilight years.
One recent study reported in the journal “Nature” found that a good number of the Super Agers are just as sharp today as they were at 50, or even younger. “Nature” published this: “Adults termed Super Agers are individuals displaying exceptional performance on tests of episodic memory. Brains of ‘super agers’ are strong producers of new neurons. Older people with exceptional memory have a surprisingly high number of young neurons.”
Super Agers are not a big slice of the population, well below 10%. But they are interesting human specimens because they can be productive for society throughout their lives.
The research on these old-timers show that luck is involved. There was no significant difference between normal aging and super aging in terms of diet, exercise, amount of sleep, professional backgrounds or alcohol and tobacco use. Some subsisted on TV dinners and a few smoked.
The early research showed, however, one consistency among the Super Agers; they tended to have strong social relationships.
Maybe that’s why my classmates and I are enjoying our monthly Zoom calls so much. Because we have nothing to hide at our ages, candor is a given. We discuss a wide range of topics, such as loss of a spouse, how to avoid falls, how to stay engaged socially, whether to drive a car and, most importantly to all of us, our family relationships.
We reserve a piece of our hour long conversations for bragging about our grandchildren.
The discovery of continuing connectivity that is very satisfying has led to regular communications in other ways. My wife and I have regular scheduled calls with our four children and their mates. We check in every week, whether we have anything important to talk about or not. Not all are close by, so these regular talks are life-affirming.
We stumbled into another way to stay engaged with our elderly friends — other Super Agers. We asked ourselves, “Why not celebrate our long lives? Let’s create a “Super Agers Winter Club” and get together on a regular basis?
It started with three couples for a Friday night fish fry, a hallowed tradition in Wisconsin, at a local restaurant. The only requirement: We are all in our 80s and cannot be “snowbirds” who go south for the winter.
We meet every other Friday and have a ball telling war stories and remembering the good times we had together over a half century of friendships. We laugh a lot. Our histories together yields hilarious and serious stories of lives lived, sports played, businesses conducted, families raised, mistakes made and charities served.
The word got out. We are up to 13 couples and a few singles. It has been so much fun and popular that we have joked about starting a franchise.
Of course, we have all lost great friends and others who are mentally challenged because their brains no longer turn out fresh neurons.
The existence of these still competent Super Agers points to the societal silliness of ruling people out of action based on age alone.
As examples, take Warren Buffet and the late Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway.
Older people who still have their marbles have a lot to offer as mentors, donors, fundraisers (old people have a disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth), historians, caregivers, grandchild sitters, financial supporters and stabilizers for society. Ageism is a great waste of talent.
Most importantly, we Super Agers who stay engaged are having a lot of fun in each other’s company.
A final antidote for loneliness in aging: get a puppy!
