I am a big admirer of Mr. Kotlowitz, so it pains me to passionately disagree with him. I think that part of growing older is a sober sensible assessment of your limitations of what you can and can t do, making peace with your losses, and then there s got to be a chunk left for play and for having a wonderful time, fulfilling some of your dreams, and for being totally frisky. This is I think George Bush s finest moment. Well, I think too it s a vivid metaphor of the revolution in longevity we re experiencing in this century. We ve gained 28 years of life expectancy since 1900, and with it, happily, a declining disability rate.
People are more vigorous and healthy.
If he were 29, we d think nothing of it. And, in fact, people of all ages are doing things like this. And there are many others that are his age that are doing equally remarkable things, going down hills and Alps and going around the world on airplanes and doing all sorts of things, flying those airplanes. So that people are really increasingly active in the later years. There were 41 of us.