Secrets For Living a Long Life: Faith, Crispy Bacon and Tabloid TV!
The Guinness Book of World Records gives out a lot of framed commemorative certificates for the World's Oldest Living Person for obvious reasons. The moment you achieve such notoriety, in this case at age 115 (!), your heart's expiration date is already way overdue.
Gertrude Baines, the daughter of a Georgia slave, first gained notoriety last November as the oldest African-American to vote for Barack Obama for president. In January, after the competition passed away, she was honored with the title of World's Oldest Person, period.
Here's how the Los Angeles Times described the hoopla at the Western Convalescent Hospital:
"Reporters, photographers, and camera
crews descended on the quiet Los Angeles hospital that had been the
supercentenarian’s home since she broke her hip at 107. She made
headlines across the globe. Fellow senior citizens at the hospital,
some approaching 100, said they desired her longevity.
All
the while, Ms. Baines slept away in her robe, now and then breaking
from her routine of eating crispy bacon, watching Jerry Springer on TV,
and participating in church services to take interviews. The attention,
the questions, the fascination people had with her age in her final
year amused and perplexed her.
“Why all these questions?’’ she snapped back at reporters once. “I want to know.’’
The question Ms. Baines seemed to like the least was the one she got the most. What’s your secret? How do stay alive so long?
Each time, she shrugged her bent shoulders and referred people to God, saying, “Ask him.’’
People Magazine also reported that Gertrude enjoyed a daily dose of The Price is Right, years after iconic game show host Bob Barker left the Showcase Showdown.
When capturing life stories for Reel Profiles personal documentaries, we cherish the delicious details as much as Jerry Springer loves watching his guests throw chairs.
Sometimes it's the so-called trivial day-to-day stuff that spices up a personal biography.
How your grandfather survived and fed his kids during the Great Depression is worth preserving as family lore. But so is the fact that he attended the 1946 Red Sox-Cardinals World Series or that he cursed the television every time President Richard Nixon popped on the screen.
What are some of your favorite "trivial" family stories?