The world's oldest man dies - he was 114

[nissangirl74]

Officials at a Montana retirement home say the world's oldest man has died. Walter Breuning was 114, making him the oldest man and the second-oldest person in the world. Breuning was born on Sept. 21, 1896, in Melrose, Minn., and moved to Montana in 1918. Breuning lived at the Rainbow Senior Living retirement home in Great Falls. Retirement home spokeswoman Stacia Kirby confirmed that Breuning died Thursday, April 14, 2011 of natural causes in a Great Falls hospital.


How awesome would it be to have been able to sit down with this man, talk to him, and listen to his stories? Think of what all he has seen, all the discoveries that have been made, all the tragedies that have taken place, and all the progress that has been made in his lifetime. In the article, he states that his earliest memories are of hearing his grandfather tell stories about fighting in the Civil War and he remembers quite clearly the day McKinley was shot.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110415/ap_ ... oldest_man


If you could choose, would you want to live to be 114? Why or why not?

I would, especially if I had a way to share my story and what I had learned with people. I don't look forward to the aches and pains and the physical aging process but I can't wait to have all of that life wisdom. I just hope I don't have any regrets.

[MellowZ32]

old people die????
color me shocked!!!

[themadscientist]

We assume a lot, though. Boring people tend to stay that way. 114 years of the same old crap would be awfully boring.

[Ace2cool]

I would live to be that old. Just to see what happens, you know? See how the world changes and whatnot.

[Bubba1]

If you could choose, would you want to live to be 114? Why or why not?

I would, especially if I had a way to share my story and what I had learned with people. I don't look forward to the aches and pains and the physical aging process but I can't wait to have all of that life wisdom. I just hope I don't have any regrets.

I would want to live that long as well, but much would depend on how well my mind and body hold up.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I'd like to live as long as possible. Aches and pains are inconveniences and nothing more. You've only got one try, so I intend to make it last as long as possible. If I lived a billion years I'd still feel like more life would be worthwhile, because whatever comes next will wait, patiently, until the end. I'd prefer to chose when the end comes, but until then, I intend to enjoy life.

I think of life as an opportunity to EXPERIENCE. And unlike many people, I'll take ANY life over no life. I'll take being a brain in a jar with no body for 100 years if that's the only way I can get those hundred years. Of course, if I'm not myself those experiences aren't worth much, so of course my mind needs to hold together. But basically, I'll tolerate my body falling apart for millenia as long as I'm given the opportunity to keep on living.

There's one thing I can be entirely sure of, though: I'm going to be one GRUMPY a** 80 year old man. Get off my lawn.

[sbird1]

I would never want to live to be that old. The last 30 years of your life would pretty much suck. Aches and pains all the time, health conditions, and the kicker of all your friends and family dying before you. Yeah, give me an early death where I die doing something cool, you know, like fighting a hoard of zombies or something (heroically saving the other members of my party you know). The oldest person in the world is some old bat from here in Georgia. Maybe I can convince her that I'm her son.

[srellim234]

For me it would totally depend on my physical and mental health. I don't want to be an extreme burden on my family and friends.

[Bubba1]

I would never want to live to be that old. The last 30 years of your life would pretty much suck. Aches and pains all the time, health conditions, and the kicker of all your friends and family dying before you. .

I suspect you'll think differently when you get older.

My father had joked he wanted to live long enough to be a burden to his children. (He never did). But I was happy that he lived long enough to have gotten to know all of his grandchildren.

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

[sbird1]

I would never want to live to be that old. The last 30 years of your life would pretty much suck. Aches and pains all the time, health conditions, and the kicker of all your friends and family dying before you. .

I suspect you'll think differently when you get older.

Old people keep telling me that...

[Razi]

I would live to be that old. Just to see what happens, you know? See how the world changes and whatnot.

I think of life as an opportunity to EXPERIENCE. And unlike many people, I'll take ANY life over no life. I'll take being a brain in a jar with no body for 100 years if that's the only way I can get those hundred years.

I'm just curious about what will happen as the years go by.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

I honestly think that the current flock of old people have honestly seen the greatest progress man will EVER see. A lot of the industrial revolution, the advent (and uprising) of the automobile and airplane, modern weaponry, modern energy, the intense progression of telecommunications (telegraph to phone to TV to cell phone), fuggin SPACE TRAVEL and landing on the moon!!!, MUSIC, hell, even the rise of our biggest cities.

A lot of that is stuff that only happens once, you know?

[nissangirl74]

My dad lived to be 94 and he LOVED life. His stories were so wonderful, he accomplished so much. He was THE smartest man I have ever known. He was a mechanical engineer by trade but he was also a newspaper author, he helped his mother run her newspaper, he was a lieutenant in the US Army during WWII, an inventor and he was a farmer. He was a voracious scholar and probably had close to 1,000 books in his possession when he died, including three sets of encyclopedias. He went to school during the depression and knew how lucky he was to have been able to do that. His thirst for knowledge never waned. He wanted to know about EVERYTHING. He and Mom adopted me when he was 68 years old. At the age of 75, he and I set off on our last big vacation together, driving some 5,000 miles across the US, from Tennessee to Washington State with a lot of stops in between. At 85, he volunteered to be my daughter's babysitter. At 90, he raised a two acre garden that produced enough vegetable to feed three families for a year. At 92, he buried my mom. They had been married for 63 years. They had two sons, 8 grandkids (I was one of the 8), and one great-grandchild. Although he had had a couple of strokes a few years before, he remained in extremely good health, up until the last year. He led a VERY full life.

[prominentalex]

I was walking buy an old cemetery, and a woman was born in 1865 & died 1964. She lived through civil war, the car, flight, Titanic, The Great Depression, WWI & II. Kennedy's assassination, Abe's assassination. That must of been amazing to live through. Even though almost all of them are tragedies.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

I often wonder what it was like to live through WW2. Honestly, right wrong or indifferent, its probably the BIGGEST thing to ever occur to the human race. Really, we didn't KNOW the Germans were doing the things they were doing at the time (to the Jews). So I kinda wonder if people were more opposed to the war than we actually hear about now.

That war transformed America from a depressed "sleeping giant" into a full blown superpower.

[nissangirl74]

That war transformed America from a depressed "sleeping giant" into a full blown superpower.

WWII was the catalyst that ended the Great Depression. I told my History teacher that in high school. I thought his head was going to explode.

[driverdriver]

Can you imagine how much change he's seen during his 114 years?