World’s Oldest Blogger

A blog about aging cannot fail to note the arrival of a new blog from Australia titled The Life of Riley from Olive Riley.

“Oh yeah,” you may say. “You don’t announce the arrival of other new blogs with only two posts so far.”

This one is different. Olive was born in the 19th century. That’s right, she was born on 20 October 1899, and is 107 years old.

“My Friend, Mike,” says Olive, “has arranged this blog for me. He is doing the typing and I am telling the stories. He thinks it’s a good idea to tell what’s going on. He already made a film about me a few years back and people liked that, so they might like this blog too, he says. We’ll see.”

That’s Olive drinking a shandy (half beer, half lemonade).

Olive’s friend, Mike Rubbo, has a history of telling the stories of old ladies, as he explains his involvement with Olive’s new blog:

“In 1990, I made a fiction film called Vincent and Me, the story of a young girl who went back in the past to meet Vincent van Gogh. Into the fictional story, we injected a real person, Madame Jeanne Calmant of Arles, France. Jeanne was 114 at the time and had known Vincent as a young girl. She was the only person alive who’d had any contact with the famous painter.

“Being in my movie did Jeanne no harm, quite the contrary. She went on to live to 121, the oldest person ever recorded. She…only died, rumor has it, because her carers at the old folks home decided to cut her off from visitors when she turned 119 and she died of boredom two years later. I’ve never forgotten that. Jeanne died of boredom! We’ll make sure that never happens to Olive.”

There will be more stories from Olive with Mike doing secretarial duty and wouldn’t it be nice if some Time Goes By readers stopped over there to read Olives first two stories and welcome her to the elder blogosphere.

[Hat tip to amba of ambivablog. You’ll enjoy this little bit of elder humor that amba posted a couple of days ago…]