Living In Three Centuries

In the end, it was the beer what did her in. Nobody knows, and them that does know ain’t talking. But it had to be the beer. After all, they gave her a case of it on her birthday and she went through it with determined regularity.

Alberta Kreig is the gal’s name and she swore by Coors Light, frequently credited it as the key to her longevity. “Coors Light keeps me young,” she said in a recent interview, on the occasion of her 108th birthday.

Yeah, 108th. Her family gave her a case of suds for the occasion. She said that having a can a day was good for her and, apparently, she was right. Good genetics, good health and a can of Coors Light on a daily basis made her part of a unique club.

She was one of a very few people who have lived in all or part of three centuries. Born in October of 1899, she made it to February, 2008. Regardless of how she did it, and whether the daily infusion of hops and barley made a difference, she is a member of a club that admits people only once every hundred years. There may be only a few left in the country, with entrance books for the next one closed as of December 31, 1999.

If you have children born on or before that date, tell them to eat their vegetables, don’t smoke or do stupid things and maybe they can be in that most exclusive of groups. Live to be just over a hundred, having been born at exactly the right time, and you can say you lived in three centuries.