The grandson of the 10th US president died this year. The US is barely three generations old. That guy could say his grandfather shook hands with Thomas Jefferson.
If you have never played the backwards-lifetime game, you should.
Take your current age and work backwards that same number of days, months and years before your birth. Every year something else remarkable is added.
At my current backwards age, World War II is the best part of two decades away; the UK is still recovering from World War I. Rocket 88, the first rock and roll song, won't be written for nearly another three decades. Women still can't vote in the UK, the Wall Street Crash is several years away.
When my father (who knew one of the most important men in medical history in his younger days and who was working in medicine not long after the NHS was founded) died, his backwards age reached back before the germ theory of modern medicine.
Another interesting game is to use your "oocyte age" — about 32 weeks before your mother was born is roughly when the oocyte developed that led to your egg. In my case this too is before World War II started.
Oh I like the oocyte idea - it’s actually concrete
It reminds me as well that I am a wave - the cells that make up my body have all been formed from food I ate in the past decade or so - my skin my liver my heart my brain. None of it is what is was when I was 18. But I still think it is.
And that reaches back to my mothers own birth is amazing.
