Posted on 02/09/2004 1:16:54 PM PST by ComtedeMaistre
Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, at the age of 83. John Adams died the same day, and he was just a few months short of his 91st birthday.
Other long-lived Presidents are James Madison, who lived to be 85, Harry Truman who lived to be 88, and Herbert Hoover who died at the age of 90. President Gerald Ford is still going on strong, and will turn 91 this year.
But Ronald Reagan holds the record of longest-lived President, as he is now 93. It is amazing how Reagan managed to remain in great physical shape throughout his life. He was always in better physical shape than men who were 10 years younger.
Reagan's idea of relaxation was to go to his ranch and chop wood, i.e., engage in hard physically demanding manual labor. For most of us, the idea of relaxation is lying idle on a beach somewhere, or sitting infront of the TV with a beer in one hand, and a TV remote on the other.
Abraham Lincoln may have had a reputation as a rail-splitter as a young man, but the gipper was still chopping wood well into his 70s. While Reagan's mind deteriorated in the 1990s, his body was still healthy as a result of life-long physical activity.
Certainly seemed so for Carter, but not for Reagan. 'Course Carter's ineptness made every year seem like 5 for all of us. With x42, every year was more like a dog year for us.
Poor Washington would have made your list, if his doctors hadn't killed him with their treatments.
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