Well, I can dream can’t I?

By Rona Barrett

Not sure if it was the eggnog – or my noggin’ eggin’ me on – but I had a vision, and not of sugar plums.

Dancing in my head was a dream of a snow globe-perfect world where seniors were treasured and revered – where families fought over who had the honor of caring for an elder relative.

A world not with “old people,” but “long living people.”

Where one holiday a year was set aside for centurions who donned elaborate costumes and paraded past their adoring community.

People complimented others by saying “…well, aren’t you looking very old today!”

Gray hair was not something you dyed out until you died out, but instead worn as a crown of a successful life.

Cholesterol levels were in the double digits. Few needed glasses. Even fewer had hearing loss. Blood pressure averaged 118 over 60. And elders smiled with their real teeth.

I know what you’re thinking – too good to be true – marshmallow dreams – and then she woke up.

But as Santa is my witness, cultures where age equates to status and beauty exist. Today. Now. In fact, there are several meccas for longevity: in South America, Central Asia, and Japan. But I was thinking of Abkhazia in the Caucasus mountain ranges south of Russia where some are said to live as old as 150.

Scientists have dissected Abkhazian culture and customs to determine their secret to vibrant and vital aging. Although research failed to prove that any group of people could live for a century and a half, Abkhazia remains home to a high number of extremely healthy elders. No mystical fountains of youth were uncovered – just a different way of life than our industrialized culture.

To Abkhazians, the concept of retirement is unknown. Their work doesn’t include our deadly sting of stress, sedentariness or deadlines. They often sing at work and even rely on communal music and dance to heal them as much as we do pharmaceuticals.

In these cultures vigorous physical activity is entrenched in daily routine. Constant physical exertion pumps extra oxygen into their hard working hearts and lungs.

For them, clowning, joking and teasing are vital to sharpening their minds and raising their spirits. And chew on this – they have a diet that makes Bugs Bunny look like a carnivore. Most of their meals are fresh from the ground, vine or tree. Meat is seldom consumed, nor is sugar, salt or fat-saturated butter. Their drink of choice is Matzoni, fermented buttermilk mostly from goats. That’s a little hard to swallow.

An exceptional book about this subject, Healthy at 100, summarizes the research that has gone into counterpointing the Abkhazian practices to ours here in the States, “…where old people see themselves as a collection of symptoms.”

Could it happen here? In our time? Could we become a society that looks forward to growing older and respected throughout our extraordinarily long and healthy lives?