I Don't Believe It

   The woman above was Antsia Khvichava, and lived in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. As you might be able to tell from the picture, she was quite elderly when she passed away recently. At a reported age of 132! A birth certificate and passport list her birthday in June 1880. And here's where the skepticism comes in, because they are replacements of the original documents lost over the years.
   The oldest person with verified documents was Jeanne Calment who was 122 when she died in 1997.
   Medical science says there's no know upper limit to a person's age, but given the natural aging process, 132 seems a bit of a stretch, even though there are documented cases of people living well past 100 in parts of the old Soviet Union
   And with Antsia's passing, the mantle of the oldest living person in the world has now passed to to Besse Cooper, who's birthday is a verified August 26, 1896. That makes her 116.
   And by the way, she also lives in Georgia. The one in the States.
   Would I like to live that long? I guess if I was still mentally (and to some degree physically) capable. If the alternative is ending up in a dank, dark nursing home with less that 3 marbles rolling around upstairs and with a full diaper.....well, that's not "living" to me. At that point if I was mentally able, I think I'd welcome the visit from the Grim Reaper.
   'Nuff said