Marathon Seniors Cherish Independent, Active Lives

Ruth Fuller is 94, but she has the vivacity and health of someone much younger. She knows it, and she is proud of it.

But like so many other lively, independent people who have lived well past 80, she sees nothing amazing about it.

“I don’t think about it, except when someone else, usually younger, brings it up,” said Fuller, who is a regular at the Laguna Hills Senior Center. “I feel good. My goodness, I’m too busy to think I’m getting old.”

It is a nonchalance toward aging that such older but still active people like Fuller love to project.

But occasionally, they will admit to being somewhat astonished themselves, especially in a society in which the numbers of 80-plus-year-olds were once far fewer and viewed as a demographic oddity.

“When I was growing up, I thought like everyone else, that someone 80 was really ancient ,” said 82-year-old Ed Goodman as he chatted with Fuller and Sara Jones, who are also residents at Leisure World, Tuesday at the Laguna Hills Senior Center.

“Now the shoe’s on my foot,” said Goodman, laughing. “But I tell you, I feel OK. I still swim every day. I still drive. It’s not what I thought being 80 would be like.”

Then Goodman, a retired businessman, added quietly, almost solemnly: “But you got to remember seniors like us are very lucky. We’ve been blessed with decent health. We can still get around on our own. No wheelchairs. Even no canes. We still live on our own. Those are the other blessings, believe me.”

This question of life in the advanced ages of the 80s and 90s has never been taken more seriously than now, with the ending of a century that has seen stunning increases in the life expectancy of Americans. The latest studies estimate that American females born in 1989 can expect to live to age 78.6, males to age 71.8.

This might suggest that those who have reached or passed 80--the age at which one’s physical and mental health normally make a profound decline--are living on a kind of borrowed time, no matter how well or alert they appear.

Indeed, some researchers on aging have argued, while it is important to continue studies on extending the human life span, such studies cannot be done without also considering quality of life.

In their understated way, 80-plus seniors like Goodman, Fuller and Jones couldn’t agree more. They say they would be shattered if they could not lead the independent lives they do now.

And no matter how modestly voiced, they project a sense of great pride--even a gallantry--in knowing they have made it this far without the physical or mental difficulties that have struck others of their generation.

“I still find enjoyment in my life,” said Fuller, a devotee of the arts and a former lecturer in comparative religion. “There is so much that is new. I think you can never stop learning.”

These 80-plus seniors are far from reclusive. It shows in their manner, from their careful grooming and attire to a vitality and gregariousness that appears undiminished even in the face of personal tragedy, such as the deaths of spouses and close friends.

They credit some of their longevity to diet. And to genes, with some noting family members who had lived well into their 80s and 90s. They also attribute their well-being to the support and warmth of children and their families, many of whom live nearby.

But most of all, these seniors credit their conscious efforts to keep active--mentally as well as physically.

“You have to keep doing things. You can’t just sit. I was never a sitter; I could never do that,” said 83-year-old Sara Jones, a former teacher, whose late husband was an engineer. She said she has a cane with her but “uses it as little as possible.”

“I’m here (at the senior center) almost every day,” she added, “I’m at the church or the clubhouse. When I’m home, I read a lot. Television? Heavens no, I hardly ever watch it!”

This attitude is shared by Ruby Snailum, 92, who lives in a senior-complex apartment in central Santa Ana and is a volunteer aide at the neighboring city senior center.

She says she is always on the move.

“I still love to take the bus--go to Disneyland, have lunch at Fashion Island. I can take care of myself just fine,” Snailum said. “I can’t imagine it any other way.”

But like the others, Snailum, although physically sturdy at 92, is realistic.

“I always have to watch myself. I have to cut back on things I can’t do anymore. My (arthritic) leg is getting more troublesome. I have to get more rest, and I’m not going out as much as I used to,” said Snailum, who had a hip operation 12 years ago.

Aging is a process the seniors know can be delayed, but not stopped. So, with it, they said, comes a philosophy of acceptance.

“You don’t dwell on it (aging). Of course, you think about it, but usually to yourself,” said Thelma Gammel, 95, another Santa Ana senior center member. “Because, when you reach our age, so many others are in wheelchairs. Some had to move away (to nursing homes). Many have died.”

Yet it is not death that seems to trouble these seniors--it is the specter of lingering illness or a debilitating setback that so many others, including their own spouses and friends, have suffered.

So, the issue then returns to maintaining a certain quality of life in the later years.

“To me, the idea of any (nursing) home is a bad situation to be in,” Ed Goodman said. “It’s like being incarcerated. By then, you’re no longer a real human being.

“My wife and I had this agreement: that if we were in a pretty bad way, we wanted no heroic efforts to save us.”

On Oct. 24, Goodman’s wife died of cancer. “But it struck her so fast, just within months, that she was never in that kind of (lingering) situation. But if I’m ever in that condition, I want to be let go quickly--with dignity,” Goodman said.

It is a feeling shared by others, including Ruth Fuller, whose husband, Jack Eastman, spent his last three years in a nursing facility before dying last year.

To Fuller, the ideal passing was her own mother’s.

It was a Easter Sunday afternoon in the family’s Northern California home. Her mother, who had never lost her mental keenness, was sitting in her favorite parlor chair.

“Mama fell asleep. A few moments later, we came back and she had died. Just like that. Just slipped away. Quietly.”

Her mother was 103.