The last time I talked my my Grandmother, we talked about all the things she had seen change in this world.  She past at 99 years old.  She saw a lot of change in her life to be sure.  Horses to cars and motorcycles.  (She was in her 70’s when my middle brother took her on her first motorcycle ride.)  Hot air balloons to airplanes to man landing on the moon.  Medical advances that allowed her to stay active for 98 of her 99 years.  I only hope I can look back at that age with the same sense of wonder and adventure.

Grandmother came to mind when I read about Peggy McAlpine.  Ms. McAlpine just turned 104.  She lives in Great Britain, and has out lived 2 world wars, 5 monarchs, 26 prime ministers, and a friend who was a survivor of the Titanic disaster.  Not a bad span right?

She also shares my grandmother’s sense of adventure, and then some.  You might think this story is about a centenarian jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, wrong!  For her 104th birthday, Ms. McAlpine took to the skies for her second trip, not in some trivial airplane but, in a para glider.  Why did she go back for a second trip? Pride!  Her first trip was 4 years ago for her 101st birthday setting a record for oldest person to fly in a para glider.  She gong back up because she needed to reset the Guinness Book record.  Yes, some uppity colonist in America went for a flight at age 102!  So back up Ms. McAlpine went to reclaim her title.

I salute this feisty grand woman!  I hope I am able to beat her record some day 50 years from now.  I wonder what more will change in this world in the next 50 years?  I only hope we finally get the flying cars we were all promised in the cartoons of my youth. . . . . . .