Folks who know me know my one modest claim to fame has nothing to do with my writing. It's the fact that my great-grandmother, Edna Parker, is 114 and is currently the world's oldest documented person. (The character of Ethel Brandywine in Breathing Out the Ghost is based in part on Edna---and I stress "partly"). I say "currently" and "documented" because over the weekend a woman emerged in Israel claiming to be 120. It's interesting.... When the news broke I actually had folks emailing me the story (BREAKING NEWS!), perhaps thinking we would cobble together some talking points for some proto-John McCain-style PR. Instead, I did a lot of reading on Miriam Amash. Apparently, the only documentation she has is a birth certificate from 1888, which was a good 60 years before Israel existed. Indeed, the bc is from the Ottoman Empire! (What, no drivers license?) Here is the full story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=515351&in_page_id=1770
It's an interesting question of how this will or won't be documented. It's a little known fact that the world of age verification can be quite cutthroat. Edna has one hell of a partisan in Mr. Robert Young, a certifier for the gerontology group that decides these things for the Guiness Book of World Records. Mr. Young also happens to be a Wikipedia enthusiast, which is why Edna has a handsome Wikipedia page. (She may be the only person in the world who doesn't read her own Wikipedia page). I've noticed over the past few days a little Wiki-war going on over whether to mention Miriam Amash in Edna's bio. On Monday, somebody had inserted a sentence insisting Edna was likely to lose her title. Now that sentence is gone---no doubt zapped by Robert, whom I met last April at the 114th birthday party.
All I can say that if Edna does go back down to No. 2 (her position from Jan-Aug 07, before she was elevated to No. 1), she'll be happy to be Hillary to Miriam's Barak. She's a very modest woman who gets embarrassed when folks gobble on about her age. Not to knock a supposed 120-year-old, but Mrs. Amash was quoted in the London papers as boasting of her status. Of course, that status won't be confirmed until more proof than Ottoman Empire paperwork can be found. Will the Parkers of Shelbyville IN and the Amashes of Israel duke it out for this coveted title? Nah, I doubt it. We're just happy to have Edna with us.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=515351&in_page_id=1770
It's an interesting question of how this will or won't be documented. It's a little known fact that the world of age verification can be quite cutthroat. Edna has one hell of a partisan in Mr. Robert Young, a certifier for the gerontology group that decides these things for the Guiness Book of World Records. Mr. Young also happens to be a Wikipedia enthusiast, which is why Edna has a handsome Wikipedia page. (She may be the only person in the world who doesn't read her own Wikipedia page). I've noticed over the past few days a little Wiki-war going on over whether to mention Miriam Amash in Edna's bio. On Monday, somebody had inserted a sentence insisting Edna was likely to lose her title. Now that sentence is gone---no doubt zapped by Robert, whom I met last April at the 114th birthday party.
All I can say that if Edna does go back down to No. 2 (her position from Jan-Aug 07, before she was elevated to No. 1), she'll be happy to be Hillary to Miriam's Barak. She's a very modest woman who gets embarrassed when folks gobble on about her age. Not to knock a supposed 120-year-old, but Mrs. Amash was quoted in the London papers as boasting of her status. Of course, that status won't be confirmed until more proof than Ottoman Empire paperwork can be found. Will the Parkers of Shelbyville IN and the Amashes of Israel duke it out for this coveted title? Nah, I doubt it. We're just happy to have Edna with us.
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