What does it feel like to be 310, you may wonder?
Well, when I wake up in the morning I don’t have to read the obituaries to see if any of my old friends died — you know, George Washington, Tom Jefferson, Johnny Adams — that’s because I know they’re already gone. The slackers! They could at least have hung around for a few more hundred years to keep me company.
What do I miss most about the 1700s? Horse droppings. Horse droppings? Seriously, that’s what I said. We had a lot of it back then. But it saved so many lives. How, you may ask? Well, by keeping us out of the street. Horse droppings prevented more accidents than you can ever imagine. The first insurance company even wrote a “horse dropping clause” into their policies.
Was life hard in colonial times? Oh, yes, it was extremely hard. How hard was it? We didn’t have cold drinks back then. We didn’t have cold anything, because there were no refrigerators. So if you wanted a “cold one,” you’d have to wait until January or February, and hire a team of horses to bring it in, all the way from Vermont. Poor Sam Adams ran up quite a bill, trying to please customers at his brew pub.
What’s my secret for longevity? Well, I could tell you “Early to bed, and early to rise,” but that only applies to health, wealth, and wisdom. If you want to know how I made it to 310, that’s a different matter. I’d have to say exercising au natural, in the fresh air. Why is that? Well, when my neighbors got a glimpse of portly old me in the buff, I’d have to run a four minute mile pretty regularly, just to avoid being tarred and feathered. That really got the heart pumping!
And so, dear readers, that is my 310th birthday advice to you — stay ahead of the pack, or the pack will have your head.
Your humble servant,
B.Franklin