My interest in the very aged probably goes back to our neighbor Mrs. Rice. She lived next door to us in Colorado Springs when I was a child in the 50s. She was born in Washington DC in 1859 and lived there throughout the Civil War. She was only 6 when the war ended, but she had very vivid memories of the endless lines of men in blue uniforms and the sound of distant, and sometimes not-so-distant, gunfire. She had seen President Lincoln in person many times and had spoken to him once. Her father worked at the Patent Office and Lincoln was a frequent visitor. She herself pointed out to me that I might end up being one of the last people on Earth who had known someone who had seen the great Lincoln with their own eyes. Lincoln has been dead now for 151 years but, as she said, the connection is still there. Mrs. Rice herself passed in 1960 at the age of 100.