Is Martha (Smith) still with us?

This post is by Phil Price, not Andrew.

It occurred to me a few weeks ago that I haven’t seen a comment by Martha (Smith) in quite a while…several months, possibly many months? She’s a long-time reader and commenter and often had interesting things to say. At times she also alluded to the fact that she was getting on in years. Perhaps she has simply lost interest in the blog, or in commenting on the blog…I hope that’s what it is. Martha, if you’re still out there, please let us know!

29 thoughts on “Is Martha (Smith) still with us?

  1. +1.

    Also I’m curious to know how many oldies (65+) follow this blog. I turn 69 next month having been retired from academia for almost 6 years, and Andrew’s blog provides a perfect mix of Statistics and other topics to keep my interest going (forgotten all my R syntax though).

    • Damn, sorry to hear that.

      I’m 57 and it’s kinda shocking to realize that I’m much closer to 70 than to 40. I don’t feel old at all. I know that will change someday but I’m hoping it’s more than 10 years off for me. But I also know things can change in a heartbeat.

      • Phil:

        Yeah, I know what you mean. I feel pretty much similar to how I felt at age 30. Sure, I’m much slower, weaker, and less flexible than I used to be, and I have a lot less endurance, but usually I don’t notice. I can’t run at anything close to top speed anymore, but this shows up as an absence of a certain sensation, which is less perceivable than the sensation itself. As to strength: remember when we were 27 and hung on the exercise bars for 2 minutes? I can’t do that now! But this sort of thing only arises when I try to see how long I can hang on the exercise bar, which isn’t so often. I was not a regular runner now at age 30, nor am I now, but back then I remember going on a 6-mile run with no preparation and it was no big deal; now a 2-mile run feels like lots of effort.

        I guess the two main ways I notice the difference from being 30 is, first, in carrying things: I used to carry a shoulder bag or backpack full of stuff around with me, and now If I carry something for too long I really feel it: I guess it’s some combination of loss of strength and loss of flexibility. The second thing is that it takes a lot longer to recover from any sorts of injury, sprain, etc. A couple years ago I hurt my back from playing in the swimming pool and it took lots of physical therapy for me to return to normal. So maybe I’m just one unlucky fall or whatever from having a much less active lifestyle. Not that I’m so active now, but it would be a bummer not to be able to just hop on my bike or whatever.

        I’m not sure what 70 will feel like. I’m guessing that at that point I’ll be worried about what it’ll feel like to be 80.

        • ”I’m not sure what 70 will feel like. I’m guessing that at that point I’ll be worried about what it’ll feel like to be 80.”

          Exactly. That’s why I’m nerding out so frantically now. From playing in a band with retired professional jazz musicians, it became clear that in one’s 80s one gets to use what one has built up to then, but for most people, learning new tricks is going to be real hard. So one’s 70s is one’s last chance to learn the things one missed the first time around.

        • Maybe the issue is that I thought “feeling old” would be different than it really is. I expected to feel less energetic, maybe also have trouble focusing on things. Instead, I feel just as energetic as I used to.

          Of course, my actual physical performance is of course much worse: I can’t run nearly as fast (or as long) and if I try to run hard there’s a good chance I’ll injure myself, I can’t bike as fast, etc. In fact, about six weeks ago I used a sledgehammer to hammer in some fenceposts, maybe a total of 30 to 50 strong swings…and some muscle in my shoulder was sore for five weeks afterwards. And during that five weeks I felt like I couldn’t or shouldn’t do the only upper-body exercise I do — one set of pushups to exhaustion every day — and when I started again, the number of pushups I could do was down by 30%!

          But all of that is relative to previous performance. If I ignore what I used to be able to do, and just focus on what it feels like to do it, it’s about the same. I don’t even try to sprint anymore, so I can’t compare that. But when I’m trying to ride up Mount Diablo as fast as I can, that feels the same as it did twelve years ago…except I suffer for ten minutes longer, so that’s worse. But I still don’t feel all stiff and creaky like I thought I would, and I haven’t lost interest in pushing myself physically, nor lost the ability to do so.

          I guess I just had the wrong expectations about what ‘getting old’ would feel like. Or else it just hasn’t happened yet really.

        • Phil:

          For me, I do feel less energetic than I used to be. At least, some of the time.

          When I’m playing a sport I feel like I have as much energy as ever: I can play for hours and not get very tired. As you say, I know this is only because I’m not running as hard as I used to, but while I’m doing it, it just feels like I’m playing basketball or whatever. I’ve scaled down my effort level; actually, now that I can’t do anything all out, I don’t have the ability to tire myself out like I used to.

          On the other hand, if I just go out for a run, I’ll get tired right away. Back when I was 30, I had lots of energy for anything; now I need to be motivated. That kind of thing makes me feel old.

          And when it comes to intellectual work, yes I can still do it, but maybe I do have less focus than I used to. It’s hard to say because I don’t have quantitative benchmarks. I guess that things will only get worse as time goes on.

  2. Hi,
    I just turned 73. I’m mostly a lurker and comment rarely. I find this blog a refreshing oasis of sanity – both in statistics related topics and in the occasional book related posts, which I look forward to.

    Thanks,

  3. Hi,
    I just turned 73. I’m mostly a lurker and comment rarely. I find this blog a refreshing oasis of sanity – both in statistics related topics and in the occasional book related posts, which I look forward to.

    I agree with Martha that everything seems to take longer as time goes on.

    Thanks,

  4. As is now commonly invoked, “Just to be clear,” my almost exact age mates are Woody Allen and the Dalai Lama. So, my “70s” are in the dim and distant past. Penicillin arrived a few years after I did. Ditto, World War II and the dominance of pink grapefruit over white grapefruit. Perhaps something else happened but I don’t remember.

      • Andrew:
        According to the web, red pepper is indeed more nutritious than green pepper:
        ———————————–
        “Red peppers are fully ripened, and they require more time to grow, resulting in their sweeter, fruitier flavor and higher price sticker. On the other hand, since green bell peppers can be harvested sooner, they’re cheaper to grow and sell, in addition to having a trademark grassy, mildly bitter flavor. Yellow peppers are simply in the middle of the spectrum when it comes to ripeness (though some varieties remain yellow when fully mature).”

        Read More: https://www.tastingtable.com/694228/difference-bell-peppers-healthiest/?utm_campaign=clip
        ———————————————-
        But surprisingly, grapefruit can be a disaster especially because “Some cholesterol medications called statins are affected by grapefruit.” And, I suspect that a good many of your elderly male contributors already know about other problems with grapefruit of any color.
        =====================================================
        https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/grapefruit-and-medications

        “It doesn’t take much. One whole grapefruit or one glass of grapefruit juice is enough to alter how these medications affect you.
        Its effects last several days. Grapefruit’s ability to affect medication lasts for 1–3 days. Taking your medication a few hours apart from consuming it isn’t long enough.
        It’s significant. For a small number of drugs, grapefruit’s effects can be serious.”
        ===============================================================

        • grapefruit can be a disaster especially because “Some cholesterol medications called statins are affected by grapefruit.

          Here in Canada (ON) statin prescriptions carry a yellow label that says

          <DO NOT eat grapefruit or drink grapefruit juice at any time while taking this medicine.

  5. I’m about to turn 40, so I guess I’m the adolescent here! I’m not a statistician but I can appreciate the discourse on this site. I’ve learned quite a lot in the last several years reading the blog.

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