AGING

Jeanne Calment, at 120 years and counting, is the oldest living human who's birth date can be authenticated. When recently asked to describe her vision for the future, she replied, "Very brief."

From Win Arn comes another quip about an aging woman. When the reporter asked the birthday girl what she like best about being 102 years old, she answered, "No peer pressure."

Finally, John Fetterman, rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Madison, Wisconsin told of an elderly woman who died last April. Having never married, she requested no male pallbearers. In her handwritten instructions for her memorial service, she wrote, "They wouldn't take me out while I was alive, I don't want them to take me out when I'm dead."

ASSUMPTIONS

In "Point Man," Steve Farrar tells this story:

The photographer for a national magazine was assigned to shoot a great forest fire. He was told that a small plane would be waiting to take him over the fire.

He arrived at the airstrip just an hour before sundown. Sure enough ...