Slow Ride...Taking the Longer Road to Death

Learn about the personal, social, economic, and environmental factors that influence your health, and steps you can take now to increase your longevity and quality of life. Listen, Show Notes and Resources: https://bit.ly/3ThbmRy

In this Episode:

• 03:22 - Ways to Die in the Future: Extended Old Age
• 06:22 - Recipe of the Week: Road-Trippin' Tuna Salad
• 08:12 - How to Take the Slow Road to Death with Informed Choices about Our Health
• 42:13 - Supercentenarian Obituaries - Ruthie Tompson (1910-2021)
• 45:18 - Outro

Take the Scenic Route

Given that most people are death-adverse, why don’t we take better care of ourselves so that we can stay on the slow road to death? Even though everyone dies, there are a wide range of preventable deaths, so we don’t have to be first to this finish line.

This week we start a new series about preventing early death and what you can do to slow your roll to the end of life.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 3:22 Ways to Die in the Future: Extended Old Age
• 6:22 Recipe of the Week: Road-Trippin’ Tuna Salad
• 8:12 How to Take the Slow Road to Death with Informed Choices about Our Health
• 42:13 Supercentenarian Obituaries – Ruthie Tompson (1910-2021)
• 45:18 Outro

Transcript

Slow-Ride-Taking-the-Longer-Road-to-Death

This podcast does not provide medical nor legal advice. Please listen to the complete disclosure at the end of the recording. Hello and welcome to Everyone Dies, the podcast where we talk about serious illness, dying, death, and bereavement.

I'm Marianne Matzo, a nurse practitioner, and I use my experience from working as a nurse for 46 years to help answer your questions about what happens at the end of life. And I'm Charlie Navarette, an actor in New York City, and here to offer an every-person viewpoint to our podcast. We are both here because we believe that the more you know, the better prepared you are to make difficult decisions in a crisis.

So welcome to this week's show. Please relax and get yourself something wonderful to eat and drink, and thank you for spending the next hour with Charlie and me as we talk about the things that will affect our health and our lifespan. Because even though everyone dies, you don't have to be in a hurry.

Like the BBC, we see our show as offering entertainment, enlightenment, and education, and divide that into three halves to address each of these goals. Our main topic is in the second half, so feel free to forward to that yakety-yak free zone. In the first half, Charlie has a series of ways to die in the future and our recipe of the week.

In the second half, I'm going to talk about diseases you don't have to die from. And in the third half, Charlie starts a new series reporting about super centurion obituaries. This week, he'll tell you about Ruthie Thompson, who lived between 1910 and 1921, who worked on Disney animations for more than 40 years and died in her retirement home in California at age 111.

So Charles, what's new?

111? Mary Ann, would you want to live to be 111? Depends on what my life was like. You know, if I was like in a nursing home and not able to do the things I want, especially if my brain worked and my body didn't, no, I feel pretty confident I wouldn't like that.

But if I was living in my retirement home and could go do crafts and flirt with the old men, then sure. I'd rather flirt with the younger men, but you know, depends on who's there. Yeah, gee, I don't know.

Even if I had all my faculties, as they say, I don't know. Where are you going to get your faculties so you have all your faculties, is my question. Okay, something to, let me make a note of this.

Where are my faculties? All right, yes. So I need to, and who is that joining us?

Yeah, that's Dixie, my daughter's dog who I'm babysitting, who of course waits, you know, just like children. They don't bother you until you get on the phone. Of course.

She doesn't have anything to say until I start to record. So there you have it. All right.

Well, I look forward to her next interjection. In our first half, this week's future way to die, according to morbid modernisms, is dying in blissful old age after automation and basic income grant you a leisurely life to explore the arts, sciences, and hobbies. So far, that is inevitable.

However, as scientists begin to explore more about human biological processes, fate starts to feel less certain. Take British biologist Aubrey de Grey. He believes the first human being that will live to be 1,000 years old has already been born.

Aging, de Grey says, should be treated like a disease. It has symptoms and can be cured, or at least managed. We just haven't honed in yet on the right approach.

In a recent study, young blood transfusions seem to show promise in fighting neurological aging symptoms in the mice. But there's a lot of controversy over the treatment, especially after the most well-known young blood supplier, Ambrosia, ceased treating patients in February 2019 after the FDA warned the public against the last regulation around such transfusions. There's also Google's Calico, a biology company with the stated goal of solving death.

Human Longevity, Inc., which uses algorithms to predict an individual's risk of cancer or other genetic conditions. And Verily, another Google subsidiary, which creates devices that improve quality of life for people with chronic illnesses. In February 2019, a group of researchers from Harvard, MIT, and other institutions around the US and Europe launched a non-profit Academy for Health and Lifespan Research.

The goal is to separate the rumors and hype from the real innovations in anti-aging research and bring together the minds that'll make aging a thing of the past. Perhaps in the future, automation and a basic income will allow us to not work at all. Our bodies will be under less physical and mental stress as a result.

We'll fix the climate and self-driving cars will lower accident rates. Our chance of living longer has a potential to skyrocket if we support international scientific endeavors and start working together again as a species. So how do you die?

It takes a long, long time, but peacefully or maybe you simply don't. Morticians go out of business. We make it to level four on the Kardash scale or maybe we explore the deepest crevice of the sea and the farthest speck of dust in the universe.

We finally feel fulfilled and at peace or you know, not. Our recipe this week is for tuna salad. Given that we are road tripping, we offer a recipe that works equally well for your next funeral lunch or for lunch at a rest area at the side of a road.

As kids, when we took a road trip, we didn't go to restaurants. Dad found a rest area. We all took a potty break and then he pulled out the metal cooler mom had packed our food in.

We ate at the picnic table, ran around a bit and mom wiped us off with a wet wash rag she kept in a plastic bag that was used for the whole trip. Good times. Please go to our webpage for this week's recipe for tuna salad and additional resources for this program.

Everyone Dies is offered at no cost but is not free to produce. Please contribute what you can. Your tax deductible gift will go directly to supporting our non-profit journalism so that we can continue accessible.

Sorry, Sandy. Okay. Please go to our webpage for this week's recipe for tuna salad and additional resources for this program.

Everyone Dies is offered at no cost but is not free to produce. Please contribute what you can. Your tax deductible gift will go directly to supporting our non-profit journalism so that we can continue to remain accessible to everyone.

You can also donate at www.everyonedies.org. That's every, the number one, dies.org or at our site on Patreon www.patreon.com and search for Everyone Dies. Marianne?

Thanks, Charlie. When my daughter was young she would hear us talk about taking the highway when planning a trip. When one day when we set out she asked if we were taking the highway or the low way this time.

This made us laugh and we told her it really was a good question. After all, we always have a choice about how we're going to get to our final destination. We can go fast or slow, the highway or the low way.

And when that destination is death, most people will tell you that they would like to go like my grandfather did, peacefully in his sleep, not screaming and crying like the passengers in his car. Many people do not want to talk about or think about death and when it comes to doing it they may think they have a choice and decline the opportunity. There are a few things that we must do that we don't have a choice about and death is one of them.

Everyone dies. My dad used to say there are two things you must do in life, die and pay taxes. Truthfully, there are many people who don't pay taxes but everyone dies.

Given that most people are death adverse, why don't we take better care of ourselves so that we can stay on the low way or the slow road to death? Why don't we exercise daily, eat healthier, stop smoking, drinking and driving, use seat belts and sunscreens, get updated vaccinations and all the things that can help us stay on the slow road to death. Do we internally have a death wish or are we so narcissistic that we think that the whole everyone dies thing does not apply to us?

The range of personal, social, economic and environmental factors that influence health status are known as determinants of health. Determinants of health fall under several broad categories, social factors, health services, individual behavior and biology and genetics. It is the interrelationship among these factors that determines individual and population health.

Because of this, interventions that target multiple determinants of health are most likely to be effective. Determinants of health reach beyond the boundaries of traditional health care and public health and include factors like education, housing, transportation, food production and environment and can be important to improving population health. There are some parts of ourselves that we don't control, that we can't change, which are referred to as unmodifiable risk factors.

These are age, family history in terms of genetics, ethnicity and gender. And even if we change our gender, the internal codes still function as a sign. When we talk about genetics, we can primarily find that information by talking to our family.

Examples of genetic social determinants of health include HIV status in the case of babies born to an HIV positive mother, inherited conditions such as sickle cell anemia, hemophilia and cystic fibrosis, carrying the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene, which increases the risk for breast and ovarian cancer and a family history of heart disease. If this is something you can't control, why should we even talk about it? Family health history can help your health care practitioner make a diagnosis if you or your children show signs of a disorder.

It can reveal whether you or your children have an increased risk of a disease. If so, additional screening tests may be ordered. Many genetic disorders first become obvious in childhood and knowing about a family health history or a genetic condition can help find and treat the condition early.

My girl's dad's family had a strong family history of high cholesterol. When they were born, they received a cholesterol test to see if it was high so that we could improve their cardiac health and prevent problems in their later years. Now on a side note, guidelines for this have changed and they don't start checking cholesterol until age two, but back then it was given in the hospital.

So you need to update your family history information regularly and share new information with your doctor. Remember that relatives can be newly diagnosed with conditions between doctor's visits. The best way to learn about your family health history is to ask questions.

Talk at family gatherings and record your family's health information. It could make a difference in your child's life. Or yours.

I put some good references in the show notes to help you with this conversation and to help you check your risk factors and then be sure that you share what you find with your health care practitioner. The next category that affects our health are social factors. Social determinants of health reflect social factors in the physical conditions in the environment in which people are born, live, learn, play, work, and age.

Also known as social and physical determinants of health, they impact a wide range of health functioning and quality of life outcomes. Examples of social determinants include the availability of resources to meet daily needs, such as educational and job opportunities, living wages, and healthful food. When I first moved to Oklahoma from New Hampshire, I had a hard time finding grocery stores.

Fast food places were literally on every corner, but I'd ask a neighbor where the grocery store was. When I lived in New Hampshire, we had two huge grocery stores that were literally right next to each other, but only one fast food place on the whole street. I think it's only when you move to a new place that you would even notice this, but it certainly may be a factor regarding obesity rates.

In 2024, Oklahoma is the fourth most obese state, with 39.4% of adults 20 or older have a BMI over 30, and you strive for about 25. New Hampshire is at the bottom of the scale, with 30.6% of adults over 20 having a BMI over 30. Second factor is exposure to crime, violence, social disorder, such as the presence of trash, social support, social interventions, exposure to mass media and emerging technologies, such as the internet or cell phones.

You live in a rural community. There are many kids whose parents have to drive them to a McDonald's or any other fast food place that has internet so they can do their homework. Socioeconomic conditions, such as concentrated poverty, quality schools, transportation options, public safety, or residential segregation.

Examples of physical determinants include the natural environment, such as plants, weather, or climate change, the built environment, such as buildings or transportations, worksite schools and recreational settings, what the housing homes and neighborhoods are like, exposure to toxic substances and other physical hazards, physical barriers, especially for people with disabilities, aesthetic elements, such as good lighting, trees, or benches, poor health outcomes are often made worse by the interaction between individuals and their social and physical environment. For example, millions of people in the United States live in places that have unhealthy levels of ozone and other air pollutants. In countries where ozone pollution is high, there is often a higher prevalence of asthma in both adults and children compared with state and national averages.

Poor air quality can worsen asthma symptoms, especially in children. Like genetics, we may not be able to make changes to where we live, either because of the money it would cost to move, where our job is located, or because we don't want to leave our extended family. But as a society, let's not fool ourselves by saying that social and physical aspects of the environment do not influence our health.

I've heard it said that geography is destiny. Now this statement originated as a claim among Greek philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, that people from northern, colder, and whiter regions of the world were superior to people from warmer southern regions, but with more varied, darker skin tones because of how the environment that shaped them. Now, that's been discredited a long time ago, so don't dwell on that.

But today, geography as destiny has come back as an explanation for patterns of inequality. Meaning, if you tell me your zip code, I can predict a great deal about you. Your past, present, and future.

That is, your destiny is determined by social factors, and how this changes is through the people we elect and the taxes that we pay. The third aspect of health determination is health services. Both access to health services and the quality of health services can impact health.

Lack of access or limited access to health services greatly impacts an individual's health status. For example, when individuals do not have health insurance, they are less likely to participate in preventative care and are more likely to delay medical treatment. Or, if they have Medicare or Medicaid, specialists may not give them an appointment because of low reimbursement rates from these programs.

Barriers to accessing health services include the lack of availability, high cost, lack of health insurance, limited language access, and these barriers to accessing health services can lead to unmet health needs, delayed in receiving appropriate care, inability to get preventive services, and hospitalizations that could have been prevented. These three determinants of health are beyond what we at Everyone Dies can help you with. We want you to understand that these factors will impact your health, but we can't change genetics, but we can remind you to document your family history and share it with your health care practitioner.

We can't locate, we can't relocate you or provide you with health insurance, clean air, and unpolluted water. I had a friend who would tell me when I would try to do too much that you can't breastfeed the whole world. She's right, but you can offer current information based on the latest science to help inform choices that we make for ourselves about our health and if we are choosing the fast or the slow road to death, which brings us to the fourth and last determinant of health, individual behavior.

Individual behavior also plays a role in health outcomes. For example, if an individual quits smoking, his or her risk of developing heart disease is greatly reduced. Many public health and health care interventions focus on changing individual behaviors such as substance abuse, diet, and physical activity.

Positive changes in individual behavior can reduce the rates of chronic disease in this country. Examples of individual behavior determinants of health include our diet, physical activity, alcohol, cigarette, or other drug use, and hand washing. Learning how to take charge of your health requires understanding your risk factors for different diseases.

Risk factors are things in your life that increase your chances of getting a certain disease. Modifiable risk factors are the things that you can control. So some modifiable risk factors or things that you control include what you eat, how much physical activity you get, whether you use tobacco, how much alcohol you drink, whether you use illegal drugs, and whether you use your seat belt.

You can have one risk factor for a disease or you can have many. The more risk factors you have, the more likely you are to get the disease. For example, if you eat healthy, exercise on a regular basis, and control your blood pressure, your chances of getting heart disease are less than if you're a diabetic, a smoker, and inactive.

To lower your risk, begin to take small steps toward engaging in a healthy lifestyle. Don't tackle everything at once. Your body and your mind will rebel and the change you're trying to make won't last.

People with a family history of chronic diseases may have the most to gain from making lifestyle changes. You can't change your genes, but you can change behaviors that affect your health, such as smoking, inactivity, and poor eating habits. In many cases, making these changes can reduce your risk of disease, even if the disease runs in your family.

Another change you can make is having screening tests, such as mammograms and colorectal cancer screening. These screening tests help detect disease early. People who have a family history of chronic diseases may benefit the most from screening tests that look for risk factors or early signs of disease.

Finding a disease early, before symptoms appear, can mean better health in the long run. You can also have accidents that lead to death, and here are the top five that are preventable. First is poisoning, including drug overdose, which is the leading cause of preventable injury-related deaths in the United States, according to 2022 data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

A total of 103,000 poisoning deaths occurred in 2022, accounting for 45% of all preventable injury-related deaths. Poisoning fatalities were the leading cause of preventable injury-related deaths in all age groups from 25 to 64 years. Falls are the second leading cause of death overall, and the leading cause of preventable deaths starting with the 65 to 74-year-old age groups.

So if you're an older person, you need to look at fall risk reduction. I don't know, maybe we should do a show about that, but we'll give you some resources in the show notes about how to prevent falls. Now, motor vehicle crashes are the third leading cause of preventable deaths overall, and the leading cause of preventable death from ages 5 to 9 and the 15 to 24-year-old age groups.

And we do have a podcast about driving and death, so take a listen to that. Tracking preventable injury deaths starting at birth, suffocation emerges as a leading cause for people younger than age 1, overtaken by drowning among the 1 to 4-year-old age group. Depending on your age, the things you need to pay close attention to changes when it comes to accidental injuries and death.

But accidents aside, behaviors that keep us from living to an old age primarily come down to three things, not smoking, eating a healthy diet, for example, eating fruits and vegetables and less red meat, and getting regular physical activity. And as a nurse practitioner, I can tell you that when I've talked with people about these three things, people's eyes will tend to glaze over, and it's really not what we want to hear. We want to hear something fancy, something, you know, with a great pill or an injection that, you know, all the stars are using.

We don't want to hear, and I don't like hearing it either, that, well, I don't have a problem with not smoking because I don't smoke, but eating a healthy diet, that is a struggle sometimes, and getting regular physical activity is a struggle all the time. Does that mean I don't do it? No, but it means it's a struggle.

So please listen to our entire series about how to stay on the slow road to death with the information you need to make good choices, but ultimately, it's up to you. Charlie, questions or thoughts? Well, you know, just what you just finished saying, ultimately, it's up to you.

It took me a long time, and I have to often remind myself if, yes, I enjoy, you know, a great burger, hamburger, pizza, yeah, all the stuff you were talking about how, you know, people just do it and eat it or drink it without consideration. I really had to teach myself that, yeah, it's okay to have, you know, that hamburger, but it can't be a regular diet, and there are times when I maybe will only eat half the burger, and I will have at least a small salad on the side or some vegetables on the side. It has not been easy, and now that, you know, I'm starting to get older, sometimes I just don't want to.

I just don't care, but then I remind myself, and I tell myself, okay, but you want to at least have some sort of good health, you know, as you age. I don't know, but what is it about us, Marianne, about people that, you know, we know better, but we just keep doing things which are just absolutely no good for us, you know, for our bodies? I don't know, what do you think?

Well, I think for our generation, we weren't brought up with sort of the whole diet and exercise thing. You got your exercise because your mom locked you out of the house, and you ran around until you got let back in again, and you didn't think about it as exercise, and there was nothing else to distract us, you know? My mom only let us have an hour of TV a day.

There were no electronic devices. The worst she had to deal with was telling my sisters and I to get up off the couch and stop reading, you know? And food was, you know, we didn't go out for fast food because we couldn't afford it, plus it didn't really, when we were little kids, they didn't even have it.

And my mom made, you know, all meals, three meals a day for us. I mean, there just, there weren't the options. And there wasn't the, oh, I'm running here, there, everywhere, and let's just, you know, take a quick ride through McDonald's because we don't have time for anything else for dinner.

I mean, my mother didn't even drive, you know? We walked to school, we walked home, and if the activity wasn't taking place on the school playground after school, you didn't do it. So, I think our lives are dramatically different, you know?

Parents don't feel comfortable telling kids go out and play. I know, it's nuts. Yeah.

So, then you've gotta, you know, run around for play dates or, you know, a lot of structured activities. It's just very different. And then there's the availability.

It's so much easier to swing by McDonald's and grab XYZ than it is to go to the grocery store, carry it in, unpack it, and then cook it. It's just so different. It's about convenience.

And, you know, I've had a couple of friends say that, Charlie, it's just about convenience. Yeah, there was one person, I don't know, we were, there was a group of us at a delivery cave, and it was, and it turned out, it was, you know, like a packet of soap, three bars of soap. And I asked my friend, what, you ordered a packet of soap?

Yeah, you know, I didn't feel like going out. And I said, are you out of your mind? I would have gladly, on the way here to the deli, not even two blocks away.

I said, I would have gladly picked this up for you, all the waste and everything, the environment and all that stuff. But yeah, to you, but it was, that was the whole point. Then we all got into this big discussion.

It's just about convenience. We just, we just get, well, lazy. And it's about convenience.

And, you know, to your point, yeah, there were fewer choices. And that was it. And people did not have the disposable income we have now.

And a lot of people don't have disposable income, but they just charge things up. You know, pay for it tomorrow. Yeah, we didn't have, we didn't have, I think, I think my dad, of course, my mom was, back then women couldn't have their own credit cards, but we had like a Sears credit card, maybe a Hudson's credit card, but American Express fees and all that didn't even exist.

Yeah, it's just about, you know, we need it now. There's no waiting. People don't like to wait.

You know, and the other thing you said too about falls. My, yeah, and I would tell my dad once in a while that, remember, it's about the falls, you know, because I would, you know, we would talk about, you know, different episodes on the show from time to time. He said, Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm fine.

I'm fine. And my father was very good as his body, you know, began to deteriorate, you know, moving from a cane to a walker. But once in a while, you know, I'd be over, he had a small apartment.

And he would just walk from the couch in the living room to the kitchen, which was, maybe, you know, three yards. So not that great of a distance. And I would point that out to him, Dad, please use your walker.

Oh, no, no, no, I feel fine. This is not far to go. And sure enough, came the day he was home alone, fell.

And that was the beginning of the end. And what made it worse for him, physically, his body was just not recovering. His mind was as sharp as ever.

And it was just killing him that his body was not cooperating. And at one point, he just basically said, I'm done, I'm finished. And he died 10 days later, he just shut off, because his body wouldn't cooperate.

And the same thing, you know, I help several, you know, friends who are older, you know, drop by and, you know, groceries and stuff like that. But same thing. And you know what, and I have to be careful, because I know me.

When I hit that age, I'm going to start thinking the same thing. Well, it's just a few steps into the kitchen, and I'm going to fall. So yeah, yeah, it's that.

And we think we're invincible in our heads, we're still 30. You know, it's not that far, of course, it's not a problem until it is, and you're on the ground. And you know, if you break a hip, there's a large percent of people who break a hip are dead within a year, because of what happens after you break a hip.

And as much as we can say this to people, you know, it's like we need to, I think, you know, and I need to, and I do it myself, is I need to force myself to say, I'm not this age. Like, so I would always tell my patients, first thing you do in the morning, you put socks and shoes on. I remember that.

Do not walk around in one of the episodes, I mean, several years ago now. And I don't just jump out of bed anymore. You know, I swing my legs off, I put my feet, just like what you said, firmly on the ground.

I give myself, you know, a few seconds, just to establish that. And then I stand up, I don't just jump out of bed anymore. Yeah.

Well, and that might make all the difference one day, not that we'll necessarily know that. And then the other thing too, is look at your feet. Where are they?

Because we don't feel our feet quite so well, you can be in the situation where you think your feet are flat on the floor, but they're not. And then you start moving, and you're like, oh crap, my foot wasn't exactly where I thought it was. So just look at your feet.

Wait, I don't understand, what do you mean you don't, if I swing out of bed, I know my feet are flat on the floor. I mean, there comes a- No, because you stop, because you stop. But think about it, if you go to climb a step, or you're at the theater and you go down the steps, do you look at your feet?

You need to watch what your feet are doing. Where's the edge? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying.

Because it's very easy to step off a step or think your feet are flat, moving in the right direction, and they're not. And I'll go, even when I was working at the hospital, I'd go up and down the steps, and I'd say to people, go around me, I'm old and slow. And they, oh, you're not old.

It's like, yeah, I am, because my ankle was always sore. Why would you say I'm old and slow? Slow, I can understand, but why would you call yourself old?

Because I wasn't 20 like them. Okay, I can see then, well, I'm not 20, I'm walking slower, go around. But I don't know, for me to say, and I never say that, I'm old.

I will say, I'm getting older, but I never say I'm old, it's just, I don't know, maybe just because it's- I am old. That's the thing, it's like, do we own who we are and where we are? It's like, we're not spring chickens.

You know, do I have one foot in the grave? I don't think so, but maybe. I don't know that.

Like, I go to this, where I live, built a, they call it a adult, what do a senior center for boomers. So it's got like a heated saltwater pool and it's got beautiful equipment, you know, like weightlifting equipment and it has a track and it has all this electrical things. And one thing Oklahoma does is that they have this tax that was voted in by the public.

And it's just, it's a separate tax that's used for like public enrichment. So they have these kinds of things. And so I go there now and it's, you know, like you have to be 50 or older, but when I go first thing in the morning, the people who are 50 to 65 are still at work at least.

And so they're old people. And I'm one of the younger and definitely one of the cutest that are there. But aside from that, I'll, you know, like if I'm on the elliptical, I'm watching people going on the track and I'm thinking, I mean, they're shuffling along and I'm thinking, God, please let me have the, whatever it takes for them to get up and get here when I'm that age, you know, to shuffle.

I saw one person on the weightlifting machine. She looked like she was actively in chemotherapy. She was so thin and just didn't look healthy.

And I thought all the times that I whine about, I got to get up and go to the gym. I just put that picture in my head. If she can get up and get there, I can get up and get there.

And if we don't, if we don't, we're not going to have the, as older people, we're not going to have the resilience to bounce back.

Right. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. As you were talking about walking, I do, you know, and I live in New York City.

So, you know, it is the concrete jungle. But here, you know, sometimes just daydreaming and walking and I don't, oh my gosh, I just remember my dad would often tell me, Charlie, pick up your feet. Oh shit.

I forgot about that. But here the sidewalks are not always even. And I need to be careful because sometimes, yeah, I am just daydreaming or thinking of something else and I don't notice an uneven sidewalk.

And there've been times of like trip, I haven't fallen, but there've been a few times I've been, you know, I almost did fall. Oh, poo, I just thought of that. And that's why you keep an eye on your feet.

Yeah. Yeah. And wear good shoes.

That makes a big difference.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yes. I would ask my patients that had fallen, so what did you have on your feet? You know?

Yeah. And it's always flip-flops or slippers. I know.

And you know what? And here I see people, you know, I can't imagine walking around New York City in flip-flops and people do it all the time. And not just young people, but, you know, older people as well.

And I just thought, I just, you know, I can't imagine walking around in flip flops in New York City or any big city, not just here. Well, really, honestly, you know, and that's the thing, that's part of, you know, sort of the acknowledgement of I'm older, you know? Flip-flops are not in my language anymore.

Yeah. Though I am in flip-flops around the house. Well, you can't fall around, most accidents take place in the house.

Right. And that's why I say, you put your sneakers on in the morning and you take them off when you get into bed. Yeah.

I mean, they're sturdy. I did remember that after that one episode and I, because I was just, you know, any old flip-flops would work, but I stopped that. So, I mean, the flip-flops I have now, sturdy, for lack of a better word, they're just, you know, very sturdy.

But then my toes are exposed. And there have been a couple of times when I banged a toe into a wall or something. Ah, shit.

All right, house slippers. Get rid of the flip-flops. Flip-flops, yeah.

Sneakers. Yeah. Morning to bed.

Yeah. And the joke in our house, Dave would say, you want to do this? Or the kids will say, you want to do that?

I'll say, ah, my shoes are already off. I'll put them back on. Oh, dear.

Okay. So, remember. So, there you have it.

Those falls, the fall will kill you or could kill you. Well, it could. Yeah.

Leading cause of death in our age. That's it. Okay, very good.

Now you're informed. In our third half, Ruth Thompson was born on July 22nd, 1910, in Portland, Maine, one of two girls of Ward and Anthine Sterling Thompson. She spent her early childhood in Boston.

When she was eight, her family moved to Oakland, California. As Ruthie Thompson walked to school each day as a child, she passed the Disney film studio and would peer into its offices. Walt Disney himself saw her and welcomed her inside to watch the animation process.

Her association with the Disneys might well have ended there had it not been for the fact that a decade later, Walt and Roy chose to take polo lessons. After graduating from Hollywood High School, the young Ms. Thompson took a job at a riding stable in the San Fernando Valley. Some years afterward, the brothers visited the stable to learn to play polo, which was all the rage then among the smart set.

Ruthie Thompson, Walt Disney declared on seeing her there. Why don't you come and work for me? I can't draw worth a nickel, she replied.

No matter, Mr. Disney told her, the studio would send her to night school to learn the rudiments of inking and painting. Of course, Ms. Thompson recalled, everybody around me said, don't say no, do not say no. After night school, she joined the studio in time to work on Snow White.

Her duties, menial and unartistic, yet highly necessary, involved cleaning dirt and dust from the finished cells as the transparent celluloid sheets that went before the camera were known. In 1948, she was promoted to the dual role of animation checker and scene planner. As an animation checker, she scrutinized the artist's work to see, among other things, that characters literally kept their heads.

In the animator's haste, different parts of a character's body, often done as separate drawings, might fail to align. Over four decades, she worked on nearly every one of Disney's animated features, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released in 1937, to The Rescuers, released in 1977. She retired in 1975 as the supervisor of Disney's scene planning department.

She never married and left no immediate survivors. In the Walt Disney Family Museum podcast, Ms. Thompson fondly recalled her long-ago association with Walt Disney and the unexpected career to which it gave rise. I never got over being awestruck at the fact that I was there and I was part of this wonderful thing that he was doing, she said.

She added pragmatically, even though it was just plain old cartoons. And that's it for this week's episode. Stay tuned for the continuing saga of Everyone Dies, and thank you for listening.

This is Charlie Navarrete, and from author Uval Noah Harari, you could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas, after death, in monkey heaven. And I'm Marianne Matzo, and we'll see you next week. Remember, life doesn't come tied with a bow, but still, every day is a gift.

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