[DouglasKC]

They sure got it right with yankeedom. When i lived there for a while every old person I knew was dying right at 79 years old..including my grandma.

[Dr. Sivana]

They sure got it right with yankeedom.

Mine are both alive at 90 (father) and 87 (mother). Mother's parents lived to 86 and 97. Father's parents died from lung cancer in early 60s.

I think diet, exercise, smoking, drinking have more to do with the whole thing than attitudes towards government or the common good.

For the record, Massachusetts, the heart of Yankeedom recently had a streak of anti-authoritarianism when the People repealed the seatbelt laws imposed by the state legislature (after pressure from the Feds). The state had to change the signs on the interstates from "Seat Belt Use REQUIRED" to "Seat Belt Use recommended". That Massachusetts may have been completely extinguished, but it ecisted long after the Puritans left town. The mass immigration of Irish and Italians and French-Canadians etc. into Yankeedom changed the Puritan environment considerably.

[madison10]

It is something else. Lifestyle. One of my grandfathers lived to 90 the other to 94. My dad and mom to 82. All raised on farms, though.