What is your Idea of "OLD"???

In 16 years I will be this lady's age!!! What the heck? She is calling herself OLD????? ( I am not liking the old-lady hairdo or the old-lady dress and old-lady glasses..... there are ways to look current without over doing it!!! She looks like the "church lady".....)

My idea of OLD is more like this woman.....can you imagine?  Eighty-nine years old and successfully running for Mayor of the 3rd largest city in Ontario, Canada.....for the 12th term since 1979 and her 33rd year in a row typically with 90% of the vote (76% this time despite a 'land scandal situation').

Hazel McCallion or "Hurricane Hazel" certainly is someone to be admired.  She has been named to the Order of Canada and voted the second-best mayor on the planet, and has a charitable organization called  "Hazel's Hope" that she travelled to Tanzania for in 2006 - funding healthcare for children afflicted with AIDS and HIV.

She still lives in her two-storey brick house which was her home with her husband Sam until his death in 1997 from pnuemonia while suffering from Alzheimers.  She says that her work at City Hall kept her going.   She is the longest serving mayor in Canada and has kept the city debt-free since her first term of office.  

Not only does she live alone with her dog "Hurricane" and keep active but "she still keeps a pair of skates and a hockey stick in the trunk of her car in case she comes across a pick-up game.  Hazel McCallion, [was] a former professional women's hockey player in Montreal in the 1930s".

I would be happy just to reach her age....never mind in her condition!  Rick Mercer reports:






Yep. And when I am old.....I shall wear purple.