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At 100, Dartmouth Grad Still Writing His Class Notes

Published January 28, 2015 at 3:29 PM CST

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

We called up Edward Gerson today. We read about him in the Wall Street Journal. He writes a column.

EDWARD GERSON: And it's widely received very favorably.

BLOCK: Mr. Gerson writes for his college alumni magazine.

GERSON: Dartmouth College graduate of 1935.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

We'll do the math for you - that makes Mr. Gerson 100. And it means the material that Gerson has to work with is increasingly limited. There aren't many members of the class of '35 left.

GERSON: There are only three alive.

SIEGEL: So for each issue, he makes sure to write about his two surviving classmates - Irv Sager and Ed Reich, or Eddy.

GERSON: Before I write a column every month, I have a talk with them to see how they're doing and what I can write my column. Eddy Reich - I've known Eddy since 1923. We went to camp together. We went to college together. So we always have something in common there. Irv Sager for years romanced my first cousin, but she just up and died on him.

BLOCK: The hard facts of life mean that Mr. Gerson's class notes also have room for him to get some things off his chest.

GERSON: I think this country is in terrible shape. And it can't be just glossed over. When my kids went to college, I paid for them. Now we charge it to the future generations

BLOCK: So we asked does he worry about Dartmouth limiting his column as he pushes the boundaries?

GERSON: No, I'm a fixture. They can't fire me.

SIEGEL: Before his 100th birthday last year, Edward Gerson got married, and he wrote in an end-of-year issue of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine you are hearing from the luckiest person on earth. I'm able to live to be 100 years old, and I'm still living a life that just gets better and better. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.