“Brewski” is appropriate here because this lovely story involves a Polish lady. It also involves a 103-year-old who recovered from coronavirus and celebrated with a Bud Light. (My only beef here is that she didn’t choose a decent beer. I would have at least asked for a Sam Adams Boston Ale. Click on screenshot to read.
Part of the story from the Boston Globe:
Jennie Stejna made the ultimate comeback.
The 103-year-old became seriously ill from the coronavirus but managed to make a full recovery. To celebrate, she enjoyed an ice cold bottle of Bud Light.
Stejna lives at Life Care Center of Wilbraham, according to Adam Gunn, her grandson-in-law, who said the family learned of her COVID-19 diagnosis on April 25.
As her health deteriorated, the staff at the nursing home became increasingly concerned that she wasn’t going to survive and her family called to say goodbye to their beloved Babci (a Polish name for grandmother).
Gunn and his wife, Shelley, spoke to her, as did their 4-year-old daughter.
“I asked her if she was ready for heaven, and she said, ‘hell yeah,’’’ said Gunn, who lives in Easton. “She’s a feisty Polish woman who says how she feels.’’
But her condition improved, and on May 13 she received negative test results.
To mark the occasion she was treated with the beer.
“She beat it,’’ said Gunn. “She’s doing great.’’
After she received the results and enjoyed the Bud Light, Gunn said, “She told the staff to ‘get the hell out of my room, I’m not sick anymore.’ ’’
Gunn said Stejna was always an avid sports fan and used to enjoy listening to sports broadcasts on a hand-held radio. “Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics . . . but she didn’t care much for football,’’ he said. “Red Sox games are what she really liked.’’
h/t: Tim
Bud Light is not a beer, it´s a placebo. Cheers.
At 103 she can celebrate with whatever she wants, and I salute her for it.
The Diet Shasta of American pale lagers.
Anybody doesn’t like it can kiss her dupa.
If I make it to 103 I’m damn well going to demand some kind of Hazy IPA.
Pani Stejna’s tough constitution is no doubt due to a lifetime of eating flaczki, the classic Polish tripe soup. Wikipedia refers to it as “an acquired taste”, which could be an understatement.
Guess maybe I’m the only one around here who actually likes tripe. I started eating as a kid, Italian-style, when my bestie’s dad would cook it for us. About the same time he started feeding us scungilli.
A finicky eater, I ain’t.
Reading George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier would have been enough to put me off for life, if the experience of trying to eat the stuff as a kid hadn’t done the job already.
If you can keep eating meat after reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle — and I can (albeit not a lot) — there’s not much in the way of literature gonna put you off your feed. 🙂
I’ve been vegetarian since ’82. I can’t blame it on The Jungle though.
I did vegetarian for a couple years in the Seventies, during my hippie manqué days. Now I eat meat maybe a couple times a week (though I do eat a lot of fresh seafood).
“Brewski” is pretty standard in WI and MN. 🙂
And I’ll add, we benefit greatly from the Polish, Czech, and German heritage of our local residents: Good beer, good sausages.
There have been a surprising number of reports about the very elderly surviving Covid-19. I’m not sure whether centenarians are disproportionately represented in the news or if they have an advantage over their (relatively) junior peers who are only in, say, their 80s or 90s?
I think there’s a lot of confounding variables (in addition to human interest data mining). It’s pretty clear that ill health and complicating health factors make one more vulnerable. Lots of elderly people have that, so obviously lots of elderly people will be at greater risk regardless of their age.
But, having said that, the human interest data mining thing is also almost certainly a factor.
Not all people over 80 die when they contract coronavirus. Without looking it up, I think the data rate is something like 10 or 15 percent. Many elderly people survive the virus but it’s only notable enough for the news if they are over 100, I suppose.
When I retired from science, there was a little buzz associated with genome wide association studies of very old individuals. It was hoped that such studies would find gene variants associated with longevity. Results have been, in a way, disappointing.
Contrary to popular notions, longevity has a relatively low heritability. It is probably affected much more strongly by environment, including perhaps the consumption of flaczki,
scungilli, and (for all I know) vegetables.
I knew when I saw the Bud Light that the beer snobs would have to get their sneer in.😋
But I’ve drank American light beer all my life and prefer it to anything else I’ve tried, which is a lot. I suppose that if you grow up drinking or eating something in particular that it often stays with you all your life.
But to each their own, and cheers!
My deepest sympathies, Keith.
Spare a thought for 106 year old Freda Hodgson. She survived COVID 19 and the Spanish flu.
+1
As if that wasn’t impressive enough, here’s a 113 year old who survived it!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52641659
If you live long enough you can survive anything! 😉