{"doi":"10.1111/jgs.19090","title":"Travels with Bob, my favorite octogenarian","abstract":"My great fortune was that my father-in-law became my best friend. For over three decades, I enjoyed his company, learned from his wisdom and example, and observed and assisted this member of the Greatest Generation as he aged gracefully despite humble circumstances and multiple severe morbidities. We bonded quickly after my future wife brought me home to meet her parents. However, it started out awkwardly. Bob was a tall, burly, gregarious dockworker. I was a short, slight, introverted medical student. Nevertheless, within minutes, his cheerful smile and hearty welcome put me at ease. In many ways, he became the father I never had. I affectionately called him “Dad.” Over the years, we became so close and spent so much time together that members of his own family may even have become a little jealous. Two dramatic events made it unlikely that Bob would live to age 88. First, during WWII as a 22-year-old infantryman, his stubborn refusals to wear his helmet pushed his commanding officer to teach him a lesson about the importance of head protection in an active combat zone. At dusk, he and his equally stubborn compatriot were given a heavy radio set and ordered to cross behind enemy lines and serve as the forward observers for the night. Several times they encountered enemy soldiers, dodged volleys of bullets and their own side's mortars, and narrowly escaped into nearby brush cover. After finally receiving permission to return near dawn, they stumbled into camp, muddy and exhausted. In the dim light, Bob laughed nervously as he pointed to a bullet hole in the radio set his partner carried. But they both paled when his partner then pointed to the fresh bullet dent in Bob's helmet. Later, when they were unable to find their foxhole where they would have slept that night had they not been afield, they were informed that an incoming mortar blast had obliterated it. Second, at age 52 while on vacation, Bob had a massive heart attack. He spent 6 weeks recovering in a small rural hospital. At Johns Hopkins, he was found to have severe, inoperable ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy. My father-in-law undertook several behavioral changes that I believe contributed to becoming a rare 36-year cardiomyopathy survivor: smoking cessation, regular physical activity, an optimistic, cheerful outlook, generously helping others, crossword puzzles, and regular afternoon naps. He also participated in the first clinical trial of beta-blockers, which became the most potent survival-improving drug. Bob loved to travel. However, his wife, recalling his multiple out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, wanted him to stay close to home. However, after I joined the family, she allowed him to accompany her cardiologist son-in-law on business trips, opening up a world of adventure and deepening our friendship. Our trips together took us to three different countries and eight different US states. In Germany, we visited the Berlin wall and Checkpoint Charlie where the American guard saluted Bob smartly and asked if he would like to help him lower the US flag for the evening. In Puerto Rico, my friend and I swam in the Caribbean, toured the Bacardi rum factory, and watched salsa dancing. In San Diego, he snorkeled for the first time, marveled at the marine life, and fed the dolphins at Sea World. In Washington DC, we visited the recently completed WWII memorial, where Dad shared details of the battles he was in, including the Battle of the Bulge, and his two encounters with the legendary US General George S. Patton. Bob's favorite trip was Las Vegas. We visited the huge, opulent Las Vegas casinos, gorged on lavish buffets, and saw Hoover Dam, Red Rock Canyon, and the old “Strip.” At the small, intimate historic auditorium of the old Hilton hotel where Elvis made his Las Vegas debut, we sat together in the front row of a concert by one of his favorite artists, the famous American country singer Trisha Yearwood. Dad's eyes sparkled and he clapped and cheered enthusiastically","journal":"Journal of the American Geriatrics Society","year":2024,"id":500988,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9529,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":260522,"name":"Dalane W. Kitzman","orcid":"0009-0000-5274-0826","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:10:12.068207Z","pmid":"39011656","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}