Active seniors prove age is just a number

When Pat Fraser says “age is only a number,” she isn’t just talking the talk. She’s walking the walk—or, more accurately, jumping the jump.

Last year, at age 76, Fraser jumped from an airplane at 9,000 feet.

“I just decided I wanted to try that out. I’d been talking about it for a couple years,” said the former swimming and aquacize instructor. “It was awesome.”

That bold leap was one of the many reasons why Fraser, a St. James resident, received an Active Living Senior’s Award as part of Manitoba’s inaugural Active Aging Week.

Fraser, who won the award for the 75 to 84 age group, and the other recipients were all chosen as examples of people who ignore what people of their age are “supposed to do.”

“My philosophy is that age is only a number,” she said. “People should be able to do what they can in any small way.”

Fraser is a member of a seniors’ cycling group that goes to Walker, Minn. every year to ride for several days. This year, they covered 92 kilometres on the first day. Two years ago, she achieved her fourth-dan black belt in tae kwon do.

What does Fraser have planned next?

“I met a man who at 69 climbed Mount Everest,” she mused. “Maybe doing something like that would be fun.”

Launched last Friday at the Wellness Institute at Seven Oaks General Hospital, the week is being organized by the Active Living Coalition for Older Adults to promote more active lifestyles for seniors, which will lead to better health.

Don Fletcher, national chair of the ALCOA, said less than 35% of Canadians 60 and older are physically active.

“We need to get people off the couch,” he said. “Too many people have been told they’re too old to do something, and we need to change that.”

Active Aging Week consists of activities at fitness and wellness facilities throughout the city. Many of those activities were on display at Friday’s launch, including adaptive golf.

Harold Swick was demonstrating the only adaptive golf cart in Manitoba, which he uses at Larters at St. Andrews. It allows a golfer to swivel the seat sideways and swing from a seated position while strapped to the cart.

Swick and his golfing buddy, Butch Hochman, have formed the Manitoba Adaptive Golf Initiative Coalition in hopes of encouraging more clubs to purchase the carts.

“We’d really like to see the City of Winnipeg purchase one or two for the municipal courses,” Swick said. “We don’t see any reason why they can’t.”

Hochman said the $8,000 cart is much more widely used in the U.S., where many disabled war veterans are able to continue golfing.

“It allows someone to keep their friends and their social life,” Hochman said.

Several local celebrities, including former Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback Ken Ploen, television personality Jim Ingebrigtsen, Minister of Healthy Living Kerri Irvin-Ross and Burrows MLA Doug Martindale were at the event to go through their paces on exercise equipment.

The other award winners were Pat Hasiuk in the 65-to-74 age group and Gertrude Simon in the 95-plus age group.