Jimmy Carter entered hospice care two years ago, and his relatives say the end is near. But before he turned 100 on Oct. 1 he said he wanted to live long enough to cast a vote for Kamala Harris. He got his wish Wednesday when he filled out a mail-in ballot.
The milestone isn’t as rare as it used to be. There are more than 50,000 centenarians in the United States, about 0.03% of the population, and the percentage is expected to quadruple by the 2050s. But you can’t fault John Ondrasik for saying you have 100 years to live. It scans a lot better than eighty or ninety.
Ondrasik, who performs as Five for Fighting because record company executives said his name was too hard to pronounce (shades of Johnny Cougar!), found a big audience in 2001 with “Superman (It’s Not Easy),” a No. 2 hit on the Adult Contemporary chart and No. 14 on the Hot 100.
“100 Years” came two years later and did even better on the AC chart, where it spent 52 weeks, 12 of them at No. 1. It lives on in cinema, television and commercials, and probably will for as long as directors want to make people feel nostalgic about the swift passage of time.
