How to live to be 99 or almost die (a lot) trying

Lakers 'Miracle' landing pilot passes. World War II veteran saved the team that would become one of sports' leading franchises

The headline to this column is just the sort of thing Harold Gifford would have said.

He was 99 going on 35 — right up until his death Saturday Jan. 7. He was the most ageless person I’ve encountered in a 30-year career.

We are all, of course, mortal, and as much as anyone I have covered, Harold put that to the test. I sometimes figured he just wouldn’t die.

Gifford was the World War II veteran who piloted the Minneapolis Lakers’ plane through a blinding blizzard in the January Iowa skies to safety in a Carroll cornfield in 1960.

Kuemper Catholic School System President John Steffes, a history-minded local leader, and I, among others, kept in regular contact with Gifford. We did for the better part of two decades.

I talked to Gifford on the phone most recently from his home in the Minneapolis suburbs to get the pilot’s take on one of his more-famous passengers. Hall of Fame basketball player Elgin Baylor walked off that plane with his professional basketball teammates to the welcome, bracing January air, the first hours of the rest of the 61 years of his life. Baylor died March 22, 2021 age 86.

“86, that’s pretty young to go,” Gifford said.

The reasons I talked to Gifford go beyond journalism. Yes, he was a living source to the most interesting breaking news story in the history of Carroll. But when you were interacting with Gifford you sort of felt as if you were in a Billy Wilder movie like, say, “Stalag 17.” Gifford spun wit and wisdom into a seen-it-all humor and ethos we rarely encounter, as it is so distinct to the rapidly disappearing World War II generation. He was funny, cutting and thought-provoking, but never, not once, unkind.

What’s it like being 97, Harold?

“Well, my warranty is out,” he joked.

An Army Air Force pilot in the Pacific Theater of World War II, Gifford brought compelling insights to life in large part because he came so close to death so many times before dying. (I actually double verified his death as it strikes me as so, well, improbable.)

“We came within seconds of flying into those trees,” he said of a portion of the Carroll landing effort on Highway 71 north.

His military experience and some crop-dusting days in the American West gave him lifesaving instincts that night.

Gifford died at an age where he had outlived most of his contemporaries.

“At 97 I look around myself all the time and say, ‘Where the hell did they all go?’ ” Gifford told me a few years ago. “I have a pretty good idea of why they went, but I’m not sure where they are.”

Gifford, a voracious reader who kept in touch with a lot of people, said his decision to drop alcohol and tobacco from his life in the 1970s contributed to his longevity.

“Genetics will get you to about 80, but from that point on, you’re on your own,” Gifford said.

His three suggested points, beyond the obvious good health choices, for a long life:

— Stay connected

— Have many interests

— Remain active

“Those three things help me,” Gifford said. “I try to stay in a good mood.”

RIP, my friend. It was an honor.

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