@danielsin753: As his 113th birthday dawned, Ken Weeks did what he always does — kept to the quiet daily routine his family believes has carried him so far. Ken Weeks is officially the second-oldest man in the world, and the oldest man in Australia. And this year, for the first time, his life brushed up against a parallel one on the other side of the planet. The world's oldest living man, 114-year-old João Marinho Neto of Brazil, happens to share Ken's exact birthday — October 5. This year, the two men sent each other birthday wishes. "Happy birthday, João," Ken said in a short video from his nursing home in Grafton, New South Wales. There's no secret formula behind his extraordinary span of years — no biohacking, no cabinet full of supplements. Just, as his son Ian puts it, "a plain, simple life; no drinking, no smoking... not very much sweet stuff... all plain, simple food." He did, Ian admits, always enjoy his white bread. What has never left him is his independence. "Even now in the home, if he can do it for himself, he will want to continue to do that," his granddaughter, Eunice Weeks, said. "He wants to feed himself, he's still organising his bed, he knows where all his clothes are, and he likes to choose his own clothes." He moved into residential care at 105 — and even now, at 113, he still does two laps of the upstairs floor, twice a day. "He's just amazing," said Sandra Osborne, who manages his care home. His body has largely held up; it's his voice, worn by 113 years of use, that has grown difficult. But his mind, his family says, is still sharp and curious. He listens to the news every day and asks questions about what's happening in the world. And he holds tight to a deep faith — the sense, as his granddaughter describes it, that "God walks with him" and cares for him. Over the course of his long life, Ken tried his hand at nearly everything. He built a fishing boat. He ran a shop. He fixed cars, worked for the electoral office, and never stopped putting in hard, honest work — "a typical Aussie battler," his granddaughter calls him. So it was fitting that, for his 113th birthday, his family arranged a ride in a vintage car, driving him past his old haunts, including the school he'd attended more than a century ago. When he came outside and saw everyone waiting for him beside the old car, he broke into a grin. "Oh, it's all just too much," he said. His granddaughter still marvels at all of it. "He's just an ordinary person," she said. He grew up in a country town, had a family, and worked hard at a string of ordinary jobs. That, she says, is exactly what makes his long life so astonishing — that someone so ordinary could reach 113. "I'm just thankful that he's also my grandfather." See less

Daniel Sin

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Thursday 15 October 2026 03:59:31 GMT