2010-08-19 Dorothy Rossi Aging Gracefully
in the Modern World
An Interview with Dorothy Rossi
August 19, 2010 by Kirkham R. Hamilton, PA-C
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KIRK HAMILTON: Hi, my name is Kirk Hamilton, your host of Staying Healthy Today, and our message is simple: To provide you credible usable health information from interviews and our educational resources to help you Stay and Be Well in the busy modern world. Please take a few moments before or after listening to this interview to browse through the Prescription2000.com website, the home of Staying Healthy Today Radio, for our free educational services.
Our show topic is "Healthy Aging: A Profile of Functional Aging In The Modern World." Our guest is Dorothy Rossi, a 90-year-old female, dear friend of the family who has lived in the Napa Valley all her life. In fact, she has lived in the same house all her life. She lives amongst twenty-four acres of vineyards, walnut trees, prune trees, pear trees, and a egg business which she actively works and then she actively works in up keeping the twenty-four acres. She is a remarkable woman who still drives, essentially lives by herself. Her son does come up and help on the running of the ranch, but she still has her daily routine. And that's really what I wanted to go over, the habits of this remarkable 90-year-old and how we can apply it to some of the principles that we try and share about chronic disease prevention and reversal. Dorothy is currently on one medication, a high blood pressure medicine. She really does not have any health problems except for some osteoarthritis, but that does not limit her to being incredibly functional and working six or so hours a day on her ranch. So I'd like to go now to that interview that we did several weeks ago that was done from her kitchen in the same house she's lived in all her live overlooking a beautiful twenty-four acres of vineyards and fruit trees in the Napa valley.
KIRK HAMILTON: But the truth is we want to be as healthy and functioning at your age. And how do we do that? Well the one thing you do is you listen to people who have done it because it's not all genetics. It's the way we live most of the time.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I like to work. Actually that's all I do.
KIRK HAMILTON: If you picked out one thing that was part of your character that has kept you around, would you say it's "I like to work?"
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes I would.
KIRK HAMILTON: And you like to work because you like the sense of accomplishment? Or you like to work because you have to do it because otherwise nothing's going to get done here? Or do you just like to be busy?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Probably accomplishment. I wish you could see the wood. It was down by the chicken house. I had it sawed and split and I drove the pickup down there and was tossing it into the pickup and then I drive up here. I'd had Anthony back the pickup, because the pickup is so big I can't see all sides of it. Back it up to the wood shed. And from there I'd stand up in the bed of the pickup and throw the wood into the wood shed. And then from the pile and I go in and stack it. And so it took me a couple of weeks and it was bothering me because I couldn't do anything else. And I wanted to get that wood up there so I could do the other things.
KIRK HAMILTON: So it bothered you not to get things accomplished?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: And that drives you.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah it does. It bothers me terribly.
KIRK HAMILTON: So tell me your birthday.
DOROTHY ROSSI: March 15, 1920.
KIRK HAMILTON: 1920. And so you were born how many miles from here?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Three miles in town. It was a private home. This lady, she was a midwife.
KIRK HAMILTON: What was your maiden name?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Grande. G-R-A-N-D-E.
KIRK HAMILTON: And were your parents Italian?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes. My mother was born here in Berkeley, but of Italian descent. Mother and father were immigrants.
KIRK HAMILTON: And your dad?
DOROTHY ROSSI: He was an immigrant.
KIRK HAMILTON: Italian?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Italian. From Venice.
KIRK HAMILTON: So you're full-blooded Italian.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes. Second generation, that is. (Laughter.) Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: Then you - obviously you lived here.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: All your life?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: Ninety years.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: And you went away to school first for a couple of years.
DOROTHY ROSSI: In Berkeley, uh-huh.
KIRK HAMILTON: Did you graduate from high school?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I graduated in 1938 from high school here in Napa and went to Armstrong College. It's a business college in Berkeley. And then I got it - when I graduated from there, which was 1940, I went to San Francisco. I worked in San Francisco as an automobile insurance underwriter. I worked there for three years.
KIRK HAMILTON: What year was that?
DOROTHY ROSSI: From '40 to '43.
KIRK HAMILTON: In San Francisco.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Uh-huh. I had an apartment there.
KIRK HAMILTON: So just to picture that. I'm ignorant. When was the Bay and the Golden Gate bridges...?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I think it was the Bay Bridge that was built. They had the fair at Treasure Island.
KIRK HAMILTON: So did you have to take a ferry to get -
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh no.
KIRK HAMILTON: You could take a car all the way. Or a train, or how did you get there?
DOROTHY ROSSI: No, a train. There was a -
KIRK HAMILTON: So every - you came home on the weekends. You came home on a train?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh no. No, I came home on a bus. When I lived in Berkeley, we took a train. So it must have been, it must have been the Golden Gate bridge that was completed when we had the fair because we would go over the Bay Bridge.
KIRK HAMILTON: So you didn't have to take a ferry from San Francisco to get over to the mainland to get home?
DOROTHY ROSSI: No.
KIRK HAMILTON: Did you come home every weekend?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Just about.
KIRK HAMILTON: Wow. How long would it take to get home from San Francisco?
DOROTHY ROSSI: About an hour. A little over an hour on the bus.
KIRK HAMILTON: Well that seems like the regular speed.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: That hasn't changed. That actually is like really fast.
DOROTHY ROSSI: It was a Greyhound bus, you know.
KIRK HAMILTON: All right. So I was thinking you had to take the ferry to come home every weekend, but you didn't have to do that.
DOROTHY ROSSI: No.
KIRK HAMILTON: And then you'd go back...
DOROTHY ROSSI: I'd take the bus back.
KIRK HAMILTON: The Greyhound back.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: So when you were younger, did you do a lot of physical activity on the ranch so to speak?
DOROTHY ROSSI: No.
KIRK HAMILTON: No.
DOROTHY ROSSI: No.
KIRK HAMILTON: You just played.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes. Although my sister said that it's a good thing that I liked the ranch because you could see that I had a hammer in my hand a lot of the time. I was building things and physical stuff.
KIRK HAMILTON: So your play was still...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah.
KIRK HAMILTON: Kind of work.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: But would your dad say you gotta go build something?
DOROTHY ROSSI: No.
KIRK HAMILTON: So it was free...
DOROTHY ROSSI: No, we were kind of spoiled. Didn't do much.
KIRK HAMILTON: But you were always doing something physical.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: Well when did you learn about all the farm...how to take care of all this?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Because I was born here and I would see what my father was doing, what my mother...you know she had the chickens and I followed through when she died with the chickens.
KIRK HAMILTON: And they'd get the eggs that you sell today. You still sell them, correct?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes I do. And I clean the chicken house which is...that's a job. You know, you have to use a wheelbarrow.
KIRK HAMILTON: Uh-huh.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And scrape off the manure from the...
KIRK HAMILTON: Good stuff. So there's grapes grown here. There's a chicken coop. What else do you have here?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Pears.
KIRK HAMILTON: Pears.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And I have walnuts.
KIRK HAMILTON: And those are all sold. Those aren't just...
DOROTHY ROSSI: And prunes.
KIRK HAMILTON: And prunes. So you sell all those different commodities.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes. And that's another thing that people say, why don't you let the chickens go? It's just too much work for you to do that. And I have met so many and I have kept...well your mother was one of them.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right. They come by every week to pick up the...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah.
KIRK HAMILTON: So how many hours a week do you spend doing the whole chicken business?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh, I couldn't tell you, Kirk.
KIRK HAMILTON: I mean, do you have to do something every day? Go down and pick up...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh, several times a day. I go down to see that they have enough feed, if they have water, that nothing is getting in there.
KIRK HAMILTON: Uh-huh.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I had a coyote kill three of my chickens not very long ago and we got a bobcat down there.
KIRK HAMILTON: How many chickens do you have?
DOROTHY ROSSI: About 50, and now I have 12 young ones that I will be moving into the chicken house. They're in another area.
KIRK HAMILTON: And what do you feed them?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Pellets. Suppose to be natural pellets and that's all. I don't give them any scraps or anything like that. I give them greens. I get greens from the supermarket.
KIRK HAMILTON: Really?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah, uh-huh.
KIRK HAMILTON: Do you go buy them just like I go buy greens, you go buy greens?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh, no. I don't buy it.
KIRK HAMILTON: Is it the scraps?
DOROTHY ROSSI: No, it's what they cut off.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right, so you get the scraps...
DOROTHY ROSSI: The greens. Uh-huh. So that makes the yolks dark and that's what people like. And they run out...
KIRK HAMILTON: They get to run around.
DOROTHY ROSSI: They're out in the yard. They're not cooped.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right. I got it. So you've got a chicken business, you've got a grape business, you've got a fruit business, you've got a walnut business.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah.
KIRK HAMILTON: Does that go all under the umbrella of the...well I guess it does. The farm.
DOROTHY ROSSI: The farm. Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: How much do you drive still? Do you still drive to and...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah. Well, I don't go any farther than Walnut Creek. I go to Walnut Creek and Santa Rosa.
KIRK HAMILTON: You don't go to Sacramento? Didn't you go to see your sister...No, that was...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah, I used to pick her up. She doesn't come any more.
KIRK HAMILTON: At the airport.
DOROTHY ROSSI: At the airport, Sacramento airport. Uh-huh. It's an easy drive, you know. It isn't...
KIRK HAMILTON: You know, in my older patients, the one thing that I always tell them, you know, whatever you want to do, you've gotta keep practicing.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: So driving obviously you have to have mental competency...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: And reflexes.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: But I will tell people, you know, if you want to keep driving, I don't care if you drive to the grocery store every day, you've gotta practice every day. Getting in your car, backing out of the driveway, because...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Exactly.
KIRK HAMILTON: If you don't it, that's a dangerous skill not to have to be able to do well, you know. And you at 90, there's a lot of elderly people who feel like the world's moving too fast for them and it scares them.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I feel it's moving too fast, too. But not that it scares me.
KIRK HAMILTON: How fast do you drive when you drive?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I have to say, I hate to say, but I am little fast driver.
KIRK HAMILTON: But you feel comfortable with what you drive?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes, but I try to be as careful as I can. But I know that probably people...
KIRK HAMILTON: But like on the freeway, are you going 75, 70?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I try not to because I don't want to use too much fuel.
KIRK HAMILTON: So on the freeway, what's your average speed?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I keep it down to 65 because of the consumption of fuel.
KIRK HAMILTON: But not because you're afraid?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh no.
KIRK HAMILTON: So you feel comfortable. What I'm saying is, you're...that's a normal response. You feel comfortable going 65 or 70.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: So you could drive up to an hour, hour and a half?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes. Well, it's just that I don't drive in San Francisco anymore because...
KIRK HAMILTON: Well a lot of people won't.
DOROTHY ROSSI: There's too much going on there and I don't know it like I used to any more. You know, one ways and...
KIRK HAMILTON: When was the last time you drove in the city?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh probably, I'll bet it's been ten years.
KIRK HAMILTON: There's a lot of people 50 who won't do it, so that has nothing to do with age. (Laughter)
So tell me about what you eat for breakfast.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I have a cup of coffee the first thing. It's still...I get up at 5 o'clock.
KIRK HAMILTON: Uh-huh.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And it's still dark, so I don't go out to do the chickens. That's my first project.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And I'll have a cup of coffee while I read the paper, while it's getting light. And then I go down and take care of my chickens. I go down and get the mail and the paper from the day before. And then I start doing whatever I need to do, and then between 8:15 and 8:30 I have my cereal, oatmeal.
KIRK HAMILTON: Oatmeal. What do you put in your oatmeal?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Milk. I don't use any sugar. I put raisins in.
KIRK HAMILTON: So milk, raisins and oatmeal.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And milk.
KIRK HAMILTON: Do you have another cup of coffee?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh no. I have no more coffee for the rest of the day.
KIRK HAMILTON: And do you have anything else to drink with your breakfast or is it just...
DOROTHY ROSSI: No, that's it. And then I get going.
KIRK HAMILTON: So then you start working.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And do whatever I have to do, and then my lunch I have a sandwich.
KIRK HAMILTON: What's your favorite sandwich?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Well I like swiss chard pretty much.
KIRK HAMILTON: Swiss chard?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah, and that's what I cook. Swiss chard and keep in the refrigerator so I can have it in my sandwich.
KIRK HAMILTON: So you have a swiss chard sandwich?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: Anything else?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I know that's crazy.
KIRK HAMILTON: No, no, no. Well no, it's right up my alley. But I was just...I was going to expect something else. So swiss chard. Chard is a great...all the green leafys are great nutritional foods. They're like the powerhouses of foods. So let's say you cook the chard and then you put it in the fridge. Are you steaming it down a little bit?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes. Oh, yes. I steam it.
KIRK HAMILTON: So when you make this sandwich, do you it on some regular bread, white bread, French bread or whole grain?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh, always grain. I put a little mustard. I don't use mayonnaise.
KIRK HAMILTON: So you put mustard and nothing else?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: Just mustard and chard?
DOROTHY ROSSI: And you know I slice onion on top of it. On top of the chard.
KIRK HAMILTON: That's fabulous.
DOROTHY ROSSI: It is good. And then somebody gave me some string beans the other day. Beautiful string beans that he raises. So I made a string bean sandwich. And it's delicious.
KIRK HAMILTON: I love it. I mean now you're talking my language. So, you have...I have never heard anybody have a chard sandwich. So chard, onions, mustard on whole grain bread.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: Do you have anything else with your lunch?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh, sometimes I have my vegetables at lunchtime if I'm going to have something that is...I'm gonna use a lot of vegetables at night. And then I'll have cottage cheese with fruit on it.
KIRK HAMILTON: As a kind of after lunch.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah.
KIRK HAMILTON: Cottage cheese and fruit.
DOROTHY ROSSI: That's kind of my dessert because I try not to eat any dessert until somebody just...
KIRK HAMILTON: Knows your weakness. Okay.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah.
KIRK HAMILTON: Okay, so you have your cottage cheese and your fruit. Is it fruit from here or do you get it at the...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah, it's usually from here.
KIRK HAMILTON: Something that you grew here.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah, here. Or if I don't have anything here because all I have now is prunes and pears, but then I'll buy oranges and apples and that's what I'll cut up them.
KIRK HAMILTON: What do you drink for lunch?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I don't drink anything.
KIRK HAMILTON: Nothing. So you don't drink anything. Okay.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And I drink very little water. I have to tell you that. I have one glass. I try to drink that glass every day of water.
KIRK HAMILTON: Well whatever you're doing, it's working so let's...Do you snack between breakfast and lunch?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I do no snacking.
KIRK HAMILTON: So what do you do for dinner?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Well, for dinner, like last night I had polenta. You know what polenta is?
KIRK HAMILTON: Uh-huh.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Cornmeal.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And I made it rather than with water I have a recipe that I like very, very much. It's half water and half milk and the milk that I use is nonfat milk.
KIRK HAMILTON: Uh-huh.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I know it looks blue almost, but I'm used to it and it doesn't bother me. I use no salt at all.
KIRK HAMILTON: So what else? So you have polenta and...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Polenta and I had baked beans. I bake beans, a big amount and put it in the freezer and then I take each container out, heat it up and pour that over...
KIRK HAMILTON: What kind of beans do you use?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Lima beans.
KIRK HAMILTON: It's a mix?.
DOROTHY ROSSI: It's a mix of four different kinds of beans.
KIRK HAMILTON: And when you cook them, are you...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Bake them.
KIRK HAMILTON: You bake them in what?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh, I put some, a little bit of ketchup, a little bit of mustard.
KIRK HAMILTON: But do you boil them first or are they precooked?
DOROTHY ROSSI: They're precooked. And I put that over the polenta.
KIRK HAMILTON: So you have polenta, three or four bean whatever with some ketchup and mustard.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: What is your biggest meal?
DOROTHY ROSSI: That's it at night.
KIRK HAMILTON: So night is. And what time do you eat at night?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Five o'clock so I can watch the news at the same time. And then I have a salad also at night and I have beets and string beans and peppers...the colored, you know, the ripe peppers, sometimes asparagus. I cut a lot.
KIRK HAMILTON: What kind of dressing do you put or what do you do on your -
DOROTHY ROSSI: Only vinegar. Wine vinegar.
KIRK HAMILTON: Excellent. Wow. That's great.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And then I have my glass of wine at night.
KIRK HAMILTON: Of course.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Of red wine.
KIRK HAMILTON: Is it from here?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes. Anthony makes it.
KIRK HAMILTON: What else would you drink?
DOROTHY ROSSI: That's all.
KIRK HAMILTON: (Laughter)
DOROTHY ROSSI: I used to drink when my husband was here. We drank martinis because I love martinis.
KIRK HAMILTON: That's good.
DOROTHY ROSSI: But I try not to drink anything like that anymore.
KIRK HAMILTON: And what else do you eat in the evening? So your breakfast and lunch are pretty the same...a lot.
DOROTHY ROSSI: They are the same.
KIRK HAMILTON: Does dinner rotate a little?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh I put in...sometimes I'll make when I get tired of the spinach...not spinach...
KIRK HAMILTON: Chard.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Chard. I'll open a can of tuna.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right. A tuna sandwich.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And I'll have tuna sandwich.
KIRK HAMILTON: Okay.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I try not to...I like cheese sandwiches but I try not to eat too much cheese.
KIRK HAMILTON: So what else do you eat in the evenings? That seems to be the meal you have some variety.
DOROTHY ROSSI: No.
KIRK HAMILTON: No, it's pretty much the same. The greens every night?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh no, then I have pasta. I love pasta.
KIRK HAMILTON: Okay. So how do you make your pasta? Boil it?
DOROTHY ROSSI: You know, sometimes I make up my own. I make gnocchi. You know what gnocchi are?
KIRK HAMILTON: Uh-huh.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And I'll even make a cream sauce for them or I have the spaghetti sauce over the pasta.
KIRK HAMILTON: So when you make...so in gnocchi you have that way. Do you have other pastas that you eat at night? What other kind of pasta do you have?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I make my own pasta and sometimes if I have any, but now I don't.
KIRK HAMILTON: So you don't go out and buy it. You make your own.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I try to, but no I have to buy it too. If I don't have time to make it.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I don't - you know, then I've gotta use the boughten.
KIRK HAMILTON: So how many nights a week would you have pasta?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I try to keep it down to three nights a week because I love it. I could eat it every day. But I try not to.
KIRK HAMILTON: So what else do you put on it again? You put on...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Well sometimes I do olive oil and garlic. I use garlic every day.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right.
DOROTHY ROSSI: On my salad mostly. And I'll make the sauce.
KIRK HAMILTON: So you can have a garlic and olive oil on your pasta.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: Do you put vegetables in it or anything? Or just on the side.
DOROTHY ROSSI: No, on the side I have the vegetables.
KIRK HAMILTON: You have your salad or vegetables. Okay. So it can just be pasta and olive oil and garlic.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah, exactly.
KIRK HAMILTON: Okay.
DOROTHY ROSSI: But a good bit of it, because I like it so well, you know.
KIRK HAMILTON: That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Or sometimes you have creamy sauce.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah. And with my creamy sauce, I have one tablespoon of butter and I'll melt that and then put the tablespoon of flour and them milk and that's it.
KIRK HAMILTON: Okay. That's your cream sauce. And what's your...do you have a marinara or a red sauce or no?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah, I do have a red sauce which I make just with you...I don't use any meat. I just use tomatoes and tomato sauce and celery and things like that.
KIRK HAMILTON: How many days a week would you say you have meat? It doesn't sound like much.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I don't. I don't have meat...the closest thing to meat is chicken breast and I have that once a week.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right. So you have that once a week.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And I like that. The boneless I have been using lately and it will do me for two meals. I will do one...
KIRK HAMILTON: One breast for two meals.
DOROTHY ROSSI: One for two meals. Because they're big guys. I cut it in half after I baked it and I put rosemary and sage and all those things when I cook it with potatoes. I love potatoes.
KIRK HAMILTON: So the eggs that you have down there. Do you eat them?
DOROTHY ROSSI: No. (Laughter)
KIRK HAMILTON: And your chickens aren't those chickens, right, that you eat? Your breast of chickens.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh no. No, they're not.
KIRK HAMILTON: Alright. So I think I got that. That's great. How about now...
DOROTHY ROSSI: The other half of the breast I want to tell you what I do with it. Is I'll have it another meal with broccoli. I make a chicken divan. You know what chicken divan is?
KIRK HAMILTON: No, I don't.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Well it's...you cook broccoli and make a white sauce again or a cream sauce and you put the sauce over it and then the chicken, it's cooked chicken.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right.
DOROTHY ROSSI: It's the other half of that breast. I slice that over it and then the sauce over that and I love it.
KIRK HAMILTON: Every time you say cream sauce you're saying butter, nonfat milk and flour.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Uh-huh. And pepper. I use pepper.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right. Okay. And do you have a dessert at night or...
DOROTHY ROSSI: No. Not unless...
KIRK HAMILTON: It's a special occasion. Yeah, somebody comes over and...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Somebody comes and I do have friends. They know what I'll eat. What my weakness is.
KIRK HAMILTON: Well, see, I had a different impression. I thought...I thought actually because of the way you like the sweets, you know, because of our little thing, that you did it a lot. But you don't in this diet.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I don't.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right. Okay, so that...
DOROTHY ROSSI: I try not to.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right, I got it. That makes sense.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And I don't bake anything.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Because I eat the whole thing if I do.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right. I got it.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And if...and people tell me, why don't you put in the freezer? Well, the freezer's pretty handy and I know where it is.
KIRK HAMILTON: You're like me. So you've finished eating about by six?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: Okay. And so what time to you go to bed?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Nine. Definitely. I do not...
KIRK HAMILTON: So 9 to 4.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And everybody knows...No, not...
KIRK HAMILTON: Oh, no, no. I mean you sleep from 9 to 4 or 4:30.
DOROTHY ROSSI: 9 to 5.
KIRK HAMILTON: 9 to 5.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Uh-huh.
KIRK HAMILTON: That's eight hours. I couldn't get eight hours in two nights. (Laughter)
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh, you couldn't? You're not a good sleeper?
KIRK HAMILTON: No, I sleep well, but I just have so much work, I work really late.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I'll bet you do.
KIRK HAMILTON: Yeah, that's a health risk.
Let's see. What else haven't I asked you? I've pretty much...I mean we know you work really hard and do you...your spiritual life. I know you're Roman Catholic. So is there a tradition that you do or do you just go on Sundays or is there a...
DOROTHY ROSSI: No, I guess you'd call me a poor Catholic.
KIRK HAMILTON: (Laughter)
DOROTHY ROSSI: I don't. But what I do is I have masses said for my mother and father and my grandparents and my husband of course.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And when I have those masses said, I do attend those masses. Which is...I have a couple of them a month that I usually do.
KIRK HAMILTON: So in a day where you're up at 5 o'clock, and you go to bed at 9 o'clock, and you're pretty regular with your meals, it looks like you might work six to eight hours... maybe six or so hours, you know.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Well, I don't know because after I have my dinner, usually, if it's like with the wood, I've got the pickup down there and I'll maybe get another load before it gets dark.
KIRK HAMILTON: So you might in the summertime you might do a little...continue chores after.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes. Or even watering.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I could do part of my watering so I won't have so much to do the next day on it. But then I've got to turn the pump on every day and the pump is down in the vineyard. Because I've got to keep my tank full.
KIRK HAMILTON: I wish people could see the view that I have.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes. It's a beautiful view.
KIRK HAMILTON: Looking out of your kitchen you know we have these beautiful flowers on a patio and then we have these acres of vineyards, twenty-five total acres, and you have barn and a beautiful yard and more flowers and more vineyards. So where do you plan on being in ten years?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Dead.
KIRK HAMILTON: Think so?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh definitely.
KIRK HAMILTON: You think you'll be dead in ten years?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I...we're having a wedding in the...on the ranch here in June of next year.
KIRK HAMILTON: So you know you'll be here for that.
DOROTHY ROSSI: No, I'm just hoping I'll...I keep thinking about it.
KIRK HAMILTON: Why...I mean, I haven't seen you in two years, okay.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes, when your mother died.
KIRK HAMILTON: And you don't look much different than you did then. So it seems to me when you said...when you said dead, it's not like I don't get that you think your body's gonna wear out, so much as you just say "I'm done."
DOROTHY ROSSI: Well, I feel that... how much more can a person live? How much longer?
KIRK HAMILTON: A lot more. I mean, if you have...well, I'm saying if you have the same sense of desire to get up and take care of this place, what's the difference between 80 and 90, and 90 and 100? I don't get the difference for you. See what I'm saying?
DOROTHY ROSSI: No. I look at the trees and the vines. They can only last so long.
KIRK HAMILTON: I understand. I'm just saying that you...you've been what we would call a gracefully aging person for quite some time. So the difference between 80 and 90, your sense of purpose or whatever it is you were living for, is it that much different than it would be for the next two years or one year? Are you just saying...are you saying to yourself, you know, what's the point of me going on? In other words, I don't know if it's your head getting tired of living or your body. I'm not sure what you're trying to say when you said so clearly, Oh, I won't be here. And I mean I would say well why not if you keep doing these same things you're doing and you have the same intention.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Because everything wears out.
KIRK HAMILTON: Well I got that.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And something's gotta give.
KIRK HAMILTON: So you think you're at a breaking point?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Well, I...
KIRK HAMILTON: I mean if people walked in here, they'd say you're 75 looking at you, and they would say they wouldn't put that limit on you just...What I'm saying is that if they didn't know you were 90 and they saw you working around here...let's say I said you were 75...and seeing all the things that you're doing, they wouldn't say, "Oh, you're gonna be dead by 85." See what I'm saying?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes. I do.
KIRK HAMILTON: They wouldn't say that. But now that you're 90, I mean you're doing what a lot of 70-year-olds can't do.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah, but something's gotta wear out.
KIRK HAMILTON: (Laughter) Well maybe, what I think when you say wear out, it's not so much your physical body, it's like your mind might say what's the point.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh, no. I don't think what's the point because I want to stay as long as I can because...
KIRK HAMILTON: Because why?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I'd hate to see this ranch when I'm gone.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right. Okay. So that's your sense of purpose. And that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean that is a tremendous drive to see the place you lived, were raised.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And things kept up the way it is.
KIRK HAMILTON: And knowing you, that's a tremendous...so let me ask you this. If you felt that the family could take care of it close to the same way that you could, probably never quite, you might say okay, I'm done? (Laughter)
DOROTHY ROSSI: I don't know.
KIRK HAMILTON: I'm trying to figure out why you said so clearly we're not gonna be here in ten...in fact it didn't even sound like ten years. It sounded like five years you're not here. You know, I mean I'm going. Wow.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Well I just think it's human nature that you just...I don't care what you do, you can't go on forever.
KIRK HAMILTON: Oh, I understand that.
DOROTHY ROSSI: And 90 is pretty good age.
KIRK HAMILTON: Pretty good age. So where are you gonna go after you die?
DOROTHY ROSSI: (Laughter) I'd like to know.
KIRK HAMILTON: Think you're gonna see Gus?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Well I'm hoping I will.
KIRK HAMILTON: Gonna see my mom?
DOROTHY ROSSI: I certainly hope so.
KIRK HAMILTON: I always used to joke with her which husband she'd see first.
DOROTHY ROSSI: (Laughter)
KIRK HAMILTON: She'd go back and forth. (Laughter)
DOROTHY ROSSI: I sure miss her. Oh, I miss her terribly. You know, she would call me up, say well, I'm gonna go over to the Wagon Wheel and have breakfast. You know where the Wagon Wheel is?
KIRK HAMILTON: Uh-huh.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Just this drop of a...she would just call and say let's do this and let's do that. A lot of energy.
KIRK HAMILTON: Yep. A lot of energy. That's a question I want to ask. So one of the hard parts I think would be of getting older is when you watch your friends die.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes. Yes.
KIRK HAMILTON: When, you know...I mean I could, you know, if all of a sudden all of your friends are gone you're going, okay.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Uh-hum. Well, there's always some left, you know. And I have a lot of young friends.
KIRK HAMILTON: Right.
DOROTHY ROSSI: So I've always got some good friend, but none will replace old ones that we had for years.
KIRK HAMILTON: Would you say your life's been stressful?
DOROTHY ROSSI: No. I think I've had a pretty wonderful life. I've had some jolts. One in particular. Did you know about that?
KIRK HAMILTON: Uh-huh.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah. Well, that's the big thing in my life. Other than that, of course, losing my father when he was very young.
KIRK HAMILTON: How old was he?
DOROTHY ROSSI: 58.
KIRK HAMILTON: Did he die of a heart attack or...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Cancer. And that was bad. And then of course my mother went next, but she was 88 when she died.
KIRK HAMILTON: How old was Gus when he died?
DOROTHY ROSSI: 82.
KIRK HAMILTON: 82. And what did Gus die of?
DOROTHY ROSSI: Cancer.
KIRK HAMILTON: Cancer. You have lived a remarkable life. I still have to figure out that...I think I said five years, but you're pretty adamant about being gone, which is fine. I think people sometimes choose. I really believe that. And just say they're done. You know, I think, I really do. I mean, I think my mother hung on to do some things, try to make some family things happen. I mean they loved to live. But I think, I've seen it a few times in families where kind of the patriarch just tries to make their one last gas, so to speak, to fix things or, you know, with their children especially because that's what they all care about.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yes, exactly.
KIRK HAMILTON: And they, okay, they move on. My mother and I would talk a lot. I remember the last weekend I had her, because she had ups and downs, ups and downs. But the last weekend, I knew there was something different. And she went out and bought me a rose. We would always go out to the nursery, Talini's, an Italian nursery, literally against my back fence. So we'd take the wheelchair with the oxygen and we'd go around the block and we'd go to Talini's. That was our thing because that was all she could do. And so the last week, and she was just having really problems breathing. And so she'd always take me over there and she said "I want to buy you something." So finally I said "Okay. Get me this standing rosebush." A big tall rosebush. So we got the rosebush and then we planted it while she...you know, she can't hardly breathe back in my house and she's sitting in the wheelchair outside my patio and we planted it. We got pictures of it.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh how nice.
KIRK HAMILTON: And I got a picture with her holding it and a picture with a shovel and her wheelchair, you know. And here's the beauty of this story. So anyway, that weekend I knew something was up so when I took her back to my brother's, I go, you know, let's get ready. And then in two days she died. Which was actually very beautiful. We all were around her, we kept her home, Lucci was around her, you know, singing songs. We had candles going, and we didn't have to take her in. I'd made arrangements with the doc, so it was a perfect transition. But that rosebush on Mother's Day of that year, so you know she died in February, and Mother's Day, I think it was in May and that first, first flower opened on Mother's Day.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh.
KIRK HAMILTON: The rosebush. And it was absolutely amazing. And we took pictures and I sent it to all my relatives and then on my...on her birthday...it was either the birthday or the anniversary of her death a year later...I think it was her birthday in November, again it was the only...I have three or four rosebushes...the only one that was in just full...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh, really.
KIRK HAMILTON: And you know it was just like "whoof..."
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh, how beautiful.
KIRK HAMILTON: And it's a wonderful... it's just a beautiful rosebush now. So I have that. That's really my mother. I mean, my mother's very, very...she's not gone. She's not gone. Wherever there is, she's really close. (Laughter) Wherever she is, so...
DOROTHY ROSSI: Oh how lovely that is.
KIRK HAMILTON: You know, she would say something. I mean, I do love my mother, but you know, she would get mad at me for this. I'd go, sometimes you just do it because you're supposed to mom. It's my duty. And she didn't like that. Or I would say, you know, because sometimes it's hard, you know, and I'd go "mom, it's my duty to do that." And she would always get angry at me and like, hey I'm not doing that for love? No, I'm doing it because I doing it because I'm supposed to do this. I'm supposed to take care of you. (Laughter). But whenever I use the word duty, it's like...I loved bringing her up here because it would...I would love to see you two interact and I would love to see her get, you know, she would be beyond her illness. In other words, I mean there were times when she couldn't breathe and she would be acting like there was nothing wrong.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah.
KIRK HAMILTON: You know, and then she'd see you and she would lighten up. But she'd see somebody she knows and then, you know, two seconds later she's got blue lips in the car because she just can't breathe. So it was always a great joy for...to let me see you both just, just, you know, life and love. I mean you guys loved each other so much. You know, it was very, very clear.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Yeah, I guess so.
KIRK HAMILTON: You look as good as when I saw you the last time. You got me thinking about this...you're not making it to 100 stuff. I think it's in your head. I don't think it has anything to do with your body. I'm serious.
DOROTHY ROSSI: (Laughter) You've made my day, I'll tell you.
KIRK HAMILTON: You know, if you don't...but again I think it's like I remember a friend of mine. He's actually a lecturer that teaches doctors about health and he said one day his grandfather...they were all at dinner and he was in, I don't know, his late 80s, early 90s or something like that. I think it was late 80s, and he goes "This is my last Christmas...or Thanksgiving...with you all." And they go, "What are you talking about, Grandpa?" He looked fine and everything and he goes to bed and he moves on. That was it, he just went that sleep that night and never woke up. You know, I think sometimes people just go, okay, what's the point? That's it. I think you can turn off your own clock.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I'll have to keep that in the back of my mind.
KIRK HAMILTON: No reason body-wise if you keep doing what you're doing, you know. I mean, your lifestyle is moderate, it's physically active, it has a sense of purpose. You know, you eat mostly natural types of foods. You don't eat calorie excess. I mean, it's obvious why, to me, why you're doing well. I mean you're a model. You know, the hard part is, you're right, not everybody has this...
DOROTHY ROSSI: The opportunity.
KIRK HAMILTON: This kind of opportunity, to be on this type of ranch in this environment, so then you do have to create artificial ways to get exercise, go to a gym like I do, or...I mean you have to create those into a normal lifestyle which is the problem. Because most of these diseases, just on a bigger scale, most of these chronic diseases occur when people move from the agrarian or rural lifestyle to a city lifestyle. They eat more processed food, they're less physically active, they get more calories, and all the stuff breaks down, but you do naturally just going from moment to moment, you know. And that's the hard part if you're going to help people is they're gonna have to do it artificially where you do it naturally.
DOROTHY ROSSI: I have the opportunity.
KIRK HAMILTON: You do it naturally, you know. All right, Dorothy. Very good.
DOROTHY ROSSI: Well, I thank you very much.
KIRK HAMILTON: Well, I hope you've enjoyed listening to Dorothy and have gotten some pearls and practicality about what's really important about healthy living. And I think some things that pop into my mind when I think back over the interview is one, she works very hard. Two, she has a deep sense of purpose to keep the ranch, to keep the house, to keep the farm going, in order. And that's one of her driving forces in her life. Three, she is obviously physically active so she does kind of an aerobics by walking a lot, she does a lot of lifting and moving, so that's kind of strength training, and then does a lot of bending over and things like that, so that's the flexability stuff. Her diet is very moderate. It's generally a low fat diet. When she eats her dairy products, it's skim milk, doesn't seem to be a lot of it, and though she really likes her sweets, she doesn't have them very often so it's a very unrefined diet in that regard. She has fish a couple of times a week, fowl maybe once a week, has a lot of vegetables. Doesn't overeat. So she does everything in moderation. And I think that those are principles that you'll see in most Blue Zone cultures.
So I want to thank you for listening today and hope you have a few pearls to share and kind of put all the research about aging into a practical sense listening to Dorothy's life and experience. And I want to thank you, the audience, for listening to this edition of Staying Health Today Radio. And until next time, Stay and Be Well.
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