WONDERING

 How many of you thought I meant wandering?  Maybe wandering in a sea of indecision. That's a bad place to be.  No, I'm just wondering if an ad I just saw on the internet it accurate.

A company called Grounded Footwear says on one of their ads that if you are over 65 and suffer a fall, you have a 50% chance of dying in the next year.   Is this just made up or is there some truth to it?

I have it on good authority that about 98% of 70 year-olds make it to 71 and 93% of 80 year-olds make it to 81 and 81% of 90 year-olds make it to 91.   When you look at it that way, I could live for a few more years.  A fall could change everything and be real bad, especially if it breaks a large bone.  Luckily I fell on my head. 

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You can do a lot of tricks with statistics.  Take our government for example.  They come up with loads of statistics and many people take them very seriously.  That brings back a memory.  In the late 1960s, I was selling a product called asbestos cement pipe.  It was a very minor or discontinued item for us and was rarely used then by anyone and never used these days.  Asbestos is bad for you and some companies, namely Johns-Manville, used it in the making of water pipe.  

Stick with me now.  The government has a long list of items that they sample each month or quarter to give an overall estimate of construction product pricing.  Back then, they were using the Cincinnati Enquirer's Business News department to help them acquire this pricing.  My cousin, Denny Doherty, worked in that department and did an article for the paper regularly.  Anyway, he called me from time to time to check the current price of that one item; per foot pricing of 8" diameter asbestos cement pipe.  We had totally stopped selling the stuff but they kept calling for the current price.  I used to just make something up.  Don't bet your life on government statistics. 

What are you wondering?