Will you still be blogging when you're 94?
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Sweden's Allan Lööf (94) displaces Canada's Donald Crowdis (92)
as the world's oldest blogger
By ERIC
SHACKLE, in Sydney, Australia
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  Ninety-four-year-old Allan Lööf, of Norrköping, Sweden, is the world's
oldest blogger. Most of the media reported last month that 92-year-old Donald
Crowdis, of Toronto, Canada, was the world's oldest blogger. But they were
wrong. They'd never heard of Allan Lööf.
On Dec. 2, Allan's local daily, Norrköpings
Tidningar proudly displayed his photo and a story about him by
author/photographer Hakan Pettersson on its front page.
"If I'm half as productive at 74 as Allan is at
94, I'd be happy," Swedish media practitioner Hans Kullin commented in his media
and PR blog Media Culpa.
"Two weeks ago, BoingBoing wrote about
92-year-old Donald Crowdis, and asked if he might be the world's oldest blogger.
But we who follow the Swedish blogosphere know that Allan Lööf is Mr Crowdis'
senior by two years.
"Allan Lööf, 94, has been blogging for a year and
has had his own site for a couple of years. On his blog he writes that no-one
has yet found an older blogger than him: 'Any blogger who is older than me
hasn't made contact yet. In a comment it has been said that there might be a 92
year old Japanese who is currently blogging. Who knows?'"
Allan Lööf's website says he's "a senior", raised
in Finspång, where he now lives. He became interested in music early on, taking
violin lessons and getting involved in other kinds of musical activities as a
child. It adds:
During the decades to follow Allan is frequently letting his voice be
heard in different choirs.
In 1951 Allan and Lennart Johansson, another Finspång musician, founded a
vocal group called Dur och Moll (Major and Minor) also featuring five
singing ladies. This vocal group performed very frequently in different
shows and cabarets, as well as in entertainment programs. In 1956 they were
broadcasted in the legendary Frukostklubben (The Breakfast Club) with
the famous Swedish actor Sigge Fürst as compère.
Allan started to write lyrics earlier, but the first melody (Aurora)
was created in 1950. Allan tells that he in the beginning was "humming
forth" his tunes, thus "hum music" as his publishing name. It wasn't until
he got himself a wire recorder (magenefon) he was able to record and
save his ideas for future editing and revisions.
When Allan moves from Finspång in 1957 the Dur och Moll septet becomes
more difficult to keep together, and we could say that the first musical
period in Allan's life ends in 1958. Almost 40 years later Allan learns that
one of his old tunes have been performed live in Norrköping.
He then decides to see if he can't make some more melodies again. It
worked and the three recording we see presented on these pages are composed
recently. Indeed a very strong comeback!!
Allan is very careful to mention about the background and the reason why
he wanted to compose these new melodies: "There was a lot written in the
newspapers about how miserable the situation was for the old people living
in the homes for the aged and similar institutions.
"Since I have had the privilege of being healthy, I want to spread some
joy among those older being less privileged. The melodies tells much about
romantic experiences we have had during life, and remembering these
beautiful memories can give us some strength during our older days."
Who said bloggers are always young? Perhaps blogging keeps us young in heart.
Long live Allan Lööf - and a happy birthday to Donald Crowdis of Toronto, almost
certainly the world's second-oldest blogger, who will be 93 on Christmas Eve.
"I've been swept away by Don's blog"
Donald Crowdis has many fans who admire him for his blog and his wisdom.
Here's a fine tribute written by Nils Geylen (aka Napfisk), of Antwerp,
Belgium, who has kindly agreed to let us copy it from his blog,
NDNL
It’s not everyday that you make a truly
wonderful discovery among the millions of today’s blogs. Yet, yesterday
I did. I’d never heard of Donald Crowdis,
I’ve never seen his CBC show The Nature of Things, and I sure
never visited the Nova Scotia Museum – of which he was curator from 1940
to 1965. 1940? That’s right, Don was born
in 1913 and he’s blogging at Don to Earth, making him one of the world’s
oldest bloggers. And he’s terrific at
that. I’ve already been swept away by
Don’s blog, his humor, wisdom and occasional Grumpy Old Man irony. But
don’t be fooled by his blogging byline; he ponders more than just
Life, the Universe, and Aging. With great wit and erudition he
tackles such subjects as packaged dinners, getting rich and the palolo
worms of the South Pacific. I’m really
taken in with Don as he is quite the character – somewhat of a lovely
mix between Kurt Vonnegut and Yoda. He’s
a survivor of the Halifax explosion (my apologies for that by the way,
as I know Belgians were partly responsible for it), his paternal
grandfather was knifed in the back as he was throwing a drunk out of a
bar in Colorado during the gold rush (!) and he underwent an erroneous,
and entirely superfluous, instance of lung surgery (because the doctors
thought it was cancer, whereas it was in fact healed tuberculosis
tissue). Like I said, he’s funny, but
also offers food for thought, not in the least for the younger bloggers
who might not be able to imagine still getting it done at the age of
ninety-two. On Age and responsibility he
writes:
Our responsibility, then, is to be as
little a burden as we can manage, and to pass on the records and
lessons we have accumulated and learned.
I have at least one thing in common with this
man who wants to be there and be part of it all, all the time. He
writes:
I do not know who said it – it might have
been myself – but I hate to die; I want to see how it all turns out!
Oh, boy, Don, do I know what you mean!
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"Allan Lööf is not only the world's oldest blogger; he must
also be the world's only blogger with four dots in a row over his name,"
says US Wordsmith Anu Garg.
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