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At 109 years old, Vincent Dransfield still zips around town in his car every day, buying lunch, running errands and shopping for groceries.
He lives independently in his own house in Little Falls, New Jersey, where he has resided since 1945.
The centenarian requires no help navigating between the home’s main floor, his bedroom upstairs and the basement where he does his laundry, his family says.
Dransfield was funny and flirtatious when a reporter called and asked how he feels at 109.
“How do I feel? Let’s go out to a dance somewhere. How about that? That’s how I feel,” Dransfield tells TODAY.com
“I’ve been very, very, very lucky in my lifetime. I feel perfect.”
“He doesn’t get back aches. He doesn’t get the daily aches and pains that I, at 48, get. He doesn’t get headaches, anything like that. It’s crazy,” says Erica Lista, Dransfield’s granddaughter.
“I’m an occupational therapist, so I know a lot about activities of daily living, and he requires help with none of it.”
People who live 100 years or longer aren’t rare anymore, but it’s uncommon for men to live that long. Among centenarians, 85% are women and 15% are men, according to the New England Centenarian Study based at Boston University. The reasons are unclear.
Born on March 28, 1914, Dransfield not only enjoys incredible longevity, but healthy longevity, with a fit mind and body. He says he has never had major diseases, like cancer or heart disease. Dransfield has just always been healthy, Lista adds.
He has one child, three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. His wife of 54 years died in 1992.
Many of his family members recently gathered at his home to celebrate his 109th birthday with pizza and carrot cake, his favorite.