When Paula and I visited New Zealand in 2013 we climbed Baldwin Street in Dunedin, then billed as the steepest residential street in the world.

I was 80 years old at the time. And the oldest person on the SmarTours bus to make the climb.

I got a standing ovation upon my return to the bus.

Akron Beacon Journal columnist Bob Dyer, my lunch partner for more than two decades when I worked at that newspaper, did a followup column to his article about steep Cadillac Hill in Akron, Ohio.

The last person mentioned among the responses is me.

Bob describes me as “the youngest old person I know.”

Nothing ventured, nothing climbed.