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Henry David Thoreau claimed that “None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” I agree, especially after reading about Frank Pelatowski, who calls himself “the world’s oldest newspaper columnist.”

He’s 100 and lives in a nursing home, but 30 years after retiring from the Mariposa (Calif.) Gazette, Pelatowski decided to start writing again and has several recent columns to his credit on OhmyNews International, a Web site sponsored and run through a Korean English-language school.

Anyone can become a columnist for OhmyNews; all it takes is registration as a “citizen reporter,” and agreeing with the “OhmyNews Reporter’s Code of Ethics.”

The Beacon (Neb.) Observer claims the world’s oldest working journalist is Mildred Heath, who turned 100 last January and still answers the Observer’s phones, files photographs and does some typing. However, Heath doesn’t write articles or columns.

According to the BBC, the world’s oldest columnist used to be Rose Hacker, a 101-year-old author, sex therapist and radical socialist who died this past February. Hacker didn’t start writing for the “Camden (England) Journal” until age 100, however.

I wonder if she or Ken Sillcock, who at 97 claims the “oldest columnist” title, should be counted, since he also began writing only recently. I think the title’s more befitting someone who’s put in some significant time being ink-stained and wretched.

One who qualifies is Henry Jackson, who worked as a journalist for most of his 95 years. He now writes a regular column for the England-based OpenWriting.com, an online publication similar to OhmyNews. His columns feature hard local news mixed with his poems and memories.

As time passes, people often grow less “pavid,” defined by the Adeglomerican Heritage Dictionary as “exhibiting or experiencing fear, timidity,” and that’s why I particularly enjoy the unrestrained Mr. Jackson’s “Women in My Life” columns.

For that matter, I might be the oldest columnist in Fairbanks. I know Dermot Cole’s a veritable youth by comparison, but he edges me in journalistic longevity since I’m only in my 25th year of writing columns for print newspapers.

Over the years, I’ve written more than 1,300 columns — and lord knows how many words — mostly at home in the evenings. To avoid any conflict of interest, I’ve never accepted remuneration for it, so I’m more of an amateur than a “working journalist.”

A friend recently forwarded a handy collection of Web sites compiled by Richard Norquist for Ask.com that’s titled “Top 10 Blogs for Writers, Editors, & Teachers of Writing.” These range from the chatty No. 1 entry, “Grammar Girl’s Quick & Dirty Tips for Better Writing,” to the more serious “Style and Substance” by Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Martin at No. 10.

Norquist also wrote the useful “Top Ten Reference Works for Writers and Editors,” which leads off with the American Heritage Dictionary, my personal favorite. Keep it in mind when buying graduation presents, for Norquist writes, “The recently updated edition of this 2,100-page heavyweight should serve you well for a generation or two.

In addition to the customary definitions, word histories, examples, and quotations, The American Heritage Dictionary offers advice on matters of grammar and style.”

We all know writing is a crucial skill. As Stephen Fischer wrote in his very readable “History of Writing,” “Since Homo erectus, hominids appear to have distinguished themselves from other creatures by forming societies based on speech. What now distinguishes modern Homo sapiens sapiens (our subspecies’ scientific appellation) is a global society based most importantly on writing. Once the specialized domain of only a few thousands, today writing is a skill practiced by about 85 per cent of the world’s population — some 5 billion people. All modern society rests on writing’s plinth.”

Throughout history, those who could communicate best usually succeeded most.  Today, good writing skill is not only more necessary than ever before, with the World Wide Web and a plethora of online magazines and blogs seeking content, it’s easier than ever before in history to get published.

Why not brush up your writing skills, record some memoirs or write the great American novel? As sportswriter extraordinaire Red Smith put it, “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”