GREAT FALLS, Mont. - Walter Breuning's earliest memories stretched back 111 years, before home entertainment came with a twist of the radio dial. They were of his grandfather's tales of killing Southerners in the Civil War. Breuning was 3 and horrified: "I thought that was a hell of a thing to say."
But the stories stuck, becoming the first building blocks into what would develop into a deceptively simple philosophy that Breuning, the world's oldest man at 114 before he died Thursday, credited to his longevity.
Here's the world's oldest man's secret to a long life:
• Embrace change, even when the change slaps you in the face. ("Every change is good.")
• Eat two meals a day ("That's all you need.")
• Work as long as you can ("That money's going to come in handy.")
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• Help others ("The more you do for others, the better shape you're in.")
Then there's the hardest part. It's a lesson Breuning said he learned from his grandfather: Accept death.
"We're going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you're born to die," he said.
Breuning died of natural causes in a Great Falls hospital where he had been a patient for much of April with an undisclosed illness, said Stacia Kirby, spokeswoman for the Rainbow Senior Living retirement home where Breuning lived.
He was the oldest man in the world and the second-oldest person, according to the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group. Besse Cooper of Monroe, Ga. - born 26 days earlier - is the world's oldest person.
In an interview with The Associated Press at his home in the Rainbow Retirement Community in Great Falls last October, Breuning recounted the past century - and what its revelations and advances meant to him - with the wit and plain-spokenness that defined him.
Breuning had lived in a sparse studio apartment in the Rainbow Senior Living retirement center since 1980.
When he was recognized as the world's oldest man and brought the retirement home some notoriety, he was offered a larger room. Breuning said no, Rainbow executive director Tina Bundtrock said in October.
Breuning would spend his days in an armchair outside Bundtrock's office in a dark suit and tie, sitting near a framed Guinness certificate proclaiming him the world's oldest man.
He would eat breakfast and lunch and then retire to his room in the early afternoon. He'd visit the doctor just twice a year for checkups and the only medication he would take was aspirin, Bundtrock said.
Breuning said his good health was due to his strict diet of two meals a day.
"How many people in this country say that they can't take the weight off?" he said. "I tell these people, I says, 'Get on a diet and stay on it. You'll find that you're in much better shape, feel good.' "
He had no family left but a niece and a nephew. They visited a couple of times at the retirement home, but they were strangers to him, he said.
Breuning's real family, his support group, was there in the Rainbow.
"Yeah, we're all one big family, I tell you that," he said. "We all talk to each other all the time. That's what keeps life going. You talk."
