Looking good for your age? Try this Brazilian who's 126

A Brazilian man may hold the distinction of being the oldest living person in the world after he received a birth certificate showing that he turned 126 last week.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Jose Aguinelo dos Santos was born on July 7, 1888 to two former slaves from Africa who had been freed just two months before when Brazil outlawed the practice.

Yet it is Santos's current life which is amazing. He is a bachelor, never married or had any children, still walks just fine without any help, eats four meals a day and has smoked a pack of cigarettes every day for the last 50 years, but he still has no health problems.

Known simply as Ze, Santos was 26 when the First World War broke out, and was already 65 when Queen Elizabeth II became Queen of the United Kingdom. If his birth certificate is real, he would have been 52 when Brazilian soccer legend Pele was born, and 62 when Brazil last hosted the World Cup in 1950.

One of five children, Santos was born in a slave compound in the town of Pedra Branca in the state of Ceara in northeast Brazil. He and his family were just a few among hundreds of other former slave families who continued to live there, even after being granted their freedom.

Much later, he traveled south to Sao Paulo where he spent most of his life working on a coffee plantation in the town of Bauru.

Santos enjoys jokes and singing, hates having a bath, and never misses his daily plate of rice and beans.

"If I got to this age it's because I've lived a lot, that's all," he said.

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