23. The Tylers’ Weird Virility
Billy goats are known for virility and remaining sexually active well into old age. An ancient Billy goat at death’s door often still has the libido to totter over to, get it on with, and impregnate a Nanny goat. The Tyler males might be the Billy goats of mankind. Not only do they remain sexually active well into old age, but they also possess potent and seemingly ageless sperm that retains its virility and ability to impregnate, despite the owner’s decrepitude.
President Tyler’s fifteenth kid, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, was born in 1853, when his father was 63. In 1925, when Lyon was 71, he fathered Gardiner Tyler, Jr. About four years later, a 75-year-old Lyon fathered Harrison Ruffin Tyler. At 96 and 92, respectively, both Gardiner and Harrison are still going strong and doing well for their age. So President Tyler’s crowning achievement is the weird accomplishment of having grandsons who are still alive in the twenty-first century, 230 years after he was born in the eighteenth century.