I hope that they are writing articles like this about me in 50 years.

Here are some vital statistics on Phil Cole. He stands 5-foot-6-inches, weighs about 150 pounds, and has been canoeing for 35 years. He can paddle at a pace of 60 strokes per minute, and he competes in races as long as 70 miles.

Here’s one more number for you: Cole will be 90 in November.

Cole, as he’ll be the first to tell you, is old. But he can still be found most afternoons gliding down the Contoocook River in Hopkinton, a stretch of water he’s basically owned for the past 3½ decades. And though he’s long since advanced beyond the highest age brackets, Cole competes in canoe races throughout the country. His next big race is a 70-miler in Cooperstown, N.Y., a course Cole expects to finish in about 11 hours.

“I’m the oldest one out there, period. Have been for a while,” Cole said.

His nine decades notwithstanding, Cole is sturdy and fit, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest. He wears old sweaters, baseball caps, and sneakers. You won’t hear him praising the therapeutic benefits of canoeing or waxing poetic about the natural beauty of the rivers he’s spent so many hours paddling. He’s a canoer because he likes it and he’s good at it. And though he’s cocky, Cole knows his limits.

“Right now, I’m in the position that if you’re 75 or older, I can beat you,” Cole said.

Cole grew up on a dairy farm in Williamstown, Mass., and studied physics at Williams College, just three miles from his family’s house. When World War II began, he tried to join the military, but a knee injury kept him out. He managed to get a job as a physicist with the Navy - a job he kept for the next 31 years. When he retired in 1974, Cole and his wife moved to Contoocook, to be close to his daughter Nancy, who was a teacher in Concord.

The Alumni Directory is down so I don’t know what Cole’s class year is. Does anyone?