We've known President Thomas S. Monson for a long, long time. Since he was a kid.

At least from my perspective of 56 years, he was but a lad when, at age 36, he joined the Quorum of the Twelve.

And not one person in the church could possibly have been surprised when he became president of the church.

Since we all know how succession to the presidency of the church works, when a man is called to be an apostle at age 36, you have to suspect that, barring divine intervention or ill health, he will be president of the church someday.

Joseph F. Smith, Heber J. Grant, David O. McKay, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, Ezra Taft Benson, and Howard W. Hunter were all the youngest members of the quorum when they were ordained.

From 1961 to 1963, President Gordon B. Hinckley was the youngest member of the Twelve. President Monson then became the youngest member until the ordination of Elder Dallin H. Oaks more than 20 years later.

Of course, being youngest did not mean much for Stephen L Richards, who was youngest in the Quorum from 1917 to 1941, yet did not live to succeed to the presidency. These callings are, after all, entirely in the hands of God, and he makes no promises about apostles abiding by the actuarial tables.

(For all kinds of fascinating statistical information about LDS general authorities, check out Louis Epstein's compilation of general authority seniority, ages, youngest and oldest, etc., on my Nauvoo.com Web site: www.nauvoo.com/Table_of_General_Authorities.pdf)

I'm revealing my roots in the Church Office Building here, of course. Back in the late 1970s, when I worked at the Ensign and my wife worked for Curriculum Development, we were part of a culture that was keenly aware at all times of general-authority statistics. I suppose that fascination with statistics never really goes away.

And with Elder David A. Bednar's ordination in 2004 at age 52, for the first time there's an apostle who is actually younger than me. This causes something of an existential wrenching — for my whole life, I saw apostles as older men. Now, one of them really is just a kid. -->

Still, there is nothing inevitable about the succession. I remember seeing President Monson speak at a conference in North Carolina a dozen or more years ago. He seemed then to be in terrible health.

Not long after, though, President Monson's health seemed to be drastically improved; he seemed much more vigorous.