Tomorrow I will take time to attend two celebrations.?ÿ Each is for a local fellow turning 100 years of age.?ÿ Both served during and survived WWII uninjured despite being on the front lines.?ÿ One is the father of a daughter.?ÿ The other is the father of three daughters and three sons.?ÿ I have known one of them very well for about 30 years.?ÿ I have known the other one my entire life.?ÿ He likes to mention when he sees me how he remembers me when I was a newborn.
Both are in remarkably good health and still pretty darned sharp mentally.?ÿ They have lived within 15 miles of each other continuously since the end of their military service and grew up within the same proximity attending one-room schools before graduating high school.
We all should be so fortunate.
That's awesome!
I love reading stuff like this!
Just took a call for a new job that I will do because I know the fellow.?ÿ He will turn 86 next Monday.?ÿ They are finally getting around to doing some estate planning.?ÿ His much older brother, who would have turned 99 this year, was a classmate of my father.?ÿ I already have a job on the list for similar reasons about three miles away.
A good buddy of mine pulled into fill up his pickup the other day as I had just finished doing the same thing to mine.?ÿ We exchanged greetings, then I asked, "Did you come to town to check up on the old folks?"?ÿ He just grinned a big old grin and went on about his business.?ÿ He celebrated his 90th birthday last month.?ÿ Like the two centenarians mentioned above, he still lives at home.?ÿ His child bride is a bit past 70.?ÿ He lost his first wife to a heart attack over 32 years ago.?ÿ He is still farming several hundred acres, mostly by himself.
In my home town there used to be a guy who was near 100 who rode a tricycle bike around town.?ÿ He liked to get groceries for the "old folks" at the senior housing.
Had the pleasure of shaking hands with two centenarian veterans today as they were recognized for hitting their 100th birthdays.?ÿ One's service took him to Japan while the other's service took him to a tank in Germany.?ÿ One returned home to find his wife-to-be and the other discovered his while he was stationed near Sioux City, Iowa.
Attendees at one celebration included his 94 year-old sister, his 90 year-old neighbor and a 94 year-old friend who spent part of her childhood living in the same house where he has lived since returning from WWII.
Saw my sister for the first time in well over a year at that celebration.?ÿ Enjoyed getting the chance to tell his oldest grandchild about the time my mother tried to feed him some cooked turnips.?ÿ He was just big enough to stand up on a kitchen chair next to my mother while she was taking care of him one day.?ÿ It was supper time so my mother fixed up a bib out of a tea towel and fed him from off her plate.?ÿ Everything went just fine until she put some cooked turnip pieces on her fork and put it in his mouth.?ÿ After maybe two seconds he opened his mouth, she removed the fork and discovered every bit of the turnips was still on the fork.?ÿ His mother heard that story when she came to pick him up a few minutes later.?ÿ She laughed and said she had never tried to feed him turnips before because she wouldn't eat them, herself.?ÿ Today, he laughed hard at the story and reported that might have been the only time in his life he had a turnip in his mouth.
?ÿ
A couple of days ago I was driving on one of the principal streets of the nearby metropolis and saw my now 100 year-old friend driving his pickup from the coffee shop back towards home.?ÿ I made it a point to wave at him, you never know when it might be the last time.
A couple of days ago I was driving on one of the principal streets of the nearby metropolis and saw my now 100 year-old friend driving his pickup from the coffee shop back towards home.?ÿ I made it a point to wave at him, you never know when it might be the last time.
That's so true.?ÿ He might be sitting next to your wife at your funeral in a couple of days...?ÿ 😉
Brilliant, but depressing, thought.
About a dozen years ago, not long after he married his current wife, they came driving up to where I was set up on a section corner and asked what we were surveying.?ÿ Nothing secret, so I told them.?ÿ Then I asked them, "What brings you out to this rather deserted spot.?ÿ Looking for a good spot to go parking and sparking?"?ÿ They both thought that was funny.
You said it.?ÿ It would have been rude of me not to laugh.?ÿ Lol
Brilliant, but depressing, thought..
I guess the preponderance of one's own demise is a depressing subject.?ÿ It wouldn't be truthful if I said I never thought about it.?ÿ I guess it comes with growing old.
I just hope everyone I leave behind understands I probably stayed here just as long as I possibly could.
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I read a story once in Reader's Digest about an older woman that was facing some serious health issues.?ÿ The story dwelt on her concern for her husband's well being after her passing as she had tended to him all too well throughout their married life.
The inevitable occurred and the old gent was left alone and lost.?ÿ Of an evening he went to the kitchen to snatch a couple of his favorite cookies from the cookie jar.?ÿ It was empty.?ÿ For years his wife had kept the cookie jar full of those favorite cookies of his, but this one evening he found it empty.
He peered inside the cookie jar and there was a note in the bottom.?ÿ He recognized his wife's handwriting.?ÿ The note read, "The cookies are on aisle seven at the Piggly Wiggly.?ÿ They're in a red package right next to the saltines".
I read that years ago and I still think about it from time to time.
My mother-in-law, who lives with us, turned 105 in April. She was in the Navy in WW II. She worked as a code breaker in Washington D.C. She still won??t talk about the specifics of what she did because she took an oath not to talk about it.
We lost a lady in church a couple years ago who also did that work. There must have been a lot of them.
I think most of the knowledge from that era has been declassified by now.
She still won??t talk
Ah, so that's how to get along with your mother in law!
😉
N
@bill93 I??m sure that it has been declassified by now. She still won??t talk about it, an oath is an oath.
