100 Years

Most of the attendees at the birthday-party. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

As of Sunday, February 14th, 2016, my wife’s mother was 100 years old.
February 14th, 1916 to February 14th, 2016.
Model-T Ford to Man-on-the-Moon; although that was 47 years ago.
This was the first time I didn’t look for a combination Valentine/birthday card. I looked for a 100-year birthday card instead.
This was also a great adventure for me: my first attempt at flying anywhere since my wife died almost four years ago.
Her mother outlasted her. That ain’t supposed to happen.
I also think my wife mighta made 100 too, had she not developed cancer.
I don’t know about me. I never smoked, and I work out.
My paternal grandfather made it into his 90s.
My wife’s brother is still alive; he’s 74. He tends to his mother, who he lives near. She’s still in independent-living in a retirement community, but is near blind, and can hardly hear.
My brother-in-law will also make 100 if his health holds.
In celebration of this momentous occasion, all my mother-in-law’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, would appear.
This included me, who married her only daughter, now gone.
This also included her brother’s first wife and daughter, the son of his second wife, the two married daughters of his third wife and their husbands, plus his fourth wife, who has an eating disorder and is somewhat weak.
Plus three great-grandchildren.
His first wife still lives in Rochester (NY) like me, where she grew up. She would come down to FL with her daughter’s boyfriend, who would drive.
That daughter, my niece, is divorced from her husband, but they have a daughter. That great-granddaughter would come too, but not my niece’s ex-husband. I don’t think my wife’s mother was told of the divorce, for fear it would kill her.
My niece’s boyfriend was presented as “an old family friend” who once lived in FL so knew the way.
I also think my wife’s mother may be beyond being aware of things.
My niece, her boyfriend, and her mother all live in Rochester.
The others all live near Atlanta, GA.
There is plenty to get my wife’s mother upset.
Her only son is now on his fourth wife, and apparently had other girlfriends along the way.
“Why couldn’t he be satisfied with his first wife?” to whom he should go back. She likes her a lot. “It’s awful, I tell ya!”
My wife’s mother growled at me the first time she met me — she actually growled.
But now after 44+ years and shuttling back-and-forth to my wife’s cancer treatments, I’m wonderful!
It was noisily predicted we wouldn’t last a year.
So now after 100 years her entire world has gone to Hell-in-a-handbasket. She’s given up. —Gone are the “good old days” when youngsters used to venerate their parents, and change happens so fast she can’t keep up.
Her only daughter did not become a Bible-thumping Christian zealot, and her only son didn’t stay with the one she approved.
So amazingly I’m the bright-spot. —The guy who once prompted “Look what the cat dragged in.”
I haven’t been able to do much since my wife died.
That is, not fly anywhere; I couldn’t get up the gumption.
I’ve driven to my brothers’ in northern DE and Boston, and to Altoona PA many times to chase trains — I’m a railfan.
I went to my 50th high-school reunion, and a recent family Thanksgiving gig.
I told my wife’s brother I probably wouldn’t make FL until his mother died. But he suggested she would rather be alive to see me.
My wife’s brother’s first wife suggested an el-cheapo airline, Allegiant, that flies direct to Sanford, near my wife’s mother, who lives in De Land.
But Allegiant only does this on Friday and Monday, up to Rochester and back both days.
So down on Friday, back Monday.
Down Friday/back Monday means staying a day longer than I can usually stand.
So I decided to take this here laptop, to key in stuff in my hotel room.
I also suggested my wife’s brother pick me up and cart me around. That way I could avoid renting a car, and we have a good time trading snide remarks, verbal flatulence, and sick jokes.
So into the fray!
I dropped my dog at the kennel, and drove to Rochester’s airport.
After parking my car I got in the Security-line, where insanity began.
I had this laptop at the bottom of my carry-on, and it had to be in a single bin.
Unpack everything!
“Go ahead of me,” I kept saying.
And of course a TSA lady was incensed I didn’t have my Driver’s License out for ID.
Well, both hands were full; I was carrying a cane and my carry-on, and the line moved quickly.
The cane aids stability since my left knee was changed.
I then got sent through the full-body X-ray, and triggered Armageddon.
I told them I had a metal knee, but that wasn’t what triggered it.
Agents began patting me down, and I was directed into a small room with a supervisor.
“My watch?” I asked. I also had forgot to take out my iPhone.
“What about under here?” they asked, patting down my left pants-pocket.
“I’m wearing Depends, if that means anything,” I allowed.
The Depends are to counteract slight incontinence following my prostate removal last August. It will clear away.
“Oh, in that case you’re cleared,” the supervisor said. “That would trigger it. It’s not an underwear bomb.”
72-year-old geezer jailed for wearing Depends. “Book ‘im, Dano!”
I hate to be a pest, but the TSA indicates the terrorists won.
In Sanford my wife’s brother picked me up immediately, and drove me to a new Hampton Inn in De Land. Where I could doff my long-underwear and down-jacket, needed in Ra-cha-cha, but not Sanford, where it was 70 degrees, for crying out loud.
We ate at a restaurant, where our waitress insisted I pig out on the mega-costly hamburger. She wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, insisting I wasn’t a man.
“But I ain’t hungry,” I said. “Health-food is for wusses,” she kept saying. “I know all about you anti-salt geeks.”
We ate at a restaurant to avoid eating at my mother-in-law’s retirement-center cafeteria. But my brother-in-law’s mother insisted I show. “He’ll need a nap!” she exclaimed.
Into the fray yet again, where I could sit quietly at her folding card-table bored silly.
Except this time I was more talkative, which I guess made her feel good.
I sat in a couch, and “Usually he never says anything.”
But now with my wife gone, I do more talking, and I see it has advantages. “Strike up a conversation; ya never know what ya’ll get.”
The next day, Saturday, we decided to get lunch at a McDonald‘s — “All I ever get there is a grilled-chicken snack-wrap,” I said.
We sat down to eat, and an older gentleman, I think he said he was 91, strode in wearing a WWII Veteran hat.
“Holy mackerel,” I said, pointing. “I thought you guys were all dying off.”
And so began our long foray with Harmon, at least 20 minutes at first.
“I was sent to Pearl Harbor in 1942,” he began. Yada-yada-yada-yada.
We encountered him again later, and the life history continued.
He was born in Virginia, or was it West Virginny, then moved with his parents to Indiana.
I think he said he ran away from home in a V8 ’32 Ford into deepest, darkest Illinois, where a farmer hired him to milk cows.
The farmer always insisted he drive his or his wife’s car instead of his ’32 Ford, to bring the car back instead of taking off. “That Ford had a ’36 motor, and purred like a kitten.”
Harmon took off in a bus, I think; I ain’t sure of details. That may have been to return home. But then he decided to drive all the way to Californy.
He picked up a hitchhiker who offered to pay gas, etc. all the way to California.
But in the Sacramento Valley Harmon wanted to go north, and the hitchhiker south.
“I brought you all the way to California,” Harmon argued.
The hitchhiker was left by the side of the road.
On-and-on the story went, at least an hour-and-a-half.
We finally escaped. Harmon needed someone to talk to, and we were it.
“See,” I said to my brother-in-law. “Strike up a conversation, and ya never know what ya’ll get.”
Harmon even sang to us.
“Ya can be sure I’ll never try that again. We been in that McDonald’s over two hours.”
I thereafter returned to my hotel-room. “Of course your mother is thrilled I’m talkative,” I said to my wife’s brother. “I ain’t tied to her card-table attempting to fix her typewriter. I’m doing what I enjoy, keying in verbiage.”
Others arrived while I was in my room, but not the son of brother-in-law’s second wife, who was “running late.”
Finally, din-din. Brother-in-law had ordered a giant spread of finger-food: sliced meat, cheese, shrimp, etc. We all ate hardly anything; the homeless at the local shelter will have a field-day pigging out.
Sunday, the next day, would be my wife’s mother’s birthday. A party had been arranged including a grand 100-year cake and ice-cream.
But we’d all go to her favorite restaurant first, a buffet.
We gathered in the hotel’s party-room before going to the restaurant.
My brother-in-law’s fourth wife sauntered in —HOORAY, she did it. This was half the reason I came myself.
I know it ain’t easy for her, driving all the way up here alone. She lives in DelRay Beach, my brother-in-law’s condo — his second home is his apartment in De Land.
“Don’t kill yerself getting up here,” I’d told her. “It would be nice if ya could come, but don’t kill yerself.“
Part of her incentive was it was her mother-in-law’s 100th birthday. The other part was meeting my niece.
Like me, she’d rather just stay at home; with me it’s sling words.
“Stress,” I kept hearing, something I’m all too familiar with.
We’re not a happy family. “We’re afraid of spilling the beans,” we both said; “and prompt fevered blubbering by all-and-sundry,” perhaps even kill my wife’s mother.
I can see it now: “Oh Debbie” — my niece’s name is Debbie.
Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Offset by thinking I’m wonderful.
A boat rocked by a stormy sea — that cruise-ship had it easy.
After the dinner, back to the hotel for the party.
My wife’s mother came in behind her walker, helped by my brother-in-law’s first wife.
“Ya won’t have 100 candles to blow out,” my wife’s brother declared.
Something was wrong with the massive cake, maybe 1,000 years.
Part had to be chopped off to make it 100, and then the chop slathered with smeared icing.
The cake was way more than we could eat. Pig-out city again at the homeless shelter.
As the party wound down, I left, my wife’s mother departed with her walker, and various grandchildren fell to playing cards.
Back to my hotel-room to continue keying in. My time in FL was not wasted; I keyed in a lot.
I came back down a few hours later to get in-room coffee, and they were still playing cards.
The party had beer and champagne. My wife’s mother woulda had a fit if she’d known.
I tried some champagne, or I think that’s what it was. It tasted like wine, but didn’t make me tipsy, which I don’t want. Perhaps it was the cake.
I would hafta get up at 5 a.m. to make an 8 o’clock flight at Sanford.
With my brother-in-law driving, it would take about 45-50 minutes to get to the airport.
The complimentary breakfast opened at 6 a.m.; we hoped we could scarf a banana before leaving.
At the airport I found the Security-line, and madness began again.
The ID check was staffed by an automaton who talked so fast I couldn’t understand her. I could have told her I had a stroke, so she needed to talk slower.
But I could tell she’d just get angry, plus my followers were angry already.
She pointed to two options: an X-ray machine that would catch my metal knee, plus another about 75 feet across the room. “Your choice,” she whispered.
I had already binned all my stuff at the nearby machine that would catch my knee, so I chose that one, at which point a dude suddenly jumped in replacing the one manning the machine.
“I have a metal knee,” I said.
“You can’t use this one,” he bellowed.
“I was just directed to this one,” I complained.
“Here, follow me!” An agent appeared to direct me to the other machine across the room.
I figured I could come back across to retrieve my stuff, but probably left my cane at the first machine.
“I’m wearing Depends,” I said.
The machine did its bit.
“He’s okay,” an agent shouted.
Back across the room to retrieve my stuff, plus repack my carry-on.
“Where is my cane?” I asked.
“You’re not allowed in here,” an agent said, pretending to be a linebacker.
So went my cane. I’ve been doing okay without it, but like having it.
My cane remains at Sanford airport, a victim of terrorists and the madness they caused.
On the plane with minutes to spare. “Last call!” Crammed in a cattle-car seat.
Back to Rochester; “Back to the frozen tundra,” I said to the passenger beside me.
Snow was on the ground, and it snowed me in the next day.

• My wife of over 44 years died April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely.
* RE: “Attempting to fix her typewriter........” —Every time we’ve ever visited my wife’s mother in the past, she tried to get us to fix her ancient typewriter. We’d rethread the ribbon, but it needed repair to move the ribbon.