I enjoyed Carl Steinwachs’ “Everybody Has a Story,” sharing his memories of meeting with a neighbor Pearl Mulkey several times after Pearl’s 105th birthday. Carl talks about looking into Pearl’s eyes, “that his mind was sharp.” It’s mind-boggling to think how many other things those eyes, born in 1877, had witnessed.
It reminded me of something that happened to me one spring day in 1957 when I was 7 years old. I stepped off the afternoon school bus at the top of our hill in Maryland and heard sounds of laughter and the singing of “Happy Birthday” coming from a few houses away.
Curious, I wandered over to the house where they gave me a piece of birthday cake and told me the woman sitting in a nearby chair was celebrating her 100th birthday. I was amazed: she was born in 1857. Many years later I realized I had looked into the eyes of someone who, as a child, had seen and known many people born in the 1700s. She even met or knew a few people who were alive in 1776.
So here we are, in the year 2022, and the link from me to the birth of America seems unbelievably close.
