World's Oldest College Graduate

Think it's too late to go back to school? Think again!

Ninety-five year old Nola Ochs is about to become the world’s oldest college graduate. On May 12th, she'll be getting her general studies degree from Fort Hays State University in Kansas.

Ochs tells Associated Press writer Carl Manning, “I don’t dwell on my age. . . . As long as I have my mind and health, it's just a number."

To read the full article from which the above quote and photo were taken (that's Ochs driving through campus on April 23rd), click here.

Late-Blooming Vintners

Hans Wilhelm, a well-known children’s book author and illustrator with over 35 million books in print, e-mailed me the following "late bloomer" story about his in-laws:

My in-laws were in their sixties when they totally changed their lives.

They were in California, having a wonderful bottle of wine at a local restaurant. When they commented on its high quality (they really know their wines!), the restaurant owner told them that the wine was local and that "the vineyard happens to be for sale."

The next day they visited the vineyard. Even though it was completely run down and hardly operating since the original owner had died, they bought it on the spot—without knowing a thing about how to run a vineyard.

They put all their love, time, and money into it and made it into California's most celebrated organic boutique vineyard.

Today this vineyard has won almost every medal there is, and the New York Times recently reported that it produces the best Chenin Blanc in the whole country.

You can read all about this on their website: Heller Estate Vineyards - Monterey Wine ( www.hellerestate.com).

I need to mention that before they became vineyard owners, my father-in-law was a banker and my mother-in-law, an artist. Many of my mother-in-law's sculptures are displayed on the vineyard.

NOTE: The Heller Estate Wine Club label pictured above depicts one of Wilhelm's mother-in-law's sculptures.

Jackie Robinson & Pee Wee Reese

Baseball legend Jackie Robinson wasn’t a late bloomer, but he was a world-class gravity-defier whose courage inspired countless others.

One of the first to be moved to action was Brooklyn Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese.

In contrast to this week's horrific massacre in Virginia, which once again brings home the democracy of death, the Robinson/Reese story reminds us of the potential nobility of human life.

Roger Kahn recounts the incident in a letter to the editor of today's NY Times:

On May 13, 1947, during Brooklyn Dodger infield practice at Crosley Field, Cincinnati, Pee Wee Reese, the Dodger shortstop and captain, suddenly stopped the practice. He walked diagonally across the infield and placed his left arm around the shoulder of Jackie Robinson, who was playing first base.

He looked into the Cincinnati dugout and the grandstands beyond. Ballplayers and fans had been taunting Robinson with terms like "shoeshine boy" and "snowflake." Reese, a slim white Southerner who wore No. 1, kept an arm draped in friendship around the sturdy black man who wore No. 42.

Reese did not say a word. But his look shamed the racists into silence. "After Pee Wee came over like that," Robinson told me years later, "I never felt alone on a baseball field again. . . ."

Robinson confirmed the episode in a 1970 interview with Jack Buck of St. Louis. While I was working as a consultant to a five-part ESPN series on the old Brooklyn Dodgers (produced by Reese’s son, Mark), Pee Wee confirmed the incident in growing detail as conversation nourished his memory.

I was touched and said so. Pee Wee nodded, embarrassed by praise. "I was just trying to make the world a little bit better," he said. "That’s what you’re supposed to do with your life, isn’t it?

NOTES:

1) Roger Kahn is the author of The Boys of Summer. If you'd like to read another inspiring baseball book, pick up a copy of my all-time favorite: Talmage Boston's 1939: Baseball's Tipping Point.

2) The photo at the top of this posting is of a statue of Robinson & Reese that stands in Key Span Stadium in Coney Island, NY. It was taken by Malcolm Pinkney.

Bread Upon the Waters

Kimberly Lynch might never have enrolled at UPenn were it not for Bread Upon the Waters, an innovative scholarship program for women over 30 who seek to earn Penn degrees by studying part time.

(That's Bread founder Elin Danien in the photo above.)

Lynch remembers telling Rhea Mandell, a former Bread coordinator, “I don’t even know why I’m here. Even if I get into the [College of General Studies] program, I have five small children, and there’s no way I can afford to go here.”

But with Mandell’s encouragement to apply and Bread to help finance her studies, Lynch accepted Penn's offer of admittance.

On the way to earnng a degree in biology, Lynch developed “a DNA-sequencing procedure that, for the first time, enabled scientists to detect whether outbreaks of infections caused by the potentially harmful bacterium listeria monocytogenes involve the same strain.”

Today, she's a director of oncology services for a medical-education company.

Lynch's amazing story appears in the Spring 2007 issue of Penn Arts & Sciences Magazine. Click here to read the article.


NOTE: The photo above and quotes from this posting are taken directly from the article. To learn more about Bread founder Elin Danien, a late bloomer in her own right, see my October 18, 2006 posting.

The Year of Yes

This has been my “year of yes."

I said yes to Africa when my Peace Corps friend invited me (see photo above), yes to Amsterdam when my husband asked , and even yes to speech-giving lessons when a woman I met at a party offered them.

After years of practicing saying no, I’m loving saying yes.

The phrase “the year of yes” comes from a book of the same title by Idaho native and aspiring playwright Maria Dahvana Headley.

Feeling like she’s “dated and then hated every man in Manhattan,” Headley resolves to stop being so picky and say yes to anyone (within reason) who asks her out on a date. No drunks, addicts, violent types, or cheating husbands. Everyone else gets a nod.

Headley’s first date is with her building’s Puerto Rican maintenance man, who shows up to fix her toilet and ends up asking her out.

The second is with a 40-year old classmate who speaks mostly Polish.

These encounters are followed by dates with a gay guy, a career-driven woman, and a 70-year old Latino who claims to have 11 children.

Needless to say, Headley’s year isn’t working out quite as well as she’d hoped. But just when she’s almost given up, she finds herself falling in love with a fellow playwright--and saying “yes” again when he asks her to marry him.

It’s a fairy tale with a down-to-earth message:

There’s such a thing as being too picky, too sure of ourselves, too closed to the magic of life.

It’s all well and good to know what we want and what we don’t, and to be assertive in setting our boundaries. But saying yes when we’re inclined to say no can lead to the unexpected.

And more often than not, that’s precisely the place where dreams come true.

Photo Credit: Sybille Caira (from the website: www.trekearth.com/gallery/Africa/Botswana)

Elsie McLean

I thought 90-year old Pierre Wynnobel was doing well to be riding his bike every day. (See my 4/7/07 posting.) And he is. But read this article that just came over the AP-Wire:

102-year-old California Woman Hits Hole-in-One
Sun Apr 8, 6:43 AM ET

CHICO, Calif. - Elsie McLean thought she might have lost her ball on the par-3, 100-yard fourth hole at Bidwell Park. Instead, the 102-year-old Chico woman became the oldest golfer ever to make a hole-in-one on a regulation course. Because of the slope of the green, McLean and her partners couldn't see where her ball landed after she teed off.

"Where's my ball?" McLean asked.

Her friends, Elizabeth Rake and Kathy Crowder, found it in the cup.

"I said, 'Oh, my Lord. It can't be true. It can't be true.' I was so excited. And the girls were absolutely overcome," McLean said.

It was McLean's first ace.

"Well everybody wants a hole-in-one, and I said, 'Why can't I have a hole-in-one?' I came within inches once," McLean told television station KNVN.

McLean, who used a driver, broke the age record of 101 set by Harold Stilson in 2001 at Deerfield Country Club in Florida.

McLean, who has been featured in golf magazines before, will appear on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" on April 24 to celebrate her accomplishment.

"For an old lady," she said, "I still hit the ball pretty good."

Note: I love this woman's sense of humor! Being able to laugh--especially at oneself--is a trait shared by many successful late bloomers. As researchers at Loma Linda University in California have discovered, laughter not only reduces stress and stimulates the immune system, but also lowers dopamine levels. (Dopamine governs our "fight or flight response.") In other words, a good laugh can ease the anxiety of risk-taking. --pb

The Invisible Wall

Speaking of active nonagenarians, check out an article titled "Successful at 96, Writer Has More to Say" in today's New York Times. The piece profiles 96-year old Harry Bernstein who just published his first book: The Invisible Wall.

About his achievement, Mr. Bernstein says: “If I had not lived until I was 90, I would not have been able to write this book. . . It just could not have been done even when I was 10 years younger. I wasn’t ready."

Ninety and Still Going Strong

Every morning, rain or shine, 90-year old Amsterdam hotelier Pierre Wynnobel wheels his bicycle across his backyard, opens the gate to the alley behind his pensione, and rides off to do his daily shopping.

It's not uncommon to see older men and women riding in Amsterdam, a place that curiously has more bikes than people. But even by Amsterdam standards, bicycling at 90 is unusual.

I just returned from seven days in this romantic city (that's me, at left, on a canal tour), where I had the pleasure of staying with Pierre, my husband's second cousin.

Watching this remarkably robust man practice the piano each evening (see photo above), I was struck by how much he still enjoys life.

Although Pierre admits he's depressed to have outlived his friends, he spends far more time laughing than lamenting.

Who is to say whether Pierre's attitude and bike riding have contributed to his longevity?

But they certainly haven't hurt.