The Big 9-0!

Jo Ann Bock

I have seldom thought about getting old, but it happened. Before this year winds down (on the last day of December) I will, God-willing, mark another birthday — the big 9-0.

From that cold December morning arrival in a modest house along Angelica Street in north St. Louis until now, I can without reservation admit it has truly been a rambunctious, yet rewarding, ride. My birth coincided with the Big Depression of 1929. Money was scarce and jobs ever scarcer, but my parents, Charles and Lela Burton, coped with the challenge of a new arrival and no job. Within a few months, we headed south to Cape Girardeau, my hometown for the next nine decades. Yes, I like it here!

Except for occasional getaways to visit relatives, I am pretty much a homebody. My limited travel itinerary includes fewer than 20 states, a Caribbean cruise to celebrate a wedding anniversary and a sightseeing boat trip from Seattle to British Columbia, Canada, with the Cape Choraliers.

I can count on one hand the number of air flights I have made. I assure you none of those plane rides are as memorable as my first ride on a Greyhound bus from Cape Girardeau to St. Louis, circa 1933. I was four years old, and Daddy was taking me to visit his family in Villa Ridge, Missouri. Mother, always the seamstress, dressed me in a white pique coat and matching tam along with brand new white shoes. Golly, I felt “oh, so big” when I took those two steps up onto the giant Greyhound.

Traveling by train has been my favorite way to get there. My sister, Kitty, married an Air Force cadet who later became a commercial pilot, so many of my trips have been to visit wherever she resided. They began with a very hot June automobile trip to Enid, Oklahoma, in the early ‘50s. A few years later, another June vacation found us traveling by train from Poplar Bluff to San Antonio. Subsequent train rides followed her to Chicago, where she lived for several decades. Driving across the old bridge to board the train at Anna-Jonesboro became a familiar routine.

In her later years, Kitty moved to Phoenix to live with her daughter, Jenny, which opened the door for another vacation trip, this time by plane. Finally, my little sister moved back to her hometown, where she passed away 10 years ago.

When I was a teenager, I considered 90-year-olds “ancient”— not anymore. In fact, reaching 100 years is no longer unusual. Three of my good friends at Good Shepherd Lutheran Chapel are also turning 90 within a few months. For the past year, we have called ourselves “the eighty-niners.” Soon we — Delores, Dorothy, Frankie and JoAnn — will be nonagenarians.

I’m finding out growing old gracefully takes an extra measure of patience, along with a pyramid of prayers. Just for fun, take a look at my list of things I wish I could still accomplish: win a foot race, sing alto with my church choir, rake autumn leaves in my yard, walk a mile (make that two blocks), roller skate around the block, weed my flower beds, eat anything I want, hang out my wash on an outdoor clothesline, pick violets in the springtime, buy penny candy at Lichtenegger’s grocery store on Hanover and William streets, catch fireflies in a fruit jar, prepare a complete down-home holiday meal for my family. (This is a partial list.)

Something to consider as you begin a new year, from Robert Louis Stevenson: “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.”