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My attitude is don't let the old man in. In fact, I had a shirt that says that don't let the old man in. I refuse to think old. My name is Jack Weber. I'm 101 in sound mind and sound body. I feel like I'm the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I think to some extent my good health at this stage is from the fact that I never never smoked and I've never been doing drinking to any excess. I eat a healthy breakfast. I don't eat meat to excess, but I do have chicken which I like very much. I like the outdoors. I'm not an indoor person. In fact, even now when the sun is shining and it's not too cold out, I will put on a coat and I'll sit out on the patio in the sunshine. And also on a mental stage, if you think young, more than likely you're going to act young. Those are the factors that I think get me to where I am today. So, what does it mean to think young? I don't complain. I will not bother other people with my with my problem. I refuse to think I can't do this or I can't do that. I know my limitations. A short time ago, was it this year or last year, I fell on the patio. That is what's got me now walking with a cane because I'm determined not to fall again. I'm still in good enough health that I can still enjoy my rounds of golf. Nice shot, Jack. I have a whole series of exercises that I can do indoors. One. Two. I do have a little weight in my hands to keep my biceps healthy. We have a bike here. I go on and I try to stay on that bike for 15 to 20 minutes and keep my legs in healthy form. The other exercises I'm doing are stretching exercises where I have my cane and I raise it up. One, two. Stretching those muscles. Stretching those muscles. Hopefully that's keeping me limber and healthy. Four. Five. And when this weather opens up and the pool opens up here, I'll be in that swimming pool. I don't swim anymore, but I do water walking. 16. Take a shallow end. Water comes up to my chest and I go in the pool with my arms free and as if I'm walking but with the water. It's resistance to your legs. I try to do 40 laps. Do I have some aches and pains? Sure I do, but I don't talk about them and I don't let them run my life. I can feel it in my body that the muscles are not what they were. My walking is limited. There was a time I could walk for miles, but those days are over. I don't push myself to do something I don't think I can do. That is, I think, important because you physically could hurt yourself doing something like that. Good job. I do take medications to help me sleep, which is important to me. And uh without those medications, I'd be tossing and turning all night long. If you don't make life difficult for whoever is around you, you'll get along in life. And do you feel like you are 100 years old? At times I do. At times I do. I'm not going to deny that. There are times that uh especially when I uh have to stumble to uh remember something that I should have known all the time and I often have to ask when I wake up what day of the week is this? But uh most of the things I can remember and especially uh things that are I think are important to me. most challenging thing about being a hundred that sometimes time hangs heavy on your hands. There's enough things in the day to do because I don't have a full-time job. I try to combat that by not getting up at 9:00 in the morning like I did when I opened my office at 9:00. I try to stay up later at night than I used to. I used to go to turn out the lights at 10:00 at night. Now I try to go closer to 11:30, but uh life goes on. Nothing came easy to me in life. Nothing came easy. I had to fight for everything that I had going back to a childhood. My childhood was during the Great Depression. And I remember so many of my friends, their fathers were out of work, but my dad always had a job. My mother was a sports person. She got day passes to a facility in the Bronx called Castle Hill Bathing Park. And it was there that I really spent the summers in my childhood playing tennis, playing handball and meeting girls, which was a big part of my life too at that. But uh it was a happy childhood. The neighborhood was Jewish neighborhood and an Italian neighborhood. and we decided that we were going to have a baseball team and we called ourselves the Juniors and the sweatshirts had a big J on it and uh I remember Italians would always say here come the Jews here come the Jews it wasn't insulting I don't think but uh it was the way the things were at that time but there was never fortunately any gang wars that uh might have been going on in other nation roids. And how did the rise of anti-semitism in Europe affect your childhood being of the Jewish faith? We knew what Hitler was doing to to the Jewish people in his in Germany, extermination of Jewish people. I was worried that the time could come where England could fall. he could think that he could conquer the United States as well. Fortunately, those things never happened. On Pearl Harbor Day, I enlisted in the Navy. The people of the United States will not stand idly by. I originally went to the Air Force office, but my eyes were not good enough for that. So, I went across the street to the Navy, ended up with a a program that I uh changed my life. When I volunteered, the recruiting office found out that I was in college and they said, "You stay in school and when you graduate, you'll be an officer in the Navy." I originally was a premed student. And the commanding officer said, "Jack, there's an immediate opening in dental school in Cleveland, Ohio. Are you interested?" And I without hesitation said, "Yes." Tens of thousands of proud American flags out front of the square. I'll always remember on the J day, everybody was celebrating. If you were in uniform, you could be sure you were going to get swarmed by ladies hugging you and which I enjoyed very much. If it was up to me, I would have continued my career in the Navy. But my wife Betty, and I didn't blame her, I was gone for several months and she had a baby at home. And when I said I couldn't get this Navy career, she says, "No." He says, "I want you to leave a normal life, not a Navy life where I know that right now you're going to be in Washington, but in two years they're going to tell you again you got to go out to sea." And uh she says, "I I couldn't live through that again. It was just a terrible experience having a a new baby in the house." She was very persuasive and I didn't blame her. And so I went back to my commanding officer and thanked him very much for the offer, but I'm going to decline. And uh that started my career as a dentist. How did you meet her? Do you remember? Yes, I do remember. I was in a class in anatomy and I'm looking around the room for a likely partner and this lovely co-ed came up to me and said, "Would you like to be my lab partner?" My mother didn't raise a stupid kid, you know. So, I jumped at the chance. She was a lovely lady. That uh became the turning point in my life. He went from a lab partner to my college sweetheart and my wife and mother of my five children, grandmother of my 11 grandchildren. I think at that time that uh changed my life. We had a very successful and healthy marriage for many many years. She was a battler. She was a fighter. She uh made a life of her own as well. And needless to just say with the five kids, uh, that's enough to keep anybody busy. Well, my wife passed away just 20 years ago this year, 2004. She uh developed breast cancer and she fought it for 10 years but it finally traveled to her lungs and then there was no cure for that. So she passed on much too soon in life much too early. She should be here with me sitting right here right now. How does that feel to lose the love of your life? It's not easy. It is not easy at all. It's been 20 years, but my kids said to me, "Dad, you got to get back into life again. You got too many good years ahead of you. Too many things that you want to do." So, I did follow their advice. Although I think about her most every day, I have gone on with my life. It must be hard to outlive the people you love, whether it's your wife or friends. John, tell you the truth, I don't have any of my good friends that are still alive. They're all gone. All five of my best friends have all passed away. So, I'm the last man standing. I know that life goes on. And that's the only answer I can give you. Life goes on. And uh if you spend your life grieving about something, you're not doing service to yourself or to your family. I would say because of the home that has been opened up to me here with my daughter and her husband and her son who is here a good bit of the time. I It's not lonely. You were babies. It's not like I'm sitting in a house by myself or in a facility with strangers. It makes all the difference when you have a a loving family with you. Wow. What has changed the most in a hundred years? I would say the internet. It used to be that if you wanted to know the answer to something, you'd have to go to the library and do a great deal of research to find out about something. Today, with a snap of your fingers, the internet has that answer for you. Amazing how much garbage gets on your computer. There are some things that I don't approve of and that's the younger people today, including some of my grandchildren, live on that computer. They walk around with it in their hands all day long looking at different things, maybe chatting with all their other friends on that computer. And I don't think that's healthy. There was a time that people talk to each other and people now are just not converging with each other as much as they used to. I used to come home from work and we'd sit around the dining room table and I'd ask the kids, "What's happening in your school today? What's doing?" And I'd get an answer from them. I don't think that's happening anymore today. It's just not the way that things are. And so the whole ability to converse is disappearing. What excites me about the future? I think more than anything else, even though today's politics bothers me, there's no question in my mind about that. I know that it's only a 4-year term and life goes on. I do have great confidence in the younger generation that they're going to do the right thing. What do you think the younger generation can learn from you? That there's no easy road in life. Nothing comes easy. You can't just assume that this is going to happen and that's going to happen. You got to fight for it. I never gave up. If I had something that I wanted to do, I was persistent in getting it done. Life has hardships, some more than others, but you can't give up. You got to fight. You got to stay with it. There are not so many centinarians in America. Most of them are actually women. How does it feel to be part of such a rare group of centinarians? I tell you, I I as I sit here with you today, I don't feel like my days are numbered. I feel that that I have good years in front of me yet. Let the party begin. So, I'm not saying I'm ready to turn it in. Funny thing, I say that because my mother was 99 when she passed away. I came in to visit her one day in the nursing home and she said, "Jack, I want to let you know something is I'm not enjoying life anymore." She says, "I'm just not enjoying it. I'm not doing the things I wanted to do. I can't be active. You know me. I was always active. She says, "What's me? What's the sense of me hanging around?" I said, "Mom, are you sure?" She said, "Yes, I made up my mind and I don't want you to try to talk me out of it." So, what she did was stop eating and uh she passed away shortly thereafter. She said, "I've led a good life, but I I'm not enjoying myself anymore." But that don't apply to me. I'm enjoying life. So I'm not going to stop eating. And after 100 years, what do you believe is the meaning of life? You can't get anywhere in life until you start doing things for other people. If I have a purpose, it's to help my family. They all need help. I guarantee you that they all need help in one capacity or another. I've been very fortunate. My investments have been very successful. So, financially, I'm very stable and I want to use that funds to help any of my kids who need help on investments, money. the stock market goes up and down. But in the long run, over many years, the stock market always goes up. And so if you're not in day-to-day trading in stocks and you're in for the long haul, and even if you want to start small, make an investment. Don't go to the bank and put it in a savings account that gives you 2% interest. Put it in a good solid stock. and a mutual fund is probably your best bet. So, as my kids gotten older, I've preached that to them and uh hopefully that uh has helped them. The kids had been after me for many years to write my memoir. And during the pandemic, I had nothing to do. So, I couldn't argue with them. And I cuz I had been putting it off for a long time. I started writing those stories. I never thought it was going to turn into the book that it is now. I made a gift of that book to everyone me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me member of my family. Even the little ones who couldn't even read the book if they had to, their parents took it from them and said, "I'm going to put it in a safe place and when they can read, they're going to read your book." [Music] That handsome guy. And so that makes me feel good that the lessons in life are in that book. What is the best thing about being a 100? I feel that if I can be an inspiration to somebody that makes it all worthwhile. So when we played the last time four or five years ago, I become very good friends with the golf professional at the course. Here is our legend. He calls me. He's a legend of this golf course. Most times people I'm playing with find out one way or another my age and they'll all say the same thing. Boy, do I envy you. You are my idol. That's the best thing about being to be somebody's idol. To be envied in that regard makes me walk home and with my chest jumped out. I feel like a million dollars. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I got to take a bow. Nice. I got an audience here. I got to take a bow.