00:00:17.550 - 00:00:32.750

It's very early morning in Golden Gate Park, the rest of the city is asleep. But Larry Lewis as he does every morning, rain or shine is running more than six miles through the park. What makes this more than a routine exercises that Larry Lewis is 99

00:00:32.760 - 00:00:58.920

years old. This is assignment for the weekly award winning report to the West produced in the Community interest by the documentary department of K. R. O. M. T. V. Tonight. A gift of time. The story of some men and women in the San Francisco Bay area,

00:00:58.930 - 00:01:32.050

all past the age of 70 who continue to savor the wonder of life. There may be no better place to spend the winter of one's life than in sunny California. Everything seems better here. The climate entices you

00:01:32.050 - 00:01:56.650

outside into the fresh air and makes you reluctant to go back in until the last warm rays of sunshine are gone. There's time to read and reflect on every item in the newspaper or to have a long and satisfying conversation with a friend, California has nearly

00:01:56.660 - 00:02:11.570

two million people over the age of 65. Much has been written about them as a group. Generally stories that regard them as some kind of problem, But people over 65 do not always want to be regarded as a problem they want to be thought of as

00:02:11.580 - 00:02:30.720

people as human beings Tonight. We will not try to settle the future of everyone over 65. We recognize that the community, government industry, the church, all of us have a responsibility to do some new thinking in this area, But a gift of time is an accolade

00:02:30.720 - 00:02:55.170

to six men and three women over 70 who would be an asset to the community at any age and an acknowledgement that there are thousands more like this inlet. Place behind the Crocker Bank is the business establishment of Giuseppe Silvestri who by now is as much

00:02:55.170 - 00:03:12.090

of a Montgomery street institution as the bank itself, joe has been shining the shoes of board chairman, brokers in business tycoon since 1907. He has now passed 80 as a concession to age. He comes to work at 7 30 instead of seven and leaves for home

00:03:12.090 - 00:03:28.170

at five instead of 5 30. He has no thought of retirement but is considering a trip back to the hills of his native calabria where one of his brothers still lives on the old family farm. The Crocker bank holds mr Silvestri in high esteem. They built

00:03:28.180 - 00:03:45.670

the shoeshine stand for him and any day joe Silvestri who has outlived a good many of his well fixed customers will allow you to test his claim that he gives the best shoeshine in town Maria von Riddle Stein will be 82 or 83 next Valentine's day.

00:03:45.680 - 00:04:07.070

She's not quite sure but she's looking forward to the party. Yeah. Yes, they always like every artist like to celebrate you see because especially when you celebrated, you all talk very freely and frankly and that's the characteristic of an artist because if an artist hides his

00:04:07.080 - 00:04:25.970

feeling, I think he's not an artist. That is why I think we have the english who are trained so very well to overcome all their feelings from early childhood. They usually are not such good artists like for instance, the french, they get impulsively and explain everything

00:04:25.970 - 00:04:42.260

what they are doing. You see it now with the goal for it and he talks too much. Mrs von riddle. Stein's late husband was also an artist now she lives alone teaching two days a week and painting on the others. I think there are so many

00:04:42.260 - 00:05:00.940

things in life which you can use very good books. For instance, if you look in my bedroom there you find at the table that I read momentary again the public, it's perhaps not a book to read in the evening and to have afterwards a very good

00:05:00.940 - 00:05:19.270

night's sleep. But still I prefer to any kind of fiction. I like people and I like to have them as guests in my house. But I wouldn't say that I really am so very interested in their problems because if you paint or if you are creating

00:05:19.270 - 00:05:34.720

something, if you are a writer or a musician, you are so absorbed by your problem that you haven't time very much to think about the other people who come with their problems. Maria von Riddle Stein hopes that like Titian, she will do her best work at

00:05:34.720 - 00:06:03.410

90. Professor Richard Powell, 76 years old, teaches three days a week at Hastings Law School in san Francisco a unique institution. It started with the idea of David Snodgrass. uh he was being here for about 15 years prior to his death, which was three years ago

00:06:03.410 - 00:06:26.950

this summer. I think there is no other school that follows exactly fully. It's practice, that practice as you know, is to hire only persons who have retired at other schools. That's why we call it the 65 club. I would think there is very real enthusiasm in

00:06:26.950 - 00:06:48.600

the student body for the idea. You frequently hear the statement which perhaps is an exaggeration that they've got the best faculty in the country. Professor and mrs Powell live in Hillsboro. There are three days that I am not here, That means there are four days approximately

00:06:48.600 - 00:07:11.600

here. I'd say I would spend two half days a week out in the yard uh trying to take off the dead stuff on the garden, trying to cut flowers to use in the house. Um getting a little suntan which doesn't do any harm I suppose. Uh

00:07:11.610 - 00:07:31.990

so I try to keep these things in shape as best I can. I don't know too much about it. I knew nothing three years ago, whatever I know now about gardening is the product of the last three years. Mr Powell's experience suggests that more ways should

00:07:31.990 - 00:07:50.250

be found to use the skills of older persons, letting them work 23 or four days a week, but still leaving them with considerable leisure time. Powell, the author of a major study on property recently rewrote a property law for the government of Alaska to meet changes

00:07:50.250 - 00:08:24.650

caused by the shifting of boundaries in a major earthquake. I suppose my basic idea is that we're sure of the life that we have here and unless we make good use of that, we're wasting the one certainty we have. Dr paul kirkpatrick retired seven years ago

00:08:24.650 - 00:08:45.570

as a professor of physics at stanford. He finds himself still in demand, suggesting that teaching is an excellent prologue to old age. Well now I'm a kind of a consultant to a few industries. Yes, that's right. I know people over here at Lockheed on the stanford

00:08:45.570 - 00:09:05.260

campus and they asked me to come around there because they were trying to do something rather closely related to my principal specialization all through the years. I've I've done x ray problems most of my days and they were starting to looking at the X ray astronomy,

00:09:06.680 - 00:09:23.670

x rays or x rays coming from the start. So I found it easy to step in and I trust be a little useful over there and certainly have enjoyed Dr. Kirkpatrick still believes professor should retire at 65. If I were the president, I wouldn't want to

00:09:23.670 - 00:09:42.700

work under any other scheme, would have these invidious decisions to make every year about whether this man should or should not remain. I think the best recipe for staying young is to keep busy and to keep involved in the world. If a person stops living in

00:09:42.700 - 00:10:01.090

the present, they're going to start slowing down and dying. And what we seem to find is that the people who either because of their life circumstances have to keep going, for example, a grandmother who cares for her daughter's Children or else because they have a tremendous

00:10:01.090 - 00:10:16.700

drive or interest. Dr Jack Downing of san mateo. General Hospital is a psychiatrist who has made intensive studies in geriatrics. This is one of the great social problems of our time with the family breakup and with the development of suburbs, vast suburbs in which is only

00:10:16.700 - 00:10:38.520

the parents and young Children and the grandparents are either back east are often a sunset home for the aged. The child does not have the benefit of the maturity and the patience and the unique knowledge of the grandparents. This means the Children and the adolescents tend

00:10:38.520 - 00:10:56.150

to have a very short view of life. They haven't had the benefit that can only be of the knowledge that can only be gained through a lifetime of living. Now we're considering the possibility of foster grandparents that is of older people becoming on a permanent basis.

00:10:56.160 - 00:11:19.420

Uh babysitters, um caretakers to individual families so that the Children can have the benefit of a contact with an older person. I had 13 Children and raised them all to be grown. I have 17 grandchildren and 40 great mrs Maggie Benson 80 years old. He's a

00:11:19.430 - 00:11:37.540

busy and very useful life. Gets up at 6:00, I make coffee first, then I'll go and get my two grandchildren of this one. And this one I guess the breakfast ready I guess I'm ready for school. And then uh I don't have to carry him. He

00:11:37.550 - 00:11:58.360

goes gets out before I get out of this one and then three and uh take them up there. Now comes back, put on my dinner, Cleans up either, do some washing ironing. If I have to do then I sit down and relax a little bit around

00:11:58.360 - 00:12:11.920

about 11:00 I have to take them three back up to the schoolhouse and then I come back home at 2 30. I go back and pick up all four of them and I come back here and I'll get my supper ready and give them all the

00:12:11.930 - 00:12:32.550

supper. And then I go on and sit down and relax and look at the tv mrs Benson born in Georgia came to San Francisco in 19 I couldn't you see I always worked out at my home but since I've been here I never got no job.

00:12:32.560 - 00:12:50.980

I always take care my daughter's Children and in the house and she was and uh so uh when I was younger so hard work don't hurt nobody, you know it ain't a colored woman foot hit the ground and worked as hard as I work. But I

00:12:50.980 - 00:13:06.180

didn't live no face life. I didn't dip snuff, I didn't shoot the bath, I didn't drink. I didn't smoke no pipe. I just worked and good food where I could eat, come home, take a bath, go to bed, get up the next morning around about the

00:13:06.190 - 00:13:21.110

same a crowd and be ready to go on the job. And that was from day to day all the time. Maggie Benson thinks the Children of today could benefit from some instruction in good man different. Oh no, no, no, it's just much different Children this day

00:13:21.110 - 00:13:41.500

in time. And it was when I was in fact when I was coming on and when I was raising my night and days when I was coming, when I raised my Children, they know nothing about yes and no, yes and knowing so ma'am, but telling the

00:13:41.500 - 00:14:02.650

day yes and no, no, they don't know about no ma'am. And you asked him like that, he asked me all of that I'm supposed to say. And uh they was obedient and uh I don't know about other folks turning out, they don't have very much managed

00:14:02.660 - 00:14:21.070

better not say nothing to them but my grandchildren here in the house these, you know, I've got them under pretty good control dr Francis scott smith for 13 years. The Dean of the University of California Medical School, a world traveler now. Busies himself with gardening and

00:14:21.070 - 00:14:41.040

with improving community medical services in the Bay area and he still tries to keep up with the medical literature. I was a visiting professor at the University of Nebraska and gave a talk on so called resistant rickets with which I had had considerable experience. And they

00:14:41.040 - 00:15:01.450

asked if they could publish it. Well they did in the journal Lancet and I have been swamped with requests for research. Aside from watching his weight. He does not pursue a rigid health program. I believe very much in moderation and I believe in keeping up an

00:15:01.450 - 00:15:26.890

interest and my trouble is now to restrict my I've got too many one can get very introspective if he has uh an apprehension or fear about his health. Uh actually, when you called me and told me you were interested in the senior citizens, I thought surely

00:15:26.890 - 00:15:46.750

doesn't mean me, I never I never thought of myself that way, although I had a brother who retired to leisure world and he kept saying, this is wonderful, this life over here, you'd better join us. But I like this sort of life where we're still carrying

00:15:46.750 - 00:16:07.270

on an independent household as it were salvatore. Purple is one of many san Franciscans who have spent their lives satisfying the hunger and thirst of their fellow citizens. Mr firpo now in business with his son and a family bar on Hampshire Street has been serving food

00:16:07.270 - 00:16:23.270

and drink to san Franciscans for most of the past 60 years since he came to this country as a young man from Genoa Italy the thirst of san Franciscans is legendary in 1913 the classified directory of the telephone book listed more than 1200 saloons in san

00:16:23.270 - 00:16:43.370

Francisco. From the abc saloon on kearny ST john's ogres at 101 may 1913 was the year Mr Firpo helped to found the Tivoli restaurant on Grant Avenue. Many illustrious restaurants of that era have survived to this day. Names like the old poodle dog jacks, rotisserie Mayes

00:16:43.380 - 00:17:05.630

oyster house, you're the italian kaddish is the original cold day restaurant. Many other great ones are gone except in memory. Sanguinetti's the Bay City grill the flytrap Leone's copas copies. Mr Firpo doesn't waste too much time looking back, he has too many steady customers to serve

00:17:06.190 - 00:17:29.850

at the age of 86. He opens up the Sunset Club every day, jokes with the men and teases the girls and is known in the neighborhood as the mayor of Hampshire Street, A 17,000 acre ranch in Mendocino County is the domain of Mrs J. W. May

00:17:30.070 - 00:17:44.360

Jr of san Francisco with its hills and virgin redwoods. It is surely one of the most beautiful ranches in the west kate as she is known to her friends learned sheep ranching during World War Two. I had never done any ranching. I had to learn from

00:17:44.520 - 00:18:05.300

scratch and that turned out to be nobody else to come here to do it because three sons were out in the pacific my husband has taken on the job of president of the the Commission, which was a tremendous job during the war, millions of shipping went

00:18:05.300 - 00:18:24.580

out of it. Report of san Francisco. And he said to me, do you suppose you could go up there and try or do we give up all the livestock? And I said, well I can do no more than fail. I don't know anything about it. I

00:18:24.590 - 00:18:43.050

had no idea how hard it was going to be. So I came up here and everything I learned I learned from experience because telephoning was difficult at that time. I couldn't get in touch with others. There were no books to read on it. It was just

00:18:43.060 - 00:19:08.770

something that you played by ear all the way through and if anyone ever wants to try this and work perhaps 18 hours, 17 hours a day When they're in their early 50s, I'll tell them that they have to love hard manual labor. Every summer, mrs Mayor

00:19:08.830 - 00:19:23.220

with some of her Children and grandchildren goes on a pack trip into the wilderness astride the continental divide in Montana, just below Glacier National Park. This year's trip was marred by an unfortunate mishap. We had a great deal of trouble with our pack train. We had

00:19:23.220 - 00:19:41.480

a great deal of trouble with the mules. We had a great deal of trouble with the horses. They were what we called, they were ready to spook at anything and nothing. And my mayor who rather likes this book and which I ordinarily of mind world and

00:19:41.490 - 00:20:02.290

not the part way out of us. My container, my camera container into which I stuffed code and it was just far and about courtesy. And so she went to work to try to buck that thing that she didn't recognize off. I stayed with us for five

00:20:02.660 - 00:20:18.650

of those books and then my hat went off and that was the last straw as far as she was concerned. And she gave one prodigious book and the hat sailed and I sailed after it landed in a pile of logs And when I got home after

00:20:18.650 - 00:20:37.990

riding, Having to ride about 35 miles out of the wilderness after this and then flying to Palo alto and then driving from Palo alto to san Francisco. When I finally arrived at the hospital to be x rayed, I found I'd cracked a vertebra. Larry, Lewis works

00:20:38.000 - 00:20:53.360

three or four days a week as a waiter at the ST Francis hotel in san Francisco, but he's only worked steadily as a waiter for 19 years since he was 80 was born in what is now known as phoenix Arizona On June 25, 1867, I've been

00:20:53.360 - 00:21:12.710

coming to California on and off since I joined the bottom show when I was 14 years old. He wants to be with him and lost one of the best friends that I ever had. People have known him outside of show business. One of the greatest Humanitarians

00:21:12.710 - 00:21:40.360

that ever lived. I was with him from 1893 to 1926 when he died in my arms at the Temple Theatre in Detroit. Certainly our culture does not value the old person in the orient where people getting old is less common. There is a very definite status

00:21:40.370 - 00:21:55.030

and pleasure in being old and being the patriarch and being looked up to. But this can be true in our culture too. And I know old people like this that get a real joy out of these years of their life. They've mastered their fear of approaching

00:21:55.030 - 00:22:11.530

death and they live in the here and now in the moment, enjoying all the things in the world and not fretting about the slight aches and things that come with aging. My grandmother, for example, comes to mind when she was 73. She called me aside one

00:22:11.530 - 00:22:27.020

day and said, stage Whisperer Jack, you know what I've learned since I was 70 and says no grandma, what's that? She says, I've learned to take advantage of my age and I'm having a real good time. I think that's true that people can learn to take

00:22:27.020 - 00:22:48.690

advantage of being old, to take advantage of the leisure and the reflectiveness and under these circumstances, these can be the golden years. The lives of these men and women do not hold the answers for every person over 65. Each person is an individual who in the

00:22:48.700 - 00:23:05.290

end must find his own way of life. Although the community can assist him. These particular men and women come from assorted cultural and economic backgrounds. But they do have something very much in common. It's a kind of spiritual independence and self reliance that has little or

00:23:05.290 - 00:23:35.080

nothing to do with freedom from money problems. What they have found is perhaps not only the secret of longevity, but the secret of living At 99 Larry Lewis knows what's right for him. Just make them as a shock for you. But I'd never gotten married until

00:23:35.080 - 00:23:52.620

I was 78. And the only reason that I got married and the good Lord seen fit to take my mother away at 97 years. Young religion is something that I believe in the supreme being and I follow them very very close. Well as far as losing

00:23:52.620 - 00:24:09.670

your friends. I wish that every man that I knew have had as many as I have around the entire world. I've learned a long time ago. An indian and he used the indian language which means which is Navajo. He says when you make a friend hold

00:24:09.670 - 00:24:44.850

him, thank God I've done assignment four is produced in the community interest each week at this time by the documentary department of K. R. O. N. T. V. Be with us again next week for another report to the west on assignment. four