Posted on 12/31/2008 8:58:29 AM PST by Red Badger
OAKLAND -- Coffee, doughnuts, peanut butter and cheese. Those are the staples of Elva L. Miller's diet, and they've served her well.
Miller, who turned 103 in April, lives in her daughter's home with a bedroom on the second floor.
On Tuesday she accepted the town's Boston Post cane in honor of being Oakland's oldest resident.
"I thought there were a lot of people older than me (in Oakland)," Miller said, sitting in the music room of her daughter's Church Street home. "It is a surprise. I couldn't believe it."
The tradition of the Boston Post cane goes back to 1909 when the Boston Post newspaper distributed walking sticks to boards of selectmen in 700 New England towns.
Oakland was one of the recipients, but about 40 years ago the cane went missing and its whereabouts remained a mystery until earlier this year when an antiques dealer found it at a store in Bath, Oakland Council Chairman Ralph Farnham Jr. said.
Farnham brought the recovered cane to the ceremony, accompanied by new Town Manager Peter Nielsen, fellow councilor Mike Perkins and Town Clerk Janice Porter.
"We are going to present you with the original (cane) at first," Farnham said, "and then we are going to substitute it because we don't want to lose it again."
Farnham substituted the original with a proxy cane the town had made recently -- the authentic stick will remain on display at the Town Office -- and provided a framed commemorative certificate as well.
Miller, dressed in a dark blue jumper and a light blue blouse, didn't seem to mind the swap.
"Congratulations," Porter, the town clerk, said to Miller and then added, "many more years."
Miller smiled and responded, "Well, I don't know about that."
As a child growing up in Boston, Miller said she used to read the Boston Post -- the newspaper folded in 1956.
Back then the Boston Post sold for a penny or two a copy, she said, and newsboys hawked the paper on street corners.
Miller said she went to work at age 13. She started as a laborer in the box department of a shoe factory. When the factory relocated, Miller moved on to take a job at a department store. She stayed there for 46 years, working at a variety of positions.
"I worked all my life," she said, "even after I moved here to Maine."
Miller arrived in Maine from California with her daughter, Clara Watson, in 1982.
That move came 21 years after her husband died. Miller had two daughters; her younger one died at age 22 in a car accident.
In recent years, arthritis has slowed Miller down. But when she had better use of her hands, Miller used her considerable sewing and knitting skills to make hundreds of dolls. Watson sold many of them at the crafts store she used to operate down the road in downtown Oakland.
Even now, Miller likes to stay active. Watson said her mother goes up and down the stairs about a dozen times a day.
"She always says to me, 'You are always working too hard,'" Watson said, "and I think to myself, 'Who did I learn that from?'"
The Red Sox fan on the right has been getting more than his fair share of doughnuts. More than enough.
Last week I was about to eat a doughnut. I looked at the evil disc of dough, knowing it would kill me by age 37, but I am 55 so I took a bite. I lived. My fear began to subside. What next, I thought. Could I possibly walk down the street and not die from the chimney smoke being emitted from my neighbors Christmas fireplace? I realized these were bold steps I was taking, and flew in the face of my government.
Heheheh. Good one.
Welcome to FreeRepublic
and Happy New Year!
Welcome to FR!.............Have a doughnut and Happy New Year!..........
BOSoxer must have eaten the team............
re: What next?
Perhaps you’ll have the guts to run with scissors? Or, Lord forbid, buy a BB gun?
You’re on a roll. Don’t let the rest of us who don’t buy into these old wives’ tales down now!
“Coffee, doughnuts, peanut butter and cheese” The staples of life!
The ONLY TWO things I miss from New England! Nebraskans are clueless of how to make a good doughnut, or a decent cup of Joe!
“...Or, Lord forbid, buy a BB gun?”
Don’t do it kid... You’ll shoot your eye out!
Well they sure worked for John Belushi. /s
Yeah, well his donuts were powdered with heroin!...........
...or go swimming right after you eat!..........
Funny. Thanks, and welcome to FR!
Even if he didn’t OD, he was headed for a massive coronary probably before his 50s.
Yeah, he was a tad overweight, but so’s his bro.............
LOL
Had my coffee this morning with a homemade molasses doughnut - and I'm in Maine, to boot.
Fortunately, we have a local lady who makes good old fashioned doughnuts like my gramma did (and I'm now in my 70's) and sells them at 2 nearby mom & pop stores.)
My late neighbor lady, originally from England, died at 103 - had the town 'cane'. (She could easily have gone to 107, I firmly believe. Her heart, liver, everything - was in great shape. The only medication she took was coated aspirin.
She no longer had any family and she simply decided she'd been around long enough - put herself into a nursing home situation and then refused food and water until her system shut down.
But as to diet: she slathered butter on everything, hated vegetables, loved her Old Fashions, etc. She was sharp as a tack...
In defence of Nebraskans, they’re pursuing central-European traditions—Swedish coffee, German pastries.
Have a bismarck instead.
You would think in the Midwest (cowboy country) you could get coffee that is more than watered down blah... I think they must reuse thr grounds several times over! It hardly matters where you go out here... with few exceptions the coffee is awful. And what’s up with the frigging non-dairy powdered creamer crap? Geeze, don’t they raise dairy cattle around here?
What the heck is a Bismarck? Is that like an éclair? If it is, then they screw them up too! I used to live in an Italian neighborhood... THEY knew how to make a REAL CUSTARD filled éclair! Not the cream-filled muck-jobs we got here in Nebraska. God, I miss canollis, Italian coockies, and coffee that would stand your hair on end!
Yeah, I used to go to this Irish Bakery in Southwick MA... Mrs. Murphy’s... They made these cinnamon-sugared doughnuts that were 6” across, 2” thick, and weighed about a pound! Oooooh, man... that was heaven eating one of those with a cup of Hazelnut coffe! And on Fridays they made a “killah clam chowdah with chunks of clam the size of your thumbnail.
Most Nebraskans are neither cowboys nor Italians.
If you insist on viewing them as poor copies of something else you think they ought to be you will always be disappointed.
P.S.: screw central european... I want American grease... and lard... and globs of artery-clogging butter ... on everything! Ooooh, Yummy!
There is generally conceded to be no point in arguing about taste.
But get the higher quality butter, you'll find it's a whole different animal, you'll never go back.
It's like the dif. btw. instant & fresh ground coffee, only better.
Good butter cuts like soft cheese, that's how you can tell other than the superior taste.
“Most Nebraskans are neither cowboys nor Italians.”
I don’t know... I have seen plenty of cowboys around here... well they call themselves “ranchers,” but same idea: riding horses and all. Too bad ‘bout those Italians... we could sure use a good spaghetti western here.
I have been eating REAL butter, cheese, eggs and lots of red meat all my life... and my cholesterol is 168. I figure in this life you are not going to die one second sooner or later than you are supposed to, so you might as well enjoy the ride. George Burns smoked stogies day long, and lived to be 100. Yet “natural food” guru, Euell Gibbons croaked at 68.
I grew up on a northern Maine farm in the 40's. If I got all my 'chores' done, Grampa would let me have the 'privilege' of helping him churn the butter every Friday!
Grammie traded her excess butter at the general store = and her butter was so famous -and sold before all others - that others would save up her butter wrappers and put their butter in them to sell - 'counterfeit butter'!
So Grampa hand-carved her a butter mold with her initials surrounded by May Flowers!
Not to worry. I know my butter - LOL
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