World War II veteran and former pigeon fancier Floyd Jackson celebrates 100th birthday
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – If consistency is a virtue, Floyd Jackson is a virtuous man. The same house for 65 years. Same wife for 68 years. And the same hometown 100 years ago.
He returned home in 1946 and spent a few years working for a company that rented pinball machines.
Like so many young people his age, he enlisted in the army. He served in World War II as an engineer in North Africa, visiting Algiers and Casablanca, building and maintaining Allied aviation infrastructure.
He returned home in 1946 and spent a few years working for a company that rented pinball machines. Jackson only dealt in the legal kind, but when Governor Pat Brown cracked down on the game in 1949, some other pinball machines were wrapped in plastic and buried in the desert until they found less scrutinized homes.
“This was a tough town,” he confessed.
Then he met Grace, who accommodated him. The couple purchased a home in northeast Bakersfield. The monthly house payment was $66, and that included property taxes and insurance. The interest rate was 1.5%.
68 years after marrying Grace, Jackson is officially a centenarian – 100 years old. He’s in a small club: of the 8 billion human beings worldwide, only 722,000 are 100 years old or older.
The United States has 108,000 of these centenarians, according to the UN, which puts us second only to Japan.
The number of centenarians is growing as science and technology serve us better. By 2054, the number of U.S. centenarians will quadruple, to 422,000.
California has 8,000 residents ages 100 and older, the most of any state in the country, and Kern County has a count approaching 200.
The probability of any of them reaching 110 is one in 1,000.
There’s no magic potion, so what’s Jackson’s secret to longevity?
“My great-grandmother had 13 children,” Jackson said. “She made it to 92. Somehow I got the right genes.”
Jackson worked at AT&T for 20 years and retired long ago.
He also retired from fast-pitch softball. He brought the heat like a jug, as his scrapbook proves. How many no-hitters did he throw, anyway? “About 20,” he said.
He stays busy by maintaining his backyard pool, and has been a member of the Kern County Pigeon Racing Club for decades. He has big plans for his 100th birthday celebration – well, Grace does.
