farmdoc's blog post number 441

Today’s Sweetheart Vivienne’s father’s 91st birthday. Here are some of my thoughts on this day.

This is the first birthday Saul’s had since he lost his adored wife Lucy, so ending a fairytale marriage lasting 65 years, seven months and two days.

It’s a measure of the man that he’s spending his 91st birthday in New York during a world trip lasting several weeks. And he pushes his sister, with whom he is travelling, in a wheelchair. (She has a knee problem.)

He’s a bit smaller, slower and less focused now than he once was. But he’s nothing less than astounding for a man his age.

I first met him when he was 43-years-old. So I’ve known him for over half his life.

On Sweetheart Vivienne’s and my wedding day he was 49-years-old. That’s 13 years younger than I am now.

The Australian newspaper called Victor Smorgon, who died last Friday, the ‘elder statesman of Australia’s Jewish community’. That mantle’s now Saul’s. And rightfully so.

At 91, Saul continues to meet with prime ministers and ex prime ministers. And he continues to do voluntary charity work.

When one of his brothers turned 90, that brother joked he’d no longer buy green bananas. I’ll bet you anything that Saul still buys green bananas.

Saul’s done many, many wonderful things in his first 91 years. But easily the most wonderful one of all is producing Sweetheart Vivienne.

Happy birthday to you, my dear father-in-law.