A birthday party you can’t postpone
People don’t live to 100 by taking a lot of fool chances, and Rhoda Kay is no exception.
So, for her 100th birthday, she stayed behind a plateglass window and waved. She stayed behind the window and listened to her family sing “Happy Birthday.” And she stayed behind the window for the balloons, the strawberry cake and even for a visit from the mayor.
“I feel fine,” she said, several times, when people asked her how it felt to be 100. After too many people asked her the same question, she smiled
and changed her answer.
“I don’t know how I feel,” she said. “I haven’t been 100 for very long.”
Rhoda Kay had her birthday at the Aegis assisted living facility in South San Francisco where she has lived for several years. The staff said Kay would have to remain seated just inside the front door and the partygoers would have to remain just outside the front door, standing on blue marks six feet apart. That applied to South San Francisco Mayor Richard Garbarino, who had dropped by with one of those framed plaques that mayors always seem to carry around with them.
Reading from the plaque, Garbarino declared that he and the city council did not just congratulate Kay but did “hereby congratulate” her, and he waved at Kay through the window. Kay, dressed in a rhinestone tiara that said “100” and a white sash that said “100 and fabulous,” waved back.
Her grandson, David Steele of Alameda, waved, too. He said the family had wanted to have a regular birthday party, the kind with everyone in the same room. But that’s not happening these days. He brought Kay a couple of framed family photos and he handed them over to a nurse, who carried them inside with gloved hands and delivered them to Kay on the other side of the window.
Kay’s daughter, Pat Steele, said the party “was one for the books.” Kay’s son, Joe Steele, said it had taken him several months to persuade his mother that she was going to turn 100 so the hard part was over and done.
Kay was born in St. Paul, Minn., when Woodrow Wilson was president and the country was singing along on the radio to “Swanee” by Al Jolson. She was a pianist in churches and at iceskating rinks, she was an accomplished gardener, she was a trained adding machine operator, she was known for her spaghetti sauce and she survived two husbands.
The mayor asked Joe Steele what his mother did for fun and whether she “took a nip” from time to time. Steele replied that his mother never drank, smoked or cursed and was unlikely to get started now.
And, with the official party beverage being bottled water, she didn’t.
Keep on kickin’: The amazing Hollis Belger says there’s a key to doing the same thing 4,202 times in a row.
“Try not to think too hard,” she said.
The thing Hollis does better than just about anyone is juggling a soccer ball with her feet — keeping the ball in the air by kicking it straight up over and over and not letting it touch the ground. She’s 15, lives in Larkspur and has been kicking soccer balls to herself for half of her lifetime. Her personal best is 4,202 kicks without a miss.
But with the pandemic, it’s hard to draw spectators to watch you kick a soccer ball to yourself. So Hollis has branched out into online lessons. For a $20 donation to a Tennessee hospital that Hollis raises money for, she will impart her secrets in a video conference coaching session. (You can contact here at jugglingforjude.com.)
“Keep it on the laces,” she said the other afternoon to an 11yearold girl named Tessa Soccorsy, whose mom had ponied up the $20. Tessa, standing in her backyard, turned out to be pretty good at kicking the ball to herself three times, after which the ball tended to roll under her ping pong table, leaving her 4,199 kicks shy of Hollis’ record.
“Don’t kick it above your chin,” said Hollis. “Control, control, control. Not on the toe. On the laces. Let the ball come to you. That time was better. Great. Keep going. Not on the toe.”
Tessa hit a plateau at four kicks. The ball continued to roll under the ping pong table. Tessa’s mom, Amy, shrewdly moved the table out of the way, to prevent her investment from being consumed by ballretrieval time.
After half an hour, Tessa was up to eight kicks. She was exhausted. Soccer is a tough game, even without the other 21 players.
“You’re really getting better,” Hollis said. She seemed to be the most selfless kid in Marin County. All of the $20 goes straight to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. She has already raised thousands of dollars for the hospital, just by kicking soccer balls to herself and hitting up sponsors for donations. And she just won another $2,500 from Prudential Financial awards program honoring America’s 100 top young volunteers — all of that is going to the hospital, too.
“When I get tired and my legs hurt, I think about the kids at the hospital,” Hollis said. “What I’m going through is nothing compared to that.”
IBM donates laptops: There are silver linings to everything, including closing summer camps.
IBM Bay Area had bought 80 laptop computers for a summer camp for San Jose kids learning about programming. Then the camp got canceled, along with most other things in San Jose.
Instead of keeping the computers, which is something IBM would already seem to have enough of, the company donated them to the San Jose Unified School District, which will distribute them to classrooms, for that wonderful day when overwrought parents can send their overwrought children to school.