Jacolyn Perrone, 100, of Lexington, poses at the Top of Carolinas restaurant with her grandson Drew Ford, 42, of Valejo, California. Relatives from as far as Washington state, California, Utah, Texas, and West Virginia flew into town to help Perrone ring in her first centiversary. Photo by Ben Sellers
Having a centenarian in one’s family is, under any circumstances, a blessing. But to have two sisters both surpass the 100-year mark is the sort of remarkable feat that might lead publications like the Guinness Book of World Records and the TODAY show’s Willard Scott to come a-knocking.
On April 6, Jacolyn Bush Perrone, of Lexington, a native of Barnesville, reached this milestone. Regrettably, her sister, longtime Barnesville resident Elizabeth Bush Sellers, passed away October 24, 2021, just a day after having herself reached the 100-year mark.
But Perrone (or “Aunt Jackie” to the author) shows few signs of slowing down, despite having had both hips surgically repaired, which did force her to finally give up on her world-traveling excursions.
During a recent sit-down, one of several kernels of wisdom she offered was to encourage younger folks (i.e. those 65 and under) not to forgo such opportunities while expecting they will be able to fit everything they dream of doing into their golden years, since life does have its way of throwing curveballs.
When Pearl Harbor was bombed in December 1941, shortly after Elizabeth’s 20th birthday, Jacolyn was still a teenager. Both sisters would soon avail themselves of the opportunities the war effort afforded in an era when women’s liberation was still decades from becoming a household phrase.
Elizabeth joined the U.S. Navy’s WAVES program and assisted in cracking enemy codes. Jacolyn found herself gravitating to journalism—a profession her mother, Evelyn Bush, also dabbled in as the longtime society columnist for the Herald– Gazette. Before long, she became acquainted with none other than Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, the two prominent NBC newscasters who ruled the airwaves opposite figures like Walter Cronkite throughout the 1960s.
Jacolyn would, in fact, have a brief but intense romance with Brinkley. However, she supposed the intensity was stronger on her part as Brinkley, who was four years her senior, eventually stopped calling, and went on to marry United Press reporter Ann Fischer in 1946.
Perhaps it was for the best. Fischer, to whom he was later estranged and divorced in 1972, said in a 1969 Time magazine profile that Brinkley’s work was “the one thing in the world he’s really comfortable with.”
Jacolyn would go on to marry Jim Perrone and have three children of her own, as well as three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. She continued writing for a variety of publications, including the Columbia Star and Columbia Living magazine, where she specialized in colorful, slice-of-life feature stories and profiles.
Eventually, she had to retire from it to focus on her hip recovery, but in addition to her active social calendar, she stays plugged into the world at large by maintaining a regular social-media presence. And she remains as sharp and quick-witted as ever—only now assuming the role of interview subject after having spent some eight decades as the interviewer.
There are certain questions— and one in particular—that every centenarian probably tires of answering, the way an athlete does when asked to reflect on the keys to a winning game.
Asked about her secret to longevity, Perrone drolly replied, “Don’t forget to breathe.”
Pressed further, she credited good genes and a healthy lifestyle—one of which this interviewer was delighted to hear.
Having entered my 40s, I’ve become aware of a new phenomenon, which is the dying of certain pop-cultural references I assumed would last indefinitely.
With COVID and the other national traumas Americans—and the world at large—have experienced of late, there may be a heightened awareness of the fragile and, ultimately, ephemeral quality to all that we take for granted.
We are all just renters with our mortal souls on loan—or, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in a 1789 letter to James Madison, “the earth belongs in usufruct to the living.”
Recently, while writing something intended for an audience of Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha readers, I had to check myself after making an archaic reference to the 1980s sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes.”
Would anybody even understand what I meant if I wrote, “Whatchu talking ’bout, Willis?”
I was eager to know if Aunt Jackie had encountered a similar phenomenon more than a half century ago, during her 40th decade, and if the loss of shared cultural references—the common language that binds our society together— had grown even more pronounced with time.
Specifically, with respect to television catchphrases, she mentioned Maxwell Smart’s “Sorry about that, Chief,” from the 1960s spy sitcom “Get Smart.” I remembered several other famous “Get Smart” references (some of which she had forgotten) but had to confess this one had never crossed my radar and would have been entirely lost on me.
Speaking in broader terms, she also recalled having to use ration books during World War II for basic food staples such as sugar and ketchup. This, she said, made dating more complicated. In order to prepare a meal, the ladies would first have to secure their suitors’ share of the rations so there would be enough to go around.
(Perhaps it was not that David Brinkley had lost interest after all, but simply that he had run out of rations, in case anybody wants to develop a movie idea about an unrequited love affair, tentatively titled The Ration Book.) One thing we could both agree on: It was hard to imagine there ever being another war, for better or worse, like the Second World War.
Not only would political polarization in the internet era prevent the sort of national unity that gave rise to that common cause and spirit of mutual sacrifice, but technology, too, may supplant the need for human boots on the ground, helping to spare lives for some, while making it that much easier to take others.
Ben Sellers, a North Carolina resident, is the editor of Headline USA. He is a former Herald–Gazette intern and the grandson of the late Elizabeth Bush Sellers.
Leave a Reply