MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — Surrounded by friends and family in her comfortable Skagit Valley home, Joyce Johnson reads one of her favorite humorous poems, “The Blackberry and the Rose.”
“I took a hoe and hit him hard with all the strength I had,” Johnson reads, “How could my hybrid beauty be seduced by such a cad?”
It happens to come from a book that she authored.
“She was about 80 when she started writing,” said her niece, Delpha Johnson.
Joyce Johnson has lived a life as colorful as the tulips that surround her on this July 7, her 105th birthday.
“Goodness sakes,” Johnson said as a cake bearing the number 105 is set down in front of her.
“She's got the kindest heart of anybody I ever met,” Delpha said, “You're gonna make me cry. I just love her so much.”
When Johnson’s first husband passed away unexpectedly at just 42 years old, she went to work as an office manager at the local radio station, KBRC-AM.
As one of Mount Vernon's most popular residents, she's developed a taste for the limelight.
“Oh, I like being on television,” Johnson said.
She also has an appetite for a certain snack food.
“Oh, I do, I do!” Johnson exclaimed as a birthday bag of Crunchy Cheetos arrived, “So much,” she said playfully, cradling the bag close.
The crunchy snack is just one of her dietary suggestions for a long, healthy life. The others include never trimming the fat off of a juicy steak, and enjoying a big bag of candy once in a while.
This mother of three now has eight great-great-grandchildren.
“My long and happy life is (because of) my children,” Johnson said, “I have a lot of family.”
On the very same day, at West Seattle's Brookdale Senior Living, another spectacular woman is celebrating her 105th birthday, too.
“I’m surprised to see all of this,” Rosa Facciuto said as she entered the rooftop party held in her honor.
Facciuto has outsurvived four husbands.
“I lived a good life. I kept busy, on the move,” Facciuto said, “Never sat around.”
She looks and sounds at least 20 years younger than her driver’s license reads, and she was using that license up until about a month ago.
“I stopped because, at 105, it's time to get off the road,” Facciuto said, “You see these old people driving along on the road, and they're so slow. And I like to go fast. I don't have much patience.”
Facciuto’s last husband, Tony, was a high school classmate.
“We graduated in 1936 together and didn't see each other for 48 years,” Facciuto said. “When we did meet 48 years later, we were both widowed. We married and had the best 29 and a half years of my life.”
Johnson and Facciuto are proof that you're only as old as you feel.
“You only get out of life what you put into it,” Facciuto said, “That's all you get out.”
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