Susannah Mushatt Jones, called “Tee” (short for “Auntie”) by family, is 116. Earth’s eldest. With autumn beginning, leaves falling, school starting and life renewing, I went to pay respects to, as I addressed her, Miss Susannah.
Niece Lois Judge and I took an elevator to the Brooklyn facility’s one-bedroom apartment. Miss Susannah, in green and pink flannel, huddled under a living-room-couch quilt.
Handed flat Doublemint sticks, she folded all four in and chewed. Said Lois: “At 96, she grew another molar. We try to monitor this gum, but she knows a pack has five sticks, so she stretches out her hand for the fifth. She flips the wrapper off and throws it down. And don’t offer Wrigley. She knows the difference.”
Furniture, tables, cupboards overflowed with ancient plaques, medical reminders, yellowed photos, assorted awards and congratulations from before and now, from her Alabama birthplace to civilization’s remotest, from presidents, societies, ambassadors, and Bloomberg.
“She voted for Obama twice, but her last birthday he never sent anything. We’ll have to remind him,” the aide said.
On one wall, emergency numbers. On another, the 27th Psalm: “The Lord is my light and my salvation — whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life — of whom shall I be afraid?”
Up 9:30. Breakfast, 10:30, scrambled eggs with bacon. May dieticians shove all the warnings since “she’ll eat bacon all day long.” Lunch, fruit. Dinner, 5:30, “she feeds herself” a set plate of meat, veggies, potatoes, but “eats the meat first.”
Miss Susannah didn’t chat much, but she can sure cuss. Adjust her quilt and it’s “What the hell you doing?”
In the words of caring nieces Lavilla Watson and Lois: “God has her here for a reason.”
Touching relationship
Cyndi Lauper’s mate, David Thornton, patted her sweetly on the back in front of Upper West Side’s Fairway Market. She wore pink hair and Lululemon casual. What he had on I don’t know . . . John Turturro alongside son Diego: “He made a movie with me, but won’t do another. He doesn’t want to be an actor. He’s smart” . . . G. Clooney: “That ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ film I made 15 years ago? The one Lincoln Center just reprised for an anniversary? I still play the soundtrack.”
Race replace
A rep company exists that does parts required by whatever Gilbert & Sullivan operetta they’re doing, including, occasionally, women playing men and vice versa. They just pulled their planned “Mikado.” Why? Protests that only two of their company are “Asian.”
OK. So? Why not ax “Hamilton” since African-Americans and Hispanics, not WASPs, play the Founding Fathers? How’s “Fiddler” refiddling without Anatevka housing all Jews? If “Asian” excludes Israelis, Syrians, Sri Lankans, Omanis, Turks, Saudis, Jordanians, Indians, how come a Japanese can play the King of Siam?
Apologizing for their “racial insensitivity,” this rep group is subbing “Pirates of Penzance.”
Using illusion
“The Illusionists,” opening soon, will use volunteers. “Real people, not plants. You can’t fake today’s cameras and close-ups,” they say. Due to metal detectors they’re hand-carrying swords and knives. And fuel for setting them on fire? “Not allowed to fly our own. Chemicals differ here. We have to use US compounds.”
Dignitaries, VIPs, pests from downtown Shove-It who clog traffic and ruin our lives, can’t you set up shop elsewhere? Maybe Wisconsin? You’ll get air. Cheese. And maybe someone happy to see you.
Why only in New York, kids, only in New York?