World War II veteran, longtime pigeon racer Floyd Jackson celebrates 100th birthday
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – If consistency is a virtue, Floyd Jackson is one virtuous man. Same house for 65 years. Same wife for 68 years. And same hometown for 100 years.
He came home in 1946, and wasted a couple of years working for a company that leased out pinball machines.
Like so many young men his age, he enlisted in the military. He served in World War II as an engineer in North Africa, visiting Algiers and Casablanca, building and maintaining Allied aviation infrastructure.
He came home in 1946, and wasted a couple of years working for a company that leased out pinball machines. Jackson only dealt with the legal kind, but when Gov. Pat Brown cracked down on gambling in 1949, certain other pinball machines were wrapped in plastic and buried in the desert until they could find less scrutinized homes.
“This was a rough town,” he confessed.
Then he met Grace, who settled him down. The married couple bought a house in northeast Bakersfield. Their monthly house payment was $66, and that included property taxes and insurance. Their interest rate was 1.5 percent.
68 years after marrying Grace, Jackson is officially a centenarian – 100 years old. He’s in a small club: Out of 8 billion human beings worldwide, just 722,000 are age 100 or older.
2024 Spring Fest continues this weekend at Kern County Fairgrounds
The United States has 108,000 of those centenarians, according to the UN, which puts us second only to Japan.
The number of centenarians is growing as science and technology serve us ever better. By 2054, the number of U.S. centenarians will grow fourfold to 422,000.
California has 8,000 residents aged 100 or older, which is the most of any state in the nation, and Kern County has a rough count of 200.
The odds of any of them reaching 110 are one in 1,000.
There’s no magic potion, so what is Jackson’s secret to longevity?
“My great grandmother had 13 kids,” Jackson said. “She made it to 92. I somehow got the right genes.”
Jackson worked for AT&T for 20 years and retired long ago.
He’s also retired from fast-pitch softball. He brought the heat as a pitcher, as his scrapbook proves. How many no-hitters did he pitch, anyway? “About 20,” he said.
He stays busy, maintaining his backyard pool, and he has been a member of the Kern County Pigeon Racing Club for decades. He has big plans for his 100th birthday celebration– well, Grace does.
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