Every 2 months I receive an injection in my left eye for macular degeneration. I’ve been fortunate to receive the miracle drug, Lucentis, that has restored my sight to 20/30 (probably more acute than when I was born). This drug can only be administered to wet macular degeneration and while my eye had been of the dry variety, it had gone wet just after Lucentis was approved by the FDA for public use.

While seated in Dr. Boscarino’s waiting room, my attention became arrested by an elderly woman patient who was extremely sharp, so outgoing and gregarious. My dear friend, Charlotte Jockel (who had accompanied me to drive back home) said she knew the woman and her daughter-in-law who had brought her. Charlotte, who lives in Linesville, told me she lived next door to the woman, that her name was Hazel Mickle and she was 102 years old! I almost fell out of my chair.

I had just interviewed Fran Salem, who also lives in Linesville and is 90. I remember muttering something about the fact that, “It must be something in the water in Linesville,” and asked Charlotte if she could set up an interview for me. As I watched sweet Hazel unaffectedly charm everyone around her, I vowed to try and find out her secret to long life.

Several weeks later, Charlotte and I were warmly welcomed by Hazel and her daughter-in-law, Gladys, into Hazel’s cozy home. I was seated directly in front of my interview subject and unloaded my briefcase full of pens, pads and tape recorder. Hazel leaned back in her lounge chair and smiled broadly. “Well, are you ready to tell me all about yourself?” I asked.

The first words she spoke were: “Words expressed will sometimes fall back dead, but God Himself can’t kill them once they’re said.”

Hot tears flooded my eyes. I had expected some trite little answer, but the depth and wisdom of her words sliced through me with the impact of a sharp knife of wisdom whittling at the gravity of this interview. A scripture gently knocked at the door of my memory. Was it, “the power of life and death is in the tongue”? I took a deep breath and tried to regain a little bit of poise. I couldn’t wait to tap into the deep waters of this incredible well of experience. “So...when were you born, Hazel? I’m looking at a pillow on your couch that says, ‘May 30th, 1907.”

“It’s wrong. It was May 31st,” she responded matter-of-factly as though being born in 1907 was no big deal. Born in Sharon, Hazel said her father had worked for U. S. Steel and when she was just 8 years old they moved onto a farm near Conneaut Center. This was on a road near her mother’s family home that was sited on an original Pennsylvania land tract. “I’ve always been a ‘farm girl”...all my life,” her eyes sparkled mischievously. “My Grandmother’s house was a beautiful great big house and they were always partying and having church functions going on. The grange, a church and the school were right on the corner.”

“Was that your church?”