By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – It was a mostly adult party that even the neighbor children were excited to attend so that they could see for themselves. How often do you get to meet a woman who is 105 years old, or sing her “Happy Birthday,” watch her blow out the candles and then get to share some of the cake?
The attraction of being with Laura Simon on Friday evening, Nov. 26, was just as powerful for adults. Born in the fifth year of the 20th century, Simon was celebrating the fifth year of her own second century. If she felt like a queen, who could blame her as the guests, one-by-one, took a seat across from her, and leaning across a portable television tray table wished her the happiest returns of the day?
When she was a mere 100, Simon published the memoir I’m Still Here , and it has since been serialized on San Diego Jewish World. On Friday evening, the author contented herself with brief remarks: “I want at this moment to wish everyone good health and happiness, and whatever you wish for yourselves should come to be. That’s my greatest wish at this moment and I want to thank Joanne and Leslie for their great thoughtfulness in making this beautiful party for me and inviting so many of my beautiful friends. It is a pleasure for me to be here and know that I have such friends…”
Hostess Joanne Faryon, a producer with the public television station in San Diego, KPBS, and Dr. Leslie Tari were just two of the people associated with the media and the arts who the centenarian has charmed. Besides Faryon’s neighbors and their children in the Rancho Penasquitos neighborhood of San Diego, the party drew musician Larry Zeiger, who recently released the jazz CD Meetchu in Machu Picchu; Schindler’s List survivor Laura Hillman, who wrote the memoir I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree; and Simon’s son Mayo, a Hollywood screenwriter turned playwright, whose works include Old Lady’s Guide to Survival, which drew on his mother’s story.
*
Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World