I recently had the pleasure of recording my first interview with a centenarian. Jeanette Bigelson, a 103-year-old Coney Island resident, shared the secret to her long and happy life.
"Well, I love nature. In a past life, I must have been maybe a bird. I don't know. I like looking at clouds. When I had good feet, I used to walk on the beach with my-- you ever walk on a beach with your feet in the water? It's delightful. It's delightful and sometimes that sand is so clean. You think you're walking on a carpet, no sand, no pebbles, no nothing. And then you sit down on the rocks and you let your feet dapple in the water and listen to the waves cause when the waves roll in, it's music. They talk to you."
You can listen to the full interview in the Coney Island History Project oral history archive.
Many thanks to JASA Older Adult Center in Coney Island, which Bigelson calls her "second home," for arranging the interview.