90 Years of Pere

Yesterday, we celebrated Pere's 90th birthday at Bolete, a new restaurant located in the old Seidersville Inn. It had been a stagecoach stop two hundred years ago.

This photo of Bolete Restaurant and Inn is courtesy of TripAdvisor

It is found by going up and over South Mountain in Bethlehem, then west along Seidersville Road to what TOF can only assume is Seidersville. The chef is nationally rated and he changes the menu daily depending on what he has on hand. If you don't see what you want on the menu, you can ask and he will whomp it up for you, if he can.

Pere at 90, with girlfriend Jo

 The prices are correspondingly expensive, but hey, you're only 90 once, right? So TOF and the Incomparable Marge split the bill with Sean and his wife, Dana. Pere offered to chip in, but we told him to keep it in his pants, meaning his wallet. The food was excellent and we toasted the birthday boy with a variety of beverages. Other bros were unable to make it from Colorado, and so they will try to come out on Pere's 100th birthday.

His favorite birthday was 70 years ago, for on that day he boarded a troopship to leave Iwo Jima.

Young Joe -- Now 90.

Now, Pere had been saying all year past that he was "in my 90th year," but as he did so, the conviction grew on him that he would not live to meet the actual date. Not that he was poorly. His doctor tells him that he is the "poster boy" for the nonagenarian set. But he thought he would get in a car accident or something. So he has been very careful of late. He must have been sore disappointed to reach the appointed date unscathed. Now he can cut loose, TOF supposes, and Let It All Hang Out.

He recalls being told that on his birthday the snow was freshly drifted halfway up the windows, for those who think there is something unusual about the weather these days. The doctor had a tough time getting to the house -- and that is different today. Doctors long ago stopped making house calls. This was before home births became fashionable. Back then, it was pretty much the standard.