by Thaddeus Flint
Howard Walters, celebrating his birthday last Saturday night with a crowd of family and friends at the Bennington Station House Restaurant, looked pretty spry for a man of 95 years.
“I don’t drink, and I don’t smoke,” said Walters about the secret to his longevity.
“He has his own private line to God, too,” chimed in a daughter.
Walters smiled and shook his head, “That helps,” he said.
Walters was born in Rutland, Vermont, in 1916. “They called us Ridge Runners back then,” he said. In 1940 he joined the Vermont National Guard. A few years later the second World War brought him to the Solomon Islands in the western Pacific. Being a baker, he arrived, luckily, after the invasion. Even then life was no piece of cake. “We were playing cards on Guadalcanal one night. A big black snake crawled right in the tent with us! Well, I grabbed a machete and cut it in half. The other guys had run away before I was done,” Walters said.
Love brought Walters to Petersburgh after the war. “I had married a Petersburgh girl, so that’s where I went,” he said. He has been a resident ever since. He has two daughters, one on Long Island and one in Albany, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. If he had to do it all over again, he imagined the only thing he would do differently was to make sure his family lived closer. Did Walters have any words of advice for the youth of today?
“Stay off the dope!” he said.