Jack Spengler Laughs With His Eyes at 95

Jack Spengler was born in Buffalo, New York in 1930. He shares his decades with a lightness that feels almost subversive in a climate that so often feels like rain on the day you planned the picnic—even testing the dispositions of those who keep the glass a quarter full and steady eyes on the silver linings behind unexpected clouds. Jack carries a pragmatic joy, as if he shook hands with what he couldn’t control, making friends with both rain and sunshine.

He jokes about skipping school with the sparkle all young rebels should take instead of tarnishing in the years to follow. Those memories sit on the shelf next to tales of hitchhiking with a group of friends, all making sense as he lists the names of adventure stories he liked to read. Jack is a movie guy. He remembered seeing movies for ten cents, his brother always making sure it was a special experience. The smile on his face as we gushed over one of his favorite films, “King Kong,” was as big as the

Eighth Wonder of the World himself on the Empire State Building, planes circling, cinematic history being invented in black and white.

He danced, too. Lindy Hop, Charleston, jitterbug—dances that seemed more like musical, magic tricks to me. I don’t think Jack ever second- guessed his place on the dance floor; this itself a kind of magic, even

winning a waltz contest once (second place, he’ll clarify).

By the 1950s, Jack trained as a welder and spent thirty years with Ford Motor Company, working in construction rather than assembling cars. He and his wife, Mary Jane, raised three children—Kim, Jill, and John. “Don’t get married too early,” he advises without bitterness. Jack spent the after work & weekend hours gardening— planting corn, tomatoes, beans—raising chickens, dachshunds, and Maltese dogs. He taught himself French and then Spanish after reading that there would be more Spanish speakers in the America ahead, walking past meeting halfway in the language of his neighbors to come.

When asked about the world now, Jack doesn’t make a sweeping statement, diagnosis, or a past-to-present comparison. He doesn’t use new technology much. He exercises, eats simply, likes chicken for dinner, spumoni ice cream, and a hot mocha when his daughter Kim takes him to Richard’s Coffee.

He believes young people today are smarter than he was, and he says it without irony. His advice is spare: be tolerant and keep a sense of humor. To answer my favorite little doorway to the unknown… “Have you ever witnessed anything you couldn’t explain?”

Once, driving in daylight, he saw what he thought was a meteor, bright, unmistakable, gone. He doesn’t feel the need to explain everything. He does believe there’s life beyond this planet. “There would have to be,” he shrugs, noting that the universe is too big to be certain.

At ninety-five, Jack Spengler doesn’t offer advice by way of word-to-the-wise warnings or definitive conclusions on how life is best lived. What he offers instead is something rare: proof that placing value in learning, a premium on humor, and a willingness to arrive fully—again and again—can carry a person all the way to the smile I’ll bet he is wearing right now.