Ancient Wisdom: At 96, I Still Live a Great Life

At 96, almost all of my old friends are dead apart from one, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. I often use a walker because my balance is “substandard.” My back hurts all the time. I suffer from peripheral neuropathy, which makes my fingers and toes numb. And despite a lifetime of exercise and eating right, I have had a heart attack and am living with a pacemaker and four stents. Thank God for modern medicine.

All that said, would I change anything? Absolutely not. I have lived, and still live, a great life.

I was asked recently how my perspective has changed as I’ve gotten older, and I realized that it really hasn’t. I love sayings, and the one that applies here is “the old truths may be old but they’re nonetheless true.” The world has changed a great deal, but I have always been an independent thinker and followed a basic code of conduct: Be honest, respect others, focus on what you want, and work like hell to get it. Being 96 hasn’t changed that at all; it’s not for nothing that my business card reads “Jack Miller, Retiree—Sort Of.”

I grew up in Chicago and was in school during the 1940s when the country was at war. Patriotism was in the air. We collected and donated tinfoil from cigarette and chewing gum packages. Gasoline and some foods were rationed. My dad’s gasoline ration was three gallons per week. When we went to the movies on Saturday afternoons, we saw the newsreels that showed the battles in detail. We cheered every victory.

I always had a passion for hard work. I held a variety of jobs from grade school on, from setting pins in a bowling alley for seven cents per hour to delivering dry cleaning on my bike. I ushered in a movie theater, and delivered turkeys during Thanksgiving from my father’s poultry store. Later, I washed dishes for 75 cents an hour, packed railroad freight cars with 70-pound sacks, dug ditches with a jackhammer, and even modeled for art classes. My bathing suit stayed on.

Exercise became another passion around this time. At the age of 13, some friends and I pooled about $20 to buy a set of weights. From then on, I have never stopped working out.

At 18, I went to University of Illinois but had no money, so I worked through the school year and all summer. I took the largest course load I could each semester. I had no time to date, travel, or make new friends. I graduated three and a half years later with no debt, no social life, and no idea what I wanted to do next.

I went to work at my dad’s chicken store for a few months to give me some time to think things over. Then I decided to go out to Oregon to be a lumberjack. I got a gig delivering a car from Chicago to Oregon but instead of taking the most straightforward way, I drove the famous Route 66 to see the country. I delivered the car in time, but the owners were pretty upset about the extra mileage I racked up along the way.

I decided that lumberjacking wasn’t such a great idea after all so I took the train back to Chicago. After I returned, my uncle offered me a job at his company as a salesman. My territory was basically half the country—from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean, and from Canada to Florida.

The world has changed a great deal, but I have always been an independent thinker and followed a basic code of conduct: Be honest, respect others, focus on what you want, and work like hell to get it.

Those five years as a salesman gave me a real education, my MBA in business. Being on the road some 45 weeks a year, calling on distributors, and working with customers taught me more about how business in our country works than any business school course.

When I was 25, my brother Harvey was talking to an old girlfriend and handed me the phone. “Here, why don’t you talk to Audrey, you might like her,” he said. I did. After five or six dates, Audrey wrote me a note that said, “You are a nice guy and I’m a pretty nice person and maybe we should get married.” That sounded pretty good to me.

We got married on October 25, 1954. With her love and support, along with a $2,000 loan from my father-in-law, I put my focus on my next big project: selling office supplies. After traveling around the country as a salesman, I figured office supplies were the one thing everybody needed.

The wholesaler I was getting my supplies from gave me some advice. He told me that there were over 100 office supply companies in the Chicago area—and that I shouldn’t start a business selling what a bunch of others were already selling. So I did exactly what anyone in their 20s would do and ignored him. I began calling on businesses to sell pens, paper, and thousands of other items.

The business grew, and I made sure the employee culture was inculcated with principles I cared most about: honesty, service, and respect. And it worked. That did not always mean a profit, but we earned our customers’ loyalty, and word spread. My brothers joined me. We treated people fairly, corrected our mistakes, and listened to our employees. Over the next 40 years, we built my little business, Quill, into one of the largest office products distributors in the country. We had 800,000 customers when we sold it in 1998.

My life has encompassed over a third of our country’s history, and I’ve always believed this country is exceptional.

When I think back on that time, though, I don’t think of the deals and big numbers. I think of Audrey. Four years before we sold our business, Audrey passed away from cancer. Nothing prepares you for that, no matter how old you are. One of the regrets that I have in my life is that during the time she was battling cancer, I kept working the same long hours I always had. I should have spent more time with Audrey, especially toward the end. To this day, I look back and am very sad that I didn’t spend more time with her, learning more about her thinking and emotions and, more importantly, showing her how much I loved her.

I will never get that time with Audrey back. But fortunately, I did find love again. A few years later, I met and married Goldie Wolfe, a business success in her own right and a continual inspiration. She is one of the most successful commercial real estate brokers in the country, and she keeps me on my toes. We have a wonderful blended family, with seven great-grandchildren. I’m not sure what I would do without her.

I am grateful for my successes in life, but I’m also grateful to live in a country that gave me the freedom to pursue my dreams.

My life has encompassed over a third of our country’s history, and I’ve always believed this country is exceptional. I saw us fight and win the Second World War. I saw Martin Luther King Jr.’s march for freedom. And I’ve also seen America survive some dark days, from the devastating impact of the still-active Ku Klux Klan in my early childhood, to the McCarthy era and the Red Scare, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War. I was 34 when President Kennedy was assassinated and 45 when President Nixon resigned because of the Watergate scandal.

After selling my business, I knew that I wanted to give back to this country that has given me so much. I began to explore how I could improve civic education in our schools. I wanted to be sure that coming generations would have the same opportunities for the American dream that I was given, and I believe that begins with education. I started a nonprofit organization called the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles and History—which has a long-winded name, but has made great strides in rebuilding the teaching workforce at American universities and in teaching millions of undergraduates—and K–12 teachers—about about our founding ideals and history at a time when they are largely disappearing everywhere else. After 20 years, I stepped down as chairman, but I remain active in strategy, fundraising, and communications as a board member.

In other words, I am still working and have a mission I am dedicated to. In this case, the hard work isn’t hard. In these turbulent times, I am glad to be doing my part to help ensure students leave school knowing our history and what we as Americans hold in common.

At 96, I do give myself more leisure time these days. Of course I can no longer play handball, a deep passion for about 30 years, nor can I ski, play tennis, or even golf anymore. But I still swim or lift weights just about every day, and Goldie and I watch a movie every night before bed. I still read books and talk and correspond with scholars whose ideas intrigue me. You don’t stop being interested in the world around you just because you’ve gotten old. My mind and enthusiasm remain strong.

Do I think of death at my age? Of course I do. I realize that I could go at any time. Then again, I think of Moses, who lived to be 120. That gives me a little hope that I might still have time to accomplish more. My brother and I bought a large family plot where our parents and wives are buried. There’s a place for me next to Audrey and another place on my other side for Goldie, who is 17 years younger than I am, and which I hope remains empty for years to come.

I often recall Frank Sinatra’s song “My Way.” I like to think that it reflects my view of life. I would like it played at my funeral because I think my life is something to celebrate, not to mourn.

And now, the end is near
I’ve lived a life that’s full
Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention
But more, much more than this, I did it my way.

It’s been a great life. And it’s available to others if they want it. Find your passion, then pursue it with honesty, focus, hard work, and unwavering respect for others. It will pay you untold dividends. It just might get me to 100.

Jack Miller is the founder and chairman emeritus of the Jack Miller Center.