Our dear friend Fred Petrucelli celebrated his 100th birthday last weekend.
It might seem like an April Fools’ Day joke because he doesn’t look or act 100. He could pass for decades younger.
He is well-read, well-spoken and has a great sense of humor.
Fred has been a journalist for more than 60 years, and my husband and I met him when we worked with him at a previous newspaper. Fred also wrote sports and news for the Arkansas Democrat before it became the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The last story he wrote was published in a magazine just a few weeks ago. Seriously, is that a Guinness World Record?
He also served in public relations for former Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller. Suffice it to say, Fred can tell some great stories. He’s been a Kiwanian and played the role of Kampus Kop in the University of Central Arkansas’ Torreyson Library Murder Mysteries that his wife, Lillian, wrote and directed for years.
We formed the Centennial Committee and started planning his birthday gala months ago, but he resisted a big to-do, like the surprise party we’d given him, and his also-amazing wife, 15 years ago. (Their birthdays are just about a week apart, but she is quite a bit younger.)
The compromise was for an Italian family dinner at their church, St. Peter’s Episcopal. Fred flies an Italian flag on his deck, and he is a connoisseur of Italian food. Luckily, he married a great cook.
I wish I had a dime for every time I, or someone who knows Fred, has said, “He’s amazing.”
He’s known as a wordsmith without equal. I can tell without looking at the newspaper or magazine byline that it’s a Fred story by reading the first sentence, which might include the word vicissitudes, ensconced or milieu, or all three.
I’ve had to look up words he uses more than once, but he always uses them perfectly.
On one of the three birthday cards I bought him, I assigned a word for each letter of his name to describe him: fun, remarkable, erudite and debonair.
He is those and so much more.
At the dinner, my husband, David, made a wonderful, unscripted toast, which I wish I had videoed. He talked about how Fred and Lillian aren’t related by blood to many people at the party, but we’re family, just the same.
It was wonderful meeting Fred’s children and four grandchildren, who are seriously talented. When they started singing together and playing guitars and a ukulele, my jaw dropped. I didn’t expect them to be that good. Another friend brought his guitar, too, and performed.
Fred’s grandchildren presented him with a medal that was engraved with a mustache and glasses and the words “League of Extraordinary Grandfathers.”
Quick-witted as always, he said, “Wonder how much I could get for this at the pawn shop?”
We had a wonderful Italian feast, a birthday cake, music and singing, and mingling to meet and match faces with names we’ve heard for years. It was absolutely magical and ended too soon.
We’re already making plans for his 101st birthday.
We have known Fred for almost 30 years, and we have had some fun adventures.
We honor him for his friendship this year and his amazing life. There aren’t enough words in his thesaurus to describe what he’s meant to all of us.
That’s no joke.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.