He rode a Harley-Davidson motorcycle for 40 years, lived all over the United States and got a tattoo for a dollar when he was 17 because he didn’t think it would last so long.
As it turns out – 84 years later – the tattoo is still around and so is Scott Dillon.
Dillon edged a little further beyond the century mark last month when he celebrated his 101st birthday.
Originally from a small town in the panhandle of Oklahoma, Dillon went to live with an aunt in Chicago when he was 8 years old. She was an antiques dealer who traveled a lot, so she sent him to a military school in Minnesota.
“I was too young to remember her name, but I went to the St. James Military School for eight years,” Dillon said.
During World War II, Dillon said, he worked in a shipyard in Tampa, Fla.
“I did any job they had to do,” he said. “I was the head of a gang of welders. I took the blueprints and read them and let the welders do the work.”
He describes himself as “a jack of all trades and master of none,” noting that he has done plumbing, electrical and carpentry work at different times over the years.
During the 1950s when he was living in Miami, Dillon owned a 65-foot schooner. He took out charter parties, visiting Nassau and Bimini in the Bahamas and Cuba. He recalled that on one trip to Cuba, gun turrets lined some of the streets. It was at the time that Castro was fighting with the dictator Battista.
“I tried to get Arthur Godfrey to go sailing with me, but his secretary wouldn’t let me talk to him,” Dillon said. “Trying to get to him was like getting to the president.”
Dillon came to Orangeburg about 25 years ago.
“A friend of mine asked me to come,” he said. At the time he was living in Florida by himself and going back and forth to North Carolina. That’s when he met his wife, Lois, a lifelong Orangeburg resident.
“It was love at first sight,” Lois says.
Dillon’s favorite TV program is “The Price is Right,” and he likes to watch the trains that frequent the tracks near the Jolly Restmore Residential Care facility, where he is the oldest resident.
“I watch the trains because they are very long and the horsepower on the engines fascinates me,” Dillon pointed out. “One engine can pull about 100 freight cars. I think that is very powerful. An automobile won’t even pull one.”
Dillon has a secret to his long life.
“I consider myself a vegetarian,” he said. “I can’t think of any vegetables I don’t like; I like them all. And, cornbread is also one of my favorite things to eat.”
Dillon said he eats small portions of food and never, ever has ice.
He has high praise for his caregivers at the residential care facility, where he has only been for about eight months.
“They’re doing a good job. They feed me and give me my medication,” Dillon said.
When Erika Ilic gives him a shower, he says with a twinkle in his eye, “Good as new #) see you next week!”
His other primary caregivers are Elnora Mack and Shirley Glover. Glover cooks the cornbread he loves so much.
“Since we have been his caregivers, he has become a father figure to us,” Glover said. “Just to watch him every day going about his daily activities has been a blessing.”
T&D Correspondent Loretta Demko can be reached by e-mail at eeshtenem@yahoo.com. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.