John's lived enough for two lifetimes
- Mike Hanley
"There were battles when we would lose 10 or 15 men out of a unit of 35. If you lifted your head above the corn, they'd blow it
 off."
- John Close
SIMCOE — John Close was sitting on the sixth-floor balcony of his apartment and talking about his childhood, a war, two marriages, four daughters, farming and retirement.
He talked for more than an hour, but now it was time to move on.
"I've got a bridge game to go to," he explained. "I play three times a week. It keeps my wits alive."
He grabbed a walking stick and headed for the door.
"The body doesn't work as well as it did when I was in my 80s."
95th birthday
John is a couple of months shy of his 95th birthday.
His daughter called recently to suggest he might make an interesting story.
Dad disagreed.
"I'd just be wasting your time," he warned. "There's nothing interesting about me."
That's not quite true. Maybe he didn't live his life in the fast lane, but he was seldom in neutral. He negotiated enough peaks and valleys to fill two lifetimes.
He has a remarkable memory. Many of his stories were happy, some sad, but none dull.
He was born in Mitchell Ont., July 4,1896. He was four when his family moved to British Columbia and 10 when they returned east to Brantford. He was 14 when his dad died and 16 when his mother died.
He moved to Garnet, near Hagersville, where he lived on a farm with an uncle and aunt. He enlisted in the army in March of 1916 and was fighting in the First World War before Christmas.
He remembers a particularly bloody battle in France when he was trapped behind a skinny tree.


"Wishing it was bigger," he says. "Shells were bursting all over."
One bullet knocked the end off his rifle, another hit his leg and left through his back.
He was patched up and sent back to fight another day.
Not all of his comrades were so lucky.
He remembers many young friends who were either killed or maimed by enemy bullets.
"There were battles when we would lose 10 or 15 men out of a unit of 35."
He recalls one fight when his company was under heavy fire. His sergeant suggested they surrender but John refused.
"The sergeant had been conscripted and some of those conscripted guys didn't have a lot of fight in them."
While the sergeant was surrendering, John was crawling on his belly, through a corn field, with 11 of his friends in tow.
"If you lifted your head above the corn, they'd blow it off."
He made it to safety and so did 10 of his friends.
"I didn't know the 11th guy had been hit or I'd have gone back for him."
His actions earned him the Distinguished Service Medal.
"I got a medal just for being stubborn."

He returned home and went back to work on his uncle's farm. He started his own sideline when he captured a swarm of bees.
"My aunt told me how to do it the right way. She said they wouldn't sting. They did."
He saved enough to buy a farm in 1925, married a few months later and had four daughters.
"We had our children during the depression. It costs $4 a day at the hospital and $25 for the doctor. I did my chores during the day and sold honey at night. I earned enough to bail my wife out of the hospital.
"The doctor was surprised to see the cash, he said most were trading beef for his services."
His wife died in 1938, leaving him with four daughters between two and eight years old. He hired a housekeeper and continued farming. He got extra work after the army set up a camp near his farm.
"They wanted me to build a bridge. I asked them 'why me?' They said they'd been told I was very resourseful."
When the bridge was no longer needed, they gave him the lumber that had been used in the cribbing. He used the lumber to make forms for a silo.
"People said it couldn't be done but that silo is still standing today. I rented the forms out for $5 and 19 more were built."
After his daughters married, he met a couple of nurses and offered
to build a fence at their Port Dover farm.
He built the fence, helped with the farming and fell in love with one of the nurses.
"I was trimming an apple tree one day when she asked me why I hadn't been around in awhile. I told her 'truth is, I'm in love with you. But I'm 17 years older than you and I don't think you want an old man on your hands."'
She did and they were married.
Married
"We were married 27 years before she died. And that's not too bad when you think I was 66 when we got married.
"But cancer got her. She died on that very same chair you're sitting on."
The second nurse is now his housekeeper and companion.
"I manage to keep pretty busy," he says.
"I have two bridge games during the week and Friday is my night out with the girls.
"They pick me up and we play bridge at each other's house."
He had a retina problem that caused him to stop driving at 92. Otherwise, he's in the peak of health.
"I see the doctor every spring and fall. He checks me over, pats me on the back, and says, 'See you in six months."'

John Close, 94, keeps busy playing bridge.