At 105, Richard Hamilton is still on the move

Richard Hamilton doesn’t look, or act, his age — which as of Tuesday is 105.

“He acts like he’s 50 years old,” said James Blanks, 85, Hamilton’s next-door neighbor at the Oaks of Lynchburg.

Hamilton is the oldest resident at the assisted-living home on Murrell Street, where he is known, among other things, for a ready supply of one-liners like this one:

“They haven’t thrown me out yet.”

He’s also known as a man on the move. He makes his bed every morning, and walks the parking lot at the Oaks, where he has lived since 2007, “twice a day on average.”

Not surprising for a guy who mowed his own lawn until he was 102.

Ten years ago, his doctor told him to start walking for exercise. “Next time I saw him he asked if I was walking and I said, ‘a mile a day.’ He said, ‘Well, keep walking.’”

Hamilton walks to the retirement community’s front desk every day, too, to visit with the women there. “He always tells us how good we look,” laughed Holly Williams, office

manager at the Oaks.

“I have learned so much from him from just sitting and talking with him.”

“He usually … talks about his childhood and farm.”

Hamilton was born on June 30, 1904, on a farm in Appomattox. He had to leave as a teenager, after a disastrous hailstorm ruined the tobacco crop in 1923.

“We didn’t have a leaf,” Hamilton said. His family lost the equivalent of a year’s salary and he went to work in Lynchburg to help out.

“I always said I left on a Tuesday and was replaced by my brother on Thursday,” he said, referring to his brother’s birth.

Hamilton worked for Craddock-Terry for 12 years and then worked at John P. Hughes Motor Co. for 40 years. He retired at the age of 70 in 1974.

Longevity is a family tradition. His parents lived into their 90s, and three of his 11 siblings — ages 85, 86, and 91 — are still going strong.

Hamilton celebrated his birthday Tuesday with a second cake and about 50 visitors. He had his first birthday cake on Sunday at Charley’s restaurant with his family.

His granddaughter, Susan Hagreen, came in from Seattle, explaining, “I haven’t been here since his 100th birthday.”

His daughter, Carolyn Puckett, said, “It’s wonderful to live for so long and still have the memories that he has.”

Julia Ramsey, his daughter, said, “He’s an inspiration to all of us — we’re blessed.”

Hamilton has always been self-reliant — he maintained a garden where he grew “anything you’d want to eat,” he said.

Anything he didn’t use he gave to his neighbors, who looked after him while he lived on his own for 15 years after his wife passed away in 1992.

Ramsey said a neighbor would put the newspaper on his porch in the mornings.

The concept of neighbors didn’t stop when he came to the Oaks.

“We check on each other,” said Blanks. He and Hamilton share a bathroom that connects their two rooms. “We became friends the first day I came here.”

What did they do? “A lot of walking.”

Hamilton has made quite a few friends at the Oaks.

“I eat at a table with four women,” he boasted. “They keep me straight.”

Not bad for a guy who doesn’t always act his age. “I always say my wife raised two girls and one boy,” he quipped, “but we only had two girls.”