Liv­ing right­eous­ly and liv­ing a clean and pure life are the se­crets to liv­ing a long life ac­cord­ing to Hu­bert Lewis who cel­e­brat­ed his 102nd birth­day to­day.

To cel­e­brate his con­tin­ued mile­stone, Lewis was vis­it­ed by the Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox at his Fyz­abad home where he has been a res­i­dent for the past 77 years.

Lewis told the Min­is­ter that he feels ho­n­oured to cel­e­brate his 102nd birth­day.

“It means a lot that God spared my life to make it to 102. As long as the Lord per­mits me I will be here, might be a day, might be a day and a half. No­body knows,” he said.

Dur­ing the vis­it, Lewis told the Min­is­ter that he was a welder for the Tesoro Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny for 45 years be­fore he re­tired.

Shar­ing fond mem­o­ries with the Min­is­ter, Lewis said that long ago were love­ly days.

“I grew up in Grena­da, For­est Re­serve, and Fyz­abad. In Grena­da, I re­mem­ber tak­ing the an­i­mals to the sea and bathing them. I used to ride hors­es and don­keys there. In the For­est Re­serve I spent my days. I went to school there, learnt trade and start­ed work­ing. How­ev­er, it was in Fyz­abad that I spend my work­ing life and played lots of foot­ball. School days were love­ly days. and I had a good time. My mar­ried life, I en­joyed it and now, here I am to­day,” said Lewis.

Cox was al­so sur­prised to learn that be­sides cook­ing, the fa­ther of eight chil­dren, grand­fa­ther of 15, and great-grand­fa­ther to nine com­pletes most of his tasks him­self.

He fur­ther not­ed that so­ci­ety has changed over the last 100 years. Ac­cord­ing to Lewis, “We have more ac­cess to in­fra­struc­ture such as lights, wa­ter, phones. Many more com­mu­ni­ties have de­vel­oped al­though we do not com­mu­ni­cate as be­fore. Peo­ple tend to keep to them­selves and mind their busi­ness. Peo­ple long ago were more lov­ing and car­ing. We used to ride bi­cy­cles long ago which is now re­placed by ve­hi­cles. We could have left our hous­es and gates open and go out but not now. There is so much se­cu­ri­ty in homes now. Prices of goods were much cheap­er than now. We nev­er used chem­i­cals in food as is done now. Nor­mal­ly we had to go to Port of Spain for things like birth cer­tifi­cates but now it is cen­tral­ized. The sky­line of Trinidad has changed and tech­nol­o­gy has trans­formed the world.”

Cox then com­mend­ed Lewis for pro­vid­ing a rich and de­tailed chron­i­cle of his life stat­ing that she is look­ing for­ward to his 103rd birth­day cel­e­bra­tion to which he re­spond­ed, “I’ll be here.”

Cox then pre­sent­ed Lewis with a fruit ham­per, his Cer­tifi­cate of Ho­n­our and Achieve­ment, and a birth­day cake by the Kiss Bak­ing Com­pa­ny.

Cox fur­ther told the cen­te­nar­i­an who suf­fers from glau­co­ma, that as part of the Na­tion­al Cen­te­nar­i­an Pro­gramme, he will re­ceive a health check-in from rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty in his area.

The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices said it was pleased to ho­n­our Lewis as part of the Na­tion­al Cen­te­nar­i­an Pro­gramme.