Forget about sitting out his later years relaxing in a rocking chair. Jack Thomas might be 90 years old, but he’s still putting in a full day’s work.
Thomas, a clerk at the Royal Square Safeway, may well be the oldest general clerk in Safeway’s history, but he doesn’t look at the job he’s held for many years after most people retire as drudgery. Instead, he sees the benefits of keeping busy and earning a few bucks to supplement his pension.
“I am happy here. I love doing what I am doing, I really do,” he said earnestly. “I look forward to coming to work.”
While many workers dream of retiring at 65 – or younger – Thomas has never aspired to reach Freedom 55.
“Fifty-five?” he said. “You are just a kid at 55. You’ve got a lot of living to do.”
Thomas, who turned 90 on Sept. 30, started working at Safeway when he was 72. A general clerk, Thomas stocks and organizes shelves on the graveyard shift two or three nights a week – and has no plans to retire anytime soon.
“I feel good. You are exercising all night long, you are walking all night long. You are up and you are down, your arms are going. Time goes so fast.”
If you think Safeway makes concessions because of Thomas’s age, you’d be wrong. Watch him work, and you’ll see for yourself as he moves with ease around the store.
“He is not accommodated in any fashion. He is just an amazing guy. He’s up and down. It’s a fairly physical job, lifting heavy totes off of pallets and stocking them to the shelves,” said store manager Steve Nicoll. “Honestly, he is one of the harder working people in the store. Forget his age. He is a super reliable guy.”
Coworkers are equally complimentary about Thomas.
“He’s better than the young boys,” said one co-worker. “The young boys can’t move like him.”
“He’s a good co-worker,” said another. “Everybody loves him.”
Thomas said his decision to continue working is a combination of needing to make money and wanting to keep busy.
“I am paying rent. You’ve got your cable and your hydro, the same as anybody else. You’ve got your bills, you’ve got your car payment and car insurance. There are never ending bills,” he said. “Everybody is in the same boat.”
Work ethic started early
Hard work is nothing new for Thomas, the youngest of four boys born to Phillip and Jean Grace Thomas, who owned a 320-acre farm in Holland, Man., about 90 miles away from Winnipeg. When Thomas was a boy, the farm didn’t yet have a tractor so planting and harvesting crops like wheat, oats and barley was done by hand or with help from horses.
In the winter, the Thomas boys would travel up to three miles to cut down trees, haul them home with a team of horses and a sleigh, have dinner and fetch another load of trees to fuel the furnace and stove. Some days, the boys would walk two miles to get to school; other days they’d take the horse and buggy.
“I got as far as into Grade 9 and that’s when mother passed away,” said Thomas, who was just 13 when his mother died of a stroke at the age of 50. “That was devastating. That’s not supposed to happen.”
Moving on from the farm
Eventually, Thomas left the farm when he was still a teen, living in Winnipeg and Calgary, and then arriving on the coast in the 1950s.
His eclectic resume includes work as a cook, a ballroom dance instructor, a travelling salesman and a parking lot attendant.
In Vancouver, Thomas landed a job at the Pacific National Exhibition, where he worked for many years and enjoyed perks such as seeing performers like Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra and Dolly Parton and guarding the Stanley Cup in 1982.
“Some nights you’d work a football game and it would be over if it was an early game, and then you’d race to the Coliseum because there was an event on there and they were short staffed. You’d get eight, maybe 10 hours. You could work seven days a week,” he said. “We used to have the car shows, the boat shows. Everything was at the PNE.”
After being hired at Safeway, Thomas continued to take time off so he could work as a night foreman at the fair every summer.
“I loved working the fair,” he said. “There was just so much going on.”
Then came marriage
Vancouver was also the place where Thomas met his wife Claira, whom he married in 1964. The couple, who had never taken a honeymoon, vacationed in Hawaii in the winter of 1978, soaking up the sun and enjoying their three-week stay in a beautiful beachfront home.
“That was super,” Thomas said, smiling at the memory. “In the spring of 1979 my wife had a stroke. That was bad.”
Despite rehabilitation, Claira never recovered from the effects of the stroke, losing her ability to speak and movement on the right side of her body.
“She was in the hospital for 25 years before she passed away,” Thomas said. “They gave her good care. It’s a lot of work. You are working and you are visiting, working and visiting for 25 years. It was rough.”
Life keeps him moving
Thomas, who suffered a heart attack in 1974, had quadruple bypass surgery in October 2004. A month later, Claira died.
“That was a rough time. Then again, you have friends to rely on. That’s where good friends come in,” he said. “You turn the page. I am doing what I want to do. I am happy. You can’t cry over spilled milk.”
These days, regular walks around Central Park in Burnaby, outings with friends and his job at Safeway keep Thomas on the go.
“People always say, what’s your secret? I can’t say there is any secret,” he said. “Be yourself. Know what you are capable of doing.”
While Thomas said his 90th birthday was “just another day,” he was pleased to celebrate with co-workers at Safeway. He also celebrated with relatives, including some who flew town for a birthday celebration.
“Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you,” he told the Record a few days after being called to set up a time to meet for an interview. “I was busy partying on the weekend. It was just a blast.”
