As many of you know, I seek out “Gutsy” people and when Posie showed up, I couldn’t resist.
Posie is a clown, but not your ordinary clown. She’s a 99-year-old clown. (More photos of Posie )
Her real name is Marie Kellogg, and guess what? She’s a world traveler, scuba diver, business entrepreneur and wisdom giver.
When people interview Posie she says, “You’re here because I’m a clown, right? Or do you just want to know the secret of a long life? Well, I’ll tell you both. There’s no secret. “Have fun and keep breathing.”
The problem Posie has these days is her hearing, and with one hearing aid in each ear Posie is concerned. “You’ve got to be able to hear,” she says, “especially with little kids. A clown has to talk to her people.”
When asked about travel, Posie says something truly inspiring:
- People think they can be too old to travel.
- I’ve got the time to do it.
- I’ve gone by myself, with friends and in groups.
- You experience life better when you go.
What a brilliant piece of advice from Posie. I believe travel benefits the mind, and that seeing other places and experiencing new cultures helps you get out of your comfort zone. As you can hear in my podcast with Robert MacPhee, travel makes it easier to take risks and overcome your fears.
Posie visited Africa two years ago and says:
“When you see how little people really need, all the stuff you want doesn’t make sense anymore.”
Once again, Posie and I are in agreement. Living in a third world country is the best way to learn the difference between wants and needs.
Not only does Posie have eight passports, each a reminder of her travels from London to Australia, but she’s also planned a cruise to Hawaii in March, 2012. I love the fact that Posie is looking for a date, and find it interesting how people’s expectations change with time.
“If you know a 90-year-old man, let me know. But he has to be able to walk, and it would be nice if he could still drive.”
Here’s what Posie had to say about her first time para-sailing a few years ago:
“Oh, you don’t do nothing except stand there and let them hook you up.”
Then she discovered scuba diving.
“I was in the water with Cousteau. Not Jacques but his son. I was in seventh heaven looking all around.”
Posie or perhaps I should call her by her real name, Marie Kellogg, was born in 1912 in Kansas.
Life hasn’t always been easy for her. She married a widower with four children when she was 24, and raised his children. She always wanted her own children but tried for sixteen and a half years, and never conceived.
She worked hard in a man’s job in those days, running a gas station.
“I sold more fan belts than anybody,” she says. “In those days, women weren’t supposed to work, and my husband said he wouldn’t trust a woman to do a lube job anyway.”
Her husband died of pancreatic cancer when Kellogg was only 40. She had very little money and no income, so she moved back with her siblings and disabled mother in Kansas City. But Kellogg was a sharp business woman and started small. She bought her first apartment, then the one above and below her. Then she bought a fixer upper house.
“I have enough money. It’s not everything, believe me.”
Her real joy in life is to dress up and perform as a clown. Although she no longer performs as a clown, her main reason is make-up:
“It kept drifting into my face cracks and, well, I looked scary…You know, noses never wrinkle?”
But as a clown, Posie is ageless, although she states:
“I hope to hell I don’t live to be 107. My doctor says I’m depressed. But I’m realistic. I’ve lived a fun life with good times, and why would I want to stick around for the bad part?”
Photo credit and the entire article linked here:
“What’s so funny about turning 99? Ask Posie the clown. “
Please share with someone in your life who needs uplifting. Do you know any “Gutsy” people you’d like me to interview?
Please contact me.
