After a decade of answering questions, David Kraft posed some of his own: “Why do women vote for Donald Trump? Why do Hispanics vote for him? Does his wife really love him?”
It was a day of indignation for Mr. Kraft, whose 93rd birthday is six months away. He was in the sunroom on the seventh floor of an adult day care and rehabilitation center for seniors in the community of Jackson Heights, Queens. Sciatica had made his lower right back release a sharp nerve pain, and numbness on his frail, discolored hands. A heart condition prevents him from walking up more than four stairs. He easily dozes off. His eyeglasses slide down the bridge of his nose, falling into an underwear-filled tote bag his wife sent. Combing his hair wasn’t an issue, as an aide had cut it short.
“This is a dream, it didn’t happen,” he said, speaking about the results of the United States presidential election of 2016. “It’s a fake story.”
But zoom out, and he was the healthiest of the 280 patients. Mr. Kraft, who had served in the U.S. Air Force on a B-17 bomber plane for 37 missions over Germany during World War II, was in a nursing home following two tragic falls this year. He was ten street blocks removed from his snug, 1954-apartment and life partner, Shirley Kraft.
“I told Shirley: If I fall again, let me lay on the floor because I ain’t coming back here again,” Mr. Kraft said. “No way, oh god.” But moving to the South isn’t an option either. He chuckles, saying, “Florida is a great place to live, if you’re an orange.”
According to the 2015 report conducted by the United States Census Bureau, approximately 2,339,150 people reside in the Queens County of New York. Since 2010, the percentage of persons 65 years and over has increased to about 13.8%. In recent years, the borough of Queens has seen an increase in senior citizens in the community, including Mr. and Mrs. Kraft.
“The most signaled event of my life, aside from being born and loving my mother,” he said, “was when a friend of mine called me and said: I am going out tonight. This friend had a friend, and I said OK to a blind date. That date was Shirley, 62 years ago. We went to Jones Beach, where they had an orchestra show. But we were just sitting there, talking and laughing. This was Labor Day of 1953, and seven months later we were married.”
“People look for secrets when I tell them how long I’ve been married,” Mr. Kraft said. “What’s the secret? I tell them: There’s a secret and I’ll tell it to you but it won’t help you.” The secret is Mrs. Kraft. “Gotta find your own Shirley,” he said.
Mr. Kraft, a true romantic, says that his wife instantly clicks with people. This sociality has pushed him to become a grandfather figure to all the children in his building. He knows everyone by name. He knows the age, occupation of every young and old person, both at home and in the care center. Mr. Kraft said that one of the secrets to life is: “Being responsive to people. People want recognition. We all want recognition.”
A phone is in his shirt pocket. He is waiting for a call from his geriatric doctor, cardiologist, nephrologist or ophthalmologist. Years of medical appointments have led him to conclude: “There are no secrets to the human body. A heart is a heart here, in Mexico and in Poland.”
Despite his medical issues, Mr. Kraft is still quite self-sufficient. He cuts his own food. He shaves. He holds and reads newspapers and books without assistance. “There is much to life,” he said. “You are lucky if you keep it all.” At 92, he remains mentally active and stimulated. He vigorously reads everything. Since his first magazine subscription in October of 1945, Mr. Kraft has never missed an issue of The New Yorker, he said with great pride. He is a jokester. His humor springs from the magazine’s cartoons. He roars over a cartoon in the August 8th, 2016 issue, which pictures a saying on a tombstone: “I can’t believe I ate all that kale for nothing.”
Now Time Magazine, The Economist, and Vanity Fair are on his lap as well. It takes him three days to finish a Vanity Fair issue. He takes pleasure reading all the “crap” written and the anti-Trump articles, especially the Editor’s Letter by Graydon Carter. “That is the President who children are going to look up to,” Mr. Kraft said, frustrated. “People should say: See the President, spit on him. He’s not the President.”
Accompanying Frank Sinatra’s Everything Happens To Me, he recites a verse in his baritone voice: “And every time I play an ace, my partner always trumps.” Mr. Kraft is an absolute Sinatra aficionado. I can’t sing that song anymore,” he said. “It’s got that word. Trump is a profane word. We need to teach our children to never say that word.” He continued: “Trump is talking about this business of deporting people. How about we deport him?”
Mr. Kraft knows the arrival and departure times of planes at LaGuardia National Airport. He sits. He stares. He reminisces. “Those were the days we thought would never end, but they do,” Mr. Kraft said. “The key is not to dwell on them and take each day as it comes. Find something to laugh about, and laugh; find something to cry about, and laugh.”
Mr. Kraft is set to leave the nursing home and be reunited with Mrs. Kraft on March 1st. “I’m picking myself and starting all over again,” he said, humming to Frank Sinatra’s Pick Yourself Up song.
