A LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

The photograph below came to our attention recently when a copy of the Jan. 6 issue of the York (Maine) Weekly turned up in the office. According to the column and a half story accompanying the picture, Charles W. Plaisted, obviously a reader of TIME, was about to celebrate his 100th birthday. To satisfy our curiosity about Mr. Plaisted, who may be the oldest reader of TIME extant, we asked Jeff Wylie, chief of our Boston bureau, to see him on his farm at York Corner, Me.

Charles Wesley Plaisted turned out to be an alert, laconic, genial gentleman who has no idea how he got to be 100 years old. Nor does he attribute his longevity to anything whatsoever. "If you stay well, you don't make any count of the years," he said. "I don't feel any different than I ever did, although I'm not so strong now."

York Corner is two miles from the Atlantic Ocean at York Harbor, now a popular summer resort and the locale of one of the finest beaches on the Maine coast. Charles Plaisted was born in his father's home on nearby Cider Hill and, like him, became a farmer and a Democrat. He has voted in every Presidential election since 1872 (Ulysses S. Grant v. Horace Greeley). He married the girl next door, and they were together for 64 years until she died. Although his nephews now run the 125-acre dairy farm, "Uncle Charlie" insists on doing his share. He likes to work. Last summer he helped with the haying and last fall dressed a deer one of the boys shot. He would like to do the milking, too, but they won't let him.

At 3:30 in the afternoon of the day Wylie was there, Uncle Charlie lit out for the barn as usual to do his chores. A yearling bull had caught his right foreleg in his rope, and Farmer Plaisted shoved him around with his shoulder and tugged at the rope until the foot was free. He inspected the 14 milk cows, loaded two wheelbarrows with manure and dumped them on the dung heap outside. After cleaning out the horses' stall, he called it a day, apologizing for his lack of energy.

Although he is not a TIME subscriber, Uncle Charlie follows a pattern of reading common to many TIME families. He awaits his turn. The family subscriber is a niece, Mrs. Earl Smith, who lives nearby. She began reading TIME at the local library, liked it, and became a subscriber. A tall, handsome, grey-haired woman, whose husband is deputy sheriff, Mrs. Smith told Wylie that she turns to Science and Medicine first --partly because her son, who is away at school, is particularly interested in those subjects. Then she reads National Affairs, and so on through each issue. "You can't keep up with what's going on today without TIME," she said. "I can read things like People and 'Manners & Morals' while I'm stirring a pudding. Then, if we're studying China or India or some subject like that at the church, I can always read up on it in International or Foreign News before I go to the meeting."

By the time Uncle Charlie gets his copy he is more than ready for it. He reads four daily newspapers: The Portland Press-Herald, Boston Herald, Boston Globe, and the Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald. He also reads other magazines. Having been around long enough to recall the news of Lincoln's assassination and to see Americans march off to four wars, Uncle Charlie has a longer view of the news than most people. He admits, for instance, that Russia is a threat to the U.S., but he wants to wait awhile before making any prognostications about it. "You can't hurry events," he says. His gift for keeping his own counsel applies also to the periodicals he reads, although he did allow that he thought TIME was "a good magazine."

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