One day, as a joke, my dad (Milo Steinborn) went to a palm reader. The woman told him that he'd live to be 95. Well, he knew that she said that just so he'd give her a good tip.
Years later, when he was making some good money, he went to buy a watch. The salesman asked him if he wanted it inscribed. When my dad asked him what he meant, he said, "You know ... name, social security number, birthdate." My dad says, "I'll tell you what. Put 'Milo Steinborn, born March 14, 1893, expected departure ... and he added 95 years to 1893.'" The guy did it. It was the kind of rib my father loved.
Over the years, he delighted in showing the inscription to his friends, but as he showed it to more and more people, the more everybody kept talking about it. By the time he was eighty, he had told so many people, that everyone that came into his office would say, "Hey, Milo. You're gonna live a long time. How old are you gonna be?" He'd say, "I'm gonna live to be 95. Look at this watch." It really got to be a positive thing.
As it came toward the end, a couple of months before he was 95, I walked into his office and joked, "Daddy, you only have a couple more months." He said, "I know it." When I first saw it back in the '40s, I jokingly told him, "You're nuts!" He only laughed ... yet the irony of that prediction is that it actually happened!
My father died on February 9, 1989. He was 95 years old!
