D-day

Old habits die hard. That rings true for French barber Roger Amilhastre.

“I love this job, it’s in my bones,” said Amilhastre from his shop in the small southern town of Saint-Girons in the foothills of the Pyrenees, Agence France-Presse reports.

“And despite my age, my hands still don’t shake,” added the 90-year-old. France’s national hairdressers’ union believes Amilhastre may be France’s oldest active barber. His father opened the shop in 1932.

According to the national statistics institute INSEE, a little more than half a million people over 65 still work in France. In the southern region of Occitanie, where Amilhastre lives, 1.65-percent of people over 70 are still working, including 190 79-year-olds. But the statistics do not go beyond that age.

Meanwhile, Jack Milton of Adelphi, Maryland, USA belatedly received his Bachelor of Arts diploma from the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) last 30 April.

Milton was taking classes at UMGC in the mid-1960s while working at the Pentagon and he earned the requisite credits to get his diploma in 1966 when the former Air Force pilot was called to duty in Vietnam.

Fifty-eight years later, UMGC gave Milton a surprise birthday gift, a graduation ceremony on the campus attended by a few dozen family members and friends.

“I hereby confer upon John L. Milton the degree of Bachelor of Arts with all the rights and privileges thereto and pertaining. Congratulations!” Gregory W. Fowler, PhD, UMGC president, told Milton in front of the small audience, Fox 5 DC reports.

“I’ve had many ceremonies throughout my life, fortunately, to celebrate many occasions but this has to be the tops,” said the 100-year-old veteran of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War on the day he received his diploma, according to Fox 5 DC.

WJG WITH AFP @tribunephl_wjg