“Now, I really don’t want to complain,”
Said the birthday girl known as Loraine,
“But that powerful twist
Of the cap in your fist,
Was a gift that upstaged the champagne!”
~
Although she asked for no gifts on her 100th birthday, I couldn’t resist giving Barry’s Grandma some champagne with custom labels celebrating the big day. After we admired them, I put them in her refrigerator. The next day, before we left for the airport, I asked if she’d like Barry to open one of them for her to enjoy later. “Oh, yes, yes, yes!” she said, delighted. It’s not that she can’t buy her own champagne, she just doesn’t have the hand strength to open it once she gets it home.

Two years ago, when she was only 98, I wrote about Loraine in a piece entitled, The Life of the Party. She is the inspiration for the infamous toast started by the late Bill Brown, “Here’s to Loraine,” which we have used all over the world whenever we drink something festive.