The invitation came through email. Would you like to have lunch with Art Fusaro, a lifelong Cincinnatian, on his 101st birthday, March 14? Why, certainly. What local history buff could pass that up? Art greeted me in the lobby at the Kenwood retirement community in Madisonville, where he lives in the Bluffs, the independent living apartments on the campus.

Close friends call him Fooz, short for Fusaro. “My full name is Armando, but no one uses that – including me,” he said. Seeing him maneuver, I would peg him for 20 years younger than his age. The neighborhood had a power outage that morning, so the Kenwood was operating on generators – the elevators worked but the automatic doors didn’t. And no power to the kitchen, so our planned lunch became sandwiches and Cokes.