Joe Parenti celebrates more than a century of birthdays, By JoAnn Baker WEST MILFORD Uncle Joe, as he is fondly called by the staff at Van Dyk, celebrated his 103rd birthday on February 1. He is sharp as a tack and twice as chivalrous. In 1904, Salvador Dali, Dr. Suess and Cary Grant were born and on Mott Street in New York, so was Joseph Parenti. It was the year the ice cream cone was invented, Longacre Square was renamed Times Square and Teddy Roosevelt won the presidential election. A pound of sugar-cured ham cost 11 cents and The Daily Record sold for a penny. It was, by most people’s standards, a very long time ago. Parenti went to school until he was 15. But when his father passed away, he became responsible for providing for his family. They had moved to Paterson by then, and a neighbor got him a job driving a public bus. He made $35 a week. He immediately became interested in mechanics and soon got a job in an automobile repair shop. Parenti owned the first four-door automobile in Paterson, which he bought used from the Erie Railroad Company for $20. “People always recognized me, because it was the only one,” he said, “and, you know, it had curtains instead of windows, so I always had to be careful to close them.” Parenti, who was called “Slim” by those that knew him, soon bought his own shop and was a self-employed auto mechanic for the next 50 years. “I was able to work on any kind of car,” he said “It was like, nothing ... like a gift, I could just open the hood and figure out what the problem was, even when no one else could.” He bought and sold several businesses but remained in car repair his whole working life. He liked to hunt and bought land in upstate N.Y. where he went with “the boys.” Once, he traveled to Canada for a moose hunt. He got one, he boasted, and “it was delicious!” His advice to young men, he shared, is “don’t go looking for a wife. She’ll just walk into your life one day and it will be beautiful.” He bases that on his own experience. He and his wife were not successful at having children and she died early of cancer. “One day I realized I couldn’t open the door to that empty house again,” he said. And so he sold the home he had built with her and moved on. “She was my one love,” he remembered sadly. But he soon shook off the despondency and doled out some wisdom. “Wealth isn’t about money and people find that out too late. A million dollars doesn’t make up for family.” Parenti has extended family with whom he keeps in close contact. He is particularly fond of his nephew, Teddy, who lives in West Milford and visits him often. When asked what the secret to his longevity might be, he tilted his head and responded, “I’ve asked my own self that question many times.”