Betty Paxton at Work

     If you ever have occasion to shop at Safeway in Astoria, you have probably encountered Betty Paxton.  She’s the rather short gray-haired woman with the big smile who offers to carry your groceries out for you.  Or, you might have seen her gathering up shopping carts or picking up litter in the parking lot.
     Yesterday we stopped at Safeway on our way to Longview and were just in time to see a half dozen employees raising a balloon embellished banner just inside the main entrance.  “Happy 96^th Birthday Betty” it said.  We knew immediately who it was for.  And just about then, in she walked, totally surprised.
     “I thought since my birthday was on a Sunday this year I’d get away without all this,” she laughed.  “Last year was enough!”  She was referring to the celebration for her 95^th which involved lunch with the Mayor of Astoria and the Vice-President of Safeway.
     Betty is the oldest employee in the entire Safeway chain – that’s 1743 stores located in western and central United States and western Canada as well as a few stores located in the mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern Seaboard, according to Wikipedia.  It is the tenth largest retailer in the U.S.   I don’t know their employee count but it must be “quite a many” as my mother would say, and all of them are younger than Betty.  I would be willing to bet that fewer than half of them have her verve and energy.
     Betty lives in Long Beach and drives back and forth to work each day.  She loves her job and says she especially enjoys offering to carry groceries for people she knows are “only” in their seventies or eighties.  “It keeps me feeling young,” she says.
     She is a true role model and I feel privileged to know her!