

IRVINGTON — Old man Mitch can't stay in the house, not even for a little bit, not even when the coldest day of this year had our teeth chattering.

You’ll never catch Mitch staring out the window from his home in Irvington.

He’s a 99-year-old throwback who makes hay while the sun is shining. That’s an old-school little saying that means you’d best get your day started the minute your feet hit the floor in the morning. With Mitch — his real name is Walter Mitchell — the ground doesn’t get a chance to stay cold. And neither does the road between Irvington and Newark. Mitch is out there most days, driving shoppers home from the supermarket, filling his day with purpose and keeping himself busy.

“That’s why I’ve lived so long,” he says. “If I wasn’t doing this, I probably would have been dead a long time ago.”

After a plate of hominy grits, some sausage and toast that he cooks himself, Mitch is out the door by 9:30 a.m., headed to the Supremo Food Market on Springfield Avenue in Irvington. Minutes later, you’ll find him in the parking lot, in his beige Kia, waiting for his regulars or whoever needs a ride. Sometimes the wait is minutes. Sometimes it’s hours. But he doesn’t care.

Walter Mitchell waits in the parking lot to give someone a ride. Walter Mitchell drives to stay alive and to keep busy. He's a 99-year-old WWII veteran who spends his day driving Irvington shoppers home from the supermarket.

The best part is that he does it all for free, unless riders give him a tip. And if they don’t, that’s fine.

“It’s not about the money,” he says. “It’s something to do to keep my mind occupied.”

He waits patiently, his eyes scanning the parking lot through thinly framed glasses. If he gets antsy, he’ll jump out of the car — showing no signs of his age — and check the oil underneath his car hood.

Sometimes he stands at the entrance of the store or walks up and down the aisles looking for riders.

This day, he’s got on a tweed cap and a hooded sweatshirt beneath a worn, Navy blue peacoat, tan corduroy pants and sturdy black work shoes.

“We call him the Godfather,” said Charlie Rimpson, who sells videos by the store. “We look out for him. We don’t let nobody bother him.”

When somebody signals him that they need a ride, Mitch is on the move, pushing shopping carts aside, clearing a path to his car.

“He’s very efficient,” said Elrica Francis.

She used Mitch for years when she shopped for the restaurant she owned years ago on Lyons Avenue in Newark.

“I congratulate him,” said Francis, speaking on his longevity. “There is always something in your genes from your family to live this long.”

Loraine is another regular who has been riding with Mitch for 20-plus years.

“I think if he stops, inactivity would put him down very soon,” she said. “I think it’s great that he’s so alert and has his health.”

It’s hard to nail down how long Mitch has been out there because he’ll give you an “aw shucks” look when you ask. But those who know him say it’s got to be 30 years or more at stores between Irvington and Newark.

“He out there like the rent is due,” said Grady Davis, an 80-year-old friend. “He goes back to the 1970s.”

Let’s see, there was the drugstore on 10th Street in Newark, the A&P on Nye Avenue, the Foodtown on 14th Street.

It’s all in a day’s work for this World War II Army vet born in Summerville, S.C., in 1914.

Work is pretty much all he’s known in a life absent of smoking and drinking. Mitch says that when he lived in Charleston, S.C., he was on his own at age 18. He found work as a laborer in the naval yards until the Great Depression. “Some people would say I’ll be back to pay you at 12 o’clock on Saturday,” he said. “On Saturday, you don’t see them.”

After his tour in the South Pacific, Mitch headed north, leaving behind Jim Crow laws in the South, where he rode the back of the bus and got served at the rear entrances of restaurants. He made his way to Newark in the 1940s and worked at an electric company in the Ironbound for 31 years.

Retirement came in 1978, launching his driving career with the public. It was sporadic, he says, at first. He got sick, then he had to take care of his wife, who died about 11 years ago. They were married 66 years.

He lives with her son, whom he raised as his own when they were married in 1937.

Mitch drives six days a week. On Sundays, he’s in service at Greater Abyssinian Baptist Church in Newark, where he is a member of the usher board.

The neighborhood landmark who turns 100 on Valentine’s Day says he doesn’t know how much longer he’ll do this. And he doesn’t think about it much, either, when he pulls out of the parking lot with customers in the back and front seats.

Whatever he decides, make sure you move quick and catch him if you can. It’ll be a ride you’ll never forget.

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