A Smart man celebrates his 100th year

Turning 100 is one thing; maintaining active, daily involvement in one’s life passions is quite another — and it’s what makes the life of John Smart all the more impressive.

On May 6, Smart will become one of Malverne’s more well-known centenarians — but not because of his milestone birthday. It just so happens that he is one of the village’s more loyal servants, with a record of roughly 50 years of volunteer service in the Boy Scouts, the Community Presbyterian Church, Malverne’s recycling effort and much more.

Smart was born in 1915 in Los Angeles, where his father was a Hollywood set designer. The family moved to Jamaica, Queens, when John was a boy. Since the public school system in Jamaica was overcrowded, he was sent to the Stony Brook School, which he credits with having taught him about the important things in life. With the exception of the years he spent overseas in the Army, Smart has attended every school Homecoming since he graduated in 1934. “The school’s motto was, ‘You have to do something for someone every day of your life,’” he recalled. “That kind of stuck with me.”

Smart earned a degree in banking and finance at New York University, and worked as an accountant for an international construction company, which also employed his father. Together they traveled around the world, helping the company build hospitals, airstrips and housing projects. John was drafted into the Army during World War II, and served in the Philippines.

In 1952, Smart started a new life in Malverne with his late wife, Anna, and his children. He landed a job in Pfizer’s international pricing division, and settled into his new hometown.

When his son turned 8 and joined Boy Scout Troop 24, Smart became a Scout leader, and he remains involved in the troop’s activities to this day. “He is probably one of the most generous people I’ve met in my life,” said Joe Resch, a Malverne resident and Troop 24’s scoutmaster, “and he still wears his old Boy Scout uniform at the annual Memorial Day Parade.” Resch added that Smart always marches with the troop in the parade, and it’s only in the past year or two that he’s had to limit himself to marching only part of the route.

After the parade each year, Smart invites all the troops to his house for hot dogs. “Way back, the kids renamed them Smart Dogs,” said Resch. “It’s become our annual tradition.”

In addition to Scouting, Smart coached his son’s Little League team, which won the championship in his first year of coaching. “But the second year, we didn’t win a game,” Smart recounted, shaking his head.

His other volunteer efforts included several years in the Malverne Police Reserves. “We had five platoons,” he said, “and every Saturday and Sunday we would direct traffic before and after church services.”

Smart also volunteered at Malverne’s Community Presbyterian Church, leading a recycling program from 1975 through the late 1980s, when recycling was barely on the environmental radar. Sixty percent of the money he collected from his recycling efforts was given to Troop 24, and 40 percent went back to the recycling program. The effort ultimately led to his taking a leadership position in Malverne’s recycling program under Mayor Catherine Hunt.

Gardening is among Smart’s passions, and each year he contributes freshly grown produce to the church thanks to his mobile vegetable garden, an invention that grew out of his recycling efforts. “I had a baby carriage that I couldn’t recycle, and I tried to figure out what to do with it,” he said. He ultimately used the carriage’s wheelbase, a 4- by 8-foot sheet of plywood, and other materials to make a moving platform for his plants that he could shift with the sun. He grows so many vegetables this way, he said, that he can’t eat them all, so he donates them to the church, where people purchase them in the form of donations. It’s an effort he is still involved in.

Nowadays, Smart enjoys life as a Florida snowbird, plays nine holes of golf on Mondays, and is still active in many organizations, including the American Legion. What’s his secret to a long, fulfilling life?

“Always have a plan,” he said.