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Friday April 13, 2007

J. volunteer doesn’t let age — or bike messengers — get in her way

by joe eskenazi
staff writer

It’s not unusual to shrug off being struck by a racing San Francisco bicycle messenger.

But it is when you’re 96 years old.

“Nothing hurt at the time, so I told him to go on,” recalls Jennie Green, the dean of j.’s volunteer staff.

“I sat down on one of the benches for a while to collect myself and I noticed that my wrist had swelled. So I walked over to Sacramento Street and got on the No. 1 bus and went to the emergency room.”

Wouldn’t calling a cab have made more sense than waiting for the bus?

Not to Green. “Why would I call a cab? I never know how long it would take. And I knew I could hop the bus and it goes right past the hospital.”

And that, in a nutshell, is Jennie Green, a tough-as-nails native of the Bronx who’s been answering j.’s phones since they were rotary. She’s been volunteering at j. since the Reagan administration.

Those who call j. on Tuesdays might be surprised to know the woman who picks up the phone was born before — and outlived — the Soviet Union. And if you attempt to pay her a compliment, you’ll quickly become acquainted with her sardonic wit.

Jennie Nadler was born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1911 (two years later, the local baseball team would change its name from the Highlanders to the Yankees) and grew up in the Bronx.

Her father was a tailor and her mother a homemaker; she had three siblings, none of whom are still living. Her mother died at age 68 and a brother died when he was only 49, but other than that the Greens regularly reach their 80s and 90s.

“It’s good genes,” she says. “I don’t know what else to attribute it to.”

When she was 23 years old, Green took the Overland Express to San Francisco to visit a sister. She never left. In fact, she hasn’t even moved.

Green still lives in the Outer Richmond, in a downstairs flat that her late husband, Seymour, built out in the avenues.

“I’ve been living there 74 years,” she says in a whisper, as if speaking any louder of such a remarkable tenure in one residence would induce a shock.

“The neighborhood has hardly changed. It’s all residential in my area.”

That’s undoubtedly true, but Green no longer has to deal with crowded streetcars carrying passengers out to Sutro Baths or sandy remnants of the dunes that once covered all of western San Francisco, blowing through the streets.

Seymour Green died Nov. 23, 1963 — the day after the Kennedy assassination — when he had a heart attack. Green never remarried and now is the proud matriarch of a family stretching down to her six great-grandchildren. (“The Girls,” twin great-grandchildren Amalia and Sarah, turned 8 this month.)

While most of Green’s needs are met by the Nos. 31 and 38 buses, she has some outings planned for this year. The highlight may be a Caribbean cruise with the family celebrating her daughter’s 50th wedding anniversary.

Other than that, Green still lives on her own and is well-known in the neighborhood. She’s been volunteering at Argonne Elementary on 17th and Cabrillo for more than 20 years, around as long as she’s been coming into j. Many of the kindergarteners she met in her early days are now college graduates.

“I enjoy being with the people at j.,” she says. “It takes me out of the house and gives me something to do so I don’t stagnate.”

Stagnate? She’s looking great!

Jennie smiles and unfurls her caustic sense of humor (no compliment will go unpunished).

“Oh, you’re such an apple-polisher,” she says with a smile and a roll of the eyes.

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