Monserrate Hosts Birthday Fete For 103-Year-Old
City Councilmember Hiram Monserrate (far r.) presented a cake to John Custis (c.) in celebration of Custis' 103rd birthday.

\In what has become an annual tradition, City Councilmember Hiram Monserrate celebrated the birthday of John Custis, who this year is 103 years old. For the past four years, Monserrate has presented a cake to Custis on his birthday. "It is incredible to see how happy Mr. Custis is and how much exuberance he embodies after being alive on this planet for over a century! He puts things in an incredible perspective for me- I'm less than half his age and when I take a look at Mr. Custis, I know I have more than halfway to go!" Monserrate declared. Monserrate stated that he will continue to celebrate Custis' birthday even after he leaves office because of the joy he gets from "being around a person who being a hundred and three years old is still young at heart".

When Custis was born in 1905 the cost of a first-class stamp was two cents, Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt was president, and Einstein published a paper formulating the theory of relativity. On Feb. 7, 1905, Oklahoma was admitted to statehood. On May 15, 1905, Las Vegas, Nevada was founded. In that same year, Rotary Club International was formed in Chicago and two of Mark Twain's works, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, were banned from the Brooklyn Public Library for "setting a bad example".