HELPING LAKE HIGHLANDS CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING SINCE 1947.

Marching In.” Nightly, he attracts a singalong audience, says Libba Byrne, who works at the residences.

“It is fun and I enjoy it, and people seem to enjoy my playing,” Tip says.

Sometimes he feels down, he admits. “But then I grab myself and shake myself out of it,” he says.

Life, even as a nonagenarian, can be an adventure.

“At Christmas we take a little trip around White Rock Lake to look at the lights. It is something to see.”

This Christmas Day will be his 95th birthday.

Last year, Tip attended the dedication of a memorial marker honoring J.D. Tippit.

Tip sat beside his friend Jim Leavelle, the homicide detective who was escorting Oswald when Jack Ruby shot him.

Sure, he says, he longs for some of the people and things now gone. He sometimes wishes things had gone differently or that he could renew severed relationships. But the way you feel, he says, “It is in your head. I am going to make the most of being alive.”

–Christina Hughes Babb