Mary Bird, 78, says age doesn't matter as long as you have your health. She says she’s “headed for 100.”

“My great-grandmother lived to be 103 and I want to outdo her,” she said.

Bird has accomplished a lot in the latter part of her years. At age 66, she graduated from the University of South Alabama and garnered a degree in English with a concentration in writing and a minor in psychology.

When the new Harry Potter book recently came out, Bird decided to buy it to see what all the excitement was about.

Her philosophy is “We learn something every day.”

Bird volunteers once a week in the surgery waiting room at Thomas Hospital Medical Center in Daphne. She says while working there she sees “all these people that need my help.”

“One of my favorite things — and this is just one of my favorites — that I do is I make and can jelly and pear preserves,” Bird said.

Once a year, pulling her specialties in a wagon, she takes homemade bread, jelly and preserves to the Veterans Home in Bay Minette. That is just her way of thanking the vets for serving.

In 2003, Bird was crowned Ms. Senior Baldwin County. She says the pageant celebrates the age of elegance for women over 60. An offshoot of the pageant is the Cameo Club, which entertains at places such as nursing homes.

She has played the role of “Thelma Lee”, an aspiring singer who was “gaudy with red stockings” in a humorous skit.

Just last year, Bird took her daughter on a hot air balloon ride that lasted an hour.

“I’m a doer. If you challenge me I’ll try my best to do it,” she said.

Recently, she went up on her roof to clean it and trimmed the trees. She drives to the Thomas Hospital Wellness Center for water aerobics to help with her knee and hip replacements.

”I do almost everything and anything by myself. I’m very independent,” she said.

When she’s not climbing up on her roof and volunteering, Bird writes.

Growing up with five brothers and one sister in Chatom, Ala., Bird describes what her childhood was like in her first book, The Playing Tree and Other Short Stories.

She read the book, which is now out of print, to residents at a nursing home. She said the nurse told her not to expect a reaction from the residents. Surprisingly, she said, they positively responded.

“When I asked if they had ever had a tree like that, a dialogue was started,” she said.

She said her audience could relate to some of her memories and also had a playing tree.

Currently, Bird is writing a book titled The Resting Place, which she has pegged a romantic comedy.

Bird has four children, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Though she has lived in other places, she said she has always “wound up back here.”

“I love Spanish Fort,” she said. “I was here before it was incorporated. It’s a nice little bedroom community.”