The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man

Von Drehle connects White’s positive mindset to his ability to persist through challenge. According to Von Drehle, these traits helped White overcome obstacles. They created success and happiness in his personal and professional life, making him a role model.

Von Drehle includes numerous anecdotes which demonstrate White’s positive attitude and how it helped him identify solutions to his problems. For instance, as a youth stranded in California, a determined White decided that he could hop trains all the way home. In spite of the danger and inconvenience of such a method, White’s good spirits helped him to both cope with and enjoy the experience of traveling perched on train cars. Von Drehle writes: “The boys must have known that beyond that scene their journey would have its drab denouement amid scrub and prairie […] For that glorious moment they were brother knights of a splendid kingdom. ‘Well now, what could be more luxurious?’ said Charlie to Ed, or Ed to Charlie. We have a car all to ourselves’” (74).

White’s positivity was also essential to White’s survival during the Great Depression. While he easily could have been distraught about his poverty and low pay, White chose to see his job as a calling rather than a mere paid profession, allowing him to overcome his circumstances and treat his patients.