96, AND WITH YEARS TO SPARE.

Byline: BETTIE RENCORET SENIOR COLUMNIST

PALMDALE -- Victor White was there as usual for Palmdale Brunswick Bowl's June 19 seniors' bowling day.

He went into his stride, sent his ball curving down the lane to dump nine pins. He waited for the ball return, then, without missing a beat, he sent it down again and took out the spare.

It was a special day for Victor. He turned 96 on June 13 and on this Monday all his bowling buddies threw a surprise birthday party for him.

There were balloons and one whole table filled with presents, including a teddy bear. In another room there was a lunch buffet, complete with a birthday cake.

As he opened his gifts and showed his appreciation for each, one of his friends asked him how it felt to be 96.

``One more birthday? I'm glad of that,'' he said with a grin.

His daughter, Rosemary White, who lives with him, said: ``He'd really like to live to be 100. I think he just might make it, too. His doctors are amazed at what good shape he's in.''

``Yes,'' he said, ``I'd like to make it to 100 as long as I feel good.''

Rosemary said his doctors attribute his good health to his attitude.

``They say that it makes a big difference when an aging person keeps doing something that he really likes to do,'' she said.

``Dad's bowled all his life. Right now he has a 140 average and two weeks ago he bowled a 204 game. He comes down two days a week, Mondays and Wednesdays, and loves every minute of it.''

``I don't set the world on fire, but I bowl a decent game,'' he said.

Rosemary drives him to the bowling center now because he recently decided it was time to surrender his driver's license.

``He didn't have to. He's a good driver,'' she said.

Victor was born in 1910 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He lived there and in Oregon and Washington.

He met Doris Dalby in Salt Lake City while they were both employed at the Federal Reserve Bank, which was a branch of the San Francisco Reserve. He courted her for two years before they were married in 1935.

Their union produced four children, two sons and two daughters: Rosemary; Howard, of Paoli, Pa.; Robert, of Portland, Ore.; and Deloris Strong, of Salt Lake City.

Victor was only a boy during World War I, but he recalls how all the people in his city collected peach pits for the soldiers.

``They had to wear gas masks because of the poison gas and every soldier needed the peach pits to put inside the mask to filter out the nerve-damaging elements,'' he said.

From 1954 to 1978 Victor worked in the Office of Examinations as chief examiner for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.

In 1978, he retired. Doris died in 1980, at the age of 67, from complications after surgery.

Rosemary said her father is a ``nurturing and tender-hearted man, who cherishes and supports women in all their endeavors. He was very good to my mother.

``I think that stems from the fact that he really loved and respected his own mother,'' she said. ``Long before it was a normal thing to do, his mother and father divorced. She went back to school, got a college degree, became a schoolteacher and raised him as a single parent. He's always admired her courage in doing that.''

He's been a baseball fan forever, she said, and a Dodgers fan since 1981.

Menus for the week at the senior life nutrition sites in Lancaster and Palmdale have been announced. All meals include bread, margarine and coffee, tea or milk, for a suggested donation of $2.

Monday: Hot dog, baked beans, potato salad, coleslaw, apple pie.

Tuesday: Independence Day!

Wednesday: Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, Normandy vegetables, cottage cheese with pineapple, cookies.

Thursday: Hot turkey sandwich, mashed potatoes, parsleyed carrots, tossed salad, Jell-O with fruit.

Friday: Pastrami sandwich, potato salad, corn nibblets, coleslaw, pears.

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Victor White, who turned 96 on June 13, celebrated at Brunswick Bowl in Palmdale on June 19 along with daughter Rosemary.

Bettie Rencoret/Special to the Daily News