At 101, Mel Rines contemplates a life well lived

When Mel Rines turned 100, he sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” to a crowd of loved ones. Over his lifetime, his baritone voice has been heard over the radio of fighter jets, in choirs and throughout the town of Weston. Almost two years after that celebration, Rines sat down with his daughter Marcy Venezia to reflect on his life.

Rines is a long-time Weston resident. He and his wife Mary Jo raised three children in town. He volunteered with municipal matters and helped build sets for the Weston Friendly Society. He was a member of Boston Saengerfest Men’s Chorus, which practiced at First Parish Church. Rines helped fund the art gallery there, the Rines Gallery. It is named for Mary Jo, who was a watercolorist.

The two moved to Weston on the recommendation of his coworker while he was working in finance in Boston. The couple were living near Kenmore Square, and Rines’ colleague suggested a few locations, including Weston and Manchester-By-The-Sea. The two visited the former one Sunday and fell in love with an English cottage on Conant Road.

“I love Weston,” Rines said. “I was newly married and living in Boston. I decided I was going to get out of there.”

Before settling down in Massachusetts, Rines served as a United States Navy pilot. He had a lifelong passion for flying. As a child in Berlin, New Hampshire, Rines would spend hours at the closest airport watching planes and trying to get a glimpse into the lives of pilots. The chance to fly would finally come as he entered adulthood.

The United States joined World War II while Rines was a student at the University of New Hampshire. He enlisted in the Navy so he could train to fly. He spent two years training to receive his golden wings as a naval aviator. He was slated for additional training with the Grumman F6F Hellcat, a fighter plane, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan. Rines celebrated V-J day in Jacksonville, Florida, before he was ordered to California to help downsize equipment and facilities. Rines wrote about the experience in his memoir “ Flying High: The Story of a Fighter Pilot.”

“It was like waiting to take the field for a football game, and having it summarily canceled – relieved that I hadn’t been injured or lost the game, but disappointed that I hadn’t had the chance to compete,” he wrote.

He was recalled during the Korean War, where he learned to fly jets in addition to the prop planes he became familiar with in the 1940s. During that time he took part in 55 combat missions, according to his memoir.

Between the wars, Rines got his degree from the University of New Hampshire. He spent many years with the securities firm Kidder, Peabody & Co. He was also involved in international development and traveled to Africa to convince investors to put money towards infrastructure across the continent.

He has also helped with development back in the United States. He helped create the Rines Angel Fund at the University of New Hampshire, which funds small, emerging companies, and trains students in capital investment strategies and provides direct experience in finance.

When Rines came to Weston with Mary Jo, they first moved to Conant Road before later building a home elsewhere in town, where he still lives. Mary Jo drove him to the Kendal Green stop every day for his commute into Boston. Venezia recalled that the family would arrive at the depot just as the train was about to leave the station.

“This happened day after day,” Venezia said. “At one point, the conductor yelled out … ‘If you set your clock two minutes earlier, we wouldn’t have to go through this every time.'”

Trains were not the only mode of transportation with which Rines has had a less-than-friendly relationship. Venezia and Rines’ wife both rode horses on the trails in Weston. Rines would take the occasional trip, but they did not always end well. On one ride, he made it to the town border before he lost his seat.

“It went well until we got to the next town,” Rines said. “But the horse and I parted.”

Rines injured his ankle in the fall and refused to get back on the horse. The beast found its own way home, alerting Venezia that something had happened. She picked up her father in the family car.

Although Rines’ riding days are behind him, he stays active. Rines exercises with weights twice a day alongside his caregivers. Breakfast is cereal – something that contains wheat, oats and bran – with nuts, yogurt, berries and bananas. Rines has avoided processed foods throughout his life. To this day he has not known the siren’s call of a Big Mac.

Throughout Rines’ life, he said that he had tried to seize every opportunity as it came. From his younger years to now, he has lived by a specific motto: “Be bold. Aim high. Work hard and have fun.”