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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, December 15, 2002

You're never too old for Santa

By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer

HAWAI'I KAI — Lyle Tope can barely see through eyes clouded with cataracts and has trouble keeping his 80-year-old hands from shaking. But time hasn't stopped him from showing his Christmas spirit in a big way.

Lyle Tope, who goes all out decorating his cottage lawn, hopes to display his vintage train set and mini-village someday.

Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

His doorbell chimes "Jingle Bells." A toy soldier and reindeer are on his lawn, and he has strung 30 sets of colored lights over the hedges and on his cottage at the Hawai'i Kai Retirement Community.

Then there's the vintage train set in his garage. An electric train chugs a figure-eight around a miniature Christmas village.

"This is the original Lionel train that I've had for 51 years," Tope said. "I just ordered a Burlington Zephyr. The hardest thing right now is not being able to see. I can't read or write. I can just sign my name."

Tope brought along the trains and the decorations for his Christmas displays when he moved out of his Kailua home and into the retirement community 1 1/2 years ago. Tope is one of the few residents who go all out decorating at Christmas, said Gail Strom, Hawai'i Kai Retirement Community regional manager.

"When I was a youngster, I didn't have anything, no toys," said Tope, a career military man who settled in Kailua. "So when I grew up, Christmas became a big deal for me. I always loved trains.

"I got my first electric train when I was 30 years old."

Tope would like to make his train display available to the community to see, but he said there are insurance issues that he has yet to resolve.

Tope is a highly decorated retired Marine Corps colonel who served 33 years in the military, flying 6,124 missions in three wars before retiring in 1973.

"He's put together with spit," said his friend Charlie Edelstein.

"He fights not to use the walker. He's a fighter."

Every year, starting in October, he sets up his Christmas decorations: tinsel strung from the ceiling, an artificial tree with another train set, and strands and strands of lights.

In the garage, trophies earned in a lifetime of military service share space with the train set. The miniature village scene includes a drive-in theater, a Santa on a sled, a locomotive that shoots out smoke, cable cars and a Goodyear blimp.

It's no less spectacular inside the two-bedroom cottage he shares with his wife, and a live-in health aide. Christmas decorations are everywhere. The stereo blares "White Christmas."

This year has been particularly hard on Tope. His eyesight is practically gone because of the diabetes-related cataracts. On Wednesday he will go in for eye surgery. It's something he has been putting off. Doctors tell him he has to do it now.

"So either I'll be able to see or I'll be blind," said Tope.

Even so, very few residents get into Christmas as much as Tope does, Strom said.

"Lyle loves Christmas," she said. "It's pretty evident."

Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 395-8831.