LA MESA (CBS 8) - It's a Monday night at Fuddruckers in La Mesa, and just consider the possibilities.
The South Bay Jazz Ramblers are here for their monthly gig. With a name like Fuddruckers, you know it's got to be good. The packed house is cutting a rug when the lady of the evening arrives, dressed to the nines, high heels and all. After all, it's her birthday celebration. On Saturday, Mary Barton turned 100, still feisty and unfettered.
"I don't let anyone tell me how to live my life. I tell them if you don't like me the way I am, get out of my face and stay out and don't come back, because it won't be healthy for you," Mary said.
Surrounded by well-wishers, the birthday girl hits the dance floor. But shaking a leg isn't why she's here. Mary Barton has a job to do.
"I've been singing ever since I was six. My mother taught me to sing," she said.
Mary's been singing with the band for 10 years.
"I just enjoy the singing. It don't have to be big. They don't have to be famous -- I just enjoy singing," she said.
Dixieland, blues, ballads, duets, it doesn't matter to Mary.
"I sing all kinds of songs," she said.
And Mary Barton just shreds the house.
"Some people say 'Don't it make you feel important?' and I say no. I stay the way I am all my life and that's they way I'm going to stay," Mary said.
The centenarian songbird will be back belting them out at Fuddruckers the first Monday in March and for many more Mondays to come, because she was born to sing and born to be wild.
"I'm going to have a good time and be wild all the time I'm here," she said.
