Santa Rosa native Art Janssen, 109, rides in Hollywood Christmas Parade

Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street on Sunday evening flowed exuberantly with floats, marching bands, balloons and celebrities.

But the rocking, brilliantly lit Hollywood Christmas Parade boasted only one 109-year-old.

“Can you believe it?” Art Janssen marveled. The Santa Rosa native and long-ago Sebastopol mayor rode the 3.2-mile route, waving to the curbside throng as a guest of the firm that operates the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museums, including one on the parade course.

Janssen’s vision and hearing are poor, but he could make out the palms, Christmas trees and the profusion of lights, and he had no trouble hearing the wildly appreciative crowd.

“I can’t see very well,” said the widowed World War II veteran who lives in a care home near Windsor. “But what I can see is good.”

Ripley Entertainment Inc, a major player in Tinseltown’s 87th Christmas parade, invited Janssen into its light tan Rolls-Royce Corniche II convertible as part of its celebration of the 100th year of Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Robert Ripley was born in Santa Rosa in 1890 and in 1918 created the first newspaper cartoon bearing drawings and text of remarkable, odd or freakish occurrences, behaviors or phenomena.

Amanda Joiner, a vice president with Ripley Entertainment, said, “Today, 100 years after ‘Believe It or Not’ became a household phrase thanks to Robert Ripley, there is another Santa Rosa native who is truly unbelievable - Art Janssen. One of the oldest people on our planet, Art helps us remember that age is just a number.”

When Janssen was born in Santa Rosa in 1909, Ripley was just short of 18 and had moved to San Francisco, later relocating to New York City. But Janssen grew up aware of Ripley, who grew up in the house his father built on Orchard Street, and of the Church of One Tree that Ripley’s cartoon made famous around the globe.

Nobody at the Hollywood parade had ever heard of Janssen, but when told of his age upon spotting his cap, embroidered with “I’m 109; Believe It or Not” many performers, police officers and spectators stopped to shake his hand or pose for photos with him.

Appearing as parade hosts were Erik Estrada, Laurie McKenzie, Montel Williams and Dean Cain. “Entertainment Tonight” co-anchor Nancy O’Dell was the grand marshal.

Lou Ferrigno was in the parade. Also said to be present were Jerry Mathers from “Leave It to Beaver,” as well as “American Idol” contestant David Archuleta and Burt Ward, the original Robin in the “Batman” TV series.

Janssen, the Hollywood star for a day, was born Oct. 23, 1909, in his family’s home at Rutledge and Ware avenues in Santa Rosa’s South Park neighborhood. A lot was going on in the world at the time:

Santa Rosa was rebuilding from the deadly, monstrously destructive 1906 earthquake.

William Taft was inaugurated as the 27th U.S. president on March 4, 1909.

Construction began that March 31 in Belfast on the magnificent ocean liner, the RMS Titanic.

On July 27, the Wright brothers demonstrated the world’s first military airplane and set a record for the longest flight by a heavier-than-air craft carrying a pilot and passenger.

Also in 1909, work was completed on what would be, for a time, the world’s tallest building: New York City’s 50-story Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Tower.

Who knew that Janssen would grow up to work more than 30 years for MetLife?

As an adolescent, he was far keener to work odd jobs and earn money than to attend school. His father and Santa Rosa’s truant officer one day agreed to take extreme action to persuade him to stop cutting school.

“I spent five days and nights in the county jail,” Janssen said. That experience left him determined to never again get caught ditching school.

He ran away with another boy. That would have been in the mid-1920s, when Janssen was about 14.

The runaways rode the rails to Willits in Mendocino County and worked for a time loading wood shingles onto rail cars before moving on to Eureka. There, Janssen donned a protective leather apron and fed strips of wood into a machine that cut lath for home construction.

A phone call from his girlfriend and future wife in Santa Rosa, Juanita Wilson, tipped him that his father had learned where he was. He left Eureka for Fresno, where he loaded blocks of ice into freight cars.

From there he headed south to Los Angeles to work alongside a brother who delivered Arrowhead bottled water. He was liking the job when his father phoned, offering to send him to Sweet’s Business College in Santa Rosa if he’d come home.

Janssen took his dad up on it. He returned and resumed his formal education. When he completed his studies in mid-1927, he was four months short of 18 years old.

He was hired by the First National Bank in Santa Rosa, which became part of the Bank of Italy and then Bank of America. “They paid me $50 a month,” he recalled.

Having launched a career, Janssen married sweetheart Juanita. “I believe I was 19 and my wife was 18,” he said.

He and Juanita hoped to have children but weren’t able to conceive.

In 1938, Janssen was transferred to Bank of America’s Sebastopol branch. Four years later, World War II was on and he was drafted into the army. He served three years.

He returned to Sebastopol and left banking in 1950 to become a Metropolitan Life agent. The company provided retirement benefits - and they’d prove very helpful 50, 60 and nearly 70 years later.

In 1951, Janssen was appointed to a vacant seat on the Sebastopol City Council. Voters subsequently kept him on the council, and in 1954 his fellow council members voted him mayor.

In ’58, Met Life promoted him to management and sent him to Eureka, and then to Boise, Idaho. He retired in 1983 at the age of 74.

Shortly after, Juanita’s health grew poor, and she wanted to return to Santa Rosa, which they did. She died in 1986.

Art Janssen is about three years younger than Austin resident and fellow World War II veteran Richard Overton. He’s 112 years and six months old, making him the oldest man in America and second oldest in the world. The oldest confirmed Californian is Minnie Whicker, 112, of Roseville.