Arty Gladstone, at age 95, drove 1,300 miles from Florida to be there. Tony Pavia, the former principal of three high schools in Stamford and New Canaan, made it quicker, flying from his winter home in the Sunshine State to Stamford, while for younger brother Sandy and his wife Jesse it was a four-hour flight from their Arizona home.

About 50 others, about half of them family members from Stamford and elsewhere, including two of his three sons (Tom, from South Carolina, and Stephen, from Florida) and their wives, wouldn’t have missed Charlie Guinta’s 100th birthday party at the Italian Center last Sunday for the world. It was as much a love fest as a birthday celebration for one of Stamford’s most beloved citizens, who became Stamford’s latest centenarian on Dec. 15.