Any Ideas for Grandpas 97 Bday Party

Grandpa was born in 1914. He was 20 years old in 1934. Maybe everyone dressing in period clothing from the 30's would be kinda cool and bring back some ol' memories for him. Taking a ride around town in a car from that year would probably be fun for him too. You might get a hold of one of the model t clubs and see if you could get a volunteer.
Being 97 is pretty awesome. My grandpa is 93 and he just loves for us to be there and listen to him talk and tell us old WW2 stories and other different things from the past. They love to talk to willing listeners.
If he can still write and enjoys it at all, a leather bound journal might be a neat gift and ask him to write down some things that he thinks important and what he believes is responsible for such a long life.

Photos, Photos, Photos and kids, kids, kids. I can't think of anything that people of that age love more than being surround by family -especially the little ones, and seeing their "legacy". If you have time, you could do a Family Tree. My hubby's family did one for his great Grandma when she was like 88. They drew an actual tree and glued pics on it of all of her decendants, then framed it in a large poster size frame. She loved it and cried........
Maybe print up some stuff about the year he was born. Or stuff like "Grandpa was ___ yrs old when the t.v. was invented etc. Was he ever in the service? You could tell stories about that too.

Similar to the other suggestions, there are companies that do little booklets or glossy one page slicks that show what was happening in a particular year. You could choose the year he was born - although he wasn't able to experience that as a baby. Maybe you could choose the year or years significant things happened in his life. For example the year he married, your mom/dad, aunts/uncles were born. If he served in a war maybe a special book about it like The Greatest Generation. I would consider if doing this getting it on cd for him to listen to in case his eyesight isn't good (as well as a cd player, if he doesn't have one).

We did a fun game with my mom's 50th birthday. I multiple choice game about different things for that year - #1 song/movie/tv show, price of things, popular styles etc. That was a lot of fun.

I don't know if your Grandpa would appreciate this, but each of my mom's family members (mom, sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews etc) did a scrapbook page with pictures of them together and a note about how much she meant to them. Even the guys in the family got into it, with the help of their sisters, of course. It was a lot to organize, but it turned out really nice.

Slide show of pictures of him ? OR

We did an auction for a birthday party and it was a blast. I got about 6 paper or gift bags and put something silly in there. Like 5 funny sunglasses, a 6 pack of beer, a gift card for somewhere or even just a ham.
ha ha ha. Anyway you asign someone to do an auction for you. They can not look or lift the bag. You label 1-6 on each one. Start with a quarter and go up to whatever. It was kind a thing where it replaced a gift per say to the birthday person. ( i did this for 40 birthday ) Anyway the whole group got into it and it was great. It was a fun game. Maybe your grandpa would want the proceeds to go to a organization or something like that in his name if he can't use the money for something. It was a true blast.