Goodbye, Jack

I’m really sorry that Jack LaLanne died.  I guess I knew all along that he would, but I thought he’d live to see his hundreds.  I’ve always felt a special bond with Jack.  Jack is the one who got me started on exercise, way back in my twenties, when I was a young Mom and trying to get back into shape after my daughters were born.  I had been a failure at gym class in school, I didn’t like softball or dodge ball or tumbling.  My Mom and Dad didn’t do anything other than the normal strenuous activities of raising kids and maintaining a house and yard, so I didn’t know a thing about calisthenics.  Jack taught me.

He ran onto his tiny set, with his two big, white dogs, with so much enthusiasm a viewer couldn’t help but be inspired to move with him.  He didn’t have any fancy weights or pulleys or machines or music or pretty girls behind him—all he had was a jumpsuit, his muscles and his enthusiasm.  He told us to pull out a straight back chair, hang on to it and do leg extensions.  He asked us to get a towel to do overhead stretches.  He modeled getting down on the floor to do sit-ups.   He even had us get vegetable cans out of the cupboard to use as weights for bicep curls.  He didn’t let you have an excuse for not exercising with him because the equipment he wanted you to use was right there in your house.   Not only was it easy to do the exercises, Jack’s vigor was inspiring.

I exercised with Jack for years until Jane Fonda came along with her record—yes, I said record.  We didn’t have videos yet, and so I’d put on Jane’s record, and with her telling me to “feel the burn”, I got on the floor, arched my back and did my buttocks tucks to the music of the Eagles.  I still can’t hear, “There’s gonna be a heartache tonight, a heartache tonight I know” without the urge to get down on the floor and flex my butt muscles!  I jogged in place with Jane for years, finally with her video, until I discovered the 20-Minute Workout, which came on television regularly at 6:30 every morning.  I’d put on my royal blue leotard and sweat with four perky girls for the 20 minutes they promised.  Then I’d get my kids off to school.

Over the years I’ve done aerobics in classes, dance aerobics, yoga classes, Thai Chi, exercised along with buff air force guys on the military channel, did some running while I worked in Kingston, bicycled, belonged to a couple of gyms, worked out in my own home with weights and an exercycle. I even ran around the inside of a house we lived in for a year where each room opened to the next. I broke my little toe doing that, but I haven’t stopped exercising since the early sixties and it’s all because of Jack LaLane.  Thanks, Jack.  If there’s a heaven, I know it won’t be long before you’ll have everybody in shape.