Jack LaLanne.

I remember watching Jack LaLanne when I was young..and he was too.  In the 1950's, television was in it's infancy and afternoon fare included Liberace, Kate Smith, and Jack Lalanne, all doing what Ellen, Oprah, and Dr. Phil do now..Only for a whole lot less money.  Old 3 would survive today in a television world dominated by the Young 3.  Kate Smith was a plus plus size and not very pretty.  But boy she could sing.  Liberace had to be gay.  Or as it was called then, Queer or Faggot.  In a time when homosexuality wasn't even mentioned in normal conversation, Liberace all but came out.  His Jewelry, his outfits, his speech pattern..And he wasn't that good a piano player either.  But he transcended the bias at the time and Don't Ask, Don't Tell was born.  LaLanne did fitness on television again long before Nordictrak and any of  thousand fitness regimens started running commercials for a thousand different ways to lose weight and become fit.  It's not that Jack LaLanne lived to be 96, it's that he kept doing what he did best for most of those 96 years..eat right and exercise.

Now let me be clear, I am not exactly a big fan of exercise.  Not because I don't think it's good for you but just because I can't get motivated to stand in one place on a treadmill or an exercise bike.  When (If?) spring arrives I do plan to start walking. Maybe.  But Jack LaLanne did get millions of houswives off the couch and start preparing better, as in nutritious, dinners so millions of husbands wouldn't expand as they sat on the couch and watched Jack Benny, or Sgt. Bilko.  And as the years passed, LaLanne also started the trend of watching what we ate as far as the bad things that were put in our food.

I went to his website, and so far no mention of his passing.  As late as  Friday there was an offer for an autographed cook book.  It also listed the many organizations he had been honored by, and by all accounts, was a great motivational speaker.  He also gave us the nutrition bar and Instant Breakfast.  The first co-ed gym, and women working with weights.  There is also an archive of some of those early television shows.  Black and white, no special effects, and the show would never go today.  For that matter, Jack wouldn't go today.  Too much competition from other pitchmen and women with plastic, very exposed boobs for your exercise dollar.

Jack LaLanne was lucky in that he was born for his era.  It's doubtful he would have achieved such great success had he been born in the 50's..Would the Beatles win American Idol?  Would Jack Benny calling for Rochester be funny?  Would Gunsmoke have stayed on the air for over 20 years?   I don't think I need to answer those.

So for the next few days the media will cover his life and funeral and he will be forgotten to all but his family and a few close friends.  But of one thing I'm certain, Millions of grandmothers in Heaven are now doing Jumping Jacks and push ups.  I kind of believe that you do in Heaven what you did in life.