When I Grow Up, I Wanna Be Like Jack La Lanne

When I Grow Up, I Wanna Be Like Jack LaLanne (except for the towing boats part).

 I’m sitting here writing, balancing a bag of ice on my knee. Another day at the zoo, some who know me too well might say. But I say it’s because when playing tennis recently, I went one way to get a ball and my knee when another, quite loudly.
So I have ice on my knee. I imagine it will be better several months from now, because when you’re no longer around twenty, things take a lot longer to heal. I’d go to the doctor (which I hate doing), but what will he say? 
“What seems to be the problem?” he’ll ask. (Ever notice doctors always ask this, no matter if you’re sitting on the exam table with a bone sticking out of your leg, they come into the exam room and ask, “What seems to be the problem?”)
And then I’ll say, “It hurts when I go one way for a ball and my knee goes another.”
And he’ll say, “Well, stop doing that.” (Bill for that advice=$500.00)
I tell myself it could be worse.
How? 
I could be Jack LaLanne after he towed boats around the San Francisco Bay - with his teeth. Remember that? Imagine how bad his jaw must have hurt afterwards. It’s one of the few scenarios where a doctor needed to say, “Stop doing that.”
Whatever happened to Mr. Muscle Man anyway?
As serendipity happens, I now know what Jack LaLanne is doing. I was flipping through a magazine at an exercise gym and there on the last page was an interview with the boat towing maniac.
He’s quite the guy, and in my next life, I’m going to practice what he preaches. Maybe sooner if I get my act together.
As of August, 2006, Jack is almost 92 years old.  
And what’s he thinking about at 92? 
When he turns 95, he wants to swim from Catalina Island to Los Angeles underwater. He thinks it will take about 22 hours. But his wife says she’ll divorce him if he does it. 
So that’s it for her? That’s the straw? I wonder what part of his plan she hates the most. The time he’ll be on the job, the location, or the water part? 
Here’s another pearl from in his interview: If man makes it, don’t eat it. If it tastes good, spit it out and you’ll never be fat.
That leaves me with caviar, mustard greens, and tofu. (Tofu is iffy because I don’t know if man makes that stuff or not. I’m afraid to find out.)
And last of his sage advice (and the best, I think): You have to work at living. Any stupid ass can die. 
I don’t know why, but just reading that makes my knee feel better.