Jack LaLanne and Mom

Jack LaLanne died yesterday (1/23/2011) at the age of 97. My mom died in November, 2007. They never met but I am sure she had an unrequited love for the man on some level. He was a greater influence on her life than most people, men or women.

It was the middle of the 1950s that we got our first television. Living 150 miles from the nearest station and transmitter, our reception was poor. A small black and white screen in a large, cumbersome cabinet provided entertainment we had never even imagined before. We had a large antenna stuck atop a pole sixty feet up in the air that drew in three stations, two from Oklahoma City and one from Enid. We watched more snow than we did actual broadcast pictures but nothing dampened our enthusiasm for that new mode of entertainment. And on the rare occasion the signal was clear, we could see the performance as clearly as our relatives who lived in the City.

Jack LaLanne was a fitness guru who was ahead of his time. His fitness and exercise show which was begun in 1951 went national on the ABC network and my mother was one of its first devotees. She exercised every morning with Jack. When he kicked, so did she. When he did sit-ups, she was there lying on the floor with him, keeping up with him all the way. They did jumping-jacks, deep knee bends, stretches, toe-touches and nearly everything one could imagine back then. They weren’t muscle burning, sweat producing, aerobic exercises. They were simply consistent movement which trained the muscles to be active and would have exercised the lungs and heart as well.

She also listened to the message of a simple diet and healthy living, something which would be a part of her the rest of her life. It was a time when she developed habits that helped her live as long as she did. She lived to the age of 90 even though she had a serious heart attack nearly 50 years earlier. Her heart was damaged by a blood clot running through it and this happened not just once but several times, resulting in an arrhythmia which would always trouble her.

It was Jack’s message which probably caused her to think it was not good to eat too much sugar or salt. In her later years she would intentionally not eat too much. She never overate and always “left the table a little hungry.” Overeating put too much work on your system, she would explain. And she never ate late at night. If one couldn’t eat before five o’clock it was better to go to bed without eating and have a good breakfast the next morning. She was convinced that a lot of people who think they are having a heart attack at night were just experiencing indigestion from eating too close to bed time. A late night snack was unheard of in her house. She ate vegetables and fruit whenever possible. Not a vegetarian at all, she believed meat of any kind was just a complement to the vegetables with which it was served. And too much red meat was foolish, but then again, too much of anything was foolish.

There was a time she was talking to a younger woman who was having problems with yeast infections. She explained that she, then in her 80s, had never had such an infection. She shared with the younger woman that she needed to drink buttermilk and eat yogurt. She was appalled at the medicines I take, suggesting I needed to replace some of those with vitamins and minerals. Regarding vitamins and minerals, one can get most of what they needed if they will eat properly. But supplements were alright. Regarding doctors, people probably shouldn’t go to them with every little thing. Sometimes all you need is to eat right and exercise a little every day.

She arose early every morning, around 5:30. Before getting out of bed she would stretch and do deep breathing. And morning exercises, including her stationary bicycle, were part of her morning right up to the day she died. She was 90 years old, still going where she wanted to go and doing what she wanted to do. Her body functioned well and her mind was good. She was getting ready for church one Sunday morning and literally dropped dead. She was probably dead before she hit the floor.

Her longevity and her wonderful quality of life were something which could, at least in part, be attributed to what she learned from Jack. She and Jack LaLanne had a long-term relationship wherein he was the teacher, she was the pupil; he was the master, she was the disciple. And then she became the teacher herself, making it her life’s project to teach her children, her grandchildren and all who would listen that there are ways to help oneself.

Dog Vocabulary

I am convinced that dogs understand a considerable amount of human language. “Heel,” “stop,” “lay down” and other common commands are some we readily know are a part of a dog’s vocabulary. Having experimented in my own home with dogs belonging to She Who Must be Obeyed, I am constantly amazed just how extensive their language potential and abilities are. I have to work with her dogs because I have none of my own. I would have one good dog if the decision was mine but she prefers a pack of mutts. She has three Chihuahuas which had no home, a Boxer/Lab mix that needed a home and no one else wanted her, and a Beagle/Blue Healer mix rescued from a dog rescue place.

Two of these dogs came from Second Chance in Norman and another from a similar organization in Yukon. Another Chihuahua came from a man who was on his way to Second Chance to drop her off and the final came from one of her friends who had a dog with a litter of ten pups and no one wanted them. “Hell,” I said, “I don’t want her either.” But there was never a question as to whether my wants were of any concern; it was just a statement and rationale as to why she had to bring the thing home with her. All these canines have a few things in common, they are her dogs and they are some of the most stupid dogs as a group I have ever seen. And they don’t like me. Even though I am the one who feeds them and makes sure they have water. Even though I am the one who walks them when they are walked, play with them when they are played with, and train them to be respectable citizens.

These are the dogs which have demonstrated to me that they have a certain level of human vocabulary and mastery of at least a minimal level of human communication. For example, I have noticed they understand profanity. I can say, “Come here you precious little darlings,” or some such syrupy language in an endearing tone and they have no respect for me at all. Or I can unleash a level of profanity that would remove barnacles from a battleship and that gets their attention. They don’t understand “please” and “thank you” but they seem to have a high level of comprehension when I burn their little ears with a string of profanity which would make Mark Twain proud. (She Who Must be Obeyed isn’t around when I teach them this noble language nor has she ever read anything I have ever written.)

I finally have them (the Chihuahuas) trained to the point that they will go to their room (the utility room where their bed is kept) by saying in a specific tone, “Go to your room.” Anything other than that phrase and they are at a loss where to go or what to do. I believe they could be eating a T-bone steak and if I uttered those words in that particular tone they would leave it alone and go to their room. Perhaps not Precious, but the others would. She’s the little rotund one that animal lovers would probably accuse us of abuse for allowing her to get so fat.

I have to say “Go to bed” for the Lab/Boxer mix, Cupcake, a name given by my then seven year old daughter, to go to the same room. The Beagle mix, Snoopy, won’t respond to anything. She is pretty good about running to the car when we drive up to see if there is anything we have with us which she can eat. But that’s about the limit of her intelligence. She used to go out and try to fight coyotes but she’s getting a little old for that. She barks more than the other four put together and if she sees someone walking on a nice day she will bark at them. If they are walking their dog she will give it a whipping for them. I can yell at her at the top of my voice and she’ll not respond. So when I see someone coming our way, I usually have to open the door and have her come inside while they go by.

Another expression all of them seem to have familiarized themselves with is the word that indicates they are going out to the back yard. I yell, “Outside,” putting the emphasis on the first syllable and they all run to and out the back door. All, that is, except Precious if she’s still chewing on that T-bone. After they have been out for a while I can say,” Let’s go!” and they will come back to the door. If She Who Must be Obeyed is outside with them they may or may not come back inside. Precious is just as likely to run across the street and down to the neighbor’s house at which time she will have to go retrieve her and I listen carefully to learn new words I had never even heard in legal circles. Lawyers are too delicate to say some of the things she says at that time even though, compared to me, she is something of an amateur using such language and sounds silly.

I have concluded that these dogs, as stupid as they are, have a somewhat limited vocabulary of human words. I am still observing the cat. I think he knows more human language than he lets on. In fact, I have learned to read his mind and that seems to be the extent of our communication. I will give him a command and he will look up at me and telepathically say, “Who the hell do you think you are. The Egyptians worshipped my forbears as a god; yours were nothing but worthless slaves lifting those large stones in building the pyramids.” Because of his total disdain for me and my kind, I don’t try to teach him much. We’re both happier that way.

I will continue to research and report. But for now, suffice it to say that dogs understand something of what you say. They have a limited vocabulary of human words. So be careful of your speech. I don’t yet know what they are doing with the information.

Cage Fighting

Listening to the radio, I was invited to attend a sport spectacular—cage fighting! Now there’s an opportunity I hate to miss. How have I made it so long without watching the equivalent of a barroom fight, a sanctioned barroom fight?

I have seen “barroom” fights, street fights by another name. More than that, I have seen and dealt legally with the results of such fights. Two brothers began a fight in a cheap and sleazy bar which was carried on outside after the management ordered them to leave. One of the brothers pulled a knife, a small pocket knife with no more than a 2 or 3 inch blade. He stabbed his brother and, unfortunately, cut his abdominal aorta artery which resulted in death in a very short time. The fight ended in tragedy. The young man was dead and the other was charged with murdering his brother, and a grieving mother was left behind.

A man and his wife were in an argument which, as often happened between the two of them, turned into physical violence. Each of them was giving as well as they got. She introduced a lamp into the fight and he picked up a piece of firewood, savagely beating her to death. Four young children saw their mother killed by their father who was also lost to them as he had to go to prison for his crime.

Tumbleweeds blew from one field to another, something difficult to control in the American Southwest. The farmer on whom they were blowing got angry as they were getting into his cotton field, there was a confrontation and a fight broke out, one of the men getting the best of the other. The loser of the fight went to town, borrowed a handgun from a local service station and went looking for the other man, finding him at the local pool hall. Finding him there playing dominoes, he sat across from him and asked if he was still feeling brave. The winner of the fight declared he could do it again, whereupon the loser shot him under the table. The bullet entered the victim’s upper abdomen and resulted in death.

These are tragic results from uncontrolled violence. No one expected these things to happen. Those brothers would not have decided to kill each other in normal circumstances. That husband was never expected to beat his wife to death. I’m sure those two farmers spent some good times visiting over the fence, sharing likes and dislikes. The problem is that violence takes on a life of its own. And “controlled” becomes “uncontrollable.”

Violence is becoming an alarming phenomenon in our country. We lament the fact that there is bullying in schools, playgrounds, sports and even families. Fighting, always something of a problem between boys, is now becoming a problem among girls. Physical fights seem to erupt in places we never would have expected before. And they are often recorded for posterity and placed on “Youtube.”

As responsible persons are looking for an answer to this problem, as we try to encourage non-violence, non-violent living and non-violent methods of problem solving, we continue to send mixed messages to society. We speak of the humorous aspects of fighting. We promote fighting and other violence in the media. Movies and television especially use this mode to entertain us. And now, as if we don’t have enough sports, we put two men in a cage and let them fight bare-knuckled for our entertainment and call it a sport. It says very little for these men to engage in such activities but it says even less for us, the spectator.

The “fan”, often a sports-talk radio host who is paid to promote, raises the objection, “Well, boxing’s violent too.” To which I reply, “Okay? Is that the best you have?” There is a difference in both the training and the history of boxing but I don’t have any difficulty comparing the two when discussing the problem of violence in our society. One of the more objectionable aspects of either is that poor people, people with little or no opportunity in life other than fighting for our amusement, are the ones in the ring. We, the fat, pampered and spoiled consumer, are the ones who have an orgasmic-like reaction to the suffering of the young man in the ring. And one shouldn’t compare cage fighting to the violence of football and basketball, it reveals ignorance.

A more apt comparison would be to the gladiators of ancient Rome. This insatiable appetite for human violence on other humans as an entertainment spectacle has always been cited as one of the examples of the diminution of the soul and spirit of the Romans. How far are we from the point of fights to the death? We have people on death row, should we allow them to fight to the death for our entertainment? Is there any activity known to be part of the Roman gladiatorial system which we would find objectionable?

Bare-knuckle fighting, cage fighting, is an unnecessary “sport” which by its very nature is designed to harm someone else. People are harmed in football, basketball, baseball, soccer and virtually every other organized sport. But the harm is incidental to the sport whereas harm is fundamental to cage fighting. Nothing designed to harm another person should be celebrated as a sport, not for the participant and not for the spectator. Neither can engage in the activity without lessening their humanity.