By Gary Dickson ?
I fell in love with playing baseball at the age of eight. At 15 I still had a passion for baseball, but I was introduced to powerlifting and in a couple of years, especially since, at my size and ability I could tell I wasn”t going to be a Major League baseball player, weightlifting became my number one sport. I was always in a hurry to get to the gym and start clanking the iron. I got pretty good. I was never a national level competitor, but won lots of regional contests in my weight class in Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri and Texas. I used to have a T-shirt that said, “Weightlifting is life. The rest is just details.”
While writing this I was under the influence of pain killing drugs because I had to get steroid injections to relieve sciatica pain I have been dealing with for the past year. When I call my dad he likes to remind me that I wasn”t very good to my body ever since I was a teenager and he tells me that is why I am having to deal with a bad back. He may be right. I remember once having my left leg slide all the way to a splits position while I had 350 pounds on my shoulders for a squat. The floor plywood lifting platform was slick for some reason. That put me out of commission for a while. And, although my dad is correct, I wouldn”t do anything differently. I loved the weightlifting, running, martial arts and racquetball that I have competed in during the last 45 years. My only regret is that I didn”t work harder to get even better. I recently got a call from “Clearlake Joe,” the chess player I wrote a story not long after I moved to California. Joe called to tell me that Jimmy Payne had died. Even being a lifelong weightlifter, I had never heard of Jimmy Payne. Joe told me that Payne was once Mr. America and that he was right up there with Jack Lalanne in his physical abilities. I told Joe that I would do some research on Jimmy Payne. I did; and was he ever impressive. I wish I would have had an opportunity to know him.
Jimmy Payne died on Jan. 28 at the age of 85. He had lived in Healdsburg since 1962, but his weightlifting life started when he was just a scrawny kid in Alameda. He met another Bay Area fitness guru, Jack LaLanne, and his life changed. Even though Lalanne was 12 years older than Payne they became friends for life. They owned gyms together, designed new equipment as a team; they both had TV shows during their careers, performed stunts of strength as a pair. The Press-Democrat obituary for Payne stated, “LaLanne would swim from Alcatraz to Fisherman”s Wharf ? while handcuffed, and Payne would perform dip after dip while hand-standing on a bar suspended from a helicopter.”
In 1950, standing just 5-feet, six-inches tall and weighing 150 pounds, Payne was judged to be “Mr. America” by the International Federation of Body Builders. But, one of the achievements he was most proud of was his “Junior Mr. & Miss America” TV program that was on every Saturday on Bay Area Channel 2 in the late 1950s. With the help of his two oldest children, they demonstrated fitness exercises to their young viewers.
When Petaluma held the World Wrist wrestling Championships, he won the nationally televised event in 1964, ”66, ”74 and ”75. Like his mentor, Jack LaLanne, Payne lived and breathed a fitness for life philosophy. He maintained a rigorous fitness regimen as long as his health would allow it. While running his gym in Healdsburg one of his famous sayings was, “If your waist is unbecoming to you, you should be coming to me.” I could use him now. Jimmy Payne died one year and five days after Jack LaLanne. They were two of a kind and two of the best roles models for health this country has ever had.
Gary Dickson is the publisher of the Record-Bee. Call him at 263-5636, ext. 24. Email him at gdickson@record-bee.com.
