He Might As Well Be 39

We all know Jack Benny wasn’t really 39 all the years that he claimed to be. And while it was a gag, it did serve a real-life purpose. It made him think young, and that kept him healthy.

At least, that’s what he claimed. There are all kinds of stories that Jack was an intense worrier and had a night-stand filled with medicines (though he doesn’t appear to have used them).

I’d love to find his full interview in Today’s Health, but you can get the gist of what he said in this column by Ida Jean Kain in the Rockland County Journal-News Sept. 22, 1961. It’s good advice for us all.

Good Recipe for Staying Young
Middle age is not the same time of life for everyone, birthdays notwithstanding.
Take Jack Benny, for good example. He’s been 39 now for going on 29 years. That’s really an excellent record, and even better psychology.
In the spring, a story in “Today’s Health” about this durable comedian is certainly well worth quoting.
“That ‘only 39’ gag my writers came up with was just about the best thing that ever happened to me,” Jack Benny reports. “The cliche, ‘You're only as old as you feel,’ happens to be true. I feel young and as far as I can find out, I’m healthy.”
What, in this comedian’s opinion, is most important to keeping young . . . diet, exercise, or mental attitude? It’s the latter. “To stay young in heart, think as young people do. Look forward, never backward. Work instead of worrying,” he summed up.
This actor does minimize the physical aspects of keeping young and vigorous. “To stay young-looking and keep healthy, you have to give some thought to it and work at it,” he added. Mr. Benny gets regular outdoor exercise. And he watches his food intake. “This is important and it's not likely that you can keep your weight where it belongs without counting calories. You can’t have three chins and look young.” So he controls starches, sugar, and fats. He uses sugar substitutes and drinks skim milk. He keeps his weight controlled even though he has stopped smoking.
It’s well known that this veteran comedian has more energy, vitality, and bounce than performers half his age.
We all need to think young and banish our phobias about aging. Then the extra years added to our life span can he added to the best years of living. We often think we might like to be younger if we could know all we know now. Well, in a wonder way science has made this miracle come true. So let us think of 50 as the high noon of life. Actually middle age can be an elastic period from 40 to 70.
When we lose our enthusiasm, we begin to grow old. When we stop learning, we start aging. When we stop using our bodies, the aging process catches up with us fast. Since there is no physiological age at which we must stop all activity, there is no age at which we “must’’ grow old. This is by no means the same as hanging on to youth for dear life, but rather to keep our zest for living fully.