Keep Moving

by Dick Van Dyke

  Even though every breath was a painful struggle, I had a hard time accepting the reality of the diagnosis. The previous month I had come down with shingles, which turned into weeks of torturous pain and itching. But I soldiered through it. Now the deal was pneumonia: this was serious. How did I get pneumonia? I was not used to being sick. I didn’t know how to be sick. It was not in my repertoire. The word “sick” wasn’t even in my vocabulary. The closest I came to being sick was back in my early sixties when I had gone for a physical. A routine chest X-ray showed what the doctor described as “emphysema scars.”

  “I have emphysema?” I asked, frightened.

  “The beginning stages,” he said.

  I immediately thought of my father, a heavy smoker, who had died of emphysema. At the time I was also a two- or three-pack-a-day smoker—until that moment. I quit then and there, and for the next thirty-plus years I went full bore without missing a step, until Vancouver—and then wham!

  On the flight back to Los Angeles I tried to understand where and how I could have gotten pneumonia. It could’ve been at the assisted-living facility, where I took time to meet and greet the residents, shaking hands, signing autographs, and posing for pictures. I might have also picked up a bug in a restaurant, a taxi, or at the hotel. It was impossible to say, and you can’t live your life in fear of getting sick. I decided it was fate—payback for eighty-eight straight years of feeling terrific.

  At home my recovery was slow. I didn’t bounce back after a few days, as I was used to doing with a cold or the flu. I supposed this was the downside of getting sick later in life. Then I had a setback. One day while Arlene was out doing errands, I felt my heart rate speed up, and my breathing became labored. I thought, “Heart attack.” I called my doctor, who had me drive in and sent me straight to X-ray. As he had suspected on the phone, I had a collapsed lung.

  I phoned Arlene and gave her an update. She asked whether I wanted her—or needed her—to come get me. “No, they’re going to do a little procedure,” I said. “Then I’ll be able to drive home.” I had one request: Could she pick up my new prescription at the pharmacy? Otherwise, I said I’d see her soon.

  As it turned out, we saw each other an hour and a half later in the pharmacy parking lot, where I stopped unexpectedly because the pain medication from the procedure had started to wear off while I was driving home, and I wanted my pills as soon as possible. Arlene saw me get out of the car clutching my side. Knowing I was in pain and realizing I had underplayed my condition, she hurried over to me to see what was really wrong.

  “Don’t worry. I’m fine,” I said.

  “What’s that . . . that—” She pointed at the plastic tube hanging out of my side, another detail I hadn’t mentioned to her.

  “It’s a valve—to help re-inflate the lung,” I said. “It’s temporary.”

  Over the next couple months my lung collapsed two more times. The second time my doctor did a pleurodesis, a more extensive procedure in which he glued my lung to my chest wall. The third time it turned out I needed some additional gluing due to having extra long lungs—they’d missed a portion. But that did the trick, and I spent the rest of the winter and all spring recuperating. It took months for me to regain the weight and strength I lost during the ordeal. I benefitted from the patience and support of a loving wife and family who encouraged me to get back to the things I loved to do, which I think is the key to recovery. Get back to what you love to do.

  What I realized is that age is directly related to health. If you feel physically fit, age is immaterial, as it had always been for me. I had gone from dancing like I was in my forties to feeling nearly dead to trudging around the house like I was one hundred–plus, until gradually I was back to feeling not just younger but normal. Back to where I no longer thought about my age. My brother marveled at my resiliency.

  “I don’t know how anyone pulls through when they have to lie on those beds in the hospital,” he said.

  “Oh my God, they’re uncomfortable,” I concurred.

  “Many people fall out of those beds and break their butt,” he said. “Thank God that didn’t happen to you.”

  In May I started going to the gym again, forcing myself at first, but knowing it was vital to get back to my routine of lifting weights and walking on the treadmill if I wanted to get my stamina back—which I did.

  Arlene noted the difference one day after lunch. I was at the kitchen sink, doing dishes, and we were singing “Carolina in the Morning.” She said, “Wow, did you hear that?” I looked at her curiously, not having heard anything other than our harmonizing. “You held that note a long time—longer than me! I think that’s a sign your lungs are back to normal.”

  With age comes a constantly changing sense of normal. But each one of us determines our own sense of normal, and mine was defined by the sheer delight I felt at having survived. One afternoon Arlene and I were at a store picking up running shoes, and I started to dance. I heard music playing, and my body began to move. It was involuntary, as if my body was saying, “Hey, I’m back! And I still know all the moves.” Arlene captured it on her phone and posted the video on Twitter.

  “The wait is over,” she wrote. “Mr. Vandy Dances.” The video went viral instantly. “This made my day!” one fan commented. People magazine called it mesmerizing. And actor Denis Leary retweeted the video with the caption, “Father Time can suck it.”

  I felt the same way—and still do.

  Dancing with Your Inner Child—A Workout for Older People

  I am a child in search of his inner adult, though the truth is that I’m not searching too hard. I don’t recommend anyone doing so. That is the secret, the one people always ask me about when they see me singing and dancing, whistling my way through the grocery store or doing a soft shoe in the checkout line. They say, “Pardon me, Mr. Van Dyke, but you seem so happy. What’s your secret?”

  What they really want to know is how I have managed to grow old, even very old, without growing up, and the answer is this: I haven’t grown up. I play. I dance with my inner child. Every day.

  There.

  Now you know the secret too.

  If you don’t sing and dance like me, figure out how your inner child likes to play and then make a date to do so.

  I was onto this idea years ago. When we were shooting The Dick Van Dyke Show, I played Rob Petrie, a man with adult mannerisms and responsibilities—he was a husband, father, and breadwinner—who also had the insecurity and willfulness of a child. He approached work and life with childlike openness and enthusiasm, wary of authority, worried that something could go wrong but always ready to have fun. In many ways he was like me, I suppose.

  He was also like the man who created him on paper, my good friend Carl Reiner, who is another man who has grown old without losing the brilliant curiosity of his youth. Scripture says you should put aside childish things when you grow up. I take that to mean willfulness, self-centeredness, and things like that—not imagination, creativity, and joyful curiosity.

  I am not alone here. I read online that billionaire octogenarian Warren Buffet reportedly eats like a six-year-old. He guzzles Cokes and says his diet is also high in salt. I am going to guess he eats hamburgers and fries too. When you are eighty-five like Mr. Buffet—or my age, soon to be ninety—I say eat whatever you want, whenever you want . . . in moderation, of course. Or not in moderation if it is a special occasion, like lunch or dinner or a snack in between meals.

  According to one story, Mr. Buffet researched actuarial tables and found that six-year-olds have the lowest death rate, so he decided to eat like a kid. Whether that is 100 percent true is beside the point to me because the message it conveys is spot-on: keep your inner child alive and well. Dance with it. Take it out to lunch. Indulge it. Do whatever it takes. Mr. Buffet famously treats himself to Dairy Queen. I like a nightly ice cream sundae, too, of Häagen Dazs® vanilla ice cream topped with Hershey’s chocolate syrup. Hey, we may be onto something here!

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bsp; My inner child is all about playtime, and I know why. Some of my fondest memories are of the summers I spent when school got out. I can’t believe how many years have passed since then, but the smells and feel of those June days are still so fresh that they might as well have happened the day before yesterday. I would count down the last days of the school year, and as soon as vacation started, I’d kick off my shoes and spend the next two and a half months running through fields, playing, and doing whatever I felt like doing.

  This was before e-mail and social media, before electronic games, before cell phones, even before television! The days seemed to have more time, and I used that time much as I do now—to imagine and create, to play. I wanted to be a magician. I ordered tricks in the mail for 25 cents from the Johnson & Smith catalog and practiced my sleight-of-hand for hours in the basement. All that practice paid off when I was hired for $3 to perform at the Kiwanis Club.

  At age ten I got my first bicycle, a rusty two-wheeler I found in a pawn shop downtown for $7. Even at that price, my dad said he couldn’t afford it on his traveling salesman’s salary, this still being the tail-end of the Great Depression. But after much pleading on my part, he bought it for me. That bike meant everything to me. I cleaned it off, rubbed off the rust, oiled it up, rode it to my friend’s house, and then, eventually, out to the lake, which was several miles way. Suddenly I had freedom—and that changed my life.

  These days my playtime is more structured than it was when I was a kid, and it’s slower paced—there’s no running through open fields or riding my bike to the lake. But my days still include singing, dancing, drawing, and playing games. Children are taught to amuse themselves. They’re told to “go play.” I’m all in favor of refresher courses for adults. As seniors, it is vital to have hobbies and passions, to have playtime, and to engage in them every day.

  I wouldn’t tell anyone to do exactly as I do, but maybe my daily schedule can provide some ideas. Consider:

  1. In the morning I work out at my local gym. I’ll be honest, every day it gets tougher to get out of bed, put on the sweats, and work out. But it’s important. And that first cup of coffee I have plays a crucial part in getting me out the door. I’ve been going to my gym for so long that they gave me a set of keys so I can open up if I arrive early. To warm up, I hang upside down and stretch. Then I spend time on the treadmill before lifting weights. Some days I alternate: lift, then aerobics.

  Not too long ago, when I was on the treadmill, the guy next to me said, “Hey, you’re humming! The rest of us are huffing and puffing and you’re humming. How do you do that?”

  Half-jokingly, I said, “Vocal chords are muscles too.” But also humming, as with a Buddhist chanting, singing, or even an infant making noises as it discovers its voice, sets up a sympathetic frequency in your body that simply feels good.

  Try it: mmmmmmmmm.

  Anyway. I am never going to look like Mr. Universe, but I seem to be getting stronger, especially since recovering from pneumonia. I am lifting more weight than I have in a few years. The younger guys at the gym are impressed that I can lift my age and sometimes even more, though, as I tell them, we’ll see if that is still true in ten or twenty years. I just know I like to feel good, to feel in shape, and I always have.

  Back in my Air Force days I got one of the highest fitness ratings in the state of Texas. I couldn’t run distances, but I was always the first one through the obstacle course. But that was natural, youthful ability. I started working out more on a more regular basis when I was doing Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway in 1960. One afternoon, a matinee day, I saw all the dancers working out with weights. I started joining them between shows. I was thirty-four or thirty-five years old. I felt so good that I kept it up and haven’t stopped.

  Good habits matter. Eating light and fresh. Staying away from fast and processed foods. Not smoking. Working out regularly. Even going for a walk every day is extremely beneficial for longevity, according to studies I have heard on the news. As pianist Eubie Blake said when he was performing at age ninety-nine, “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” Times have changed. Plan on living long, and start when you’re young so that by the time you’re my age, the right diet and exercise and other good habits are second nature.

  2. After the gym I go to the grocery store to pick up assorted items my wife and I need that day. As I push my cart up and down the aisles, I often sing and dance to the music playing in the background. Most of the time I’m not aware I’m doing this, but apparently the people working there look forward to my visits as entertainment. If for some reason I don’t sing or dance, I hear from the store manager or Debbie, my favorite checker. “Hey, Dick, why aren’t you singing? Why aren’t you dancing?” That is the question I pose to other people, including you, the reader, literally and metaphorically: If you aren’t singing or dancing, why not?

  3. Back home I check my To-Do list for the rest of the day. I make it out the night before and then add to it as the day goes on. I always have a list of tasks. Though I never get through all of them, the worst is when I get to the market and can’t read my own writing. But it’s like a job. I am a maintenance man for my own life. Actually, as I think about it, that’s a job one should assume and take more seriously with age. Take care of things at home. As Shakespeare wrote, “Our remedies often in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky.” So every day I make To-Do lists.

  1.Put gas in the car!!

  2.Call Bill—need some backing tracks.

  3.Make a haircut appointment!!

  4.Get gum.

  5.Find Blu-ray burner for 3D animations.

  6.Get blue blazer tailored.

  7.Movie tonight? Ask Arlene.

  I also suggest making a high-level, more philosophical To Do list.

  1.Never go down the stairs sideways.

  2.Try to understand why time keeps speeding up.

  3.Wake up your sixth sense.

  4.Keep learning.

  5.Find your song—and sing it!!!

  6.What’s new?

  And then there is the list nobody makes, the NOT To-Do list.

  1.Do not forget to exercise.

  2.Do not stop being curious.

  3.Do not forget to try new things—even a new flavor of ice cream will do.

  4.Do not forget to open your mind every day.

  5.Do not stop asking why do I believe what I believe.

  6.Do not forget to smile.

  7.Do not forget to make someone else smile.

  4. Then I do the crossword puzzle to exercise my brain. Studies have shown that the brain is a use-it-or-lose-it organ. To keep it flexible and in good working order, it must be used, stimulated, even challenged. I have always believed that crossword puzzles are one of the best ways to exercise your brain. However, although they are indeed effective, they aren’t number one. I read a study in the New England Journal of Medicine on the best mental and physical activities for staying sharp in old age and preventing dementia, and doing crossword puzzles at least four days a week was the second-best thing you can do stay clear and present. Guess which one of the following was the best thing you can do to stay sharp as you age.

  a.Playing cards

  b.Solving math problems

  c.Dancing

  d.Baking chocolate chip cookies

  The answer is C, dancing—and I promise that I am not making this up. More than any physical or mental activity, moving your feet to a good beat provides the brain with the most fuel to fight the aging process. So guess what I make sure is also on my To-Do list every day?

  5. I sing and dance. If I feel like dancing around the house, I use Pandora (my wife introduced me to this fantastic app) to find music with a beat that suits my mood. If I feel like singing, I will sit down at the piano or put on the stereo and sing along. Take a moment to put down this book and try it.

  Suggested songs to sing right now:

  1.“Jolly Holiday”

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bsp; 2.“Carolina in the Morning”

  3.“Simple Melody” (Bing Crosby and Gary Crosby did it, and it’s such fun to sing. Arlene and I have started singing it around the house. Look it up if you don’t know it.)

  4.“On a Wonderful Day Like Today”

  5.“I Wish I Was in Love Again”

  Suggested songs to dance to right now:

  1.“Jolly Holiday”

  2.“Tea for Two”

  3.“Cheek to Cheek” (I’m picturing Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Top Hat as I write this.)

  4.“What Is This Thing Called Love?”

  5.“Take the A Train”

  6. Stay involved in the world—and with other people. It’s important to keep up with current events. I watch the news every night—both sides—in case one of them is right. I argue with the right and the left and sometimes the middle too. But staying involved in the world also—and more importantly—means connecting with other people. Loneliness and isolation are major problems for people over sixty-five and typically lead to declining health, depression, and other serious issues. I am not an expert, but I do know the easiest and most meaningful way to counter this is to volunteer. Whatever you give, you get back many times over, including a sense of purpose, a profound sense that your presence in this world matters. For the past twenty years I have been involved with the Midnight Mission, a Los Angeles–based facility dedicated to helping men, women, and children who have lost everything return to self-sufficiency. I spend every holiday there; I don’t get the Christmas spirit until I am at the Mission. Early on I approached a large, mean-looking man and wished him a merry Christmas. The menacing look on his face disappeared—he smiled. “People look through us,” he says. “Or they look past us. Nobody sees us. But you’re looking right at me. That is one helluva gift, man.” His smile was an even bigger gift to me. And it has been that way ever since.