Get To Know Old People

Investigative reporter for the Ratner Gazette, Evan Ratner is on location in Florida this week. Where he will be bring the Gazette a three part series of Get To Know Old People. Old People are an illusive breed, but for some reason they tend to migrate for Florida for the winter. Evan will be looking into what makes old people tick and may actually be meeting with two real seniors. Below is Evan's first article in the series about Jack LaLanne 92 being challanged by a 91 year old man in a boxing match.

By Associated Press
Updated: 3/8/2007

LEWISTON, Maine

All of that Florida sun must be getting to Maine snowbird Roland Fortin. The 91-year-old has laid down a challenge to box fitness guru Jack LaLanne, who's 92. Fortin, former ''cut man'' for retired boxing champ Joey Gamache, said the idea for the four-round bout was hatched at the Tropical Gym in Pompano Beach, where Fortin works out during the winter in Florida.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale ran the challenge in a half-page ad that gym owner Troy Eckonen took out for Super Bowl Sunday. The purpose, he said, was to let seniors know it's not too late to get in great shape like Fortin.

''Florida is like the waiting room to the casket,'' Ecknonen said.

So far, the publicity stunt is working for the Tropical Gym, where membership is up. But LaLanne hasn't taken Fortin up on the challenge to enter the ring.

LaLanne's spokeswoman learned of the boxing challenge when she was contacted Tuesday by a reporter from the Sun Journal newspaper in Lewiston.

''That's not quite his cup of tea,'' Liz Cardenas said Wednesday from California. Besides, she said, LaLanne is too busy traveling for public appearances, and he no longer performs athletic feats for which he was known earlier in his career.

Despite the rebuff, Eckonen has not abandoned the idea. He said he plans to deliver the ad to fight promoter Don King to see if he's interested.

''It'd be a gentleman's fight, obviously,'' Eckonen said.

Fortin, a widower who has wintered in Florida since retiring from the funeral business decades ago, doesn't think either man would get hurt in a brief square-off. ''He'd knock me down, I'd knock him down,'' he said.