Banana George: Don’t Wait for Life to Happen, Make It Happen is the biography of one of the most inspiring and colorful celebrities of recent years. Written by the Blair family (his wife and daughters) along with Karen Putz, author and also a barefoot water skier, this biography chronicles all the ninety-eight years that affirm George’s life.
Readers travel with George from his childhood and college years to his first marriage and becoming a father and entrepreneur. We experience his debilitating back problems and surgery with him, and then we are thrilled when he discovers the wonderful world of barefoot waterskiing. Ultimately, George was the oldest barefoot water skier in the world, but he was also a natural showman. Always busy wearing his trademark yellow clothes; handing out bananas; appearing on major talk shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show, Late Night with David Letterman, and Live with Regis and Kathy Lee; Traveling around the world; and meet famous people. He even became a true ambassador of goodwill among the nations.
After reading this book, I came to love Banana George and his zest for life. Most of all, I loved her creative spirit and her refusal to believe that she couldn’t do something. Most people know Banana George for being the oldest barefoot water skier in the world (he was in the Guinness Book of World Records for that designation, continually breaking his record with every birthday), but what most people Maybe you don’t know is that Banana Jorge was an innovative businessman. Once he became a father, George had a fabulous idea to start a business that took pictures of babies in the hospital so that parents could have immediate photos of their newborns to treasure for a lifetime. Consequently, Hospital Picture Service was born. George grew this business by touring the country selling his services to hospitals. While visiting all these hospitals, George also noticed how many babies were constantly crying and how the nurses couldn’t care for all of them at the same time, so he invented the Blair Motion bassinet, which had a motor connected to the bassinet to make it sway back and forth. behind. Of course, he also marketed the bassinet in all hospitals.
Much of the charm of the section on George’s early years before he became famous was his time as a father. The book is filled with memories of his four daughters and their experiences growing up with their father, from how he would only slow down the car and tell the children to jump when he had to leave them because he was always in a hurry. Even how he had to have a lazy susan on the dining room table to make everything easier for everyone to reach. He even installed bidets in his bathrooms because he thought they were more hygienic; your kids had a blast demonstrating how the bidet worked to their friends who had never seen one.
George didn’t start skiing barefoot until he was forty and after major surgery for his back problems. One day, he was watching some people water skiing and they asked him if he would like to give it a try. He said he was too old, but the man who offered it insisted, so George tried and never looked back. Soon the whole family was water skiing and performing in shows. George became a regular performer at Cypress Gardens, and that was just the beginning of his showmanship.
There are too many fascinating and funny moments in George’s career as a barefoot water skier and later as a media celebrity to mention in this review, and I don’t want to spoil the fun of the readers, but I can’t help but mention that he rode in a car of race with Prince Albert of Monaco and did a waterskiing exhibition for King Hussein of Jordan. But that was just the tip of the iceberg for George – he loved to travel and started water skiing all over the world. One of my favorite stories was how, in 1988, George read an article that said the Russian publisher of Pravada was an avid waterskiier. This was during the Cold War, and yet George decided that he would like to water ski in Russia. He wrote a letter to the editor and was eventually invited to perform at the Friendship Cup Tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria (also behind the Iron Curtain). From there, George and his second wife, JoAnne, visited Russia and traveled across the country. George became known as “Mr. Banana” in Russia because people did not understand his nickname. Later, in 1995, George welcomed a delegation of Russian water skiers to the United States, thus spreading goodwill between the countries, and the Russians left with a favorable impression of the United States.
In no time, George had skied on six continents. Then his brother-in-law reminded him that there were seven of them, so George went skiing in Antarctica. Also once, by chance, she ended up attending the Miss Switzerland beauty pageant and gave the crowned winner bananas. Before his long celebrity career ended, George even starred in the movie Captiva Island about what else? -A rich boy waterskiing barefoot and receiving advice from several mature men, including George, Ernest Borgnine, and Arte Johnson of Laugh-En.
Banana George Blair proved to the world that you are only as old as you think you are and that it is never too late to keep doing the things you love. This is a man who loved water skiing so much that when he could no longer stand he used a special chair made to sit on while skiing.
We should all have George’s energy, and we should all read this book because maybe a little of George’s joie de vivre rubs off on us. The book includes a foreword by Phil Keoghan (host of The Amazing Race), Lessons for Life by Banana George, and a list of all the places Banana George went water skiing and the businesses and affiliations in which he was involved. All in all, Banana George is a delight that will drive you crazy wanting to make your own life more adventurous.