March 20, 2026- Chuck Norris died today, the last day of winter taking one of the last Winter Soldiers. He was a lot more politically conservative than I am- I think the last Presidential candidate we both supported was Ronald Reagan-and for different reasons. I thought the Great Communicator was a man of character (until Iran-Contra). Chuck said he liked the aura of machismo. Years ago, I was told, by two different groups of young men, that I looked like Chuck. The first group, of Navajo adolescents, would approach me by getting into martial arts stances-only joking, of course. The second, a trio of young Black men, on a bus going to Buffalo, said I could go around spouting lines from his movies, and some people would do a double take. No one really close to me, though, has ever recognized a likeness.

I never met Chuck Norris, but I watched “The Way of the Dragon” and many of the “Walker, Texas Ranger” episodes. I also got a kick out of the Chuck Norris jokes, even doing a spoof on Xanga: “Chuck Norris vs. The Most Interesting Man in the World”. (The latter was a character on a Dos Equis beer commercial, who was played by Jonathan Goldsmith). I believe one of the lines was “Chuck Norris yawns at the Most Interesting Man, who doesn’t dare yawn back.”

It is at times tempting to take solace in the exploits of a supremely masculine figure-but eventually, the He-Men pass from the scene, as Chuck Norris did today. When I was a kid, I was in awe of Charles Atlas and Jack LaLanne. Charles (nee Angelo Siciliano) was a body builder, well before the heyday of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He lived to be 80, then died of a heart attack. Jack was a diet and exercise guru and lived to be 96, then died of pneumonia, after refusing to see a doctor. In the 1960s, the two were seen as invincible-Jack even said he “could never die, because it’d ruin my image.”

So it goes, and it is equally true of those public figures who seem invincible in their own right. They will come to a reckoning, like you and I and everyone in between. It’ll shock some of their admirers, but as Chuck would say; “You become what you choose.”