CAMARILLO : Gypsy Boots Puts on a Show for His 80th

For Gypsy Boots, good-health guru of Camarillo, another day became another decade as the garlic-munching, football-tossing free spirit pronounced his 80th birthday a week early.

“I’ll always be a child,” Boots said Saturday, sporting hot pink socks and sandals. He fielded football passes at Camarillo City Hall to prove how energetic he still is and proclaimed, “I love life, and I love people.”

Boots garnered unconventional fame as a regular on the early 1960s “Steve Allen Show,” for which he was billed as the vegetarian Nature Boy. He still appears regularly at Los Angeles sporting events.

Born Robert Bootzin in San Francisco in 1910, the soon-to-be octogenarian says he has always been a little ahead of his time. In fact, he is about eight days ahead; the actual date of his birthday is Aug. 19. But his birthday bash was Saturday.

On Aug 19, he intends to have a party for his fans in Los Angeles. But to prove to his Ventura County friends that he is not going to neglect them, he decided to have two.

What does a Nature Boy do on his birthday? He takes a one-mile jog to prove he’s not about to give up, then eats a meal of fruit and carrot cake. About 15 well-wishers gathered in a shopping center parking lot to greet Boots and share in the celebration.

Kristin Anderson, 21, of Santa Barbara was one of four young women who accompanied Boots as he jogged briskly on a city street. Anderson said she and a friend met Boots on a beach and decided “he’s quite a guy. “We were impressed with his whole energy.”

Boots was surrounded by a bevy of energetic female fans, a few in their 20s and some in the over-40 crowd. They watched him take a twirl with a belly dancer.

“I’m 65, and he’s 80, and he’s in better shape than I am,” said longtime friend Joann Brentley of Camarillo.

Boots says the key to longevity are daily doses of garlic, baths in a cold stream and daily exercise. His constant smile proves that he is a truly happy man, he says.

“People say to me, ‘Don’t you get old?’ ” Boots said. “I say, ‘Yeah, I can’t wait to be 1,000.’ ”