Let's see where were we?
Ah yes, Mr. America's gym circa 1986.
During my 18 months of less than fruitful training, I was always amused by the fact that most of the "Big Boys" in the gym at that time were some of the biggest losers I had ever come across. Guys that I had thought were big in part because I was a young kid and in part because their egos were fucking enormous, were, in retrospect, fucking jokes. Years later I would run into some of them and while they stayed the same, I obviously did not and it kind of reminded me of the first time I went back to my elementary school as an adult. Just as I could not get over how small in stature some of my teachers were and how small the desks and tables were (because I remembered them as being GIANTS),
I could not get over that I was actually impressed with the guys that were in the gym during my early days at Mr. America's. But that is neither here nor there. The whole point I am trying to make is that during that 18 month span, nobody and I mean nobody was there to help me. There were plenty of delusional egos, but that was about it. I remember going up to the counter and asking this jerk off by the name of Kenny (who was 3-4 years older than me, and juiced to the fucking gills) if he had any suggestions for me to put on some size. Without so much as looking up at me he pointed to the cabinet that contained some MLO Milk and Egg protein powder and that was the extent of his interaction with me.
I, of course, checked off the "DICK-HEAD" box in my brain. Funny thing is, about a year or so after that event, this tool shed came up to me to congratulate me on putting on the size that I did. I again checked off the "DICK-HEAD" box in my brain because it showed me the type of person he was. I was not worth his efforts when I was a 185-pound kid looking for advice…..but when I was 235lbs. and the same size as him, I warranted the respect of him saying something to me. It was events like those that made me realize if I ever had the opportunity to help someone who was just starting out, achieve their goals a little faster, I would. I knew what it was like to have nobody to turn to and nobody willing to give me advice. I guess it was a good thing because it made me rather self-reliant and introspective. FUCK THEM ALL became my motto. I was going to do it by myself and more importantly I was going to do it harder and better and all without succumbing to the temptation of taking the easy path that this Kenny and the others took by hopping on the sauce at an age when their body was producing more than enough testosterone on it's own. No sir, I was going to do something that nobody ever took the time to do, I was going to maximize my natural potential before ever even considering playing around with gear.
Thus, began my quest. It was 1987 at this point, my senior year of high school. At the start of football season I weighed in at 196lbs. at a height of 6'1" and I was 17 years old. I was still over training and more importantly under eating. During this time I was consumed with getting a football scholarship, yet all the while I dreamed about being able to pursue bodybuilding on a full time basis. As anyone who plays football knows, you only get about 6 months out of each year to devote to serious training and that is assuming you don't get any injuries. So even back then I knew where my heart lay. But, I was stupidly playing to the wishes of other people and succumbing to the pressure. Football was a good thing, an honorable thing, something you could be proud of in the world I lived in. Where as bodybuilding was looked at as a joke and just for guys that "took lots of steroids". This always bothered me, but hey I was a young kid and it would only be a few more years before I broke free of other peoples desires and spent time doing what I wanted to do and loved.
Got sidetracked a little bit there. O.K., so it is the late fall of 1987 and football season is coming to a close and wrestling season is about to begin. My buddy Mike was projected to win the state championships that year in the heavyweight division and needed someone strong to work out with. I always wanted to go out for wrestling and figured why not give it a try. Turns out it was something I wished I would have started sooner because I was a bit of a natural at the whole grappling game. However that is another story, the point I am making here is that I was immersed in another full time exhaustive sport for 3 months that was not conducive to the bodybuilding life-style. I still wasn't eating anywhere near much as what I needed to be eating and still over-training to a great extent.
As the wrestling season started to come to a close in the early winter of 1988, my family was faced with a great tragedy. Five years earlier, my Aunt Kathy, who was full of zest and full of life and always one my favorite people, aside from being my mom's best friend and sister, was diagnosed with stomach cancer. After 3 years of intensive ChemoTherapy, she had gone into remission, at least so we thought. It basically came out after she died that she was given only a couple of more years to live back in 1986 when she said her cancer was gone and this brought us to January 1988.
Everything seemed to be fine with my Aunt and then all of a sudden she was in dire straits. Of course I now realize that the "all of a sudden" was merely her being strong and not showing the pain she had been in on a constant basis for the past year or so. All along she knew what nobody else knew, that she was dying.
I remember being awoken one night at about 11:00pm and told by my father and brother that we were going to have to go up to my Grandmothers house (where my Aunt Kathy had been moved to when her condition worsened) to join the rest of our extended family in saying goodbye to her. The truth was cold and emotionless, I was going to have to go and say goodbye to a woman that I had known and loved all my life. I was going to have to watch as her once strong body and spirit (now an 80lb. shell of itself) slowly and painfully drifted into deaths cold hands, never to utter another kind word of support to me and never again to come to my defence when my mother and father were being a bit to heavy handed in their disciplinary beliefs with me.
She was the one relative of mine that always believed in what I was doing and thought my love of bodybuilding was the greatest thing in the world even when everyone else though it was nothing more than an adolescent pipe dream.
I can recall how I went up to the couch that she lay dying on and leaned over to give her a final kiss and say goodbye. I tried to be strong and talk about my future plans, but it was of no use. She was too weak to lift her head up and too weak to put her arms around me. I lost it.
I have little problem with the entire issue of death, but to watch someone who was so strong be stripped of all that they were and lay in an almost skeletonized state before my very eyes with each gasping breath bringing them one step closer to death was very hard for me to take. I wanted to take away her pain, but I knew I couldn't. My mother stayed by her side and she died several hours later. I never cried for her again, for I knew her suffering was over. Even at her wake and funeral when people were in such drastic states of hysteria and pain, I was emotionless. I knew she was in a better place and I knew her suffering was over. I was not going to cry for my loss or for anyone elses loss because that would be selfish. She went through hell and back again and I was glad her journey of torture was over. However, the one thing that I did do, was promise myself that I would make her proud. It became almost an obsession. I was not going to let her down and I was going to prove to everyone that her unwavering belief in my love for bodybuilding was not for nothing!
I can remember sitting in the funeral home with my freshly purchased copy of Arnold's Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. All my other relatives thought is was disrespectful and tasteless, but I knew it was what my Aunt would have wanted; for me to use her death as a pillar on which to devote myself to my dream. From that day forward that book had become my bible. I read every page over and over again. More importantly I payed strict attention to the section on diet and gaining weight and it was that day in the funeral home that I made a promise to both my deceased Aunt and myself that I was going to get super focused with my diet and training.
The first step in that focus was to put on some much needed weight and to do that I had to start getting structured and to start eating.
When I had first started lifting weights, one of the police officers that worked under my father had given him a bunch of old Flex magazines to give to me. I was mesmorized by them, and in particular one issue.
There was a small article in this particluar issue on an up and coming teen sensation named Shane DiMora. Some of you may recall Shane as I believe he was the youngest man ever to turn pro at the age of 19. But this article was written a few years before he turned pro. I think he was 16 at the time it was written and I remember seeing his picture standing next to Cory Everson and I was shocked. At age 16 he was 202lbs. (he was only 5'3") and his thickness was astounding. That image always stuck in my mind, so when I made the pact with myself to get serious and start putting on size, I dug up that old picture of Shane Dimora and cut it out. I pasted it to my wall. I decided I was going to be proportionally as big or bigger than that little freak Shane DiMora and that meant I needed to reach a weight of 230lbs. since I was 6'1".
I marked off on the calander when I would accomplish this by. It was the beginning of February, one week after my Aunt Kathy's death and I was giving myself until June 15th of 1988 to achieve my goal. I was 194lbs. (two pounds lighter than when I started my senior year of High School) and had just 4 months to put on a solid 36lbs. For the first time in my life everything was crystal clear. I had a clear purpose, a path that I needed to adhere to and one that I would travel all alone, and that is what I liked about it the most.
Next time we will pick up where I left off and discuss what it was that I did during that 4 months, the things I encountered along the way and whether or not I was able to achieve my goal.
