The spring of nineteen-eighty-five I was training one night when I heard some of the guys and John talking about an upcoming bodybuilding competition. I had the previous summer attended my first competition but only as a spectator. John had actually won the overall at this competition. I also learned there was a teenage division. It is also where I saw my first Pro bodybuilder in real life. His name was Mike Christian and he was absolutely massive. I was kicking around the idea that I may give this a shot and diet for a show but in my mind’s eye I was light years away from this even being a possibility. I remarked to John that I would like to attend this show as well to watch. At this time John informed me that he had been watching me and he thought I had enough development to compete in this competition! Now I was really taken back. I felt nowhere near ready to get onstage in a pair of underwear all oiled up! I told him I did not think I was ready. He said to me if a person waits until they are ready they will never be ready! I have actually used this line over and over throughout the years. It is a truth that most bodybuilders regardless of level mostly see all of their flaws and not their gifts and strengths. I told John I would think it over. I never discussed this with my parents for months. Perhaps it was my fierce independence flexing its muscles again or perhaps I was embarrassed to tell them I would stand onstage in a pair of underwear oiled up and devoid of body hair! I was working for my Grandfather and uncle at the time and often bought my own food well a lot of it anyway so I could cover up the diet change for awhile anyway. So after a week of kicking all this around I figured what the hell!? So it was off to the races to start my prep for my first competition and basically the next 25 years of my life. Unreal to me looking back.

It was around this time frame that the miracle supplements began to hit the market. Two of the first big ones were Smilax sublingual and Glandular pills. A sublingual is an alcohol based solution that is placed under the tongue until absorbed, supposedly into the blood stream. Smilax was derived from the wild Mexican yam. Anabolic Steroids are also derived from the Wild Mexican Yam! The pseudo-science behind this is because steroids are taken from this plant, if we extract the juice of this plant and ingest it, it will yield steroid like effects. This is totally 100% a fallacy and a very primitive way to think of science. Mexican yams go through a multitude of processes before becoming steroids. But we did not think this through so because we did not we bought into the scams and wasted our money on this snake oil. The same goes for the Glandular Complex. These disgusting and huge tablets smelled like the Devils asshole and tasted worse! They were derived from the Bovine sources of all kinds of nasty glands…including the testicles! Yes there were balls in the pills! Yummy in the tummy! The “science” behind this was the gland once consumed would travel through the body after ingestion and stimulate the same gland in you to produce more of what said gland produced. It is all lost in the caustic environment of the gut broken down into individual amino acids. Jeff Everson editor of Flex Magazine wrote many years back that when it comes to Glandular Complexes, “one may as well eat their finger nails!” The only good part of this was the famed Placebo Effect. Because I believed this stuff was making me stronger I was stronger. Because I was stronger I moved more weight. This damaged more muscle tissue and thus I gained more lean mass than I would have without the Smilax! This brings up a good case in point. In World War Two in the Philippines malaria was rampant and soldiers were down for the count in droves. Many were dying. Doctors had run out of medicine and the soldiers were suffering badly. A doctor had the idea of giving the soldiers sugar pills to ease their anxiety. Much to the medical staff’s surprise many of the soldiers improved as if they had been given the actual drug, mind over matter. Because the soldiers believed that the medicine was going to make them better, they got better! Because I believed the Smilax and Glandular Complex helped me they did indeed help me.

Larry and I had been plugging away in his garage for about a year when I was going somewhere with my dad and as I was gazing out the passenger side window I spotted a fitness center. It was called Speedy’s Fitness Center. As we were driving by at night I could see all kinds of machines barbells and dumbbells! Speedy’s was only a few miles from my house so I decided I would ride my bike up after school the next day to check it out. I rode up there as fast as I could directly after departing the bus. I lay my bike down in the mulch bed and stood in the open door way. As I stood and watched the men at the back of the facility I was amazed to be quite honest at the scene that was currently under way. These men were very large human beings. Actually the biggest I had ever seen in real life. They were doing squats and there was a lot of weight on the bar! I remember AC/DC was playing on the radio at full blast. All the men were sweating profusely and yelling at one man who was wrapping his knees with what looked like very thick ACE bandages. As the man stood to get under the bar I was shocked as one of the other men came up behind him and delivered a very loud slap to his back. The man getting ready to perform the lift actually staggered forward as a cloud of chalk erupted from his back where the blow was struck! He yelled but it did not seem to be from the pain from the blow but more from a controlled kind of rage! He growled as he moved under the bar and hoisted it off the squat racks and slowly walked backwards. He got set and began to grind out rep after grueling rep. His face was as red as a tomato and spit flew from his mouth as he exhaled. After he completed his set he walked the weight back to the rack and set it back down. All the men were giving him praise for doing good work and were again slapping him on the back causing more chalk to explode into the air. I was stunned at what I had just witnesses and a little frightened. I do not even know if any of them saw me as they seemed to be in their own world but there was no way I was going in there! I walked back sheepishly to my bike and rode home. I had in my mind that I had to get bigger before I went to where the Titans worked out!

One night we all decided to go to the YMCA for what was called “Teen Night” This was a community based program on Saturday night designed to keep kids out of mischief and pursuing a safe healthy lifestyle. I was resting outside of the weight room when I noticed a very attractive brunet with big, sexy, curly, hair (It was the eighties!) and beautiful big brown eyes! Her name was Michele and although I did not know it at the time she would one day be my wife and the mother of my son! I was looking at her and she was looking at me. I was in retrospect probably strutting around like a peacock in my neon tank top. (As I said it was the eighties!) I finally worked up the courage to go over and talk to her and asked her if she was single and it turns out she was. We kissed some that night and to be honest I was totally taken with her.

There was a logistic problem with Michele and I dating. We lived about fifteen miles apart and neither one of us drove. The day after we met at the YMCA I assured her I could ride my bike over to her house without issue. She thought I was insane! What she did not know and as I said before my cardio fitness at the time was what was insane! And so I got directions from her, well actually I got them from her mother and off I went to her house for the first time. I arrived pretty much not winded at all, just thirsty as it was summer and it was in the mid nineties and quite humid, her mom Mary, who this time and every time thereafter was trying to feed me as I guzzled down a big glass of water. I assured her I was okay and no food was needed. Michele then asked me if I wanted to take a walk around the block. Her mom read her the riot act over this saying I needed to rest after such a long bike ride. Again I assured her I was fine and taking a walk would not be an issue. I knew a walk around the block would also give me a chance to be alone with Michele which would also mean I would get a chance to kiss her some! Well worth the ride over and a walk around the block I can tell you!

Beside my three or four time a week bike hikes over to her house, Michele and I would meet up at the YMCA teen nights most every week. I learned then that Michele could not swim so I took it upon myself to teach her to swim. I am not so sure I did a great job but it was fun being with her and her in a bathing suit. It was a good thing the water was at least waist deep and cold! My fourteen years old hormones were in full swing by this time. We dated for I think another six months or so before I being a young man and quite fickle broke up with her. As I write this I feel quite guilty about breaking up with her. To be quite honest looking back I do not know why I did it as she and I got along very well and she really did nothing wrong. She was a great girl and is to this day she is a great woman, a woman who would be a very large part of my life in years to come. We were not through with each other, not by a long shot! It is astounding to me that I owe who my son Jacob is today to my pursuit of bodybuilding. If I was not into weight training I would not have gone to the YMCA. I would not have met Michele and I would not know the absolutely wonderful boy I now call my son. As I write this I am flooded with emotion to the point of tears. This crazy pursuit that gave me my son also through a tragic course of events has landed me in prison and taken me away from him. Life is an incredibly twisted road. If I had not been incarcerated I would not be writing this book either. Perhaps everything happens for a reason.

At school I was starting to get comments from some of the students. It is unusual for a sixth grader to be showing any kind of muscularity. Many of these comments were from the girls in my classes and as I was at this point starting to take notice of the female persuasion this was just fine by me!

The fact that I was starting to notice the females in my class was in fact a good sign for my physique development as well as it meant I was starting into puberty and a testosterone surge was also in the works.

One funny incident that happened as a result of my weight training was a girl in my class named Laura who was quite the brain told me I had high blood pressure and that she could tell because of how all my veins stood out from my skin. When I stopped and thought about it, it actually made sense to me and I began to worry about it! She told me not to eat salt, which if I had indeed had high blood pressure was sound advice! When my dad got home I told him that I needed to go to the doctor. He asked “What the hell for are you sick?” I said to him in a very serious tone “No it is worse than that dad, I have high blood pressure!” He asked me who in the world told me that? I said a girl in my class said I do because my veins stick out, see! I held my arm out to display the obvious truth to what Laura had said. He then proceeded to hold out his arm that had twice as many veins that were three times the size of my puny veins and said, “you can see all my veins too and I don’t have high blood pressure! Now get your ass out of here and be a kid and go play!” he then went back to whatever vehicle he was working on and that was the end of that! I went back to school the next day and told Laura I did not have high blood pressure and she should just be quiet and mind her own business!