Growing Up
I was born in 1928, the last of my parents' six children. It was the days of the "Great Depression", and my father worked hard to supply all necessities for his family. Our food were simple and sparse, but contained all the required food groups, vitamins and minerals. Still I was a very scrawny youngster and so I was given such supplements as were available at the time, such items as cod liver oil and something called "Cocoa Quinine".
Still, I did not gain weight or musculature. I looked in silent admiration at the ads of Charles Atlas and just knew I would never be anything more than the boy in the ads who wished he could look like Atlas. I was shunned by the youths of my age in their sandlot games, withdrew into my own self and my secret, then unfulfilled, desires to be big and muscular.
