Post 1. From The Boy.
When I was thirteen years old I would come home from school and go right to the fridge. My parents usually worked until 5-ish, which left me with a couple hours to dive delectably into whatever food I could find. My afternoon snack of choice at that age was Jell-O pudding. I’d take one out of the fridge, evaluate and salivate over it for a few seconds. Then, with my fat fingers I would delicately tear off the ultra-thin aluminum foil top, put the cup to my mouth, and squeeze. As I licked the inside of the small clear plastic cup, I would be thinking about how wonderful the second one was going to taste. I did this every day. That’s my oldest over-eating memory. I weighed more than 200 pounds when I was thirteen years old, so I must have been eating a lot. The food in my house growing up was somewhat regulated, but not enough to stop me from getting to the “bad” stuff when no one else was around. It especially didn’t help having a brother, nine years older, who had a much higher metabolism than I. Talk about eating. I remember watching him make a single tuna sandwich, with two cans of tuna. Even I didn’t do that. One, because if my mom found out, she’d kill me, and two, because even though I loved to eat, I always found it hard to consume THAT much, especially in front of someone.
I grew up directly north of Philadelphia. We had no Subway (the sandwich, not the ride). There was Lee’s and Slacks. There was Ponderosa and Home Style Buffet. There was the Club House diner. There was DG’s (a staple deli in my hometown of Bensalem), and it just so happened to sit right next to my neighborhood. Whenever my mom would need a tomato or lunch meat, she would always ask me to run to DG’s. And boy did I run. When I got there, I would buy what my mom wanted, but I would also buy treats for myself. Sometimes, soft serve ice-cream cones to scarf down on the trip home, only to have another after dinner when my mom and dad would walk me and my sister over to DG’s for dessert. Yeah, I said it. Oftentimes in the summer I would have two soft serve ice-cream cones a day, two or three times a week. To this day, I guarantee my parents don’t know this. Then again, my parents probably don’t know half of what I consumed as a young teenager.
I could lay part of the blame on my grandfather. My grandparents lived around the corner from me growing up, a great convenience most of the time. Looking back, it was not quite the best influence on my diet. My grandfather was a very large man who ate a lot of grown up food, especially when my grandmother wasn’t home. I have a vivid memory of sitting in the kitchen with him as he made multiple kielbasas, eating everything. He wouldn’t share what he made, but he would always make me something else, usually more kielbasa. My grandfather was amazing, and quite possibly the most intelligent human being I’ll ever meet. But the man could eat. He would always say, “Sshhh, Mathew, this snack is for you and me. Your Bub doesn’t need to know.” I would reply, “Okay, Pop. I won’t say a word.” To be frank, it was in those moments that he would teach me about life. I learned more about friends, family, manners, indulgence and desire more than any other time in my life. Pop died on September 14, 1995 (it was a Thursday). I had just lost more then 60 pounds, not by choice, but by circumstance.
Earlier that year, in March, I had just turned thirteen, and I had received my very first real kiss. Little did I know that that one kiss would make me miss the last four months of seventh grade. My first girlfriend gave me mononucleosis. I couldn’t go down that easy though. She also gave me strep throat, but not just run-of-the-mill strep throat, strep throat in my blood stream. The doctors also thought I had a minor case of Lyme disease. Yeah, I know. I get it. It’s ridiculous, Mono, strep throat in the blood, and possible Lyme disease. Let me tell ya something. If you ever want to lose a third-grader in about a month, go on the Mono, strep throat, and Lyme disease diet! You’ll throw up every day, have the worst possible back aches ever, and cough and sneeze as if there was a whoopee cushion living inside of you, but…you’ll lose a lot of weight. I maintained that lower weight for the better part of high school, and thankfully, I looked (what I consider) the best I’ve ever looked during my senior year. I had a car, a hot girlfriend, good grades, great friends, and a fun job… and I looked good! Everything was going well. I had the highest of hopes. Then I went to college…
Sorry, no pics today. Guess you’ll have to keep reading. We’re only at the beginning, people. Trust me, there’s more. Stay tuned.
Two Happy Chickens 