As I stated in the previous chapter, when I hit my growth spurt, I gained six inches in six months. I also lost 25 pounds during that time. I certainly was a site for sore eyes. I had a beet red face, oily and greasy hair, no waist and skeletal thin limbs. To top it off, my voice was changing and I was taking chorus. My family had the idea that I should take on an instrument. They figured it could be a fallback for me. Well, I thought I knew better and asked if I could take chorus instead? I thought it would be easier than picking up an instrument. I guess, they neglected telling me about the voice change thing. Thanks, Dad.
Since the change had not taken place yet, the seventh grade was not too bad. So I thought what the hell, I would temp fate and go for a second year. Besides, there were a lot of cute girls in chorus with little competition from the male contingency of the class. Little did I know that all hell would break loose. Holy Shit, when my voice would change it changed ten octaves. Roy Orbison had nothing over me. I could shatter glass when I hit my high tones. Of course, I had absolutely no control over this new talent. Talking about a self-esteem problem. I also couldn’t hide either, there were two other idiots in the class along with me doing the same shit. There simply was no covering up that much terrible singing. Poor Mr. Urbansky, the music teacher must have been asking what he did to deserve us?
Well, after I went through puberty, I was no longer catnip to all those cute girls. I was a virtual pariah, one that could not sing. So in the effort of self preservaton, I dusted off my boxing gloves and started working out and running. I figured if I couldn’t win the fight, I could certainly outrun them. Who knew that I would be the pilot for Forest Gump…”Run Randy Run”.
Eventually, I got too big to mess with and too crazy to be much of a bother to the other tenneage males in my classes. Finally, I discovered Ivory soap and shampoo for oily hair and voila, I was catnip again.
I was the youngest by eleven years, so I had some advantage over my siblings, in that I had a form of hindsight. I was able to see them slide into poor health as they aged, and it was then that I decided to stay healthy even if it killed me.
It was in 1980 that Magnum PI came out and I discovered the world of Triathlons and cross training. In my opinion, he was the father of cross training. He just doesn’t get the credit for it. Little did I know how important it would become in my life for a period of over five years.