Junior High... By the time I was in 8th and 9th grade in 1985, Motley Crue was on MTV around the clock with "Smokin in the Boys Room and Home Sweet Home, while Scorpions were Rockin' us Like a Hurricane, and Ozzy Osbourne was Barking at the Moon. Vinyl 45s and 33 LP albums and record players were becoming a thing of the past like the 8 track tapes several years before as we all had cassette tapes now. We could play our albums in a cassette player which also doubled as a recorder so we could make mix tapes of our favorite songs, recording them right off the radio. Boom boxes and ghetto blasters and home rack systems had these dual cassette recorders that allowed us to dub entire albums for our friends. The home entertainment centers and rack systems still had phonographs or record players / turntables in them as well, and the more expensive boom boxes and home systems were starting to include something new called Compact Disc players in them. Mom and Dad were separated with me and my siblings living on Meadow Street in Natrona Heights with her... and my Dad, who I was closer to, was living near his side of the family back in Kittanning a half hour away. "Def Leppard" was one of my favorite bands at this time. Rocky 4 came out at the movies that year... one of my favorite movies ever... and my Dad took me, Bob, and Wendy to see it. Halloween and horror movies were still a big influence on me and I was sculpting things out of clay and now making haunted props, arms, and other spooky things out of paper mache. In the Halloween section of the stores, I would buy fake blood, a putty-like substance called scar skin, and different shades of gray and blue horror make up for a vampire or zombie look. Then I learned from my fangoria magazines how to apply oatmeal to my face for a rotted decaying texture and how to apply prosthetic latex appliances and wounds with something called spirit gum. My mom had a few wigs with long black hair, so I would stuff a bunch of clothes and make a dummy with a football or other ball or towel for the head and cover it with a mask then add her wig on top and set it up in my sister's room or back in the dark utility room at the end of the hallway and turn the lights out. Then I'd put scary music and sound effects on my record player or horror movie soundtracks like Halloween or Dawn of the Dead and call my brother and sister. They'd recognize the music and knew I was out to scare them and they'd cautiously but excitedly make their way down the hallway into my rooms of terror. I had these yellow plastic electronic glasses that had little red lights that lit up in the middle of each eye that looked scary in the dark, so if they would walk into a dark room, I would be sitting in the corner and turn them on and that's all you would see. Bob and Wendy would gently push open a bedroom door and I'd have a few throw pillows or towels or stuffed animals placed at the top of the door overhead to come down on them as they look in and see the spooky prop dummy, then I'd reach out from under the bed or jump out from another hiding spot to scare the crap out of them. We had so much fun. I was still just a little boy basically. In mid 8th grade, at age 14, i finally got a weight set and started lifting weights which became my favorite thing for many years and would continue on and off as I got older. A friend of my mom's gave me an old weight bench and some bars and a bunch of the old style plastic cement and sand filled weights. I also bought a bodybuilding book by Franco Columbu that taught me all about the different muscle groups, weightlifting exercises, and diet and nutrition. I could barely bench press 90 pounds by the end of 8th grade after my first few months of bodybuilding / lifting weights. Since I had severe asthma as a child and teenager, I was limited at first and would get too out of breath on certain exercises so I had to improvise. Instead of lifting like a bodybuilder and doing 3 or 4 exercises per body part, I would only do bench press for my pecs, one arm curls for my biceps, and overhead shoulder press for my delts... and I did this almost every day. Franco would recommend 8 to 12 reps on most exercises, and since I would have trouble breathing doing 10 or more, I decided to go with 8 reps on everything... so I could handle the most weight possible without getting all exhausted and out of breath. I still do 8 reps to this day. I didnt have a squat tack in those early days, so I would do leg extensions on my leg lift attachment throughout junior high and highschool to keep my legs in shape, aside from riding my ten speed bike all over town. In the summer I joined a local fitness center called AK Nautilus in Natrona Heights, which had all kinds of nautilus machines, and a sauna / steam room, but no free weights... though I still had that old used weight bench and plastic weights at home. I went out for the wrestling team in the fall of 1985 my freshman year, when I was still 14 and wrestled at the 128-130 pound weight class at around 5'7" tall and pretty small and skinny yet. Later that year and now in mid 9th grade, I would use my Christmas money to go buy a new weight bench and some cast iron weights in December of 1985. By the end of 9th grade I was getting pretty strong for my age and size, but still kind of small, although a little heavier now with some muscle tone. I was able to bench press 160 pounds max (one rep) at the end of the school year in May of 1986, and was benching around 120 pounds for 3 sets of 8 reps during my workouts. Fighting with my brother and sister over the TV to watch my rock bands and pop videos on Mtv and Pro Wrestling instead of their hours long USA Cartoon Express and Nickelodeon was the big battle every other weekend when we'd go up to visit my Dad. I wanted to see my Road Warriors, The "Russian Nightmare" Nikita Koloff, and the Four Horsemen do battle... or watch my music videos like Billy Idol, Joan Jett, and ZZ Top while they had their minds set on Space Ghost and Speed Racer. 3 and 4 years younger than me, They were both still in elementary school and always got their way. Back then, "maxing" was the big thing as all of us lifters were always trying to break our max and see how much weight we could bench press for 1 rep. Some of us would arch our backs crazily or even bounce the bar off our chests a little in an effort to get the weight up. It was something you didnt actually try to do but more of a reaction that just kind of happened sometimes without thinking as you struggle to press the barbell upwards. Well, That summer in '86, my friend Denny was spotting me when I attempted 170 for the first time. I remember it bouncing off my chest, going up about 6 or 7 inches, and coming back down right across my throat. It happened so fast and Denny ofcourse pulled it up immediately and saved my life and asked if I was ok, but it still happened and that could've been fatal. Fortunately, I didnt crush my windpipe or Adam's apple or damage my vocal chords. Instead I somehow managed to just have a sore throat for the next couple of days. There would be other accidents in the years to come. 1986 was also the year I started running the track at the junior high school, in the evening. I usually went with a couple of friends but sometimes by myself. I would ride my 10 speed bike 2 miles to the track then run. I couldn't do much after the long bike ride with my asthma so I eventually worked up to 3 laps that summer which was 3/4 of a mile. I was just about to start running a mile a day before I stopped going. Later when i got older in the 90s, I would go back and run the track sometimes with my friends. With all the rock and metal on the radio at the time, I thought it would be cool to learn to play guitar someday but I was happy lifting weights and hanging out up the street with my friends. Although I was hearing more and more of the heavy metal bands with all this crazy hair and flashy clothes, I was still listening to the top 40 and bubblegum pop stations, some soft rock / yacht rock, and of course my favorite classic rock tapes and radio stations, and I just kept to my artistic hobbies of drawing, painting, and sculpting and reading my horror and special effects magazines or watching Sci-Fi movies and going to the arcade when I wasn't hanging out with my friends.

Highschool in the 1980s... 10th grade came along and 1986 brought David Lee Roth's "Yankee Rose", and Cinderella's "Nobody's Fool"... and things started to change. At 15 years old and still painfully shy, I had a crush on a girl up the street and another that lived right up the hill from my house. At about 5'8 and 1/2" now, and a few pounds heavier, I continued lifting weights and was steadily improving month by month, getting stronger and adding muscle. I went out for wrestling again in 10th grade, wrestling at the 132-134 weight class in the early fall during my sophomore year and was told by fellow wrestlers I had practice with that I was heavier than I looked and surprisingly strong. I would start getting into more fights soon at school, and I was lifting weights everyday. During the first half of 10th grade, I had put on some more weight and got a little taller. I was about average height and size for my age then... 5'9 and weighing about 140 pounds by the end of '86, halfway through 10th grade... and starting to tone up more and getting stronger. I wasnt thin and smaller anymore and with my new build starting to shape up, I was a little heavier than I looked. I had a falling out with mom and moved in with my aunt up the street. My best friend Denny lived a few houses up from my aunt's place and he had an Ozzy Osbourne tape that I would borrow and it would become a favorite of mine for awhile, and had this song called "Shot in the Dark". Mtv had this 3 hour metal marathon called Headbangers Ball every weekend late at night, and also played the top 10 most requested videos every week night which featured alot of the glam and hard rock bands of the day... so I had a daily dose of "heavy metal" all week long. I still listened to my Journey tapes, other classic rock bands, and top 40 pop songs. Aside from our cassette recorders and boom boxes, we all had Walkman style cassette player/ radios with headsets so we could exercise or jog, go for a walk, or just listen to our music anywhere with the player right on our hip. There was a really cool music video then by Quiet Riot called "The Wild and the Young" where rock and metal has been outlawed by the government and our heroes (the band) are fighting the system in a revolution to save Rock and Roll. By mid 10th grade 1987 rolled around and I was steadily putting on weight and getting stronger. I was benching my 140 pound bodyweight in sets and maxing 185. My appetite was pretty good and I could eat just about anything with my fast metabolism and working out as hard as I did. So I was always eating. But I tried to eat healthy most of the time. My breakfasts were pretty good size as I would have 2 eggs every morning, 2 pieces of toast, some orange juice, and milk. Most mornings I would also have a bowl of cereal too. Occasionally I would have a couple slices of bacon. School lunches had a carton of milk, and a hamburger or soybean burger as we called them, Mexican pizza, or some sort of fish or chicken filet sometimes, along with tater tots, a roll, or mashed potatoes for the side, and a fruit cup or serving of mixed vegetables. The lunches weren't bad and were pretty healthy back then. At mom's place and later at my aunt's, I usually had to fend for myself. Mom didn't always cook and wasn't home much in junior high and up through the middle of my sophomore year. Sometimes she would make dinner for us and leave it on the stove or in the fridge for when we got home from school. She would make things like steak and mashed potatoes or porkchops and baked beans, or salmon patties and macaroni. She would have dinner together with us once in a while when she was home. Other times I would find whatever I could in the fridge or cupboards and make something myself. She did take us out once in awhile to McDonalds or pizza hut, etc. Marthann rarely ever cooked and usually just got whatever groceries I wanted each week and I cooked my own meals or she would bring me McDonald's, or sometimes a bucket of KFC chicken or pizza to last me a few days. I also had a steady supply of grilled cheese sandwiches and steak-ums if I got hungry later at night before bedtime. When we visited Dad every other weekend, he would cook for us but also take us out to restaurants instead of fast food. On the weekends he would wake us all up for breakfast. He loved to cook and for dinner he would make things like rigatoni, lasagna, and stuffed peppers. Dad also loved to bake cakes and pies for us. One of his favorites was pineapple upside down cake! He would sometimes use peaches instead. I've gone back in recent years and tried to figure out what my macros were back then and I think I had around 100 grams of protein a day in 10th and 11th grade, maybe more sometimes. I was in highschool now and Poison and Bon Jovi were all over the radio. My shy quiet self started getting up the courage to talk to girls and I finally began to come out of my shell a little. Throughout 10th grade, people were noticing I was looking a little more built and getting in shape... and I was starting to get compliments. During my normal 3 sets of 8 reps on an exercise like shoulder press or barbell curls, I would sometimes raise the weight on my last set 5 pounds and if I was able to do it, I would try raising the whole exercise next time to that weight. Other times I would do 4 sets of 8 with my normal weight, or try 3x8 with the normal weight then see if I could do a 4th set with 5 pounds more added on. In either case I would move up next time to that weight if i was able to get it. At this time I was usually moving up 5 pounds a month on bench press, my favorite exercise. By the end of the school year, I had gained about 15 pounds of muscle and was about 5 or 10 pounds heavier now than most of the boys my age and I was bench pressing my body weight in sets and able to max close to 2 plates which is 2 big 45s on each side of a 45 lb olympic bar... or 225 lbs total. I maxed 215 in the weight room during gym class the last week of school. Not bad for a little 15 year old 155 pound 10th grader.

Then came the Summer of 1987 and I was really getting into the glam and metal scene with some of my favorite bands being Whitesnake, Great White, and Cinderella. I was 16 now and had been lifting weights for a couple of years, put on some muscle, let my hair grow a little longer, and I started dating. That was the summer when "Save Your Love" came out.... one of my favorite rock ballads ever... and one that I would learn to play years later on guitar. At the time of my birthday in mid June, I was an inch taller now at 5'10"... and by mid-summer in July, I was bench pressing my bodyweight in sets which was about 165 at the time, and sure I could max 2 plates by now (225) but didn't have enough weights at home. I was getting built and putting on about 5 pounds of muscle every month, adding another 15 pounds that summer to my bodyweight... weighing 170 in late August. My arms were 16" around and I had a good bit of definition and was doing alot of situps and ab roller / exer wheel, so i had a really good stomach with even the lower part of my abs showing... more like an 8 pack than the typical 6 pack. Shoulder press was about 100 in sets, curling maybe 75 at the most, and tricep extension overhead at about 80. I also did other dumbell exercises. By 11th grade, I was much more confident and getting over my shyness and had several different groups of friends. Here's a photo from October 1987 from a wedding I attended in early 11th grade. My girlfriend Chris and I, most of our friends, and everyone at school... were still buying cassette tapes of our favorite rock bands, with a few CDs starting to make it into some of our collections. I was living up the street with relatives for awhile that year... first at my aunt Marthann's house, then with my distant cousins who had a pool table in the garage. All the kids from around the neighborhood came over to play pool all the time, while we all listened to the local rock stations on the radio. It became known as the pool hall. When it was just me and a few others, I'd sneak in my metal tapes which we weren't allowed to have and I'd run the table, sinking all the pool balls to Whitesnake, KISS, Ozzy, and others. I was getting into harder rock and heavy metal like Motley Crue, Ratt, the Scorpions, and lifting weights all the time when I wasn't playing pool. I gained yet another 5 pounds in the early months of my junior year and maxed 230 on bench press in September during the first few weeks of school, and 245 in October the following month, then the seat broke on my bench while I was doing leg extensions along with a couple of other small lifting accidents around that time. I practically fell through it as it split in half so my cousin and I cut a new piece of wood and screwed it in place for the seat but no padding or cushion so it wasn't very comfortable. On November 18th, I broke my max and did 270. I was now a good 15 pounds heavier my junior year than most boys my age, aside from the athletes like football players and some of the stronger wrestlers. My sets were going up 5 to 10 pounds a month on bench. Halfway through 11th grade by late December, I was bench pressing 200 pounds in sets (3x8)... way over my 175 pound bodyweight, and able to max 270 one time... almost a hundred pounds over my bodyweight. Sometimes if I was feeling really good on bench press, I would do a 4th, and sometimes even a 5th set to get a really good pump or when I was ready to move up. That's 5x8 with 200 pounds mid-11th grade. Bodybuilders do multiple sets like this, though they usually do multiple exercises for chest where I only did bench and butterflies. I would do this multiple set routine of 4 or 5 sets on bench press from time to time in 10th and 11th grade when I was feeling really good. I was curling 80 pounds and overhead tricep pressng 85-90, and shoulder pressing 120 in sets. I had put on 35 pounds of muscle throughout '87 from mid 10th grade to mid 11th grade, and was getting ripped and definitely stronger and could outlift most of the big football players my age and many older than me. There were a few other wrestlers and football players in my grade about my size and build who I'm sure were probably about my strength too, and 1 or 2 who were a bit bigger and stronger, and some really big overweight football players that could squat a ton of weight... but I was definitely near the top. More people in school and around the neighborhood were noticing my biceps and my chest and I actually had an 8 pack at the time. I started arm wrestling some of the bigger guys and football players in class... and winning! My bench press slowed down, increasing to 205 for reps later that winter, then repping 210 in the spring. Although I was getting built, my arms were still only about 16-1/4 to 16-1/2" around (pumped)... nothing to brag about but not bad either. I grew another inch my junior year and was 5'11" by the end of the school year, and would get into several fights that year as well as my following senior year at a different highschool. By this time I wanted a guitar to play my favorite rock and metal songs but I couldn't afford one yet. I hadn't sculpted or done anything with modeling clay since 8th grade in junior high, and didn't get my Fangoria magazines anymore, so I wasnt really that much into scary movies and special effects anymore... at least not for awhile. Though some of the rock songs were becoming part of the horror movie soundtracks back then like Alice Cooper "Man Behind the Mask" about Jason from Friday the 13th, and Dokken's "Dream Warriors" for Freddy Krueger's 3rd installment of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

During my senior year, I moved from Highlands Highschool in Natrona Heights which was about a half hour drive from Pittsburgh... back to the more rural area of Kittanning Senior Highschool located in Armstrong County where I was born and had spent my early childhood. I changed schools that summer to be with my Dad and unfortunately didnt get to see my girlfriend much or my friends at school anymore. I was benching 215 in sets now and lifting out in my Dad's garage when the uprights bent and collapsed. The bottom of the uprights had this little bend in them about 6 or 8 inches up from the floor that created a dangerous stress point. It was a Joe Weider bench, so i never thought anything of it. Afterall, i had put on well over 200 pounds many times over the years when i was maxing including 270 pounds the year before and always repped over 200 since then. But it wasnt able to handle very heavy weight and was great in 1985 in junior high but not now as I had gotten alot bigger and stronger. So partway through one of my sets, the stress point gave way and bent and collapsed while I was pressing 215 pounds up and I barely got it up to the rack when the whole bench tipped backwards up against the wall of the garage and my legs and bottom half of the bench went up in the air. I dont remember if the barbell went over and behind the uprights and fell behind me, or if I got it back up on the rack before everything collapsed, but I remember jumping off the bench in time without getting hurt or worse. My dad heard the loud crash and came in to the garage and asked me what happened and if I was alright, so I'm thinking the barbell fell behind and just missed my head. Even worse, it could've come down across my face or throat. There were two big long tears int the insulation of the wall where the uprights gouged a path as the bench fell backwards. My friend Lakota who I met in my late 40s lived in the same house with his family decades later and said those gouges in the wall are still there. Dad built me a much stronger wooden weight bench out of 2x4 and 2x6 lumber after that, which I used for many years up until the mid 90s. There was a drought that summer so we had to conserve water with temperatures hitting in the 90s much of the summer. With a little fan on my face to stay cool at night, I developed a summer cold that turned into a sinus cold and ear infection in the fall that lasted for months. I had to get it taken care of at the Dr's office. Miserable with medicine and cotton stuffed in my ear at my new school, I made some friends and continued working out but finished out '88 halfway through 12th grade only a little stronger than my junior year at Highlands. This photo of me and my highschool sweetheart Christine was taken at a wedding in the fall of that year. Chris and I met when I was a junior and we would go on to date for the next 5 years into our early twenties... and a couple of years after this photo was taken, she would buy me one of the coolest Christmas presents ever... a beautiful new guitar! As a senior, I had a friend named Joel who played bass and loved Metallica. Hanging out at Joel's house, I got to see his bass up close as he'd play "For Whom the Bell Tolls". I wasn't a fan of the heavy thrash and speed metal, and couldn't stand the screaming vocals and evil lyrics... but just seeing Joel play his bass made me want to start learning to play guitar even more. I couldn't wait to have a guitar some day and play my type of metal... Ratt, Scorpions, Def Leppard, Poison, Whitesnake, and more. Dad would cook all the time and always get dinner ready for us every day, and alot of the time it was something big that would last a couple of days like chili or lasagna. On the weekends he would still make me breakfast sometimes and I would wake up to the smell of French toast or eggs and bacon. I ate good there. During the rest of my senior year, I stayed in shape and still weighed about the same, around 175 as the year before but "plateaued" through all of 1988 and '89, only getting a little stronger than I was in late '87, and stayed about the same build. I was probably eating more my senior year too, with bigger portions so I probably had at least 120 or more grams of protein per day. By mid 12th grade I was benching 220 in sets and able to max 285 one time, curling 90, tricep extension 95-100, and shoulder pressing 140 in sets. Anytime I say "repping" or "worked out with" or "in sets", it normally means 3 sets of 8 reps. Even though I was in pretty good shape and had been lifting for several years now, I was doing it wrong. I loved working out so much that I couldnt wait to lift again, so instead of lifting every other day like most people, I benched and curled and shoulder pressed 5, 6, sometimes 7 days a week. All my exercises, full workouts... were done like this for years. I had asthma and still didn't have the stamina to lift like a bodybuilder and do multiple exercises for each muscle, so I tailored my workouts to my asthma and only did one or 2 exercises for each muscle so i wouldn't get exhausted and out of breath. My workouts usually lasted about an hour to an hour and a half. For this reason, I thought it was fine to lift everyday... and it worked for many years. But this might be why I stayed at the same levels for so long in '88 and '89. Even though I was pretty strong and built well and could outlift most of the guys my age, I didnt have the size. I should've weighed 200 pounds and been alot stronger by graduation and been as big as most of those football players at the rate I was going. About the time of my senior prom pictured here, I had lots of Rock album cassettes and mix tapes of my favorite songs and musical artists. I hadn't quite made the jump to optical CDs yet, but started getting a few "cassingles" which were cassette tapes of a particular band or artist with only a song or two on them. There was still lots of good music on the radio stations then... top 40 / pop, classic rock, metal... and by the end of 12th grade a couple of new bands started showing up on Mtv and on the radio... including a band called Skid Row. Sebastian Bach was the singer and would go on to become one of the greatest heavy metal vocalists in history. Many years later, I would end up trying to hit his high notes and sing his long vibrato-laden phrases and lyrics at the top of my lungs as I took singing lessons. I was still drawing and sketching in my spare time and planning to go to college soon. Right after graduation in '89, some of my favorite bands were coming out with new albums including Great White with "Twice Shy", and an album called "Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich" by another new band called Warrant. Those albums would have several ballads that I would end up learning to sing later on with different voice coaches when I got older.