Worth the Weight

Well, who says there's never any good news anymore? I heard some great news today. It seems that based on some sort of recent survey, about 25% of Americans are overweight. And, in Virginia it's better than 25%. When I was a teenager, it must have been about half a percent. At least at my school. It was just me and Jeff Kibler. When everyone else was running the mile, we were over by a tree coughing up blood. The coaches didn't have much tolerance for fat boys in those days.
Now, it would be a breeze being a fat boy. And, please don't lecture me about the increased health risks. Let me have just a few moments to bask in the glow of fatdom.
When I was a kid, fat boys had to shop in a whole different section of the store...the Huskies Section. Can you imagine the horror. I hated going with my mother to buy clothes. "Where are the huskies," she'd ask. And, the store clerk would look at me and then look back at my mother with a warm, sympathetic smile. If she had wheeled me in the store in an iron lung, she wouldn't have received a more sympathetic look.
And who wants to take a guess at how many of the cool girls liked to be seen with the fat boys? Give up? It's close to zero, if memory serves me correctly. The one consolation I have now is that I'm no fatter than I was then, and those cute girls are a lot less cute. Those sun worshipers of the sixties, now have faces that look like handbags.
But, back to fat talk. It was a lonely world back in my day, for the fat guys that is. I was the one sitting in a corner during the school dances, mainly because I had just split the seat out of my pants. Fat boys tend to do that. And, when I'd wear corduroy pants, and my thighs would rub together, you could hear me coming two blocks away...whush whush whush whush. It was kind of a mournful tune. My pants were singing, "Here comes fat boy, here comes fat boy." And, sure enough, there I'd be, candy bar in one hand and a diet cola in the other.
I'm still fat (although that's changing - see From Chunk To Hunk). But now, I'm not alone. So to all of you nouveau fat, I say come on in, the water's fine. You see, fat boys at the beach, take off their shirts and waddle to the ocean as quickly as they can and stay in the water (up to their many chins) until the sun goes down. We think nobody will notice we're fat. I guess we're also stupid. But, it's a little game we like to play with ourselves.
At least nowadays, we have a lot more people to play with. So, on a serious note, I say to all you fat young people out there, you don't know how fortunate you are to be growing up (and out) at this time in history. And, if you can take a moment out from food consumption, why not tip your cap to the pioneers, to us fat people who trudged before you. We paved the way. We were fat when fat wasn't cool. Carpe Diem. (And, no, that's not a drink at Starbucks.)