I was a skinny kid. I remember complaining about it at the dinner table one time, probably around the time I was in seventh grade. I wanted to bulk up a little bit.
My brother, a football star in high school who later earned a football scholarship to the University of Rhode Island, had some advice.
"You wanna gain weight? Eat potatoes," he said. He wasn't wrong. At that time, I had no idea what carbohydrates were. I would learn.
During high school, I played two years of football and four years of baseball. I didn't have a car until after high school, so I rode my bike a lot. As a senior, I was about 6 feet tall and weighed around 170 pounds. Not a lot of muscle, but I was fit.
Then I graduated and started attending community college in Poughkeepsie, where I studied journalism — one of the most sedentary occupations you can find. Since it was a community college, there was no dorm room to retreat to between classes. Your choices were the library or the cafeteria. To be honest, I am not sure I ever even knew where the library was.
So, my friends and I gathered around a table in the cafeteria to hang out and gab. Occasionally, we would skim a reading assignment or pretend to write an essay, but mostly we talked — and ate. The nosh of choice was usually burgers, fries or the occasional taco. This was the '70s, so I don't think kale or quinoa had been invented yet.
My inevitable weight gain was impressive, albeit gradual. I didn't notice at first. But after community college I transferred to a four-year school. And for some reason during that time, my go-to outfit was bibbed overalls. Again, I blame it on the '70s.
Anyway, combining those overalls with my new zaftig profile, I reminded my dorm mates of the country comedian Junior Samples from the TV show "Hee Haw." I soon earned the nickname "Junior" (later mercifully shortened to J.R.). My solution to all this was to just smoke more weed, but that only gave me the munchies. It was a vicious cycle.
It wasn't until a few years later that I really comprehended the reality of my weight gain. I had landed my first journalism job (with all the requisite sitting and typing), and with it came my first official vacation as an adult with a job. I went camping in Maine with a friend. My two goals were to visit Stephen King's house in Bangor (or at least stand on the sidewalk outside of it) and to eat a lot of lobster. I accomplished both.
As you might imagine, we took a lot of photos on the trip, but there was one in particular that still haunts me to this day. In it, I am lying on my back on this giant rock inside the campground. I am wearing a pair of cutoff jeans and nothing else. I guess I was sunning myself. Anyway, I look like an anaconda that had just swallowed a Volkswagen Beetle. It was startling. Unnerving. Irrefutable evidence of my slovenly lifestyle.
What was my response? More exercise? More activity? Cutting back on those aforementioned carbs? No. I tore up the photo so no one would see it when I showed off my vacation pictures. There. Problem solved.
I carried that paunch for a long time. Decades. That 170 pounds in high school turned into 220. Then 240, which is where I plateaued for a long time.
Folks who had not seen me in a long time were somewhat surprised by my new appearance. But of course, they were classy about it and kindly overlooked it.
Not!
I was playing in a men's slow-pitch softball league and was wearing my uniform. After the game, a woman approached me, seemingly excited to see me.
"Baaaahhhbbb!" she cried out. It was Jennifer, a girl I went to high school with. We were friends back then; not close friends, but friendly. I always thought of her as a "cool chick." I hadn't seen her in probably 10 years.
On that day, she came up and gave me a big hug, pulled away and gave me the once-over. She reached out and patted my belly.
"Oh, my goodness! When are you due?" she cooed.
Outside of calling my name, these were literally the first words out of her mouth. I remember being shocked and embarrassed. There was a loud buzzing noise in my ears. I have no idea how the rest of that conversation went, but 40 years later, that memory is still seared into my brain.
Fast forward to a few years later and I was living in Los Angeles. My New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 50 years, much to my delight. They were led by their legendary captain Mark Messier.
Later that summer, for my birthday, a friend bought me a Mark Messier Rangers jersey, replete with the captain's No. 11 on the back along with his name — Messier. It was the coolest gift I ever received, and I wore it a lot.
A lot.
I came back home to New York that Christmas and of course I wore the jersey out to my favorite local watering hole. I remember standing in front of the jukebox mulling my selections when a guy I went to high school with spotted me and came over to say hello.
But he didn't say anything like, "Hey, Dumas! Long time no see! How the hell are ya?!"
No. What he said was, "Oh, my God! Mark (Messier), you really let yourself go!"
Now, if he had caught me a few beers later, my response might have been different (I totally outweighed him), but I just mumbled "Funny," and walked away.
One would think these cruel jibes would motivate me to do something about it. But noooo. It just got worse. At one point I was hovering around 280 pounds and realized, well, now I am actually closer to 300 than I am to 200.
That was when our old friend diabetes raised its ugly head. It runs strong on my mother's side of the family, and my weight exacerbated the situation, opening the door and inviting it in.
It started with a heart attack, which resulted in bypass surgery. Then came a diabetic infection in my toes, and they had to be removed. Eventually that leg got infected and had to be amputated and replaced with a prosthetic. Two years later, it happened again — this time, the right leg.
So, you can imagine during this time I spent a lot of time in hospitals and rehab, eating a lot of tasteless, mediocre food. (I did, however, catch up on my Jell-O consumption.) It didn't matter. My appetite wasn't the same anyway.
In rehab, they weigh you a lot. They roll your wheelchair up on a platform that looks a little like those weigh stations where they weigh semis on the interstate. One day, the nurse's aide checked the readings and announced, "188 pounds." I was wearing both prosthetics. I suddenly realized that over the course of about four years I had lost nearly 100 pounds.
Holy schnikes! The irony was that I couldn't go anywhere to flaunt it.
It used to be, I thought, that fat people were the last group you were allowed to poke fun at. Then the woke movement came along, and that became known as body shaming. Just be you, fat or skinny, the movement said.
But no one knows better than me what obesity can do to one's health, and America has a serious obesity problem. It is part of what is driving healthcare costs through the roof.
Definitely don't make fun of people struggling with their weight. But by the same token, maybe some people should get off their phones where they are betting on sports via DraftKings and instead hit the local park for a game of pickup basketball.
It's either that or start eating kale and quinoa. And trust me, no one wants that.
Bob Dumas is editor-at-large for Halston Media. To find out his favorite Jell-O flavor, write to him at dumas@halstonmedia.com.
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