I have been honored by Bodybuilding.com to be invited to have this page on
their web site. We are justly most interested in bodybuilders who began the
sport early in life and still have youthful physiques to show the results of
their dedication and hard work.
However, there are other bodybuilders who
have passed the years when they could be considered young. Some of these
began working out at an early age and have continued on to their present
vibrant seniority.
What Can Bodybuilding Accomplish?
Then, there are others who, like me, began rather late in
life, but whose minds and spirits as well as their physiques, now testify to
what bodybuilding can accomplish. The rejuvenation that I have experienced
from bodybuilding has given me the motto: "It is never too late to become
what you might have been."
The regular entries in this journal will be a verbal and pictorial record of
what I have and am accomplishing through bodybuilding and reflections on the
program that I follow.
It is my intent that this journal may serve to
motivate others who think their age or condition precludes them from
bodybuilding to become rejuvenated through bodybuilding. I encourage any who
are interested in a new and vital life through bodybuilding to contact me
with any questions or comments at johnpasco@bodybuilders.com.
As a background for what this Journal's succeeding entries shall contain,
let me now give you a sketch of my life which has led me to my rejuvenation
through bodybuilding. Perhaps then you will understand why I place such
importance on the sport. Perhaps you will find some parallel of it in your
own life.
This Is To You Out There
Just the other day, my son, Hans, was looking at some old photos in his
collection of pictures taken as he was growing up. He came upon a picture of
me taken about 15 years ago and showed it to his eight-year-old daughter, my
grand daughter Lauren. It showed me standing with him. She asked who that
was in the picture with him and he said, "That is your grandfather."
She said, "Oh, Dad, that's not my grandfather that man is an old man!" You see,
my grand daughter has only seen me since I have been rejuvenated through
bodybuilding. I cannot fully express to you how much that child's eye view
rewards me for the time and focus I have dedicated to the sport in these
recent years.
I believe that there are many "out there" who would like to
merit such comments by their children, grand children and friends. It is to
those men I address this page on Bodybuilding.com.
Growing Up
I was born in 1928, the last of my parents' six children. It was the days of
the "Great Depression", and my father worked hard to supply all necessities
for his family. Our food were simple and sparse, but contained all the
required food groups, vitamins and minerals. Still I was a very scrawny
youngster and so I was given such supplements as were available at the time,
such items as cod liver oil and something called "Cocoa Quinine".
Still, I did not gain weight or musculature. I looked in silent admiration at the ads
of Charles Atlas and just knew I would never be anything more than the boy
in the ads who wished he could look like Atlas. I was shunned by the youths
of my age in their sandlot games, withdrew into my own self and my secret,
then unfulfilled, desires to be big and muscular.
Benefits Of The GI Bill
Upon graduation from high school at the ending of World War II, I enlisted
in the army primarily to benefit from the benefits of the GI Bill, but more
importantly to see if military training could produce in me the long hoped
for physical development. There was some early development, but it was not
enough.
When I attempted to be accepted for paratrooper training, I was
rejected on physical grounds. I continued in the service and rapidly rose to
be Sergeant Major for the Japanese island of Kyushu in the occupation army
days. In that duty the authorities recorded me as a soldier with extreme
patriotism, and that notice was to earn me future duty, which duty was to
develop my physique.
I did not know that at the time, however. I was
discharged from the Regular Army, but immediately enlisted in the Army
Reserve and returned to active duty. During that duty, the same authorities
that had noted my patriotism indicated that I should enter the army's
cryptographic school to learn that skill, and I did. After finishing the
cryptographic training, it was further indicated to me that I should leave
active duty and pursue my own announced desire to graduate from college and
seminary to become an ordained clergyman. I did so.
College
While in college, the Korean War began and the authorities insured that I was not recalled to duty
in that conflict. Upon graduating from Penn State University with a BA in
English and graduation from General Theological Seminary with an STM, I went
on to serve the church-required two years in a civilian parish. My being
recalled to Regular Army service as a chaplain marked the completion of
those years.
A brief period of 'testing' as chaplain to a special Infantry
battalion preceded my assignment to the 101st Airborne Division where I
qualified as a paratrooper, became a member of the Army's elite STRAC Force,
and received specialized training in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS),
the precursor of the Special Forces.
The needs of my future assignment for a
greatly improved physique were met in those assignments. At last I had begun
to move toward the physique wanted all my life.
I then learned that the special work for which I had been selected as long
ago as my early days in the army was to be of the clandestine nature
required in our Cold War day needs. I was assigned to our forces serving in
Germany where my specific duty required me to spend much time in Bavaria,
Austria and Switzerland, my clergy status and garb serving as a cloak for my
real work.
Duty required and enabled me to become proficient in downhill
skiing. Additionally, I became a member of a German fencing club to
condition me in the off-skiing months. This further enhanced my physique. By
the end of this duty in 1964, I was in excellent physical shape.
Civilian Ministry
With my release from active duty as a Regular Army officer that year, I
returned to the civilian ministry. The end of the military duty, sadly, was
also the end of keeping in good physical condition for almost 30 years. I
entered into the sedentary life of a rural clergyman, more devoted to books
and philosophical/theological concerns than physical condition. The 30 years
saw a rapid and continued decline in my physique. In 1992, I retired from
the active ministry and moved to Dallas from Oklahoma.
I was aware that my
nature still called me to edge play and I tried such, but my
now-deteriorated physique did not measure up to those extremes. I also was
then diagnosed with cancer of the prostate and underwent a radical
prostatectomy.
That surgery was then thought to have removed all the cancer.
While still longing, as I had in my youth, to have a good physique, I
believed that I was now "too old" and should just take it easy until "the
end".
Physical Training
Then, my nephew, Robert Crosby, moved to Dallas and encouraged me to begin
physical training in a local gym. I heeded his advice and began light
workouts at a local sports club. After just a couple of months, I began to
see my former good physique trying to come back to me. This so encouraged me
that I began daily workouts. What might have been a set back then occurred.
My cancer came out of remission and required 12 weeks of radiation therapy.
I told the oncology radiologist, himself a black belt in karate, that I
would undergo the radiation only if it would not interfere with my workouts
and he agreed to this. For the 12 weeks I went daily in the mornings to the
gym for workouts and then to the hospital in the afternoons for the
radiology.
Toward the end of the therapy, I asked the doctor why it was that
all the others undergoing the same treatment at the hospital had bad side
effects while I had none of them. He replied that I should give the credit
to my working out regularly. With the end of the period of radiation, the
cancer was again in remission and continues to be so now.
My First Contest
I now returned with a vengeance to working out. A trainer at the gym asked
me, in jest, "Why are you here so often? Are you going to enter a
bodybuilding contest or something?" I found the answer springing to my
tongue spontaneously from deep within me, "Yes, I am!" I knew absolutely
nothing at all about bodybuilding and certainly nothing about bodybuilding
competition.
I wrote to the Chairman of the National Physique Committee for
advice on how to proceed, and he was kind enough to put me in touch with
qualified bodybuilding trainers in this area. Thus I met and engaged as my
trainer/manager, Dror Erez, Mr. Israel '95, and he remains my trainer to this
day. I am indebted to him for the progress I have made in the past two years
and my accomplishments in contests.
While I shall return to the
consideration in subsequent entries in this Journal, there just is no
substitute for anyone, but especially for us "senior" bodybuilders, having a
competent, bodybuilding trainer to guide us. I know I could not have
accomplished what I have and I certainly could not attain the goals for
which I strive without my trainer/manager.
Thanks,
johnpasco@bodybuilders.com
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