What made you start bodybuilding?

In highschool i was 6'2"/145lbs ,I didn't mind that cuz i played basketball, My stepdad had an old bench, barbell, and a few dumbells layin around, i instinctively knew to curl, bench and military press, so i messed with that for a few months, i didn't really notice much of a difference but other people did, there was a gym about 8 miles away ,1 of 2 in the county, this was in 1978 when liftin wasn't cool, so i joined and did my bench, curl, military press routine everyday and i really started growing, then i'd watch the big guys doin other exercises and started copying them. Eventually i came across Arnolds encyclopedia of bodybuilding, and read it front to back several times, i remember lookin at pics of Bertil Fox, Mike Mentzer, Frank Zane, and of course Arnold, and never looked back, lifting has been a godsend to me, its my stress reliever, my anti-depressant, my anger management, and has kept me on the straight and narrow, i owe my life to the iron. Its an addiction that i got hooked on from that first grunt. And without tryin to sound egotistical, at 52 i look and feel better than most guys in there 30's. Whats your story?

I was 129lbs 5'8" in high school, joined the service, gained 20lbs in three months all natural in boot camp, but still at 149lbs now 5'11", yeah I hit a growth spurt in boot camp, skinny as hell. I came down on orders to go to Germany, still working out, but getting no where fast, skinny genetics. So, got my new room on the third floor, single no roommate, sweet. Down the hall was a dude from Jersey, 5'8" 230lb a beast, he was convalescing from a tank accident that took two tips of his fingers, now titanium pins. Everybody on base new this dude, even some of the wives... Lol.

But I didn't, until one night he was on the 3 floor at the end of the hall with a sling shot shooting metal pellets across the field at the other buildings windows, too far and weak to break anything. I walked up, he didn't say anything. I
looked at what he was doing, didn't say anything. Then as if by fate a black Mercedes drives onto the base headed our way. I looked at him and said I'll bet you won't shoot the back windshield of that car! He said nothing, then placed a metal ball in the wrist rocket, drew it back, and waited til that car was just slightly at our 11 o'clock position, and then let it go.

The silence of a cold German Feb night was Broken by a loud shotgun like explosion as the back windshield of that Mercedes exploded into a million pieces. The look on our faces... Priceless... We split. Not to talk to each other again for a few days. No reports filled, no investigation ensued... Odd, turns out this guy was dropping off a girlfriend who was in the car, that his wife didn't know about, and his rank would have been in jeopardy had anyone found out. No reports filed.

Next time I saw this dude, he was like, it was pretty cool you didn't say anything to anyone about what happened, that's cool. I see you been working out, you want to get a little bigger? Well... Turns out he had all the connections, and the next three years in Germany I earned a degree in AAS. And have been studying ever since.

I thought of all the chicks I would pick up, no seriously my dad used to compete and whold drag me to the gym all the time and I hated it, then one day I picked up a cable curl bar and did some curls and hand this strange feeling in my arms as they swole up, it was my first pump. I have been chasing it ever since.

lol i sucked at every sport ( had shitty hand eye coordination ) but still killed everyone in the weight room lol so i decided this is probably the only sport for me