Hulk & Not So Mini Hulk

During my college years in the 1970’s, I was invited to spend a couple of weeks with my uncle’s family at a ranch in a rural high mountain area. They had a huge house there with an indoor swimming pool and gymnasium. My brother had been there before and had previously met them and their three sons on a separate visit but because he had come down with chicken pox – he had to stay behind to recuperate. Before I had left home for the visit, he teased me again about my lack of muscularity – as I only weighed about 115 pounds at the time and at 5 foot 9 inches tall was so thin that I had to do some of my clothes shopping in the children’s department for my belts, watch bands and shirts (I wore a size twelve tee shirt to cover my 28 inch chest). While teasing me he said I better watch out for the second oldest son who at twelve years old was taller than I was and was nearly triple my weight; and he joked that his little 7 year old brother could out muscle and that he outweighed me too! He also mentioned to me that he had an older brother that was 14, but he didn’t tell me anything about him. He also told me the funny difference in size of my aunt and uncle – with the uncle a small –somewhat frail man who was recovering from a heart attack and his wife –a very large and imposing 6 foot plus in height with a big boned body to match. Now my brother tended to exaggerate stories about things in general and I said to him in response concerning the two younger brothers, “When I see it, I’ll believe it.”

A couple of days later I arrived late to the ranch, shortly after lunch time. After a kind greeting from my uncle and aunt, they asked me if I wanted to go swimming later on with their sons; they were anxious to show me their pool and my uncle also wanted me to meet my cousins for the first time. He had explained to me to get ready swim as they were due to arrive any moment from a wrestling practice (that conveniently was being held in the back of their large house, in a properly outfitted gym that was complete with wrestling mats and other athletic gear). After getting myself unpacked in a comfortable bedroom that was assigned to me, and putting on my improvised swimming suit (I had to wear an old pair of cut-off jeans left over from my junior high years as I had lost so much weight recently from Mono that I was afraid that my usual suit would have fallen off in a dive) I went out to the main hall by the foyer and sat down in a chair to wait.

Just then entering the hall and sitting at another bench across from where I was sitting was what I thought a short but fairly muscular high school wrestler that had returned from the wrestling practice in the back of the house. The reason that I had assumed this was that the boy was dressed wearing a pair of knee high white socks (popular in those days), a baggy pair of nylon or polyester gym shorts with a sleeveless semi-perforated fabric top; AND that he was extraordinarily muscular as if he lifted weights or wrestled. He was 5 foot 6 1/2 inches tall and 165 pounds ( I found out that information later) with very little discernable body fat. Going back to his muscles, it looked like he had tremendous musculature with a neck thicker than his head was, broad-angular shoulders with huge deltoids that certainly not only rivaled my own deltoids by a couple of times in size; but even my own butt-gluteal muscles in size. He had biceps that had a double peaks, complimented with equally defined triceps underneath. This miniature muscle man also had thighs that were easily 2 to 3 times the size of mine. His calves were enormous cannon balls that were barely contained by the long socks that he was wearing. And his chest was at least 50 percent broader than mine, tapering down to what seemed to be quite muscular abs for I could see their ripples lifting up the bottom portion of his shirt. I thought to myself, “If he is a weight lifter… I wondered how much he really could lift!?”

Just then his aunt passed by and introduced this boy as one of her sons, Mark and said the others would be coming soon. I had a startling thought, ‘This must be the 14 year old that my brother had told me about!’ So I asked him questions trying to find out more about him like… ‘What grade are you in? What is your favorite subject in school? Do you have a favorite sport?’ The strange thing is that the boy never answered me even once as I was asking the questions… he even acted a bit shy. Finally as an insult I said to him, “I bet you’re just in the 6th grade.” His mother happed to be walking again nearby catching the conversation and said, “Mark is only seven years old, BIG isn’t he?” Amazed I agreed! She then told me that he was even bigger than his 12 year old brother (the big kid my brother was talking about) was when he was at that same age. She also mentioned that he was 14 inches taller than his 14 year old brother, who in contrast was a bit small for his age. Just then his two older brothers came in. The oldest was Jeff (the 14 year old), a fairly thin kid in comparison to the younger brother, who I then found out was a star wrestler in his high school at 98 pounds. The second oldest (the twelve year old) was a humongous kid, standing 6 foot 3 inches and weighing 265 pounds (not quite the dimensions that my brother led me to believe, but BIG enough!). The twelve year old, I think I remember his name was John, I was told had made first string as a seventh-grader, for the middle school football team.

In the pool, with the horsing around that kids do, the twelve year old that had forearms thicker than a normal man’s thighs, and a bicep that would have rivaled my 19 ½ inch waist; could easily curl my entire body weight repetitively… and of course it was no difficulty for him at all to hold me over his head! His hands were enormous as just his thumb alone was thicker than my wrist and even his thumb or pinky were longer than my middle finger. He made a comment when he was lifting me that I was quite light, much lighter than his little 7 year old brother. That’s when I made a comment as to how muscular his 7 year old brother was and I asked, “is he stronger than his oldest brother?” The 14 year old said after a short pause, “Oh yes he has been a lot stronger than me for a while, and I can’t really practice wresting against him anymore, I am no competition.” The 12 year old chimed in, “I bet he is stronger than you too. Maybe twice as strong!” Up to that point the 7 year old had not joined us and arrived late because he had to wait for his mom to find his swimming trunks.

When the young kid jumped into the pool, he immediately headed to the shallow end coughing and sputtering in the water as he had only had just begun to learn to swim. He seemed to have some difficulty with his buoyancy … could it be his muscular body didn’t float so well? The pool bottom was oddly shaped as the shallow end was only about 2 feet deep so I could see most of this kids muscular body which was strikingly muscular in appearance. His swimming trunks were of the Speedo-type and were tight enough that the cloth portion of the back of his suit formed a bridge over the deep muscular furrows of his rear butt-leg muscles. The brothers asked him to flex his bicep and demanded for me to feel it. The large grapefruit sized object was immensely hard, a piece of warm marble. Embarrassed, I said MISTAKENLY, “maybe its baby fat.” So they had the ‘little’ brother in his swimming briefs stand side by side to compare our muscles. His biceps, legs, shoulders and even wrists were bigger than anything I had. They teased me saying why don’t you at least flex (I was flexing as hard as I could but my very small muscles could not even penetrate the thin layer of flab that I had!). What was also interesting was the fact that this 5 foot 6 ½ inch, seven year old had a disproportionate amount of his height in his legs and indeed his legs were slightly longer than mine and so were his arms.

This kid who formerly was shy in talking with me, had become bold and perhaps even a bit arrogant with me. Standing in front of me, he lunged at me and grabbed me with his strong arms, locking his hands behind my back. I could feel his muscular chest pressing against my chest and leaning way back he easily lifted my feet out of the water of the pool. He squeezed me mightily and I grunted loudly as he forced the air out of me chest. He asked me, “Have you ever been carried in a fireman’s carry?” Adjusting his grip he draped me over one of his shoulders and I had a view of his muscular butt and powerful back muscles. After carrying me out of the pool and walking around the pool deck, he finally put me down. As a final display of strength, the two older brothers had me stand at the edge of the pool in the water between the deep and the shallow end with the water up to my waist. The older brother said, watch what he can do, he does it all the time to me. So the young 7 year old, still out of the pool came over to where I was standing, standing at the edge of the pool deck he then grabbed me by the waist of my cut-off jeans and pulling up (with the initial help of the water’s buoyancy though) this extraordinarily muscular kid pulled me up as if he was lifting a set of weights using perfect form by squatting and then extending his legs. His biceps bulging amazingly, he continued to curl me until my feet left the water and that my waist was at the level of his shoulders. He even tried to press me further up over his head, but I was embarrassed at having him lift me so easily, so I wiggled and he lost his balance, dropping me back into the pool.

Somebody suggested that we wrestle and I said, lets arm wrestle instead… as I felt uncomfortable wrestling a kid only wearing what he did (and I was afraid he could hurt me). The arm wrestling match was completely lopsided with him soundly beating me. I tried to cheat by going before the word “go” was stated; but he could hold his arm practically still against mine. I then tried both of my arms against either hand with similar results. In fact the muscle kid mocked me in the last arm wrestle when I had both of my hands against his left (he happened to be stronger in the left arm). Instead of finishing me off right away when the word “go” was mentioned, he would hold his arm still and ask when I was going to start. I tried to end the farce by pulling my arms away but I couldn’t break free of his grip as he had a huge hand and its grip easily encircled both of my hands. A tug a war ensued – all one sided. Because we were wrestling on a slippery table, when he pulled back with his left arm, he essentially curled me off the ground using the table as a fulcrum, dragging me across its top towards him before finally throwing his hand down to finish.

In the pool a game of Marco Polo and wrestling… To Be Continued