Somewhere between weekends at Bass Lake and afternoons playing baseball, another fascination began to grow. It arrived in grocery stores, spinning comic racks, and the back pages of Marvel comics.
When I think back to my childhood— maybe around nine years old—there’s a very specific smell, a very specific feeling, that comes rushing back: the scent of ink and old paper from a stack of Marvel comic books. It’s funny how memory works. I can’t remember what I ate last Tuesday, but I can still picture—clear as day—the cover of The Amazing Spider-Man #56 with the Daily Bugle headlines screaming "Spidey joins Doc Ock" sitting on the floor of my bedroom in Aurora, MN. I can "see" the corner store rack, and I can "hear" the noise it made when I spun it, hoping for a new issue of anything with the red-and-blue web-slinger on the front.
That was my world for the next few years. Superheroes, adventure, courage—printed on 36 pages for twelve cents. I wasn’t just reading stories; I was stepping into worlds where ordinary kids stumbled into extraordinary abilities. And for a boy like me with four older brothers, a head full of imagination, and a growing interest in strength and fitness, those stories felt closer to reality than fantasy.
But what made those comic books truly magical wasn’t just the colorful artwork or the cliffhanger endings. It was the ads. Every kid who grew up reading comics remembers flipping to those back pages, where an entirely different world came to life. There were X-ray specs that promised to let you see through walls, hypnotic coins that could supposedly control someone’s mind, and Sea-Monkeys that were advertised as tiny underwater families living happy little lives inside an aquarium. There were plans to build your own hovercraft, muscle-building courses that guaranteed you’d become stronger in just a few weeks, and offers to learn ventriloquism, become a private detective, master karate, or amaze your friends with incredible magic tricks.
Every page seemed to promise a shortcut to becoming more adventurous, more talented, or simply more interesting. Of course, most of us never sent away for any of those treasures, and those who did often discovered that reality fell well short of the advertisement. But somehow that never mattered. Those pages weren’t really selling products—they were selling possibilities. For a few moments, as we studied each tiny ad, we could imagine ourselves living a bigger, more exciting life. In many ways, the back pages of those comic books were where our imaginations learned to dream.
Yet among all the gimmicks and glowing claims, one advertisement stood out above the rest. It was in every comic book I ever owned—no exceptions—and it was printed with a seriousness the others lacked. No bright colors. No cartoon lettering. Just a bold, confident headline and a muscle-bound hero looking like he could single-handedly bench press a Buick.
The Charles Atlas Ad. There it was, issue after issue: the classic “97-pound weakling” story. A skinny kid gets sand kicked in his face, goes home humiliated, dedicates himself to the Atlas method, and returns as a confident, square-jawed powerhouse. The tagline—“You are a real man after all!”—felt like it had been written just for me.
I didn’t fully understand what “real man” meant at nine years old, but I knew this: I wanted to be strong. Not necessarily to beat anyone up or get revenge on imaginary beach bullies. I just loved what strength represented—confidence, discipline, possibility. And part of that came from being the youngest of five boys in our family. My brothers were four, five, eight, and ten years older, and when you’re that far behind in age, they feel almost like superheroes themselves. Bigger, stronger, faster—they could do chin-ups, push-ups, climb trees like soldiers on a mission.
And I wanted to be just like them. The Charles Atlas ad told me I could.
So I did what any determined kid would do: I mailed in for the free program. I can still remember filling out the little form, carefully printing my name, and sliding an envelope into the mailbox with a feeling that something big was coming. In my mind, I imagined a whole training manual arriving—maybe a poster, maybe instructions that would transform me overnight.
What came back wasn’t quite that grand. A few pamphlets, a sample routine, a lot of enthusiasm, and the unmistakable realization that the real “program” cost money. But even that small packet opened something in me. Charles Atlas wasn’t selling weights or gyms—he was selling isometrics. Pushing against an unmoving object. Flexing muscles against themselves. Using the body as a tool. At nine years old, that felt like unlocking a secret.
I started doing exactly that. I’d find any immovable object—doorframes, corners, tabletops—and test my strength against it. I’d try to mimic my brothers’ workouts, too. They had actual weights, and I’d sneak in reps when they worked out. I remember doing curls and feeling my biceps burn as I tried to get one last rep in. I was learning how to practice. How to stay consistent. How to challenge myself. Looking back, that might have been the true gift Charles Atlas gave me—not just exercises, but the idea that your body is something you can shape. That strength isn’t inherited; it’s built. That the smallest habits, repeated over time, create a different version of yourself. Even at nine years old, that resonated.
My fascination with comic books followed the same theme. Spider-Man especially. Peter Parker was just a regular kid until something changed him—a bite from a radioactive spider. After the bite, he had superhuman strength, speed, agility, and durability, along with the ability to cling to surfaces, a "spider-sense" to sense danger, and a regenerative healing factor. But these powers didn't make him a hero. What made him a hero was who he chose to become afterward. Responsibility. Purpose. Goodness. Effort. Those themes seeped into me long before I could articulate them.
And mixed into all of this was the world-building that comics did so effortlessly. Every issue, every panel, was an escape—but also a blueprint. The stories taught courage, self-discipline, standing up for others. The ads—especially that Atlas ad—fed my growing desire to take care of my body. The characters made me feel like anything was possible if I put in the work.
Those years built the foundation for the young man I’d eventually become. The boy lifting weights in his bedroom, pretending to be Spider-Man, became the teenager who understood the value of physical fitness. That teenager became the man who cared about health, exercise, longevity, and vitality. And all of that eventually grew into West Egg Living, decades later.
It didn’t start with a gym membership or a coach. It started with a comic book. It started with a scrawny cartoon kid getting sand kicked in his face. It started with an ad that told me I could grow stronger.
Sometimes I think about how strange and wonderful it is that a little black-and-white advertisement—tucked between a Spider-Man cliffhanger and an offer for X-ray specs—ended up shaping part of my identity. It wasn’t the promise of instant muscles. It was the idea of taking charge. Of building myself. Of becoming the kind of person who was capable, confident, and ready to face the world.
That simple comic book ad sparked the earliest version of a lifelong pursuit: caring for my body, pushing myself, and staying strong well into adulthood. And maybe that’s why I still love comics today. Not because of the superheroes, but because they remind me of the kid I once was—the one sitting cross-legged on the floor, flipping pages under the warm glow of a lamp, dreaming of strength, adventure, and the possibility of becoming something greater than he already was.
That boy didn’t know it then, but he was already on his own hero’s journey.
Charles Atlas taught me that strength could be built one small step at a time. Spider-Man taught me that strength mattered only if it served others. Together they planted seeds that would stay with me for decades. Those comic books weren't simply entertainment—they became one of the defining threads running through my childhood.
