Pac-Man, I really enjoyed reading your latest post dated Oct 12 about the supplement industry and the good and the bad folks you met within it.
In fact it was an experience somewhat like deja-vous (spelling?) while reading it.
While I was going through high school I met two brothers whose father forced them to drink ox-blood frequently .... or so the entire student body believed.
These brothers were big and mean and great athletes but kept to themselves and were respected by all.
And I wanted to be just like them.
But I didn't want to drink ox-blood!
So one day I passed a small aand strange looking store in downtown San Francisco and looked through the window and saw strange looking stuff that I had never seen in a grocery store and built up enough nerve to go inside and ask the person behind the counter, "What can I buy in here that will make me big and stronger?"
And this old geezer got off his rocker and took me to the refrigerator and handed me a glass jar of something called "Yogurt" and on our way back to the cash register he also placed a dark brown bottle of something called "wheat germ oil" in my empty hand.
And I gave him a five dollar bill and he gave me change and said, "When you're done with that, come back for more and you'll get bigger and stronger in no time at all!"
So for the next year or so I was a regular customer, always searching the shelves for something new to make me bigger and stronger, but only leaving that little store with my monthly supply of unflavored yogurt and my brown bottle of wheat germ oil,
And back then that was the only stuff on what is now called the Health Food Store shelves that coild make you bigger and stronger without mentioning it even once on the label.
In fact there was not one product in that store that displayed the word 'Muscle" or made any mention of strength increases.
The snake oil salesmen had been run out of town many years earlier and apparently .... no one wanted them to return. (But .... how soon we forget!)
That little health food store was mainly interested in selling cures for diarreha and constipation, flat feet, migrane headaches, and Pepto Bismo -like stuff for hangovers and upset stomachs.
And as dumb as it may seem, that was the beginning of health food stores west of the Mississippi.
And if you wanted ox-blood you'd have to look elsewhere.
Things were so much different then.
A gym was something that had basketballs in it.
And any gym with weights inside had a pile of untouched plates and bars in the far-off, unlit corner.
But there were a few eccentrics who enjoyed the company of other men in an attempt to determine who was stronger, and even greater eccentrics who wanted to prove that they were bigger.
Sothe local Y was full of eccentrics each night after working hours putting plates on bars and waiting patiently for the guys who got there earlier to get off that damn robbily bench so that they could do their four sets and get home for dinner to brag about how big and strong they were getting.
And over a short period of time .... an industry was created. And a very few eccentrics saw an opportunity and took advantage.
Ed Yarick opened a small gym in Oakland, and Jack Lalanne opened a small gym on the 5th floor of a very ancient high rise office building on the then less desirable end of Downtown's Market Street, while Walt Baptiste openeda Yoga studio with weights in the corner on Van Ness Avenue.
And a couple of brothers on the east coast were getting magaziines started while competing against a guy named Dan Louri and a strong guy who lifted heavy barbells in a town called York by the name of Bob Hoffman.
And I sort of forget how and when they fit into this picture but Perry and Mable Raider were also pioneers in the big-guy, strong-guy editorial business with a little but impressive magazine called "IronMan".
So now things start taking shape and a new and unrecognized industry is developing and the magazines start selling ad space.
But they soon realize that diarreah and constipation remedies have little interest in there ad offerings, so they start 'inventing' stuff to advertise in the hope ehat it will generate enough income to keep the presses rolling.
And one day one of those editorial type guys notices a full page ad in his favorite comic book in which a skinny kid gets sand kicked in his face while the big guy walks away with his girlfriend .... and an immediate "Trainer of Champions" idea is born which causes a great amount of jealousy and animosity within this new publishing industry and among the real living experts within the "Get big, Get strong" world which the vast majority of the world's population knows nothing about.
And the snake oil guys return in droves. But not all snake oils are bad!
More to follow if there is any interest