cool you met Grimek dude, anymore you can tell us about him? Do you think he ever juiced? How tall was he?
Grimek was relatively short, about 5'-9"(?), and I noticed that he had one "bad"/injured) eye (his right eye, I think?). As I said, he was dressed in loose fitting trousers and had on a long sleeve shirt on a warm June day in York. He was standing behind the lifting platform at the time along with Dick Batchell and George Shandor.
Grimek complimented my lifting, complimented my physique, and urged me to enter the upcoming Teen-Age Mr. America contest. I thanked him for his compliment (but, I didn't enter, thinking I didn't have a chance against physique contest/BB "specialists"). I was extemely impressed with his modesty as a lot of the contestants (particularly the physique contestants) and the non-competing bodybuilders in the crowd were all wearing "muscle shirts' to show off their muscles on such a warm day. This was 1959, and Grimek was approx. 49 years old at the time and still had a tremendously impressive physique! The fact that Grimek made no attempt to display/"show-off' his muscles with tight-fitting clothing really impressed me!
Yes, I understand that Grimek did some limited experimental juicin' under the direction of Dr. John Ziegler in the 40's and 50's. As you know, Ziegler did the original AAS experiments around '60-'61 with Olympic weightlifters Bill March and Louis Riecke.
What's humorous is that after making the bus trip to York to compete, I did not have enough money to get back home (Chattanooga, TN) and I asked Grimek, Batchell, and Shandor if they could loan me the $20 bus money to get back home (yes, it cost only about $20 one-way back then!). Batchell and Shandor coughed up $10 each to help me out. Later, I sent a thank you note and a $20 money order to Grimek in care of S&H in repayment.
It was only later that learned that Dick Batchell had won a whole string of national Olympic weightlifting titles, as had George Shandor, in the 30's and 40's. Yes, as a gawky, impressionable, teenager I met three REAL MEN that day!!