Chapter 1 - introducing shane

Shane had always been a short skinny kid. He was bullied and teased throughout high school for his diminutive size and lack of athletic abilities. I was teased for the opposite reason: with a 6’9 dad and 6’1 mom people called me names like “jolly green giant” or “sasquatch.” I’d never been a small girl, and had always had an incredible appetite.

I dreamed of playing basketball, and was 6’’2 freshman year, and so sat down for coach early on with my lunch. It wasn’t much (I’d guess a couple pieces of fried chicken, one of those “king size” peanut butter cups, a big bag of Cheetos and a quart of milk), but she looked at it and said we needed to do a weigh-in. At 266 pounds it would be hard to move fast enough to follow the game; She suggested talking to my doctors about a nutrition plan and joining swim team for the season.

While we were part of different social circles, I was an athlete after all, part of my personality is to always be nice to everyone. Every once in a while Shane would ask to join our table for lunch, and I always said yes. (At the time I did not know that almost no one else was as nice to him.) His lunches were adorably small: usually a salad along with a small piece of chicken, a glass of water and sometimes a cookie. I never said anything, but know for real that would be more of a mid-day snack even with my newer “healthy” diet. I remember sophomore year when he triumphantly told me he made it into the buck club. It was all I could do to not snicker about a guy being less than half my weight, and almost a foot shorter.

By the time graduation hit I made it to my full six foot four, and was an athletic 199 pounds. Shane by comparison was just 5’6 and a soft 120 pounds soaking wet on a good day. My swimming career had really taken off, and I never did make on the basketball court, so I went to do my division I program. To stay in shape for the upcoming season, and get plenty of time for practice, I took a summer job maintaining trails for the US Forest Service.