{"product_id":"never-goin-back-isbn-9780451414946","title":"Never Goin' Back","description":"\u003ci\u003eWhat’s holding you back? What excuses are you making up that are stopping you from living your best life? I used them all, and look where that got me! Are you ready to stop living insane and get real with yourself?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAl Roker’s aha! moment came a decade ago. Closing in on 350 pounds, he promised his dying father that he wasn’t going to keep living as he was. That led to his decision for a stomach bypass—and his life-changing drop to 190. But fifty of those pounds crept back until he finally devised a plan and stuck to it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNever Goin’ Back \u003c\/i\u003eis Roker’s inspiring, candid, and often hilarious story of self-discovery, revealing a (slimmer) side of his life that no one knows. With illuminating and sometimes painfully honest stories about his childhood, his struggle against the odds to make something of himself, and his family life today, Roker reveals the effects that a lifelong battle with weight issues can have on a person—and how, regardless of the frustration and setbacks, you must never lose faith in yourself (just inches).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost important, he knows that losing weight is as much—if not more—a state of mind as of body. That’s why he’s here: to recharge your willpower and see you through it like a friend—with warmth, humor, and a healthy new outlook on life. | “[An] intimate memoir. . .Readers will appreciate this personable weatherman’s candor and humor as he chronicles his struggle and ultimate success.” – \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Searingly honest and genuinely relatable. . .As unpretentious as Roker’s television persona, this motivational diet memoir provides inspiration, and recipes, for others struggling with weight-related challenges.” –\u003ci\u003e Booklist\u003c\/i\u003e | \u003cb\u003eAl Roker\u003c\/b\u003e is known to over thirty million viewers for his work on NBC's Today show, a role that has earned him ten Emmy awards. He is the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author of \u003ci\u003eDon't Make Me Stop This Car!: Adventures in Fatherhood.\u003c\/i\u003e An accomplished cook, Roker also has two bestselling cookbooks to his credit. Al Roker lives in Manhattan with his wife, ABC News and 20\/20 correspondent Deborah Roberts, and has two daughters and a son. | \u003cb\u003eJuly 2001\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father had been at Memorial Sloan-Kettering hospital in New York City for about a\u003cbr\u003eweek, battling his final stages of lung cancer. Although he had been a smoker early in his\u003cbr\u003elife, he had given up cigarettes cold turkey some thirty-five years prior to his cancer\u003cbr\u003ediagnosis. So when he was told that he had stage four lung cancer, I wasn’t emotionally\u003cbr\u003eprepared. Our entire family was shaken up and took his diagnosis very hard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAl Roker Sr. was the rock of our family. Even though he was a talented artist, in the\u003cbr\u003emid-1950s, it was difficult for a young African-American male to get a job in the\u003cbr\u003ecommercial art industry. After a short stint at a low-paying apprentice job with no chance\u003cbr\u003efor advancement, with a young wife and a new baby to feed, Dad got a job driving a New\u003cbr\u003eYork city bus.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe would do that for almost twenty years, always looking for the next step up.\u003cbr\u003eEventually he made dispatcher, then chief dispatcher, and then he was promoted up and into\u003cbr\u003emanagement with the Metropolitan Transit Authority, reaching the rank of Inspector.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe were all so proud of him. His drive and determination rubbed off on his children. We\u003cbr\u003ewould strive to make him and our mother as proud of us as we were of them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen he retired, he was excited and determined to enjoy life. My dad found pleasure in\u003cbr\u003ebeing with his wife and his grandchildren, and in his lifelong hobby of deep-sea fishing.\u003cbr\u003eHe cultivated a newfound love of jazz, started a mentoring program for middle schoolers at\u003cbr\u003ea local public school and walked with a group of fellow retirees at the local mall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut all of that was now behind him. His entire future had now collapsed into being\u003cbr\u003emeasured by weeks, if not days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery day I made it a point to stop in, first thing in the morning, before heading to\u003cbr\u003ethe studio to do the \u003ci\u003eToday\u003c\/i\u003e show. We’d visit, and then about six twenty a.m., I’d\u003cbr\u003ehead on to Studio 1-A in Rockefeller Plaza, where the show goes live at seven a.m. On my\u003cbr\u003eway home in the afternoon, I’d head straight back to the hospital to spend more time with\u003cbr\u003ehim—\u003ci\u003etime\u003c\/i\u003e, something I had all but taken for granted until my father got sick.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTime.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhy hadn’t I gone fishing with him more than a handful of times, and why didn’t I come\u003cbr\u003eby the house more often? I always thought I would have plenty of \u003ci\u003etime\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father was always healthy as a horse. Mom was the one who had beaten lung cancer and\u003cbr\u003ebreast cancer and survived two heart valve replacements! Dad almost never got sick. Now he\u003cbr\u003ewas dying and I had just about run out of time with the man I cherished most in life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was nowhere near enough time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Son,” my dad said one day, “I’d do anything for more time. I wanted to make fifty\u003cbr\u003eyears of marriage with your mom so, yeah, I’m pissed about that.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was kind of funny, actually. My father always liked things well-ordered and tidy. He\u003cbr\u003ewas sixty-nine years old and had been married forty-nine years. To him, seventy and fifty\u003cbr\u003efelt neater—more complete.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI knew my dad was going to die. There was no hope that he could possibly recover. I did\u003cbr\u003emy best to hold myself together until one morning I simply couldn’t hide my grief about\u003cbr\u003elosing him. I started crying, and being the incredible father he was, he comforted me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe said he was proud of the life he had lived—that he’d had a good run. He told me he\u003cbr\u003ewas proud of his children and he loved his grandchildren more than life itself. Hearing my\u003cbr\u003efather speak that way was simply more than I could bear; it was all so final. My tears\u003cbr\u003ekept coming. I could tell that my father had something important he wanted to say.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Look, we both know that I’m not going to be here to help you raise my grandkids, so\u003cbr\u003ethat means it is up to you to make sure you will be there for your kids.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI could feel my heart begin beating faster with every word he uttered because I knew\u003cbr\u003ewhat he was driving at. My father and I had been around the horn too many times to count\u003cbr\u003eon the subject of my weight and overall health. For whatever reason, no matter how many\u003cbr\u003etimes I said I’d lose the weight, I couldn’t—or wouldn’t, or did only to gain it back\u003cbr\u003eagain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Promise me that you are going to lose the weight.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI tried to play it off like it was no big deal. “Who, me? I’m fine! Don’t worry about\u003cbr\u003eme, Dad.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI could tell he was really struggling to get the words out now. “No, not good enough. I\u003cbr\u003ewant you to swear to God that you’re going to lose the weight.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI realized there was really only one respectable thing to do—promise him I would lose\u003cbr\u003ethe weight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUgh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, I don’t know if you’ve ever had to make a deathbed promise to someone you love,\u003cbr\u003ebut if you have, you know the kind of guilt and massive responsibility I felt in that\u003cbr\u003emoment. And if you haven’t, let me assure you, it was heavy—heavier than me, and I was\u003cbr\u003edamn big. I couldn’t say a word. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, because I did, but I was\u003cbr\u003ehesitant. Nothing I could say would mean all that; I had said it all before, without ever\u003cbr\u003edoing the work to permanently change my mind-set and lose the weight for good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo, I promised him I would lose the weight. Still, that wasn’t good enough for him. He\u003cbr\u003ewanted me to swear to God that I was going to lose the weight—and so I did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Dad, I swear to God I am going to lose this weight.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I am going to hold you to that son. You don’t want to make me angry.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrust me, I \u003ci\u003edidn’t \u003c\/i\u003ewant to get him angry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI remember when I was twelve years old and my folks had gotten me a brand-new Sting-Ray\u003cbr\u003ebicycle for my birthday. It had a banana seat and a metallic blue paint job. I loved that\u003cbr\u003ebike!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, one Saturday afternoon, some young thugs from outside our neighborhood came\u003cbr\u003ecruising through. They surrounded me, punched me a few times, knocked me off the bike and\u003cbr\u003etook it. My pride was hurt more than anything else, but when I got home and told my dad\u003cbr\u003ewhat happened, I saw a look come over him that I had never seen. “Get in the car. Let’s go\u003cbr\u003elook for your bike,” he said through clenched teeth. He got behind the wheel and I got in\u003cbr\u003eon the passenger’s side and we went looking for these guys and my bike.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter around fifteen minutes of driving around, I noticed a dishtowel wrapped around\u003cbr\u003esomething sitting on the seat between the two of us. I unwrapped an edge of the towel and\u003cbr\u003esaw a steak knife! Dad was going to \u003ci\u003efind that bike \u003c\/i\u003eand was prepared to fight anyone\u003cbr\u003ewho got in his way. That’s who my dad was. We never actually found the bike but I\u003cbr\u003ediscovered I loved my father that day even more than I knew because of his willingness to\u003cbr\u003eprotect who and what he loved.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was also the same man who cried when he deposited his firstborn son at the dorm on\u003cbr\u003emy first day of college. Everything he was made me who I am.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd now that was all about to go away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo on the morning I made that promise to my dad, I left the hospital thinking about\u003cbr\u003ewhat he had said—a lot. I don’t usually get distracted when I am on the air, but his words\u003cbr\u003eechoed in my mind the entire show. I was so upset about my promise to lose weight, in\u003cbr\u003efact, that I had two grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches for lunch. My mantra at the time\u003cbr\u003ewas “When in doubt, eat.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I returned to the hospital that afternoon, Dad was out of his bed, sitting up in a\u003cbr\u003echair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hey, old man, how you doing?” I said, but there was no response. He was just looking\u003cbr\u003eoff into space. One of the nurses came in and told me he’d suddenly stopped talking\u003cbr\u003eearlier that day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Why?” I asked. The nurse said she would get one of his doctors to explain what was\u003cbr\u003egoing on. You know it’s always bad news when someone says they want to get someone else to\u003cbr\u003eexplain things to you. In other words: “Here comes bad news and they don’t pay me enough\u003cbr\u003eto put up with the grief you will probably give me!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the doctor arrived, he said that my dad’s cancer had spread to his brain. It was\u003cbr\u003eaffecting his ability to speak and would likely impair his motor functions very soon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs I helped the doctor and the nurse transfer my father back into bed, he lost control\u003cbr\u003eof his bowels. He couldn’t say anything, but the look on his face was heartbreaking. My\u003cbr\u003efather, the strongest man I knew, both physically and emotionally, was leaving. And there\u003cbr\u003ewas nothing I could do about it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA couple of weeks earlier, planning for this moment, my family had made the decision to\u003cbr\u003emove dad, when the time came, to Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. It is the world leader in\u003cbr\u003epalliative care, run by the Archdiocese of New York.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo days later we transferred him to Calvary, where angels do heaven’s work on earth\u003cbr\u003eand where he would spend his final days. My brother and sisters all came to say good-bye\u003cbr\u003eto their father. Our spouses sat by his bed. His grandchildren were there. And we all\u003cbr\u003ehugged and held my mother as she watched her husband slip away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat week was a blur, but I can tell you just about the entire menu at the Calvary\u003cbr\u003ecafeteria. I was aware that I was using food to ease the pain, but I didn’t care. As we\u003cbr\u003eall kept vigil by my dad’s side, I kept thinking about the promise I had made to him and\u003cbr\u003ewondering, “How the hell am I going to do this?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eChapter One\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Portly Kid from Queens\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was born in Queens, New York, in 1954. I am the oldest of six kids, three boys and\u003cbr\u003ethree girls. Three of us are the biological children of my parents and three were adopted\u003cbr\u003ethrough foster care. I am one of the biological kids, along with a sister who’s six years\u003cbr\u003eyounger and a “baby” brother, who is seventeen years younger than me. Although I was a\u003cbr\u003epremature baby, weighing in at four pounds, ten ounces, at a certain point very early in\u003cbr\u003emy life, I just started eating and never stopped. I suppose my family heritage added to my\u003cbr\u003egenetic lot in life. Both of my parents came from families who loved to eat. My mom,\u003cbr\u003eIsabel, also known as “Izzy,” was Jamaican, and my dad was from the Bahamas. Dad looked\u003cbr\u003elike a young Sidney Poitier, who happened to be from Exuma, the same island in the Bahamas\u003cbr\u003ewhere my father’s family was from. When my dad was younger, people often did a double take\u003cbr\u003ewhen they saw him driving his white Plymouth Valiant station wagon—the same car Sidney\u003cbr\u003ePoitier drove in \u003ci\u003eLilies of the Field\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy parents met at John Adams High School in Queens. My mother was one of the first\u003cbr\u003eAfrican-American cheerleaders at the school—at the time, a very big deal. She must have\u003cbr\u003eloved being a cheerleader because I grew up hearing a constant chant of “Rickity, rackity,\u003cbr\u003eshanty town. Who can knock John Adams down? Nobody. Nobody. Absolutely nobody! Yeah,\u003cbr\u003eteam!” Honestly, I can’t believe I still remember her saying that, but I do!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy dad was an affable guy and a really sharp dresser. He was a very good storyteller\u003cbr\u003ewho enjoyed sharing tales from his younger days. Turns out, my dad was a stone-cold thug!\u003cbr\u003eHe had friends with names like Deadeye and Jelly Roll. He had a walking stick that had a\u003cbr\u003eknife in it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYeah, growing up, he was a tough guy. But by the time his children came along, he was a\u003cbr\u003eshort, stocky teddy bear. (I like to say I come from stocky people, low to the ground,\u003cbr\u003ewith one leg shorter than the other, the better to lean into the wind and survive\u003cbr\u003ehurricanes.) Of my parents, Dad was definitely the gentler one. If you fell and skinned a\u003cbr\u003eknee, you went right to Dad. He’d comfort you and give you a big bear hug, whereas Mom was\u003cbr\u003emore likely to tell us to stop crying. Her approach was the early version of “man up.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou might say Izzy was the \u003ci\u003eoriginal\u003c\/i\u003e Tiger Mom. She was tough as nails and,\u003cbr\u003eunlike a lot of women of her generation, she enjoyed confrontation. To her, it was sport.\u003cbr\u003eI knew I was loved by her, but she knew exactly how to needle me, and what drove me crazy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhenever she’d come to my house for dinner, just as I was serving the meal, she’d ask,\u003cbr\u003e“Is this any good?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No, I just spent an hour making you something that tastes like crap!” I’d respond.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMom loved to banter and was a real jokester. She was also honest to a fault and didn’t\u003cbr\u003ebelieve in coddling. She taught my younger daughter, Leila, to play checkers as a kid.\u003cbr\u003eMost grandparents let the kids win—but not my mom. No way. To her, losing is how you\u003cbr\u003elearn. And now I call Leila “little Izzy” because she is so much like my mom. I once\u003cbr\u003eoverheard her playing Monopoly with some of her friends. She wiped the board. Then one of\u003cbr\u003eher friends asked, “Where’d you learn how to play Monopoly?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“My nana,” Leila said with great pride. I couldn’t help but smile.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was what you might call a late bloomer. As hard as this might be to believe today, I\u003cbr\u003edidn’t talk until I was three and a half years old. Of course, as a family friend pointed\u003cbr\u003eout later, I could never get a word in edgewise anyway! My mom did all the talking for me.\u003cbr\u003eShe was like my PR agent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlthough I was born premature, I think my lack of development was a combination of\u003cbr\u003ebeing extremely shy—something I never really outgrew and what today might be labeled as a\u003cbr\u003elearning disorder. And I might have had one. The only thing I had no problems learning was\u003cbr\u003eeating. Well, maybe I had one issue I didn’t learn, and that was when to stop.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlthough my siblings and I have the same father, he was really two different guys over\u003cbr\u003ethe years. \u003ci\u003eMy \u003c\/i\u003edad drove a bus and was a blue-collar worker. He hustled every day to\u003cbr\u003eprovide for his family. When I was a young boy, he and a couple of buddies from NYC\u003cbr\u003eTransit, as it was then known, opened up a luncheonette in the depot. They made and sold\u003cbr\u003esandwiches in addition to working their regular shifts. My dad was the kind of man who did\u003cbr\u003ewhatever it took to make sure his family had everything we needed. In a Caribbean family,\u003cbr\u003eif you only had two jobs, you were obviously slacking off.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the drivers \u003ci\u003eall\u003c\/i\u003e had their rackets going to supplement their incomes. For\u003cbr\u003eexample, there was always someone selling hot merchandise—you know, things they claimed\u003cbr\u003efell off the back of a truck somewhere. In fact, I bought my first movie camera, which\u003cbr\u003esparked my initial interest in animation and television, from one of the guys at the\u003cbr\u003edepot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlike a lot of men from that era, my father was very demonstrative; he was a big\u003cbr\u003ehugger and kisser. When I saw my uncles and cousins, my impulse was to greet them with a\u003cbr\u003ebear hug and a kiss, while they usually held out their hands waiting for a handshake.\u003cbr\u003eThere was a lot of PDA in my parents’ household. And I remember coming home from college\u003cbr\u003eto find my mother in the kitchen doing dishes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“How would you feel about another brother or sister?” she asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Are you going to adopt again?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Oh, then we’re taking in another foster kid?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No . . .” she replied, and then paused.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot adopting. No foster kid. . . . Oh for the love of . . . I didn’t want to think\u003cbr\u003eabout \u003ci\u003ethat\u003c\/i\u003e! They’re my parents, for Pete’s sake!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMom always wanted a big family. She was the second youngest of nine kids, so a big\u003cbr\u003efamily is all she knew. After she had me and my sister, she had trouble getting pregnant,\u003cbr\u003eso she and my dad decided to adopt and open their home to numerous foster children over\u003cbr\u003ethe years. While sometimes people refer to foster or adopted children as half brothers and\u003cbr\u003ehalf sisters, to me they are my siblings. Needless to say, it came as something of a\u003cbr\u003esurprise when she got pregnant seventeen years after having me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the time my baby brother was born, Dad had transitioned from blue-collar worker to\u003cbr\u003ewhite-collar executive. He had been promoted and was working in management for the New\u003cbr\u003eYork Transit Authority. He had an office and a secretary and wore a suit to work every\u003cbr\u003eday. I always maintain that I had the more fun dad because I got to do more than my kid\u003cbr\u003ebrother. When my brother went to work with “executive” dad, he got to play with the Xerox\u003cbr\u003emachines. When I went to work with “bus driver” dad, I got to play with change machines,\u003cbr\u003epretend to steer the bus and hang with the guys in the depot. Those were some of my\u003cbr\u003efavorite days as a kid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe’d start the day off by going to Goody’s for breakfast. Goody’s was a luncheonette\u003cbr\u003enear where we lived in Rockaway. He always ordered a bacon and egg sandwich on a hard\u003cbr\u003eroll. Wanting to be just like him, I’d do the same. We took our breakfast with us and ate\u003cbr\u003eit on the way to the depot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe NYC Transit Authority Fifth Avenue Depot was a combination of train yard and bus\u003cbr\u003egarage. To a seven-year-old boy, it was a magical combination. At the start of his shift,\u003cbr\u003eDad would take me into the locker room where he’d change into his uniform. When other bus\u003cbr\u003edrivers opened their lockers, GREAT LAND OF PLENTY . . . \u003ci\u003ePlayboy\u003c\/i\u003e pinups!! Don’t\u003cbr\u003echange into that uniform too quickly, Pop.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter boarding his bus, we’d stop at the corner deli. He’d buy me a stack of comic\u003cbr\u003ebooks and a bag of candy to keep me occupied.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI loved playing with the change machines on the buses—remember, this was at a time,\u003cbr\u003elooong before MetroCards, when drivers actually made change for passengers. I’d ride on\u003cbr\u003ethe bus with him for the entire eight-hour shift all along Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.\u003cbr\u003eI’d see the same people going to work and then coming home at the end of the day.\u003cbr\u003eSomewhere around noon, we took our lunch break, and ate whatever my mom packed for us in\u003cbr\u003ethe two brown paper bags she sent us out the door with early that morning. When we went\u003cbr\u003eback to the depot at the end of his shift, there was always a driver tossing a quarter my\u003cbr\u003eway so I could buy a candy bar from the vending machine or get an ice cream. “Hey, little\u003cbr\u003eAl, here ya go! Go buy something to eat!” Sometimes I’d just get a Yoo-hoo chocolate milk\u003cbr\u003eand throw it back at the end of the day like a tall, cold beer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause there were six kids, the vibe in my parents’ home was mostly controlled chaos.\u003cbr\u003eI have no idea how my mother handled six kids without any help. I have three kids and lots\u003cbr\u003eof help and sometimes my wife and I \u003ci\u003estill\u003c\/i\u003e have a hard time doing it all! Whenever I\u003cbr\u003easked Mom what her secret was, she always said, “You kids took care of yourselves.” I\u003cbr\u003esuppose fear was our great motivator because I, for one, never wanted to be on the\u003cbr\u003ereceiving end of dad’s spankings. It was a different era, but I knew I’d get my butt\u003cbr\u003ewhupped good if I got out of line or didn’t do what I was told. Back then, if someone in\u003cbr\u003ethe neighborhood saw me do something—anything I shouldn’t be doing, they’d discipline me\u003cbr\u003efirst and then tell my parents. Oh yeah, it takes a village, and back in the Rockaway\u003cbr\u003eprojects of Queens, New York, our fifth floor apartment was in the heart of that village.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs our family grew, my parents needed more space than our old two-bedroom apartment, so\u003cbr\u003ewhen I was eleven, they bought a three-bedroom house in a new development we found during\u003cbr\u003eone of our weekend family drives to Elmont, Long Island to visit Gouz Dairy Farm. (Their\u003cbr\u003eslogan? GOUZ RHYMES WITH COWS. Okay, it wasn’t \u003ci\u003eMad Men\u003c\/i\u003e, but hey, I’ve remembered it\u003cbr\u003eall these years!) We loved going to Gouz. There’s nothing like the taste of fresh milk\u003cbr\u003estraight from the farm. But the best part was their petting zoo. All the parents would\u003cbr\u003edrop their kids off to look at the cows, rabbits and chickens while they went to get fresh\u003cbr\u003emilk from the dairy counter. And did I mention the limitless free samples of full-fat\u003cbr\u003echocolate milk? Gouz was a magical place for a growing boy with a growing waistline.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnyway, we’d usually take the Belt Parkway to get to Long Island, but one day the\u003cbr\u003eparkway was so backed up that my dad got off to take a short cut. That’s when he spotted\u003cbr\u003ethe development of semiattached homes. We stopped to look at the model home and it was\u003cbr\u003elove at first sight. My folks scraped together two hundred dollars for a down payment on\u003cbr\u003ethe spot, and six months later, we all moved in. Even though both of my parents are gone,\u003cbr\u003eI still own that house. Whenever my kids go back to look at the house, they can’t believe\u003cbr\u003ethat eight of us fit into three rooms and a single bath! I always joke with my kids and\u003cbr\u003etell them that in order to use the bathroom, we had to take a number like we were at a\u003cbr\u003edeli counter waiting to place an order.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlthough my parents had a lot of mouths to feed. I never went hungry; I just didn’t go\u003cbr\u003eback for second or third helpings very often. We always made sure that everyone had a fair\u003cbr\u003eportion of whatever Mom made to eat. Mom’s cooking was hearty—another word for “heavy”—so\u003cbr\u003eit was filling \u003ci\u003eand\u003c\/i\u003e fattening. She was a good cook . . . though breakfast really\u003cbr\u003ewasn’t her strong suit—you know, the oatmeal was always a little too thick and her\u003cbr\u003epancakes were never “light and fluffy.” We ate a lot of cereal! Unfortunately, my dad\u003cbr\u003ewouldn’t buy the brands of cereals I really wanted as a boy, which was pretty much\u003cbr\u003eanything with loads of sugar—Sugar Pops, Frosted Flakes and Sugar Smacks. At least the\u003cbr\u003ecereal makers were up-front about their products back then—they may as well have put “Yup,\u003cbr\u003eyou are pouring sugar” on every box!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy dad’s philosophy was one box of corn flakes fits all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou want Frosted Flakes?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePour some sugar on those Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and voilà! You’ve got your own frosted\u003cbr\u003ecereal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOh yeah? Well, this cereal box doesn’t have a tiger on it. Just some freaky-looking\u003cbr\u003erooster. Where’s Tony the Tiger? I loved Tony the Tiger. I thought he was so cool,\u003cbr\u003eespecially when I watched my morning cartoons and saw him riding in a car with Huckleberry\u003cbr\u003eHound. It didn’t get any cooler than that. Neither Sugar Bear nor Snap, Crackle and Pop\u003cbr\u003ehad a thing on Tony the Tiger! He was. . . .GRRRRREAT!!!!!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen it came to lunch and dinner, mom never made anything fancy, but her food was\u003cbr\u003ealways good. She made a great Velveeta and tomato grilled cheese with Campbell’s tomato\u003cbr\u003esoup. I don’t know anyone who \u003ci\u003edidn’t\u003c\/i\u003e grow up eating that grilled cheese and tomato\u003cbr\u003esoup combination, but something about my mom’s version was special—at least to me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLunch also brought the first convergence of food and my eventual career, via Soupy\u003cbr\u003eSales, a comedian I grew up watching on TV. He had a kids show on at noon on ABC. There\u003cbr\u003ewas a segment called “What’s for Lunch?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mom, Soupy is having a tuna patty melt . . .” I’d shout across the kitchen so my mom\u003cbr\u003ewould make me one, too. Since this was before I started kindergarten, I had a standing\u003cbr\u003elunch date every day with Soupy. I’d eat my lunch glued to his show, wondering what it\u003cbr\u003ewould be like to be just like him someday.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI gained an early interest in cooking from both of my parents, but my mom was my true\u003cbr\u003einspiration. Whenever she was cooking, I liked helping her out. I enjoyed the process of\u003cbr\u003egathering the food and ingredients, putting it all together and voilà! Like magic there\u003cbr\u003ewas a delicious meal on the table. The meals in our house were never fancy but they were\u003cbr\u003ealways delicious.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSundays were either a pot roast with potatoes or a roasted chicken with green beans. On\u003cbr\u003eoccasion, Mom might make pork chops or oxtail stew with dumplings. As I’ve gotten older, I\u003cbr\u003ethought about those meals many times over the years, trying to recall the tastes and\u003cbr\u003eflavors I enjoyed so much as a kid. I really loved my mother’s cooking. To this day I\u003cbr\u003estill crave her macaroni and cheese, her Jamaican black-eyed peas and rice and her amazing\u003cbr\u003ecorn bread.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was an unwritten rule in our house to never bother her while she was cooking. The\u003cbr\u003eonly exception was when she was making her Sweet Potato Poon for the holidays. This was a\u003cbr\u003ecrustless pie—well, more like a soufflé than a traditional pie—with marshmallows all over\u003cbr\u003ethe top, which she would finish by putting in the oven to brown. Every year, one of us\u003cbr\u003ekids would do something to distract her from opening the oven door so that the\u003cbr\u003emarshmallows would catch fire. Then she would yell at us to get out as the smoke detector\u003cbr\u003eblared overhead. It wasn’t Thanksgiving until that old smoke detector went off.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am amazed to think she created our huge holiday feasts in our tiny kitchen, using a\u003cbr\u003esingle oven and a four-burner stove. Thanksgiving brought fourteen or sixteen people into\u003cbr\u003eour home. We’d put every leaf in our expandable wooden dining room table, and we’d still\u003cbr\u003eneed a card table for the extra people who just stopped by.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen it came to food, my mother and I were perfectly simpatico. She used it as a reward\u003cbr\u003eand I liked to eat. My rewards ranged from a bag of M\u0026amp;Ms to smoked salmon with cream\u003cbr\u003echeese. I didn’t have a particularly sophisticated or discriminating palate back then. In\u003cbr\u003efact, one of my favorite snacks was sliced bananas with sour cream, sprinkled with sugar\u003cbr\u003eand cinnamon on top.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the time I was seven or eight years old, I’d gone from being a solid boy to a pretty\u003cbr\u003echubby kid. It seemed as though all of the sudden I was shopping in the husky boys’\u003cbr\u003esection of the local department store.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHusky.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLike I was going to be strapped to a dog sled and forced to run the Iditarod.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I first started gaining weight, I thought it was normal. Lots of other kids in our\u003cbr\u003eneighborhood looked just like me, so I didn’t have anything else to compare myself to. By\u003cbr\u003ethe time I was in the seventh grade, I had a real weight problem—but no one ever talked\u003cbr\u003eabout it. My parents never gave me a hard time or pushed me to get out of the house and do\u003cbr\u003esomething active. I was one of those kids who liked sitting around reading comic books,\u003cbr\u003etinkering with old TVs or making my own movies. Today, I’d be a video game geek.\u003cbr\u003eThankfully, they didn’t have those kinds of devices when I was a kid, so at least I had to\u003cbr\u003efocus my creativity on other things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI went to St. Catherine of Sienna, a Catholic school in St. Albans, Queens. In between\u003cbr\u003eseventh grade and eighth grade, I was chosen to take part in a summer program run by the\u003cbr\u003eJesuits for “underprivileged” kids, called the Higher Achievement Program or HAP. Kids who\u003cbr\u003edid well in that summer program were offered a full scholarship at a Jesuit high school.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMake no mistake, for a lower-middle-class family, paying for six kids in Catholic\u003cbr\u003eschool was no joke. But my parents felt it was a better education and worth the sacrifice.\u003cbr\u003eBesides offering a great opportunity for a Jesuit education, HAP had a kick-ass free\u003cbr\u003elunch. I was in!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI did well, but because I wasn’t the most physically active kid (and did I mention the\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ereally, really\u003c\/i\u003e kick-ass free lunch?), I gained a little more weight. Sure, I played\u003cbr\u003esome basketball, but lacking height, speed, any dribbling skills, a hook shot or a jumper,\u003cbr\u003eI was mostly used to clog the lane.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was offered a scholarship to Xavier High School in Manhattan. This was a Big Deal.\u003cbr\u003eXavier High School was and is one of the best high schools, public or private, in New York\u003cbr\u003eCity. It was also, at the time, a military academy, with full military uniforms.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI became painfully aware that I was having a weight issue when I had to get my school\u003cbr\u003euniform and they didn’t have any that fit me. The uniforms were very expensive, so\u003cbr\u003egraduating students often donated their uniforms to hand down to incoming students like\u003cbr\u003eme. But since none of those fit, my parents had to scrape up about three hundred bucks to\u003cbr\u003ebuy me a new set.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI started high school in the fall of 1968 and I fell right into a routine. When I went\u003cbr\u003eto school in Queens, I took a city bus or could walk to school. Now I had to take a bus\u003cbr\u003eand a subway into Manhattan, to Sixteenth Street and Sixth Avenue. I would get up around\u003cbr\u003esix a.m. and have breakfast, sometimes with my dad, then head into Manhattan to get to\u003cbr\u003eschool by seven forty-five. Sometimes I would get in early enough to grab a candy bar at\u003cbr\u003ethe deli down the street from school. For the long trip home I usually had a candy bar or\u003cbr\u003etwo to fortify me, then a snack during homework and then dinner. Hey, Mom, did the dry\u003cbr\u003ecleaner’s","brand":"Berkley","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48338546524389,"sku":"NP9780451414946","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780451414946.jpg?v=1769572631","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/never-goin-back-isbn-9780451414946","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}