My mother is from Washington, DC and my father is from Baltimore. They separated as I was only six months old and my mother returned to Washington, DC. This may also explain the reason why I was born almost three months early. I spent the first few months of my life in an incubator, a tiny, little handful of a human being – fragile, and far away from the man that I am today.

Being a premature baby may also explain why I was born with a hole in my heart. At birth the problem went undiagnosed and was only discovered as a young child. I cannot recall being any different than other kids, I just know I felt special because the entire 1st and 2nd class the nuns in the catholic school that I attended, came to the different classrooms I was in and checked my heart. Man was this cool, a young boy does not know any different.

I can still remember that one day one of the nuns came to check my heart and quickly left the room and my teacher had all the others to come around my desk and talk with me. I had zero idea what was going on, but some time later my mother entered the room with a worried look on her face and carrying a small suitcase.

All I can remember the rest of the day is being in the hospital unbelievably hungry and nobody, nobody, nobody would give me food. This is still true today – I am basically always hungry and I love (healthy) food.

My family doctor showed up and I asked him for a hamburger – which I never got. And, oh man, I loved hamburgers at that time. All I can remember then was waking up at some point later with a big block of bandages on my chest and this unbelievably loud and ugly machine next to my bed. Well, I cried of course!

After the operation, I refused to eat for days because my doctor promised me a hamburger and they did not want to give it to me. Well, one of the nurses had her boyfriend visit me in the hospital. I would say he looked like probably like Wesley Snipes! He had muscles that I still remember today as a grown-up man. He sat down beside me and explained to me that the muscles in his left arm came from spinach and the muscles in his right arm came from potatoes. Well, that is all it took.

Roy began to eat spinach and potatoes and has never stopped since. That was my first lesson in healthy nutrition.