Pat Orr
For the Apple Valley Review

The inaugural Village Street Fair will take place this Saturday off Highway 18 at Pawnee and Powhatan roads (near the James Woody Community Center) from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

This event promises food, vendors, music, classic cars and a fun, family friendly atmosphere.

The Village Merchants Association has been working to bring some life and spirit back to this area that was once our “original downtown” and make it a destination again. Last year, they were instrumental in bringing back our annual parade which is scheduled again this year for Oct. 1.

The hope is that more shoppers and families will come on down and discover the large number of businesses that sometimes seem hidden away in the Village area.

In concert with the Legacy Trail folks and others, there is hope that once plans are finalized for the Hilltop House, a revitalization effort to bring back the Village as our own “old town” with shops, new eateries and events that tie into the Legacy Trail, Museum and the Hilltop House can become a reality. The fact that business development has moved rapidly to the Bear Valley Road/Jess Ranch area has left the Village and the Highway 18 side of town without a lot of services and virtually no new growth. It would be nice to have a balance of retail and recreation on both sides of town.

Come down Saturday and give the Village a look — there is more there than you think casually driving by.

Being a fatso

You may have noticed that my photo changed at the top of the page recently. I have lost about 60 pounds since March and it was time to get rid of “Fat Pat” and replace him with “almost skinny Pat.” I will not bore you with my diet plan, but it was healthy although required a significant mental commitment to get the desired results.

I was a chubby my whole life. One of our family friends who considered himself humorous gave me the nickname Fatrick. I wasn’t obese, just big. No shirtless trip to the public pool or beach for me and I became a little weird about making sure I dressed as good as I could for a kid. If a shirt was tight, it was thrown away.

Never wanted to look as fat as I was.

Finally, when I got to high school as a 6-foot-3-inch 215-pound freshman, the football coach tackled me as I came into the gym for P.E. the first day and I became a football player. My size became an asset at last.

Wrestling, throwing the Shot Put on the track team, it all stemmed from my size.

In the late '60s, I was the biggest, fastest guy on my team. Each year I would come into fall football overweight and they would run my butt off. Literally, after two-a-day drills in the hot sun I was trim, strong and butt-less. Although I had found a purpose for my fat — get it going in the right direction at the right speed and it is a useful weapon — I was always inside a fatty.

After college and football ended I continued to consume food like I was still working out. As I got older, I discovered beer and then martinis and cheeseburgers — not together, mind you.

Then came marriage, kids and then I left the corporate life to be an entrepreneur as I ate and drank my way to more than 300 pounds. I think I had a personal high of 326 in the late '80s.

Food was my drug of choice. Like most drugs, it was eventually going to do me in.

I lost 40 pounds the year I turned 40 and gained 50 back. Still, nothing bad happened but elevated blood pressure and blood numbers that made my doctor roll his eyes back in his head, but hey, I was young.

About this same time I also quit smoking and, thank God, that one stuck. Score one for the fat guy. Maybe there is hope to regain some modicum of self-control.

Flash forward 25 years and Medicare beckons but I am still fat. I am into 2XL shirts and size 48 pants, when I can find them. Fat guys must be fast because whenever Wal-Mart got a new shipment of “fat-pants,” they were gone before I could get there.

I have told folks my ego can handle being old and it can handle being fat but being both is just too much to bear. It so angers me to see someone get out of a car with a handicapped sticker who is simply too fat to walk from their car or has abused their knees to the point where they are too weak to move. I have friends in wheelchairs who need that spot if you please. Lose weight already. This and money was my final motivation.

I am going on a trip soon and as a (very expensive) part of that trip I will take a helicopter ride to the top of an Alaskan glacier. The caveat is anyone over 250 pounds has to pay an extra $120. Apparently fat people use more gas to lift off. That just ticked me off so I was determined to get down below 250 before this trip. If I had to stand in the tundra naked on the flight deck, by golly I was going to get down to 249 or die trying.

Luckily my son, who is smarter than I and also prone to pork up a little, was “in training” for an important climbing trip and was on a diet program that really worked. He got me involved and I was committed.

As I dropped pounds fairly quickly I had to constantly reassure people that no, I don’t have cancer and the weight loss is on purpose. No one expects it from an old fat guy. Why lose weight now?

The whole point of this story is to tell you how weird it is not to be fat. You “skinnies” will never know how bad we fatties feel about ourselves even as we are stuffing Krispy Kremes into our faces.

My cardiologist said flat out, “If every American lost 50 pounds, there would be no heart disease.”

If you have a child, grandchild or someone you love, get them help and get them on a healthy nutritionally balanced diet program. You can save their life, their self-esteem, their sanity and set them on a new path.

It isn’t appropriate, but it is true that fat people do not get the promotions, leadership roles or opportunities that skinnies do. Trust me. I have been there.

I won’t really know if this diet works and my life has changed until next year when I reassure myself it is gone for good.

The other day while walking the dog, I looked down and didn’t recognized my own shadow. How weird is that?

It was wonderful.

— Pat Orr is a local business owner, community volunteer and political junkie.