.

People of a certain age will remember the dominance of JCPenney in the 1990s. Affordable, comfortable clothes adorned the shelves of the department store’s various branches; it offered enough name brands to make it appealing to kids and their caregivers alike.

I mean, Southpole, anyone?

My mother found plenty of husky clothes for this big boy on the racks of JCPenney stores across the South and the Midwest. I probably was ambivalent about them when my mother initially purchased them, but then, as I realized how much they allowed me to cover myself, I grew to appreciate them more. Husky clothes for a husky boy – it made sense.

For the first five years of my life, I was relatively small, and then my girth grew. I developed an affable, agreeable personality to avoid the taunts that inevitably come with being a big kid. This method worked…