I was born into the home of a farmer and public school teacher/administrator of what were then called consolidated public schools in rural Ohio in 1930. At the age of six, I contracted a disease that is today called rheumatic fever but was not known then as such and of course not treated properly as a result. In my youth, growing up on the farm and in a home where education was revered and honored, in the world of books and ideas being cast about constantly, and in a very Christian home, my soul and spirit .... and my physical body .... could not have been nurtured any better, I am sure. Hard work, honest enterprise, good food, good neighbors, extended family around one for support and encouragement, clean living in a rural atmosphere and in a home where the aura of reverence for God and all His creations pervaded the atmosphere, no television, the pristine environment of sports competition properly administrated, provided an atmosphere that, even today, I find unequalled anywhere.