Scott Garten:  

I was born one day after Garrison Keillor in the Anoka, Minnesota, Hospital. Garrison stands about seven or eight inches taller than I. He had that extra day to grow. We were not born in the same hospital. According to a recent article by Garrison in the National Geographic, he was born at home. Mr. Keillor and I did not really see each other at that time. Our eyes weren't focusing. We really first met each other fifty-five years later, at which time I attended one of his book signings. I don't recall that first meeting with Garrison in 1942, but I do remember the next defining moment in my life. I was twenty-two months old, and I had a run-in with a pulley on a gasoline engine. Intelligent curiosity along with a child's innocence: bad combination. The pulley under the washing machine was spinning merrily, and I attempted to investigate it bare-handed. I remember my mother's horrified look. I recall that I was bawling bloody murder. The attending physician used the kitchen table as an operating table to bind my wound. The year was 1944; all qualified surgeons were in the western Pacific or the European Theater tending to the casualties of war. My doctor couldn't stitch the injury, so two fingers of my left hand are maimed. At the time, wearing the sling played hob with my pushing around the toy truck. Now, the two bum digits hamper my typing. This took place in the small town of Corydon, Iowa. When I was in the eighth grade, there was a singing group of six seventh grade girls in the junior high chorus. At one assembly, they rendered "I love Little Willy." They were all pretty; I harbored secret crushes for them for the next several years.. Some one has described me as carefree. I beg to differ. Read the following to fond out why. My high school days were spent in Atchison, Kansas. When I was in high school, it was thought by many young ladies that I was conceited, stuck up. I regret that I left such an impression; I honestly did not know how to combat it. What was it that I had any occasion to have the big head? Yes, I made good grades. Big flaming deal!!! I was undersized, unathletic(a complete klutz on the softball field), couldn't dance, and was otherwise socially inept. I really didn't know how to talk to pretty girls and didn't care to encourage any young ladies whom I found unattractive. I wasn't stuck up; I was shy and withdrawn. Ah, many was the time after basketball games at the sock hops I stood at the sidelines trying to work up the gumption to ask a particular girl to dance. Fear of two things kept me from ever working up the courage to do it: fear of rejection and of making a fool of myself in clumsy attempts to dance. Yeah, I was klutz #1 on the softball field in phys ed. Any time I was up to bat, I would swing at anything, so I struck out more often than not. Was ...Expand for more