My story began on August 9, 1958, in the hospital in Virginia, Minnesota. Virginia was about sixteen miles from our hometown of Aurora, but it was a larger town and the nearest place where a hospital was. Like most newborns, I didn’t know much about the world yet—but I was already joining quite a crew.  I met my parents at 9:15 PM at 8 lbs 10 1/2 oz dripping wet. In fact the birth announcement mentioned my father now having enough for a basketball team.

Waiting for me at home were four older brothers. John was ten years older than I was, Dave eight, Tom five, and Chuck four. Yes—five boys in total. Along with my mom and dad, that made for a lively household.

Our family lived in Aurora in a fairly conservative but comfortable home. My dad had the house built specifically for our family. 720 Arrowhead Street.  It was a 1500 square foot rambler-style home with three bedrooms and one bathroom on the main floor. The basement had been finished as well and included another area with bunk beds—where my older brothers John and Dave stayed—there was a bathroom / utility room down there too. With that many boys in the house, the extra space probably helped keep the peace.

Because my mom suddenly had five boys to manage—including a newborn—my cousin Mary Lou came to stay with us for a while during the summer of 1958 to help out. Looking back, that was probably a lifesaver for my mom.

Aurora turned out to be a wonderful place to grow up. Our neighborhood was called Sunnyside Acres, and it seemed like it was full of kids everywhere you looked. It was a newer neighborhood at the time, and families with children seemed to fill nearly every home.

Our neighborhood felt like it had its own little ecosystem of kids. On any given summer day you could look outside and see bikes scattered across lawns, baseball games starting up in the street, or groups of kids running between houses. Our place often became the gathering spot. My mom would make big pitchers of Kool-Aid, and before long there would be kids everywhere—running through the yard, playing games, and just enjoying the freedom that kids had in those days.

My best friend was Carl T.  He lived in the house next door with a vacant lot between us.  My earliest memories with him are playing with our toys in the yard.  We played together, rode bike together, and often had meals together.  We were inseparable back then.  When we moved in 1968 I only saw him one other time on a trip to Boundary Waters Canoe Area.  I do have a very graphic memory of an experience we shared in the space between our houses.  There were a couple of trees to climb and back then we pounded large nails into the tree to use as footholds.   About 10 feet up, one of my nails gave out and I fell down ripping my shirt and the front of my body.  My shirt was all bloody and I had skin flapping around on my stomach. I knew my mom would not be happy so I did what any 8 year old would do - I hid in our backyard.  Carl “told” on me and mom found me and patched me up with tape and gauze. No trips to Urgent Care back then.

Behind our house there was a forest, which for a group of boys was about as good as it gets. That woods became our playground and our world of imagination. We built forts, explored trails, and invented all sorts of adventures back there. Between the big backyard, the open front yard, and the woods behind the house, there was always something to do.

Late evenings often brought everyone back inside, and family life had its own rhythm. One of my favorite memories was Sunday nights. That was family television night. We would gather around the TV and watch the lineup together that included Wonderful World of Disney, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, and Bonanza. It was simple, but it felt like an event every week, and everyone sat together to watch.

Inside the house, life with four brothers meant that sleeping arrangements sometimes changed. At different times I shared a room with Tom or Chuck, and occasionally I even had a room to myself, depending on how things were arranged. With that many boys under one roof, there was always noise, energy, and usually some kind of game going on.  There was no end of rough housing.  One game involved playing football our your knees in a bedroom with the lights off and pitch black.  The object was to get from one end of the room to score a touchdown without losing a tooth.

Sports were a big part of my early life as well. Whether it was baseball in the yard, football in the street, or whatever game we could invent, we were almost always outside doing something active. It seemed like sports were always being played somewhere nearby. Like a lot of kids with older siblings I became much better than my friends at athletics because I was always being pushed by, mainly, my two older brothers. I also first became interested in lifting weights because, well… my brothers were lifting weights.

Another special part of our family life was the cabin my dad built. On many weekends we would head there and spend time away from town. The cabin would become the setting for many memories of its own, and it deserved its own chapter.

But those early years in Aurora were really where everything began—growing up in a house full of brothers, in a neighborhood full of kids, with woods behind the house and Kool-Aid in the kitchen. Looking back, it was a pretty great place to start a life.