My father was in the oil business. The oil company was Esso, Exxon actually, so he moved around a lot. In fact, my parents moved 17 times in the first 17 years of their marriage and had 17 homes. I went to seven schools by the time I was in seventh grade so I moved a lot which was difficult because I wasn’t any place long enough to make any really good friends. On top of that I was an only child so I didn’t have any brothers or sisters to be supportive in all those relocations.

But anyway, we started out in North Carolina and lived there until I was six.

Then World War II came along and my father went into the Navy. He actually had been in college – he went to Princeton to college also, as did I. My mother did not go to college. In those days it was unusual for women to attend college and she did not.

It was actually during the Depression so she went to work to help the family keep afloat during that time. Times were tough in the Depression. She was just finishing school and such.

So my father went into the Navy. He had been the Army ROTC in college, which was kind of funny he wanted to get in the military. He wanted to try and get back in the Army and they didn’t answer so he finally just signed up for Navy and went to officer’s training. He was a lieutenant in the Navy.

He had a pretty nice job actually stationed in Norfolk, Virginia the whole time for three years where he was responsible for a squadron of radio controlled planes, which was quite new in those days. They were used for target practice for ships. They would fly these planes – they were wooden planes – so the ships could shoot at them for target practice just in training off the coast. So, he had his own little game there which for being in the war in a tough time was pretty nice.

We lived in Virginia Beach. We moved from North Carolina to Virginia Beach, Virginia to live a couple houses from the water so it was pretty nice for three years as a young kid. I don’t think I wore shoes any summer for years on my feet and have double A width because I didn’t have any shoes on. But it was pretty nice as a young guy.

Those were tough times. In the early days of the war there were blackouts. Early in the war where there were patrols on the beach at night and oil and stuff from ships being sunk and washing up on the beach.

Toward the end of the war, of course, that was not the case. The German submarines were not really operational on the coast except for the first year or so. They sank something like 200 American ships off the coast. It’s kinda hard to believe in that time frame. In fact, one of the problems was all our cities were all lit up and they provided light behind the ships. The submarines out here could just see them and they’d have easy target practice.

Anyway, and my mother, as I said, was from a German family. But both the men, one was English, one was German, and both the women, the mothers, were old stock Americans from way back.

So, my father was a marketing guy for this company Standard Oil, so he was setting up and running gas stations initially, a series of them, and then eventually when the war was over he was sent out to Denver, Colorado to run the marketing of a company that Exxon had bought. They wanted to put the old logo on all the stations where they had no marketing in the Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, sort of Eastern Rockies states.

So anyway, I went to school in the beginning in Virginia Beach, and then I went to fifth and sixth grade in Denver. We moved there and I went to public school in Denver when we moved there and we were there for two years.

I learned to ski a little bit there and took the…what was it called? The Eskimo Ski Club! That was it! I took the train up through the Blackfoot Tunnel with smoke. You’d come back black at night after going through the tunnel with a steam engine pulling the train through a six mile tunnel. I played baseball, and football and some local kid’s teams. So I got into sports early on and enjoyed them. I was there until I was about 11, I think it was, or 12?

Then my parents moved back East. My father moved his business back New York City. We lived in Princeton, New Jersey and he commuted to New York. We lived in Princeton and I went to school in town, Princeton Day School. I got there in the middle of seventh grade.

Oh, I forgot a whole important piece! When we left Denver my father joined the international part of the Esso Exxon thing. He didn’t know anything about their market so he had to take this long trip to get familiar with it so my mother and I went with him.

So, we went around the world in about eight months. We shipped to South Africa on a freighter; 17 days on a shipboard. I was the only child so that was a little bit of a… (Laughs), although they had a shuffleboard. I became a real shuffleboard ace. I could play the bulk of the ship. We made an actual game out of it.

Anyway, then we spent six weeks in South Africa and made a tour around the country by car – all the way around. Then we went by ship to Australia across the roaring 40s which was wicked weather going across the South Indian Ocean, heavy weather.

We got to Australia and spent two months in Australia in Melbourne and Sidney and driving around in between. Then we went to New Zealand for a month, again, toured the islands of New Zealand. Then we went to Singapore and to Hong Kong, and then a month in the Philippines, and then home. It was about an eight month’s trip. I took almost a year out of school to do that.

Then we moved east. The schools in the east are much better, and plus being out of school so I dropped back a year. I went from a little young for my class and then a little old for my class which was probably better.