I was born, July 8, 1920, in the (Southern) Methodist Parsonage of Niangua, Missouri. (No, Hamlet -- not the country of Nicaragua -- but the Missouri town of Niangua, beside the Niangua River.) My father was a "Circuit Rider" in a Ford, ministering to 6 churches in Niangua and thereabout. I'm told that I weighed 4 1/2 lb. at birth, with a caul (which Irish superstition takes as a mark of "Great Expectations").

Mother said she carried me to Church (many weekday nights and Sundays) on a pillow. She said I weighed 8 lb. at 8 months.

At age 6, people thought I was age 4. Mom said that "having my tonsils and adenoids out" at age 5 increased my rate of growth. (The Army measured me at 5' 11 1/2". But I seem to have shrunk 1/2 inch in the past 50 years, as my weight grew to Weight.)

Even my survival to 9 years shocked some elderly ladies I met. "Yore Sonny Hays? You caint be. Why, I told yoor muther yood nevir live!"

I was a big disappointment to them.