| For years, the story of my first inhale was kept from me like a military secret. When I was born, the doctor said that if I lived, I'd be crazy. Now that's a helluva intro, isn't it! |
| Dear Mom had a tough time with the birth of her first child, me, back in 1918, a year when a diphtheria epidemic and WW I ended the lives of many infants and many young men. |
| Primly, Mom was attended by a female doctor. Not a midwife, but an M.D. On my actual birth day, the medical lady was in a hurry, eager to host a dinner. |
| So in the afternoon in the kitchen at Virginia and Pulaski in south St. Louis, Madame Mal Practice used her forceps like ice tongs, grabbing me fore and aft, rather than left and right. One tong scarred my left eye, permanently blurring my vision. No corneal transplants back then. The other tong dug into the back of my cranium. |
| So, yeah, I had a hole in my head from day one. |
| The doctor discarded me on the kitchen table, turned to my distressed Aunt Maggie and Aunt Millie, and told them she had better bind Mrs. Broeg's breasts. No mother's milk for me, she insisted, because if I lived, I'd be crazy. |
| The "other" Bob Broeg, my father, arriving home after 15 hours of bread wagon driving, burst into the house at that instant, just in time to hear my death sentence pronounced. Pop was a short, stocky man, my lifetime hero, and a local amateur lightweight boxing champion in his youth. But he didn't lay a glove on Mrs. Mal Practice. Instead, he ran her straight and immediately out of our home. And then he ran himself three blocks north to the office of an old friend, Dr. Willard Hans. |
| Dr. Hans, a big, unruffled, leisurely man, was convinced by Pop that now was a good time to hurry. Arriving at our upstairs three-room flat, he took command. |
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