This is not a funny story, so try not to laugh. We begin in the small community of Panther, Kentucky, not far from the mighty Ohio River, which separates Kentucky from Indiana. The date is April 1, 1922, and Jimmie Logsdon is born. It is a common, unremarkable birth, unattended by wise men, indeed, unattended by all save the child’s humble parents and himself. But a birth, nonetheless, it is. The father, a Methodist minister, offers his thanks to God.

Time passes Slowly, as in a dream, and as it does we shift tenses, tiring of the historical-present. Time passed slowly, we tell ourselves; yes it did, as in a dream, a dream that lasted many years.

Reverend Logsdon’s duties as a minister caused the Logsdon family to move frequently: from Panther to Bowling Green to Live Hill to Corbin, and finally to Ludlow, which is directly across the Ohio from Cincinnati. Jimmie graduated from Ludlow High in the spring of 1940. In the fall of that year, he married his first wife, a girl named Evelyn.