I was happy as a child with my toys in my nursery. I been happier every year since I became a man. But this interlude of school makes a somber grey patch upon the chart of my journey. It was a unending spell of worries that did not then seem petty, and of toil uncheered by fruition; a time of discomfort, restriction and purposeless monotony.

I think I was the first kid in my elementary school to turn in a word-processed document. I just enjoyed using the stuff. It was sort of lying around, and I got to play with it. I had an older brother who was interested in it as well. So I think I had kind of a unique environment, that most people didn't have, because my dad was willing to spend all his available income on buying a computer or whatever.

That background helped me a lot, because it taught me to fend for myself from a very early age, and to be responsible. It was an upheaval of an upbringing, which seems to have worked, I guess.

I never had, like, a nanny that took care of me. My mom always fed me breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I belong to a family of boys who were raised in meager circumstances in central Kansas, and every one of us earned our way as we went along, and it never occurred to us that we were poor, but we were.

My father wouldn't get us a TV, he wouldn't allow a TV in the house.