A Career in Child Neurology: Explorations at the Frontiers

I had the happiest of childhoods. Born in 1936, my early years were the time of the Great Depression and World War II, but Indiana and the United States Midwest were largely shielded from the effects of the war and to some extent from the depression. Probably no area on earth in the war years and afterward was more secure and confident than the American heartland in the Midwest. At the time it led the world in iron and steel production, in automobile manufacturing, and in agriculture, and was thousands of miles away from any enemy threat. This bred in the public mind an easy confidence that my peers and I absorbed unconsciously as we grew up; we did not necessarily know much about the wider world, but we certainly did not fear it. It has been my impression that people from Indiana, when they attain prominence in the wider world, are frequently notable for their moderation and good sense; I think this could be attributable to Indiana’s central position in the Union, and to the fundamental democracy and simple plainness of Indiana culture. Lee Hamilton and Brian Lamb come to mind. I was born the first child of my family. My father was a respected banker who was elected chairman for 22 years of the County Council of Tippecanoe (site of the famous battle in 1811). My mother, a homemaker and community leader, was the daughter of a country doctor who grew up in the Old Order German Baptist Brethren (Dunker) church, which he forsook to obtain an education as a physician. I was joined by a sister, who obtained a doctorate in clinical psychology and has a successful practice in Minneapolis, and a brother who went to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, later to law school at Stanford, and became a corporate lawyer in Silicon Valley. My upbringing, which might have been simply that of a typical Midwest small town, was heavily enriched by my opportunity to live, and later to work, on a farm located some 15 miles from my home in Lafayette, Indiana. Both sets of grandparents and my uncle who was an active farmer lived in the hamlet of Colburn, which boasted some 300 souls, 1 small store, and a coaling station for the Wabash Railroad that guaranteed that every train stopped at the town. That generated my lifelong interest in trains. The sole other institution was the whiteclapboard United Brethren church that my relatives attended faithfully, as did I when I stayed with them, which was most summers and many weekends. I realized only much later that the great influence of that church was imbued in me not by words but by the simple hymns oft repeated: ‘‘Faith of our fathers,’’ ‘‘Blest be the tie that binds,’’ and others. The essence of Colburn was however Uncle Jim—my second and more accessible father—and the farm work. I worked milking cows, making hay, scooping corn, cultivating with the tractor—working with the neighbor farmers, doing a man’s work by age 11 or 12 years and loving every minute of it. From it I learned a respect for honest work and for the people who do it that has been very useful to me in medical practice. My high school experience, as well as much of my college career at DePauw University (in Greencastle, Indiana), a typical Midwestern liberal arts school, was that of a somewhat idiosyncratic autodidact. That is to say, I largely studied what I wanted to, and attended to course work as necessary. In high school, I read Paradise Lost, caught up by the strong cadence of the language; the Federalist Papers; and Comte, the 19th century French sociologist. The spring of my first year at DePauw University I went out for football (having played only 1 year in high school). On the first day of scrimmage, playing in the line, I made a good cross-body block on the opposing linebacker, a block singled out and praised by the coach after the play. On the next play I was trailing the action up the field when I was clipped from behind and went down in excruciating pain with a tibial fracture. I don’t know who was responsible for the clip; it was later suggested to me it was the linebacker I had blocked. It did not occur to me that I could have an enemy. The broken leg kept me at home the rest of the spring and through the summer. It afforded me the time to learn the basics of classical music; to take 2 summer school classes at Purdue University (analytic geometry and philosophy); to work through a calculus text, and to read the great Russian novels War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, and Fathers and Sons. During this time I was constantly helped by Nancy. I first knew Nancy when we were in the eighth grade; we dissected