It all started in Waltham, Massachusetts. My mom actually dropped a 10 pound baby on February 26, 1962. (note: Tony Randall has the same birthday...What trivia!) I was the hospital record for a while, until some other unfortunate woman was forced to jettison a larger one.

Since both my parents are of Latvian descent, (a small country bordering the Baltic Ocean) I figured I had some VIKING heritage somewhere in me. If I could only find one of those Viking helmets, I'd be all set.

What was I like as a kid? Bored and annoying. I was an only child so I kept badgering my mother, "what is there to do?" She never had anything interesting to offer.

I was always envious of kids who had brothers and sisters. I'd go over to my friends house and watch them fight and argue. They had something to do! As an only child if was difficult to play Monopoly, checkers or ANY game by yourself. I tried. I never had anyone to blame anything on, if something was broken, I did it. Go figure. Take a look at my third grade report card. I guess I was a twitchy kid.

Download my 3rd grade report card

The guys hangin' out, gettin' ready to pound some beers and bag some women.

I was a small kid, this is me holding a sardine.

Eventually my dad got a job through Raytheon that was located on Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. Kwajalein was a 3 mile long island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean practically on the equator. (This was in the early 70's.) What'd you do there? Swim, snorkel and get brown.

Of course when we first moved there, I couldn't swim and was terrified of the water. (That was quickly remedied.) Being a little kid, I thought the water was nice, but I always wanted to go to a COOL TOY STORE. Where was the closest one? 1000 miles away in Hawaii. I think my parents were hoping a shark would get me.

Get this: there was no television there. Yup, I went for 3 years of my childhood without a TV. What did we watch? Lousy, second-run movies the military imported. Ya see? Without something to compare it to, I thought they were great. Saw my first "R" rated movie there, "Catch 22". I thought the coolest thing was that scene where some guy got cut in half by an airplane propellor while standing on a raft.

O.K., I recently found this photo in an old drawer somewhere. I figured the entire world HAD TO SEE THIS. My mother dressed me like a dork. I didn't own a pair of jeans until about the age of 12. (After I BEGGED her for something that EVERYONE ELSE WAS WEARING.) I was forced to go to school with herringbone-patterned polyester pants. Maybe I can sue my mother for neglect and emotional damages. Now I understand, back in Latvia you didn't care what you wore, you were too busy wandering around the woods looking for food.