William Brown Johnson was born at midnight on the summer solstice, 1950, in a middle-sized Midwestern town located at the center of the population distribution of the United States. The nurse who weighed him said that he was very unusual: his weight was exactly the average for baby boys born in the US. That was the last time that Bill Johnson was described as unusual. In school, his grades were always average. His parents and teachers suggested remedies, but nothing made any difference.