1 - Growing Up Ain

Summary

The journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step.

—Lao Tzu

The year 1943 was dominated by an ongoing World War II. The United States ran its first test on what was called the Philadelphia Experiment. And a young PT boat commander named John F. Kennedy bravely held his crew together in the Solomon Islands after their boat had been torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.

The ballpoint pen was patented. Construction on the Pentagon was completed. And Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to travel by airplane.

In New York, Rogers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma debuted on Broadway. The New York Yankees became the first team to win the World Series ten times and Yankees star Joe DiMaggio promptly enlisted in the U.S. Army.

As for beginnings, and against the musical backdrop of upstart crooner Frank Sinatra singing “All of Nothing at All” and Wizard of Oz alum Judy Garland warbling “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart” came the births of such future luminaries as Robert DeNiro, Jim Morrison, Billie Jean King, Geraldo Rivera, Joe Namath, and a couple of British blokes named Richards and Jagger.

Future household names arrive on the planet nearly every day, but if history proves anything with consistency, it's that most world changers do not necessarily become world renowned. And such was the case when, in the year 1943 in New York City, Pearl and Jacob “Jack” Ain welcomed the first of what would be their five children, Mark Stuart Ain, into the world.

To imply that young Mark had the potential to be successful would almost seem an understatement. Jack had earned an engineering degree from New York University in 1937. But it was Pearl who truly had achieved eye-popping academic credentials.

“My mother graduated high school when she was only fourteen, then college at just seventeen, and she finished Columbia Law School at twenty,” Mark reported with pride. “But she was too young to take the test! She had to wait until she turned twenty-one to take the bar exam!

“And so, she had a fabulous academic career. And then, she practiced law for a few years, I guess until I was born.”