Excerpt from John Glenn by John Glenn, Nick Taylor, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Dad's partnership didn't last. When it ended, he rented a little store at the east end of Main Street and hung out his shingle as the Glenn Plumbing Company. Mother had stopped teaching after I was born, and once he opened the business she watched the shop and sold plumbing supplies while he was out working on the jobs. They worked as a team.

Mother and Dad quickly fell in with four other couples in New Concord. They called themselves the Twice Five Club. The Twice Fives got together monthly for a dinner at one house or another. The hosts would cook the main dish, which was usually some kind of casserole, and everybody else would come with their kids in tow and something to put on the table.

One of the other couples was Homer and Margaret Castor. Homer--Dr. Castor--was the town dentist. The Castors had arrived in New Concord about the same time my parents did. This, too, was a homecoming. Doc Castor had grown up in Otsego, near New Concord, and had attended Muskingum and then the Ohio State University dental school, where he got his degree. He had planned to start a children's dental practice in the state capital before deciding he preferred the small-town life. They had a daughter, Anna Margaret, whom everyone called Annie. She was about a year older than I was. They put us in a playpen together, and she was part of my life from the time of my first memory.

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Excerpted from John Glenn: A Memoir by John Glenn. Copyright© 1999 by John Glenn. Excerpted by permission of Bantam, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.