Surgery at a Shriner's Hospital in his youth destined Jerry Zimmerman's involvement with the greatest philanthropic organization in the world. This memoir chronicles generations of his family and their triumphs, tragedies and curses as the endured the greatest drought in Kansas and the loss of the family farm to the U.S. Corps of Engineers and the end of their way of life. Labeled a cripple, Jerry relates how he made a success out of failure and negative stigmas with dramatic and tender stories of his youth.