Crippled at birth, oppressed by conservative religion and school, fully grown too early, dedicated to work and money, deceived by the Sirens of Midwest football, seduced by the perfume of female scents, Robert Steinle Williams emerges from childhood, adolescence and early adulthood in midcentury rural Delphos, Ohio. Here are lifeguarding summers, early Ohio SCUBA lessons and dives, an intimate walk along the Auglaize River, an embattled uncle's WWII experience, a scout master's terror as waist gunner in a B17, and the author's first Marine training. Always hovering nearby is the dark figure of Our Unholy Lady of Merde and her trinity of forces--randomness, risk taking, and a disdain for early death--threatening him with electrocution, a car wreck, freezing, and millions of flesh-eating, streptococcal bacteria.