Both of his parents had grown up on working farms, and were then employed at a large dairy farm. While Koertge was still a youngster, his parents moved to Collinsville, Illinois, and opened an ice cream business. It flourished until the town's first supermarket opened, and then--like so many other specialty stores--it could not keep up with the new competition. Koertge's father became a janitor in the public school system while his mother stayed at home. They were comfortable financially and, as the author once commented, "fairly happy."
An only child, Koertge said that he was "a pretty normal kid" who enjoyed sports and school. As a teenager he discovered a special talent--he had a "way with words." He could express himself well, and beyond that, he found himself open to the vast possibilities words offered as a means to communicate feelings. "I discovered I was more glib than most of my friends," he once commented, "but I also somehow sensed that my gift wouldn't be really valuable until I was older. Very early on, words seemed to have lives of their own. Still today, the way the words fit together and the way they lie on the music they generate is more interesting to me than the so-called arc of the story." In this way, Koertge was laying the groundwork for a career as a poet and novelist.
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