"I was a mighty proud papa the day little Newt was born. But I was even happier when one day I woke up to find Newt playing in his crib with a crop of hair just like his Daddy's. I had to have this picture taken. From that day on, I knew Newt was either going to do great things or be a total embarrassment to the family. Hell, how could he fail with hair like that?"

 

At the young age of two, Newt demonstrated an almost angelic quality combined with a ferocious appetite for bucking horses. Newt's mother remarked, "That was Newt's favorite Christmas, the day he got that pony. We did his hair up special. I was convinced he was a girl until he was fourteen, his face was so pretty. He liked to dress up a lot."

NEWT GINGRICH had a favorite game when he was growing up in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania. His pal Dennis Yantz would pretend to beat him up and leave him crumpled on the curb. "When a car would pull up to see what was wrong," Yantz recalls, "Newt would jump up and scream 'SURPRISE!' We would do this over and over again." For some reason, Yantz says, Newt always wanted to be the one who played dead.