His mother, Carolyn, felt very strongly about the derivation of names, their meaning and their relationship to her ancestry (Norwegian/ English). She named her son Leif, meaning "love", and per, meaning strength. The English surname Garrett means "the top," so Leif Per Garrett means "Love, strength, at the top."
Leif had been active and in a rush since the day he was born prematurely. He swam at six months when his mother threw him in a pool and swam with him. At ten months he was walking. He propped himself against a wall, took a step and fell down. He repeated this maneuver with his mother encouraging him until he triumphantly walked across the room. He was speaking complete sentences at a year and a half. The only thing Leif didn't rush to do was grow hair. It was 18 months before his hair grew into the golden crown that would be one of his greatest assets.
Leif, his mother, and sister Dawn, came from financially poor beginnings. Until 1966, they were in a bad situation at home, which they wanted out of. After Leif's mother and father divorced, Leif, his sister and his mother didn't have much. Looking back on those times they have always felt they had an advantage starting out poor. The only way they could go was up, and it made then fight harder to achieve their goals.
The first few years of Leif's and Dawn's life was spend with their mother in an artistic sometimes bizarre, yet always unique house in a shack flats community. Also in the community were people such as, two black female impersonators; three gays trying out for the opera, theater and the movies; A mother with five daughters three of whom were the Drake Sisters; A musical group called the Mushrooms; Seal and Croft; and a bongo drummer for Xavier Cugat. This group of talents were joined from time to time with other outstide talents. This was exciting times.
Leif's mother was from San Francisco and had an artistic backround, enabling her to design clothes. Something she started out doing just for herself and her children. Soon she was designing clothes for Judy Crane, Burt Reynolds, Amanda Blake, Marlo Thomas, the Drake Sisters and the Mushrooms.
Before finally settling in their first house with full security and electronic gates, the three would move eight times in 13 years, but never again would they find a community that sparked so much creativity.
Leif was an easy child to raise- for the most part. He was inventive, inquisitive, hard working and full of playful humor.
For years Leif had an accident - prone six month cycle. He has broken his nose three times, needed a tetanus shot when he got a nail in his foot and has skateboard elbows with scars to proove it.
Once his mother thought a splinter in his eye was a speck of dirt, until she couldn't remove it with a splash of water. Leif was rushed to the doctors where a surgeon took a scalpel and flicked the speck out. He also needed 19 stitches on his elbow, got in a motorcycle accident, and so on. Leif finally decided that every six months he should stay in bed until the cycle passed. Eventually it did.
For Leif, his school years were not memorable. He much preferred experience and travel to the classroom. Most of the public school teachers that Leif and Dawn had became annoyed whe they needed a pass to leave class to work. The teachers told Carolyn this was not a normal life. Her children were different and didn't relate well to other children. This was intended as an insult but to Carolyn, Leif and Dawn, it was taken as a compliment.
Leif's favorite teachers were his studio teachers. Those teachers made school an adventure. By the time Leif finally graduated with honor grades from the University of Nebraska high school extention course, he had attended ten different school and had been repremanded occationally for ditching class or for not doing his homework.
Living with Leif had never been dull - annoying and fustrating at time - but never dull..
