Early Life
Robbins was born in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, United States (US), to George Thomas Robbins and Katherine Belle Robinson. Both of his grandfathers were Southern Baptist preachers. The Robbins family resided in Blowing Rock before moving to Warsaw, Virginia in 1942. Robbins graduated in 1950 from Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia, where he won the Senior Essay Medal. The following year he enrolled at Washington and Lee University to major in journalism, leaving at the end of his sophomore year after being disciplined by his fraternity for bad behavior and failing to earn a letter in basketball.
In 1953, he enlisted in the Air Force after receiving his draft notice, spending a year as a meteorologist in Korea, then two years in the Special Weather Intelligence unit of the Strategic Air Command in Nebraska. He was discharged in 1957, returning to Richmond, Virginia where he was a fixture on the local bohemian scene, reading poetry at the Rhinoceros Coffee House.
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