I was introduced to D&D early, courtesy of my mother. She'd gone back to college for her Masters, and they had a program call the "Free University." This was basically an array of activities that were free or cost of materials, taught by whomever volunteered, utilizing classrooms and other campus spaces on weekends. She'd gone for some class, happened by the room where there was a group playing D&D, and thought it looked like something I'd enjoy. So the next weekend, we both went and joined in.
This was back in '76, I think. We'd roll up 4-5 characters each, and if we were lucky, at least one would survive to stagger out of the dungeon and hobble back to the town with some coin to spend on better gear. I'm not sure anyone ever survived past 3rd level, and we never got beyond the second level of the dungeon, because we rarely survived going that far down.
Mother dropped out after a month or so, off to other pursuits, but I stayed with it until I moved again. At some point thereafter I got one of the boxed sets for a birthday present (red box, I think; somewhere, some of those awful dice are still around!). Didn't play with it long, as I got the AD&D PHB at some point after that. I know that's what I was playing most of high school (although not at school). I was always the kid in the group until almost the time that 2e came out.