Discovery
I remember when I was young... Well Kinda.
I remember that in kindergarten, my teacher called me Pokey 'cause I could never seem to finish any of my little arts and craft classroom projects in the same amount of time as all of the rest of the kids. (Still can't, if the truth be known, and I really didn't mind being called Pokey, anyway.)What the heck, I had turned five after the start of the school year. I wasn't ready for school yet.
I remember that in kindergarten I was sick quite often, until I had my tonsils out. I will be honest here and say that I can't remember if I had them out in kindergarten or first grade, but that is just me rambling on.
I remember in first grade not wanting to read. I also remember that I was very stubborn. Some might accuse me of being stubborn now, but I would like to think that todays stubbornness is far less than the pig-headedness of my early youth.
I remember that ,at the end of first grade, one of the best events of my life occurred: I was held back. Normally one doesn't consider being held back as a good event. At the time it was happening, neither did I. My mother, a teacher at the school, had sat down with the teachers of my first grade class and reviewed my progress. It wasn't that I couldn't read, but rather that only grudgingly did I, and then not all that well. So, why was being held back one of the best events of my life? Probably because it needed to happen, but more importantly, I knew most of the material for the first grade. I went from apathetic to, "Oh, I know that! Pick me!" And, here is the most important reason of all: I could read.
These days kids are reading in Kindergarten... I can only imagine what I would have done if that were the case back in the stone age when I grew up. Back then the first grade was when you learned to read. That left me with a lot of time on my hands. I grew up in rural New York state, just about as far from the city lifestyle as it gets, so there were long hours to fill. So I read, and read, and.. well you get the picture.
I read everything I could get my hands on: Fiction, non-fiction, pamphlets, books, brochures, cereal boxes, magazines, (even the ones I found in my grandfathers shed... Girls!!! What do you do with them?!) From that point on, pretty much if it was written down and I could get my hands on it, it served the purpose of wetting my appetite for more. I even read dictionaries. I would get out as many books as I could take at one time from the library, soon depleting the store of books from the elementary library.
And then one day, I am not sure which grade it was in, one of my teachers, I think it was the librarian, started reading to the class a book called A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I was enthralled! I had to get more of this! So the librarian let me go upstairs to the high school library to a section called Science Fiction.
(Here is the part where the Valkries sing to a triumphant blaring fanfare!!!) Threads, descending on Pern. First contact. Rendezvous with Rama, so many authors, so many good books, too many, I can't even remember all of them. More, give me more. What do you mean the book isn't out in paperback yet?! Not even in hardcover?! It won't be out for another year! Ahhhrrrgggg! I need more Asimov, more Bova, more Heinleine, McCaferry....
Ahemmm. Sorry.
I am Broliver and I have a problem: I am a science fiction addict.
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