I was born a geek. Because I loved learning and asked questions, my parents taught me the four basic math operations (yes, including simple, long division) by the time I was 5. I had my own library card by 5 and flummoxed the librarian because I didn't want preschool books; I was reading at (at least) a 3rd grade level. On my 5th or 6th birthday, Uncle Doug (not by blood, it was all the same to us) gave me my first chemistry set (dad was a chem prof at TWC, which is now UTEP). Uncle Doug's mom gave me a couple of 20 piece jigsaw puzzles; to her I was still just an adorable little tyke!
I spent a fair amount of my childhood wanting to be a sports star, an astronaut, a train engineer, a cowboy, and a mad scientist. I had a tender heart, but was already somewhat out there.
The first day of 1st grade, I ended up sharing a desk with Joe Don Manbeck, who turned out to be a fellow geek. The first lesson in class involved a piece of paper with two, large circles, labeled "left" and "right". "Does everyone know which is their left hand? How about their right?" After straightening a few kids out, our teacher explained we needed to color the left circle blue ("Raise you left hand. No, Tommy (whoever), your other hand. OK, the circle on the side of your raised hand is the left circle. We'll color that blue. Does everyone know what blue is?") Since we had been given only a blue and red crayon, Joe Don and I were nearly through by the time she finished explaining what to do with the left circle, and we started talking. Before the day was out, the teacher understood we both could print and spell just fine, and we each had to write "I will not talk in class" 50 times (or maybe 100, I forget). Before that year was out, we'd written many thousands of lines, including several evenings where we had to write 500 lines, and one weekend with 1,000. Not always the same lines, though ("I will not draw in class", "I will not write on the desk", etc.)
I remember when Joe Don learned about ditto marks. That day we had 500 lines to write. So we wrote one line at the top of each page, then drew ditto marks for each word all the way down the page (we discussed one ditto mark per line, but felt we should be thorough, in the spirit of honoring our teacher). We discussed whether it was more efficient to do all the marks on each line before going to the next line vs all the marks under one word, then the next word. I don't recall what we decided, but I know we evaluated both ways thoroughly. We proudly turned these in and were promptly told to redo them without ditto marks, and write "I will not use ditto marks." 50 times (without using ditto marks). We weren't learning much from this (except sloppy penmanship because we were hurrying), but at least the teacher (who was otherwise a good, sweet teacher) didn't seem to be learning from it, either (though we didn't see this at the time).
Joe Don had a plastic, scale model of the X-15 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15) to which he had attached an antenna. He also had a remote control for a model plane. We couldn't understand why the X15 wouldn't fly with all that cool electronic gear attached (who knew that that a plastic model of a rocket motor wouldn't work?)
One of the cool things about the (real) X-15 was that it launched from a B-52 Stratofortress. There was an air base out in the desert, and we saw B-52's flying around all the time (early Vietnam war escalation). Very cool looking bombers. I also remember fighters breaking the sound barrier over the desert. Thunder without a cloud in the sky? Look for jets!
I had my first girlfriend in 4th grade. I pledged my troth to Tobie Self and she pledged hers to me. We definitely planned to get married one day. During recess that year we usually played "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (a spy show on TV). I headed up UNCLE most days, and Tobie headed up T.H.R.U.S.H. most days. Except when one of us defected because of our love for a day or three, was captured, etc. Shortly into 5th grade, her dad was transferred to Japan. I never heard from her again.[1] I was crushed.
I read a lot. I tried sports, but was never that good. In little league I played in left field, got bored, and usually missed the odd ball that came my way because I was looking for four leaf clovers or running away from wasps and bees. I watched a fair amount of TV-- lots of cartoons and older, silly shows (I started watching the Three Stooges pretty early), sci fi and war movies, roller derby, bingo, bull fighting and dog racing (El Paso is on the Mexican border)...
Dad worked an extra job each summer. One year I remember him working a couple of hours away at White Sands (missile test grounds, etc). Probably rocket propulsion stuff. One weekend he brought home a bunch of movie reels labeled "Secret" or something and kept them at the house (can you imagine that happening today?). Another summer he worked at Oak Ridge National Labs. His summer jobs were usually classified. During the summer before 6th grade he accepted a job in Augusta, GA, as head of the chem department as Augusta College.
That summer he worked in Augusta. As the 10 y/o man of the house, I was expected to help mom, watch out for the family (for instance a tramp lived in the desert that year and was stealing clothes off lines and food from gardens and freezers on porches and nobody knew if he was dangerous). I kept my baseball bat and darts next to my bed at night, just in case. One night mom and I were watching a late night sci fi movie (giant, three legged robots stomping around the desert with death rays, IIRC). There was a commercial break, and we got up to stretch. We wandered to the front door to look out. There was a giant fireball sort thing slowly descending out of the sky behind the Franklin Mountains. This was between midnight and 1AM. Much too big to be the sun or moon, and too slow to be anything falling. Mom and I just stood there until after it was gone. Then we stared at each other, both hoping the other would say something first. When we did talk, we realized we'd each seen the same thing. We could never find anyone else who admitted seeing it. When she called the AFB and army bases, they refused to say anything, just wanted a full report on what we'd seen. So I have seen a UFO. What was it? What does it mean? No idea, the U was very much "Unidentified"! I spent the next couple of years reading everything I could on UFOs and desperately wanting to see more. Finally gave up, never saw anything again.
I remember the night the next door neighbor called mom (again we were up late watching a movie) because she had seen the tramp out back. Mom grabbed the pistol and looked out the window; the tramp was stealing sheets from the clothes line next door! I got my baseball bat and stood by nervously. I think mom and the neighbor turned on porch lights at the same time and the tramp ran away.
The rest of the family joined Dad in Augusta in November after he found a house and ours sold, and again I was crushed. Devastated, in fact. I didn't want to leave my friends or school. I had just started band (trombone). I was close to having another girlfriend (turned out all three of Tobie's best friends were interested, but Mr. Geek was too clueless and shy to ask. Still don't know how I ever ended up having Tobie as a g/f.) Never mind that everything was a stupid GREEN color instead of my beautiful desert, and I got claustrophobic outdoors because I could hardly see the sky.
It went downhill from there.
[1] The day after I posted this as a facebook note, Tobie's husband found it looking for her name on google, and pointed it out, so we got back in touch. We're both happily married, but not to each other.
(to be continued)
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