Remembering Arthur C. Clarke

As a child I was not that much of a sport's player. I was the kid that got stuck out in right field where everyone hoped no one would hit the ball. Myself included, because I knew if the ball was hit to me I was more than likely to miss it and be responsible for at least a run if not more. I dreaded gym class.

I was the little skinny kid with glasses and too shy to talk a lot. As a young child I suffered speech problems, which even today sometimes has me fumbling the pronunciation of a word that I hear in my mind correctly but somehow comes out of my mouth sounding wrong.

I was the kid bullies loved.



Reading was my source of happiness and safety. I can't say when I first started reading, I've been readying all my life. My Mom and Dad enrolled me in a book club for kids when I was small. One of the first books I remember reading was Mike Mulligan's Steam Shovel. My favorite Doctor was Seuss. In sixth grade they gave the class a reading comprehension test and I was reading college level. It's like anything else, you do it over and over you get good at it. And I read everything I could get my hands on. I would read the tv guide, the back of a cereal box, anything and everthing.

Somewhere along the way I picked up a science fiction book. I have no idea what the first story or book in the genre I read was. All I know is that I was hooked. Here were books where the heroes were spacemen, where aliens existed, where someone with intelligence was not the target of bullies but the hero the world needed.



I read any and all science fiction stories I could. I was transported to alien worlds, future times...I could leave my world where I felt like I didn't fit in and be somewhere where I did. Along the way I found a trinty of writers that could do no wrong as far as I was concerned. Isaac Asmiov, Harlan Ellison and Arthur C. Clarke. These three were the holy grail as far as I was concerned. I hunted for work from them and read everything I could get my hands on.

Arthur C. Clarke wrote stories that showed man's potential for greatness, for their next step of evolution. He helped infuse a love for the future in me, that there was a future worth living for. In Clarke's world religion was the bad, humanity was the good.



I still can remember picking up Rendevous with Rama and the excitement of reading it, turning each page and being fascinated with the world that Mr. Clarke had created. It's a feeling that is hard to replicate, even still loving the written word as I do today, it's hard to capture that thrill of every new word bringing me to a world I had never visited before.

And for that and so much more Arthur C. Clarke will hold a special place in my heart and mind.