Missing Ray Bradbury

I was very sorry to hear of the passing of one of America's great authors today.  Ray Bradbury died at 92.

When I was in Jr. High, I had an English teacher, Miss Robinson, at Hillcrest Jr. High that turned us all on to Bradbury, and Tolkien and countless others.  And I was so grateful.

Because back in the, "Dark Ages" of the 70's when you didn't have an Internet, or a Kindle, or even, cable TV we actually entertained ourselves with books!

His stories were so good, that most summer nights, when school was out and I could read whatever I wanted, instead of what I HAD to read, I fell asleep with his stories of life on Mars, or scary carnivals that came through your town a little too late in the year.

His stuff was awesome.  This lead me to read, Dune and, The Hobbit and all that came with THAT many times over.  I even had a map of middle earth poster on my bedroom wall.

Not the same wall with that, Farrah Faucet poster.  THAT one was closer to the bed.

I really enjoyed that fantasy/science fiction stuff and read all I could get.  And at that time, you could actually anticipate NEW stuff from guys like Bradbury and Frank Herbert.  Not like today's popular authors crank one out a year, but you at least knew something new was coming.  Eventually.

My teenage son and his friends don't read.  I don't mean they can't read, I mean that it's not something they do on a regular basis.  Hell, if I could have watched movies on my cell phone in the 70's?  I might not have read either.  That was work. But having said that?  That sentence WAS science fiction in the 70's!

I thought he was never going to read any of the stuff I loved at his age, and he might not.  But he did like the, Lord Of The Rings movies, so I held out hope.

But a strange thing happened just before school let out last week.  I got a letter from the school, telling me he had not returned a couple of books to the school library, and he owed about twenty dollars in fines if he didn't come up with the books by the end of school!

And it was FICTION!

So instead of being pissed off that he was a lazy ass, who didn't take stuff back to the library and was going to have to pay a fine?  I was THRILLED that he was reading for entertainment! 

He's reading shit he doesn't have to, just to be reading?  REALLY?  Awesome!  That's, really awesome.

Maybe growing up in a house where his father is a hoarder, of books is rubbing off on him.  I hope so.  A back yard and a book beats a power outage and a dead battery in a Kindle every time.

Good buy, Mr. Bradbury.  And thank you for all you did for me.  And maybe?  Just maybe?  My son.