I was raised on a farm in extreme rural Oregon. My first 4 years of school happened to me in a one-room school with two-holer outhouse and nine foot tall schoolmarm. Okay, she wasn't nine fee tall by measure, but by presence she sure as hell was.

I had 3 things against me from the start. 1) I was severely left-handed, 2) by virtue of the encyclopedias Mom bought me when I was 3, I already understood most of what was being taught to the 7th graders, and 3) I had, because of an extremely bright and independent (by 1940s standards) mother, become a consummate smart-ass sporting a lightning fast ability to respond with incisively sardonic commentary.

I've forgotten her name -- the schoolmarm's. They tell me that's how the mind often works when exposed to trauma. Anyway, it was that monstrous matron of matriculation who fueled my interest in physics, math, and science in general. Not because her wick burned any brighter than the rest of the dunderheads I endured during my so-called education, but because she sheathed a hickory yard stick (we weren't even close to metrics then) in her sash.

She could draw that wooden weapon from her sash, swing it through the air, smack the back of my left hand (always the left hand), and have it restashed (yeah, I made that one up) before the sound of the attack reached my ears, and I swear I never saw her move. It was, to my little formative mind, proof that the speed of light was at least attainable.

She was not a nun, but I'm sure she could have passed muster. She was a devout Presbyterian farmer's wife with the musculature to prove it. And I ... I was the only Jewish kid within a radius of 140 miles or so, and worse than that, I was left-handed and almost 7th grader tall. Anyway, I'm living evidence that even the most negative of experiences can have positive benefits. I'm glad we all survived.

In the collage of photos below, top left, that little white house is where I was raised. It had three rooms. Living room, kitchen, and bedroom. We all slept in the living room in the winter because that's where the potbelly was. Oh, and the only electric light hung from the ceiling between kitchen and living room (dual purpose) by two ragged wires. We were modern enough that we had a phone. It hung on the wall. I remember our telephone number. It was two shorts and one long.

The house really had 4 rooms, but the fourth room was detached and out back and to the generally downwind side. There were reasons for that. We kept a supply of Sears and Roebuck catalogues in that room. We also had a real barn with a gazillion chicken section on one side and a big shed for two tractors and an assortment of tools. Oh, and our blacksmith forge. We raised mushrooms in the loft.

The bottom picture center is my Uncle Leroy who had just been discharged from the Navy and returned from Europe with a special birthday present for me. The picture was taken in late autumn of 1947. I was given the thing he'd smuggled out of Europe and into the States in his duffle on 15 November 1947. It was a Zeiss-Jena, 150mm, brass and bronze telescope that he had picked up in France.

We spent most of the night and into the wee hours out in the 3' deep snow. It was damned cold, but we didn't care. That night I saw a number of interesting things, but what impressed me most was watching Mars and Saturn as they rose over the ridge line of the Cascades. I was hooked, and I've been an avid amateur astronomer ever since.

The center shot shows my rotten cousin Skipper to the left, me holding my new little sister in the middle, and my rotten Aunt Lou, mother of my rotten cousin Skipper, to the right. The car is a 1927 Oakland 4-door Landau Sedan, that's the deluxe model. Hand operated windshield wiper (driver's side only). It wasn't rotten. That tank destroyed Doc's new 1948 Cadillac, while the Oakland escaped with a slightly bent bumper and a smidgen of a wheel alignment problem. The Oakland marquis would eventually disappear altogether into the Pontiac emblem. I know, extraneous information.