Tag Archives: memoir

151. Not So New Enemies

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Part two of a comparison of Christianity and Islam.

Bush Two called those who strap on bombs to kill their enemies, cowards. That was the most monumentally stupid statement to ever come out of the mouth of a man not noted for his wisdom. People who die for their beliefs are not cowards. If we are to defeat them, we have to understand them. Mislabeling them is not useful. And if we call them fanatics, we had better understand what fanaticism is.

We made a start yesterday by looking at Christian fanatics. Now it’s time to make the comparison to Islam.

*****

Muhammad did not claim to be God or his son. He claimed to be God’s messenger, a prophet, making him closer to Moses or Isaiah than to Jesus. Muslims believe that Jesus was also a prophet, but not the Son of God. Christianity grew out of Judaism, fulfilling it and therefore removing its validity, at least according to Christians. Islam grew out of both and recognizes both as sister religions which have been rendered obsolete by the Koran. Christians and Jews get preferential tax treatment in Islamic law as People of the Book.

That doesn’t keep wars from happening.

Christians claim to be a religion of peace, but history does not bear that out. Actual wars of religion occurred throughout the Reformation period, and wars of politics and commerce often had a strong religious component. Think of the conquest of Mexico, with priests marching beside the conquistadores and building their missions in the shadow of the presidio.

Islam was born in conflict and has never hidden its belief that the Koran should be spread by military conquest.

Before the Reformation, Christianity had about a thousand years of supremacy, full of internal strife, but well able to keep that strife in check. When Jan Hus rebelled against the Church, they burned him at the stake; problem solved.

Islam, on the other hand, split into two parts almost from the beginning. Upon Muhammad’s death, two lines of succession emerged. Those who favored Abu Bakr became Sunni; those who favored Ali ibn Abi Talib became the Shia. Both sects follow the five pillars of Islam and both believe in the absolute authority of the Koran. They differ on their interpretations of the Koran, and those disagreements have been passed on by sectarian schools. Each sect would say that the other might think they follow the Koran, but they are following false doctrine, and have abandoned Allah. All of this sounds a lot like my Baptist father arguing with my Catholic uncle.

Each of the two sects of Islam remained unified. This was very different from the Catholic and Protestant split. The Catholic church remained unified, but Protestants exploded into hundreds of different denominations, mostly at verbal war with one another, and occasionally at real war.

Throughout the history of Islam, church and government have interacted closely. Islam was spread by conquest, which isn’t necessarily as bloody as it seems. Wherever Islam conquered, the old underdogs often rode the elevator of change to high position in the new order. Sometimes they were very helpful in easing the road to conquest.

By a century after Muhammad’s death, much of the Holy Land was in Muslim hands, which did not please the Catholic church. When Tariq ibn Ziyad led his armies across the Straits of Gibraltar and conquered Spain in 711, the Catholic church fought back, but it took seven hundred years to expel the conquerors. In 1492, the Catholic rulers of Spain finally drove out the last Muslims, expelled the Jews, sent Columbus exploring, and began the Spanish Inquisition. Lovely year.

Also during that period, the Catholic church decided to take back the Holy Land, and set the Crusades in motion. Everybody knows that. What is not so well known is that for most of the second millennium, Eastern Europe was a battleground where vast areas were conquered by Muslim leaders, then reconquered by Christian leaders a few decades later, then Muslim, then Christian, for a very long and depressing time.

So we come to today, in a section of the world where two warring sects of Islam are filled with fourteen hundred years of hatred for each other; where religious, ethnic, and dynastic differences abound; and where those who would prefer prosperity at any reasonable cost, clash with those who are entirely dedicated to following the word of Allah, as their particular leaders understand that word. Many would love to kill westerners, but satisfy themselves instead by killing members of the opposite sect who are so near at hand, and such an easy target.

Above all, Islam is a religion which never exploded into a hundred sects. When there are only two sects, victory and the destruction of the other seems possible for both.

In Britain during the War of the Three Kingdoms (see tomorrow’s post) even pious men kept switching sides because they were enmeshed in conflicting loyalties to King or Parliament, to home region, to religion, to friends, and to their own particular bottom line. All of these loyalties were absolute, but as the situations changed, one loyalty would override another and a man would find himself fighting along side the ones he was fighting against only months earlier.

That should sound familiar. Change the names and the dates, and it could be the Middle East today.

150. Old Enemies

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There are times when a man has to stand up and defend his country. That is the flip side to yesterday’s post criticizing boot camps.

Today we face Islamic extremists who would destroy us. We can bemoan the our mistakes in Iraq, but we have to move forward from where we are. Wishful thinking is of no value in this issue. We call them fanatics. That’s an accurate description, but it is not useful. It’s just another word like evil, enemy, or barbarian – just another word that means THEM, as opposed to US.

If we are going to understand Islamic terrorists in order to defeat them, we have to find the inner fanatic in our own culture, so we can start to see the world through their eyes. Today we will revisit a time when Christians were killing each other over doctrine. Tomorrow, we’ll compare that to Islam.

*****

Trying to compress two thousand years of Christian history into a few hundred words borders on the burlesque, but let’s try. Christianity began with Jesus, who did not write the Bible. Fundamentalists like my people believe that it was written by his immediate followers under the infallible inspiration of God, but textual evidence suggests that it was actually written hundreds of years later.

In any case, by the third century there were hundreds of “books” to chose from. The Church chose some and discarded many in order to create the Bible. This gives some validity to the Catholic notion that the word of the Church is more important than the Bible, or at least others’ interpretations of the Bible.

Within the Roman empire, Christianity went from persecuted, to allowed, to the official religion of the state. Then along came Martin Luther. He was not the first to question the Church, but he was the first one to live through the encounter, because of changes in world politics which pitted proto-German rulers against Rome and provided him with a sanctuary.

The dam broke and here came a vast flood of new denominations, each anti-Catholic and each disputing with its fellow Protestants. For protection, many of these denominations sought the protection of secular leaders. Protection from outside enemies soon moved toward forced conversions within an area. The Dutch and Swiss became largely Calvinist, many Germanic states became Lutheran, Ireland remained Catholic at the core, although under increasing pressure from their English conquerors, France and Spain remained Catholic, England became the realm of the Church of England, and Scotland fell under a particularly Knox-ious form of Calvinism.

From 1618 through 1648 the Thirty Years War decimated Europe as country after country fought to see which form of Christianity would prevail, cementing the notion of one realm, one ruler, one religion. The notion of individual choice in religion was crushed under the boots of Kings and generals. This era provided every denomination with myths of how THEY were trying to destroy OUR beliefs. That WE were also trying to destroy THEIR beliefs tends to be forgotten.

The English Civil War, also called the War of the Three Kingdoms, came hard on the heels of the Thirty Years War. American notions of religious freedom were born out of the horrors of a conflict where various interpretations of God’s Truth were enforced at sword point, and partisan armies swept the land. The American answer to all this was the separation of church and state, found in the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .

There is a bit of cynicism in this. Instead of insisting that God’s will be done, Americans have learned that the man in power rarely understands God’s will.

149. Boot Camp

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It’s Armed Forces Week again, that time of year when any questioning of the military is taken as a slap at servicemen or veterans. Citizens who have the temerity to say, “Wait a minute, let’s talk this over,” are seen as unpatriotic. When I was in the military, those people were called commie-pinko wimps. I was one of them, but they drafted me anyway. I’ve told that story in 42. The Other Veterans. I also told the flip side of the story in 43. S. L. goes to War and 44. S. L. in Occupation, which detail my father’s WW II experiences. There are times when a man has to stand up and defend his country. There are also times when a man has to stand up and tell his country to back off.

The military has no use for patriots, because patriots think for themselves. In combat, a soldier who shouts, “We must not do this,” is likely to get himself and his teammates killed. He has to go on, following orders.

So how do we turn patriots into yes-men? Boot camp. That’s what it’s there for.

Boot camp is not seen as something important, or morally debilitating. And, I suppose, compared the things that happen later in the field, it isn’t that important. But . . . without boot camp to turn patriots into soldiers, those later events could never happen.

This isn’t about me. I went through boot camp in neutral mode, observing, remembering, and trying not to feel. I wan’t always successful, but I was successful enough to survive intact. I was changed, of course, but by my own experiences, not by pre-programmed manipulations.

This also isn’t about the eighteen year old children who made up most of the recruits, who were eager to follow the path their elders had set, and ready to go over and kick some commie ass. This is about one young man, and those he represents. He came into boot camp a patriot, ready to serve his country, full of love and compassion, but ready to do his duty. They broke him. I can still see him standing in the barracks before lights out, talking to his friends, saying, “This isn’t right. I joined up to fight for my country. Why are they treating us like this?” His friends laughed at him and told him that this was nothing, it was just getting him ready for what was to come.

It wasn’t nothing, but it was getting ready for his life to come. That was the point.

I never talked to him. There was nothing I could say. He was learning in front of my eyes what I had learned years before, at other hands, under other circumstances. But I never forgot him.

Boot camp is what in Anthropology we call a liminal experience, one that tears down an old identity in order to build a new one. The folks at boot camp are really good at this, even in mild boot camps like the one I experienced at the San Diego Naval Training Center. We could see the real thing across the fence at the Marine boot camp, and we thanked God every day that we weren’t Marines. While I was there, a Marine recruit who could no longer take the daily abuse ran off and stowed away on a jet liner at the civilian airport just over the fence. Hours later the jet landed at his home town on the east coast and he fell out of the wheel well, frozen, asphyxiated and dead. The Marines said good riddance. We worms (as Navy recruits are called) laughed. Learning to laugh at the death of others is part of the boot camp experience.

It was all choreographed indignation, play-acting inflicted onto a captive audience. They said that if we didn’t keep our barracks clean enough or our socks rolled tightly enough, the Trouble Shooters would come.

“You worms have been given socks to roll! That’s all we trust you with now! How can we trust you with nuclear bombs once you’re on an aircraft carrier if you can’t roll socks now!”  Every word was delivered at a shout.

Of course, the Trouble Shooters came. They always do. They came in the night, screaming in manufactured rage and tearing the barracks apart while we stood at attention in our shorts at the foot of each bed.

Near-naked, helpless, frightened into immobility, knowing that the only way to survive was to  let the insanity happen. Civilian identities dying; new, military identities growing.

The making of a Navyman. You could put it on a poster.

144. Who Said You Were Mexican?

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Happy May fifth, although I’ve already covered Cinco de Mayo in a sneaky way in my post on Saint Patrick’s Day. This last post for Teacher Appreciation Week is also about teaching Mexican-American students.

I was once asked to chose the races of my students.

If you’ve followed A Writing Life at all, you know my belief that we are all one gene pool.  All “blacks” have some “white” ancestors, and all “whites” have some “black” ancestors. There may be a few statistical anomalies that fail to bear this out, but probably not.

Look at any post between January 18 and February 18 of 2016, and you will find out more than you want to know on the subject.

If this is true of the USA, it is doubly true of Mexico. The English came to America as families, and avoided Indians or fought with them. The Spanish came to Mexico as soldiers and married the native women. That’s painting with a broad brush, but it’s a reasonably accurate overview.

Back to the story. When I was a relatively new teacher, I was preparing to administer the yearly state-wide standardized test to my students. I was given a computer printout with their names and told to fill in the appropriate race for each. White, hispanic, black, eskimo . . .  You’ve probably seen similar lists.

I asked how I was to know? I didn’t get a good answer, but it was apparent that I wasn’t supposed to ask the kids themselves. Given the history of Mexico, the Mexican-Americans were all white, at least partially, but that would not have been acceptable.

Okay, there they sit. Help me choose.

What about using skin color as a criterion? I had no student that year that anyone would have called black, so that simplifies things. What about that boy? Is he Mexican, or did he just spend the summer playing shirtless in the sun? What about Khrishna Srinivas; he’s dark enough?

Maybe names will tell us. What about Maria de la Rosa, that pale blonde whose parents just moved here from Madrid? If I don’t put her name down, anyone who just reads these names will think I cheated.

What about Paul Rogers, son of Bill Rogers and Delores Sandoval? White, of course.

But what about his cousin Raul? His father is Jorge Sandoval, Delores’s brother, and his mother is Beth Rogers, Bill’s sister.

Raul Sandoval – Mexican, of course.

If you don’t find this humorous, don’t worry; neither do I. The event actually happened. I made up the examples, but there were real ones I could have used.

This all happened thirty years ago. Things are better now, aren’t they? Maybe? Try this on for size. The man on the six o’clock news says that the latest poll determined that 73 percent of Latinos prefer Hillary Clinton.

Really? How does he know?  Who said the members of the survey group were Latinos? Who set up the criteria for what it takes to be a Latino?

And doesn’t this all sound just a little absurd?

143. Class on Cyan

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This is the third post for Teacher Appreciation week.

Until I retired, I called myself a novelist who taught, rather than a teacher who wrote books. It was a bit like a British officer dressing for dinner in his tent while serving in India – not a denial of the moment, but a reminder-to-self that present circumstances were only temporary.

My attitude was not disrespectful. I dedicated my complete energy to teaching for nearly three decades, and counted it an honorable profession. I just had further plans.

Some of the things I learned as a teacher spilled over into my writing. I wrote  a teaching novel (35. Symphony in a Minor Key) and Keir, the lead character in Cyan, took up teaching ecology and survival education to the colonists’ children, walking quite literally in my footsteps.

***

The snow started in the afternoon, first as scattered flakes, but soon clinging to the kaal stalks and frosting the gray-purple bowl of the valley with white.  Will turned to Keir for advice, something he rarely had to do any more.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Keir replied. “It looks like this snow shower will pass quickly.  We’ll push on a few more kilometers and make camp by the river. When we set up the tents, have them staked carefully. Ramananda said we could expect heavier weather when Procyon sets.”

Will nodded and turned away to organize his troop. Then he touched his throat mike and relayed Keir’s advice to Marci’s group who were coming in from another angle and still out of sight in the forest that rimmed the valley.

Most of Will’s kids were about twelve, and this was their graduation exercise. After two years of laying the groundwork, Keir had convinced the council to devote most of the seventh year of the colony’s school to Cyanian ecology and survival techniques. Keir had taught the first few years, but since they had turned sixteen, Will, Marci, and Sven Aressen had taken over the day to day teaching. Keir remained as mentor, and planned each graduation trip.

A few of these kids had seen snow trickling down onto city streets on Earth when they were six or seven, but none of them, including their young leaders, had ever seen snow falling in a natural environment. They were wide eyed with wonder.

They had taken a cargo skimmer eight hundred kilometers north from Crowley and had come the last hundred kilometers on foot. Except for the brief sweep through the region which Keir and Gus had made three weeks earlier, no one had ever explored this area. That was the essence of the exercise; it was real. The land was new and the dangers were only partially known.

The second party broke out of the trees across the valley. Keir glassed them. Marci Nicholas was waving her arms about, pointing out something, still teaching. She was a natural. Gus stumped along beside her.

Keir turned back to his own group, who had quickly moved ahead of him. Each child carried a massive pack and a fletcher in a holster at his side. Only Will could have handled the recoil of one of the scout’s automatics, but those polymer rocket launchers were recoilless, just as deadly, and only a fraction of the weight.

These children were the cream. Of the four hundred children of their age group, these were the thirty who had passed every test, mental, physical, and moral, that Keir could devise. They had learned everything Keir had to teach them. Cyan’s Olympians. Keir smiled with pride, then hurried so they did not leave him behind.

142. Still Worthy of Praise

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WOPYesterday, I compared my elementary experiences with what happens in our schools today. Today I’ll talk about my high school, repeating a post from last October.

I started out to be a scientist, then defined myself as a writer, but along the way I became a teacher. Not an educator; that term is ruined for me by the fools in high places who have all but destroyed our schools.

I want to acknowledge some of my own teachers, but since I didn’t live a traditional childhood, this won’t be traditional praise. None of what follows will make sense unless you remember that my elementary school class had only eight students and my consolidated high school only brought the number up to thirty-seven. A larger school would have led to a different experience, even in Oklahoma in the early sixties.

My typing teacher was tough, knuckle slapping perfectionist, and she wasn’t afraid of public opinion. We called her The Warden. She was the only teacher who ever gave me a B. Dyslectic fingers killed me, no matter how hard I tried. She gave me exactly what I deserved and I respected her for it.

Later, when I was teaching science, my favorite exercise was a long term project where students had to build a gizmo to perform some physical feat. It was different every year, and they could only build it in class to keep their parents’ sticky fingers out of the works. Every year kids who only knew computer games and multiple-choice tests found themselves depending on their teammates who knew how to use hammers and wrenches. It was humbling to them; I smiled serenely and remembered The Warden.

My math teacher had a sense of fun. Whenever an unknown appeared in an equation, he would draw something barely recognizable as the back view of a bunny and say “That represents the number of rabbits in Rogers County”. His grin was infectious; he always looked like he was about to break into laughter. He kept us moving at top speed and made it impossible to hate or fear math. From him, I learned how to teach.

In science, I typically had read the textbook by the fourth week. I sat quietly in class and answered only enough questions to show I knew the material, then let the other students take their turns. My science teacher’s gift to me was trust. He let me work in the lab unsupervised except for his presence next door. I spent my study halls there building science projects, and that is where my science education really happened.

My English teacher gave me similar freedom out of a mixture of wisdom and laziness. I turned in every assignment early and better than required; in exchange I frequently wandered the school at will when I was supposed to be in his classes. I would never let one of my students do that, but it worked for me. I spent my time running errands for teachers, building things for the school, or working in the science lab.

It would have been a disaster for most kids, but it was the perfect education for me.

At home, my parents were hyper-controlling. Freedom was not an option. When I scored high on the National Merit Scholarship test and wanted to go to Michigan State University, they would not let me apply. It would have let me to move beyond their control.

My high school counselor let me fill out the application forms in his office and use the school as a return address, so my parents would not know until it was too late. He was putting his career in jeopardy, but I think he saved my life.

141. K-8 in Another Century

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This is Teacher Appreciation Week, and I’ve known a lot of them. The good ones are a treasure beyond price and the bad ones ought to be shot – metaphorically, at least. Fortunately the bad ones are fairly rare and they usually don’t last.

Back in October I praised my high school teachers in a post that I plan to run again tomorrow. After high school and a couple of decades of assorted adventures, I became a teacher myself. I didn’t plan it that way; in fact, it was the shock of a lifetime.

I grew up in a different world. In many ways, a farm in Oklahoma in the fifties was closer to the nineteenth century than to the twenty-first. The same could be said about my elementary school. Those old ways were not necessarily better. Neither are our new ways, but a comparison can be useful.

I started school in first grade. Kindergarten existed in the cities, but not where I lived, and preschool was unheard of. Talala School had shrunk over the years as the town lost population. The building was half full of students when I enrolled. Mrs. Stout taught first and second grades in one room. There were eight first graders and about ten in second graders. We first graders were taught reading, then we worked on our own while the second graders were taught reading. Then we were taught spelling; then we worked alone while she taught spelling to the second graders. And so forth. We spent half of every day working uninstructed, but under her eagle eye. By the end of the year, we had heard everything she taught to the second graders. The next year, we heard it again, in the same room, with new kids in our old first grade desks.

Third and fourth grades meant a new room, a new teacher, but the same pattern. Fifth and sixth meant the same pattern again, except that in fifth grade the Russians launched Sputnik and science was added to the curriculum. By sixth grade the high school was consolidated and gone; we moved to the high school end of the building, but still with two classes per teacher. For the last three years of its existence, Talala School was seven-eighths empty and haunted by the few students who remained. When I was in eighth grade, there were still eight students in my class, but the only two remaining in seventh grade. They were moved on to the consolidated school and for the first time in my elementary career, we had a full-day teacher all to ourselves.

Educationally deprived? Don’t you believe it. For seven years we had worked and learned all day, every day, and that was plenty. Having a full time teacher in eighth grade was no better, and no worse.

Fast forward through high school, college, military service, more college, becoming a writer, more college, until thirty years later I found myself teaching sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Now we had Kindergarten, and pre-school, and pre-pre-school, and nursery school, and before school help, and after school help, and tutors, and ———

A true believer might say that students needed all that help. A moralist might say that they had to be made to work more hours because they were lazy. A cynic might say that somebody had to warehouse the kids until their parents got home – whenever that might be.

Algebra was moved from the ninth grade to the eighth. The theory was that  they needed readiness, which is code for, “If they aren’t smart enough do learn algebra in the ninth grade, start teaching it in eighth. If that doesn’t work, start in seventh.” All down the line, I watched subjects get moved earlier and earlier, while the students’ scores went lower and lower, and pre-school started a year sooner.

The goal, clearly, was pre-natal algebra.

Somewhere in the middle of my career, a local high school announced that they were going to begin teaching Advanced Placement classes. That sounded like a program where I would fit in as a teacher, so I attended their orientation. Maybe I misjudged them (I don’t think so) but I heard nothing about better teaching or deeper understanding. Instead, I heard a lot about more hours, more work, more reports, a chance to get ahead of the other guy, and to earn college credits while still in high school.

I was not impressed. I returned to teaching challenging things which were age and skill appropriate – to filling my students’ days with knowledge, while leaving their nights and weekends free for the other lessons life would teach them.

While you’re learning, learn. While you’re playing, play. If you’re in high school, get what high school has to offer. If you are too advanced to do that, move to college.

If this be treason, make the most of it.

131. Chasing Cosmonauts

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This is a continuation of yesterday’s post First into Space.

I had the great good fortune of being born with the space age, less than two months after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. I was thirteen when Alan Shepard took his first sub-orbital flight and just coming back from my honeymoon when Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. (see 27. That Was My Childhood)

I followed the American manned space programs closely, but the Russians were a mystery. They gleefully announced their victories – first satellite in orbit, first living creature in orbit, first man in orbit, first woman in orbit, first space walk, first space station – but there were no details. I developed a curiosity that never went away.

Time marched on. The race to the moon was won – by us, after a painfully slow start. The cold war ended. The pioneers of space drifted mostly out of public consciousness. Everybody remembers Armstrong, but Buzz Aldrin morphed into Buzz Lightyear, and Jim Lovell came to wear the face of Tom Hanks in public memory. And who remembers Gordo, or Deke, or Ed White?

Well, I do, actually. I also remember the Russians, who were pioneers just like we were, and often got there first.

In 1987, Douglas Hart produced The Encyclopedia of Soviet Spacecraft which has been my go-to source for decades. I recommend it highly for information preceding its publication date.

Another book that I recently hacked my way through, like a noxious jungle, is Russians in Space by Evgeny Riabchikov. I found it at the *** Library, my favorite impoverished institution, a public library filed with seventy year old books and few new ones. Russians in Space was written in Russia, for Russians, during the sixties. It’s translation copyright is 1971 and I doubt if this copy has been read ten times in all those years.

Do you remember Chekov from the original Star Trek, who was always telling everyone that Russia invented everything? He was a comic version of late sixties reality, when Russian bombast made everything in Pravda sound like it was written by Donald Trump. Russians in Space is of that type.

I fought my way through the bombast and bad writing in search of the details I had not found elsewhere. No such luck. I took as my touchstone, the chapter on the Voskhod 2 flight, which I had recently researched (see 116. Spacecraft Threatened by Bears). Everything that made the flight memorable was missing. Riabchikov made it seem routine, when in fact, it was the planning and mechanical failures on the mission that spotlighted the incredible courage and skill of the cosmonauts.

Our brave, valiant, plucky boys in space – that could have been the subtitle of Riabchikov’s book. It reminded me of an alternate reality prequel to the Lensmen series. Kimbal Kinnison would have fit in well with the square jawed, sturdy, blue eyed, strong but gentle supermen who made up Riabchikov’s version of the cosmonaut corps. They were comrades who always helped each other, never fought among themselves, and were ready like all good workers to do their part for the USSR. The cosmonauts who welcomed the female cosmonaut group were courteous and supportive, always ready to help them overcome any hurdle. Like big brothers who blushed when their hands touched. That is from a quotation I wrote down, then lost. You should thank me for the lapse.

So why bother telling you about a book so bad? Because something else came through, despite its manifold failings. There was a sense of pride in the Soviet space program, and particularly in its cosmonauts, that was felt throughout Soviet society. Without glossing over any of the failings of the Soviet system, an American reader can see that the Russian people admired Yuri Gagarin in exactly the same way Americans admired John Glenn. It is clear that they felt a pride in Soviet successes that mirror-matched the frustration we felt at American failings during the same era.

The story of the Soviet manned space program deserves better than Riabchikov, and I am still searching for the book that tells that story succinctly and well.

I have some leads. I’ll tell you soon how they pan out.

130. First into Space

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220px-Vostok_spacecraftI grew up wanting to be a spaceman. I didn’t say astronaut, and I didn’t say cosmonaut. When I was just getting old enough to dream about the future, neither of those words were in use. Spacemen were the stuff of fiction, and the stuff of the far future.

The future arrived before I was ten in the form of Sputnik, an unwanted gift from the USSR that passed beeping over America and scared the whole nation out of its wits, and into a race for space. That was fine with me. I loved every minute of it, even though I knew I was never going to go. I was smart enough, and strong enough, but I couldn’t see across the room without glasses. Of course there were a thousand other hurdles I didn’t know about, but here we are talking about the dreams of youth.

I followed the introduction of our astronauts, and learned all I could about the craft they would fly. There wasn’t a whole lot of information available in Talala, Oklahoma in 1959.

Then, 55 years ago today, the Russians beat us into space – again – and in a much bigger way. Yuri Gagarin, cosmonaut, became the first human in space and the first to achieve orbit. Our guy Alan Shepard went up a few weeks later on a lesser flight, and America was outraged at the contrast.

Not me. I was thrilled that a human being had reached space; Russian, American, Finn, Bolivian, it didn’t matter. Space travel was real. The future had arrived. No one could ever again say, “We can’t go.”

But for all my enthusiasm, there was almost no information about Gagarin’s flight. For nearly another thirty years, Russian triumphs and disasters would be hidden from the world. Now we know enough to appreciate Gagarin’s feat.

The launch vehicle was an A-1, little different from the Soviet ICBM fleet, or the vehicle that launched Sputnik. Unlike the US, the Soviets have stayed with variations of a single workhorse vehicle through most of their space program. Also unlike American procedures, both Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov were suited up and ready at the pad, so that even in the event of a last second glitch, the launch would have been made by the backup pilot.

The space craft was Vostok 1. It consisted of a sphere holding the cosmonaut and a separate life support module, a style adopted by the US during Gemini and Apollo. The launch was successful and only one orbit was planned. The Soviet style was to make many launches, each incrementally more daring than the last. Unlike some subsequent launches by both countries, Vostok 1, possibly the most important launch in the history of spaceflight, went off without error.

Russia had a large land mass, a small navy, and a penchant for secrecy. Consequently, all Russian missions landed inside the Soviet Union. Technology during the Vostok missions could not yet provide soft landings, so Gagarin and his immediate successors flew their missions on ejection seats, which they used after heat shields and spacecraft mounted parachutes had brought them near the surface and slowed them to a survivable speed. They completed their missions by means of personal parachutes.

Four months later Gagarin’s backup pilot, Gherman Titov, became the second man to orbit the Earth, staying up for 17 orbits and 24 hours. more tomorrow

128. Science Fiction in the Wild

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If you are what you eat, I used to be beefsteak, fried okra, and hominy. That comes from growing up in Oklahoma. I also lived outdoors most of the hours of every spring, summer, and fall day, and way too many hours of every winter day. That comes from growing up on a working farm.

If you are what you read, then I used to be an Andre Norton protagonist, at least in my imagination. Although I never met or corresponded with her, Andre Norton was something of a long distance mentor.

Alice Mary Norton legally changed her name to Andre Norton early on, in an era when being a woman was no help to a science fiction writer. I didn’t know that when I first read her; I thought Andre Norton was a man. Not that I thought about it much, but she didn’t write like a girl. Looking back, I see that she actually wrote like a person, but I wasn’t that sophisticated then.

One reason Norton got away with writing gender neutral fiction was that her characters spent most of their time alone. Even in their relationships with others of their own kind, they were loners, if not complete outcasts.

Star Man’s Son was the first Norton I read. In it, Fors spent all but a few pages on a quest away from his people; that was a pattern to which Norton frequently returned. I could easily identify with the solo quest while I spent endless hours alone on a tractor. The only variations in my daily life were whether I was pulling a disk or a hay rake, and which Norton novel was replaying in my head, forty years before someone invented the iPod.

Every time Shann Lantee on Warlock, or Naill Renfro on Janus, or any of a dozen other young men found himself stranded alone, or nearly alone, on an alien world, I could look up from my tractor seat at the Oklahoma prairie and say, “Yup, been there.”

The best thing about Norton’s characters was that they didn’t whine about being alone. They liked it. So did I.

I didn’t live in a city until I went to college. I spent my adult life living in the suburbs of a reasonably small city, and taught school in a very small town. As soon as I could retire, I moved to a few acres in the foothills. I would move further out if I could afford it.

I was born not liking cities, and my opinion never changed. It should be no surprise that my first novel was about a hunter surviving alone in the woods, or that my first science fiction novel was about a hundred or so humans stranded on an alien world (Jandrax, presently appearing in Serial). My three fantasy novels have a rural and medieval feel. David Singer, in A Fond Farewell to Dying, is a mountain boy who has to go urban to get his life’s work done. And Cyan, due out soon, begins with ten explorers on an empty world, then continues with the story of the peopling that world by hyper-urbanized refugees from an overcrowded Earth.

You write what you’ve lived.