The first book I ever read was one of a series of small yellow books much like the old dick and jane books. Very much like them. They cameas a series, and I remember being in kindergarten and first grade and being incredibly proud of my collection. I recall most vividly one day when I had finally read them all and I carried that incredibly heavy stack of them out into the living room and laid each of them out side by side in a little grid pattern very carefully and in order and turned to my mother and said "fal gillith ma credii cho somi ni sath ra tiwao" -- which meant something like hey, Mom, check out everything I read! but in my own language of the moment. She smiled and said she was very proud of me., My Dad leaned over and counted them and nodded and smiled and then looked at her and said I really needed to speak english. I don't remembe what they were called, either, just that they were yeloow covered and filled my head with all kinds of imaginative things. The first story that actually made it out of me wasn't until I was in fifth or sixth grade. It was a science fiction story about a ship landing on a planet and the crew members trying to figure out what was killing them one by one, ending up with a great conflict at the end between the captain, his buddy, and the monster. I think I'd seen Forbidden planet a few times too many... My first "adult" novel was "All Creatures Great and Small" by Herriot. I had started reading it right after finishing the "red dog" stories about a bunch of boys and their dogs (sigh... I'd already run out of black beauty and black stallion and nancy drew, so I was forced to go into boy stuff, It was so shameful I hid them under my pillows). I wanted to be a vet in pre-war england right up until the part where he stuck his arm up the rear of a cow...

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)