A 1970s Retrospective

[Phage]

As a child I was quite solitary, and read a great deal. Reading was my primary source of entertainment, and I quickly gravitated to the early SF of Heinlein, Asimov, Vogt and Harrison. Back then the world seemed more optimistic, and I feel somewhat nostalgic for that time and those people I never met. (I still love the art of Modernism)

In the course of a recent debate I remembered some quotes from heinlein that I wanted to re-use and have since found again. I'm posting the link here, because I think that many of you may be new to them, and some are funny, some maudlin and some plain US-Right-wing nut job.

"What did I want?
I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, "The game's afoot!" I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and Lost Dauphin.
I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and to eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon. I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be the way they had promised me it was going to be, instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is."

http://homepage.eircom.net/~odyssey/.../Heinlein.html

[peterb]

Excellent!

[g8ina]

Indeed. I have also sailed the raft.

[Phage]

This is what comes of being locked in the library when I was sick as a kid.