came to be) and retell the movies DQG KHURHV KHœG NQRZQ, Shane and High Noon, Gary Cooper and Jimmy Cagney and the like. And then my older brothers, who were in high school by the time I was three or four, instead of reading Silas Marner or Hamlet at school, they bought a series called Classics Illustrated, and I inherited those, so I sort of worked through +DPOHWœV ¾WR EH RU QRW WR EHœ FRQXQGUXP at an early age, I guess, and, along with Silas, learned that there are many different kinds of gold. O: Lucky younger brother. B: In many ways, yes. As a child I was alone a lot to revel in my imaginary worlds. I recall I had a set of toy astronauts and creatures from outer space, like those small green soldiers everyone had. I remember cutting up craft²my mother made glue for me from flour and water and I used that wide brown paper tape you had to lick which tasted like dead horses²and I played with that space ship for hours on the living room floor inventing tale after tale. Like many kids in that era I was crazy about Space and Dinosaurs, chronological poles, I suppose [Left: Samples of %ULDQœV FKLOGKRRG ERRNV]. Our house had no electricity for the first decade of my life, and thus no TV. I do remember listening to a large battery-operated radio but, mostly, you made your own fiction. By the age of eight or nine, I was drawing and writing little stories, my own comic books. And so to your question, I often did wonder why I seemed so compelled to make these stories, and the main GULYLQJ WKLQJ LQVLGH P\ KHDG ZDV WKH LGHD WKDW LI , GLGQœW GR LW LW ZRXOG QHYHU JHW done. That these stories were worth being told and I was the one who had to do it. O: Like it was a mission. B: Almost like that²maybe not quite as fervent. I mean, I also played football, baseball, lacrosse, and I was a pretty good student at school. O: Was it maybe the small town context that had any impact on the feeling that if \RX GLGQœW GR LW LW ZDV QRW JRLQJ WR HPHUJH" -XYHQLOLD ³7KH 9LNLQJV´ front cover and an inside page opposite.
B: Perhaps rural isolation accounts for some of it²I mean, it doeVQœW VRXQG OLNH PXFK WRGD\ but we lived about 15 minutes south of Belleville and only went to town once a week. Now, people would go five times a day EXW LQ WKRVH GD\V \RX MXVW GLGQœW $QG LW ZDVQœt as though \RX ZHUHQœW DEOH ZH KDG a car and a truck on the farm...a couple horses too.
O ,W MXVW ZDVQœW WKH lifestyle... B ,W ZDVQœW WKH OLIHVW\OH VXFK PRELOLW\ Zas just not part of the zeitgeist :KHUH ,œYH found that since is in travel²say England and Ireland²ZKHUH \RXœOO JR LQWR D FRPPXQLW\ WKDW ZLOO EH OLWHUDOO\ PLQXWHV away from DQRWKHU RQH DQG WKH\ ZRQœW NQRZ DQ\WKLQJ DERXW WKHP ,WœV QRW D SK\VLFDO LVRODWLRQ EXW PRUH of a cultural or psychological one.
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