I got my first pair of eyeglasses at six, and the world was my oyster (I was blind as a bat and doing really, really poorly at school...so my parents took my for a eye exam, and voila! I was already too far behind in math to ever catch up, though)
The first book I remember reading was about the Mercury 7 astronauts which I don’t really remember all that well what was in it, but the SECOND book I read has stuck with me my whole life: “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo”.
I distinctly remember getting my first library card...that was really important!
Heh, funny how things go. My whole life, I have been able to read nearly everything, and I think I have skill at writing. But I was a dunce at math. Never got higher than a “C” in all my years of public education, and only once. Went to summer school for math year after year, with no visible effect.
But I could read anything, spell nearly anything and express myself well on paper. When I was in the Navy, I took the SAT tests to apply to colleges when I got out, and got great verbal scores and lousy math scores. Eh. So what did I go into, Literature?
No. Chemistry. Eh. Go figure.
My dad is mentioned in "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo." He was the unnamed civilian crew chief who Ted Lawson was angry at for revving the Ruptured Duck's engines beyond specification while it was chained down and chocked at McClellan Army Air Base where they were practicing short take offs. Ted Lawson did not know why my dad was revving his beloved Duck's engines and was angry about what he thought was abuse! At that time, he did not yet know what his mission was going to be.
My dad's crew was charged with making those engines perform beyond factory specs. If Dad couldn't get at least a consistent 110% over spec from an engine, it was pulled and a brand new engine was put on that would. My dad hit on the idea of putting water injection—same as was done with Spitfire Fighter/Bombers—for the take off. This got as high as 116% for a short time. . . not something you could do for long as it was hard on the engines, but gave the engines the power boost needed that got the planes the speed and lift to get those heavy bombers off the Hornet's flight deck in the distance they had to.