From John’s Blog
When I was at that 9-10 stage, I was just discovering that my dreams of being Chuck Yeager were done. Hereditary myopia killed them, and I was as broken-hearted as a kid that age can be. It was profound, what that had done to me, and for a while, “what do you want to be when you grow up” was a shattering question, I didn’t have an idea. I didn’t want to be a fucking fireman, or a cop, or any of that. I wanted to be a test pilot, then an astronaut. In that order. That was what mattered to me. USAF -> NASA. All gone after a goddamned eye exam.
But then the little storefronts with Apple IIs and the like showed up. Suddenly, places like Computerland existed, and Radio Shack had this stuff, these computer things. Within a year or so, I had, maybe, another dream. To do something with these computers. Fuck if I knew what, at that time no one knew what the fuck you did with a computer. But I was going to do something with them. Didn’t know what, but fuck yeah, something. For the first time, that pain I felt about dreams was not so bad.