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Those who know me best know that Robert Anson Heinlein was my mentor.
Despite the fact that I never met the man, his literature taught me more
about life ( and about thinking for myself ) than any person I have had a
face-to-face relationship with. I was one of thousands - perhaps hundreds
of thousands - of young people growing up in the '50s and '60s who were
taught the lessons of self-reliance, independent thinking, and moral responsibility
by his novels.
All of his books for young people fostered a sense of self-worth and hope
at a time when the world had very little of either to give to young people.
Even though I personally lived with the reality of Mutually Assured Destruction
for years, its effect was not truly evident until the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Part of the reason I and others like myself did not dispair was that hope -
and a basic pragmatism taught in every book.
One of my wife's more poignant memories of the man was of a speech he gave
at Mid-Americon. By all accounts, the speech was highly political. Many of his
biggest fans were quite vocal in their disagreement. This illustrates exactly
the type of independent thinking I am talkng about. The insistence on thinking
things through for one's self, rather than merely accepting the word from on
high, handed down from some authority, was a basic theme taught by his writing.
The crowd's reaction proved that they had learned the lesson (although, it
should be said, they needed to learn a little more about manners).
Was Mr. Heinlein a great man? I'm not sure that I'm qualified to answer
that question, since I never met him. His published correspondence suggests
that he was, simply, a man of normal stature - who did the best job he could.
Many would say that that was more than enough.
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