CHAPTER TEN
AFTER a couple of weeks of partying and playing darts and pool in Australia, one of the blokes at the pub said that he had a one-bedroom apartment in Manly a few blocks from the beach. I went to look at it and it was perfect for me. I moved in and started to look for a job. I found one in Sydney detailing cars. I hated it. Not so much the work but the stupid people I had to work with, so I left and found another job stacking grocery shelves at night that was walking distance from my house. It was great. Sixteen hours a week and I made enough money to live on. I was happy with the arrangement but what to do with all the spare time?
Sometimes when I got off of work at midnight, I would walk home and just stare at the stars which were out nearly every night and dream about my future. I wondered why I wasn’t interested in being an astronomer. Stars had a fascination and mystical quality to them that very few other things had. I knew, or thought I knew, they had a big importance in our lives, but I wanted the whole picture. Someday I might be more interested in the stars but first I had to know why they were there. All the theories out there really meant nothing. Theories and theories only and I preferred facts.
I didn’t have a radio or TV so I would go home, get something to eat, then lay in bed with a book for a couple of hours. I read a lot of different types of books, but at that time in my life my favorites were science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke, E.C. Tubb, Theodore Sturgeon, and Larry Niven. They were the creators of worlds that were yet to come. Of worlds that were possibilities and promises of what life could be like in a thousand years.
I would get up in the morning, if I felt like it, and either go to the beach or to