The Favorite Author Incident

It was a glorious summer day at the 1968 Petaluma Fair, sucking up all the fun and comradery of being with my friends. We had made our way to the Round Up ride. Many of you know how much fun it is to board this contraption, find a berth against the inside wall, buckle up? – not that I recall.

When everyone is settled a minimum-wage worker flicks a switch which starts the thing spinning so good old basic centrifugal force presses you against the wall so hard you know that you would struggle to pull yourself from that berth. Everyone in line for this thrill had watched as others demonstrated what you were signing up for, so we all knew what was coming but, wow! What a wild sensation when after a few spins to acclimate to the first sensation, the machine doubles-down on thrill by tilting the whole spinning platform up on one edge so soon you’re looping high above the ground then heading uncontrollably down towards it. Gravity has been left on, so you feel the earth pulling you home while pressed so tightly into your little metal grated berth so tightly that you almost can’t move.

That “almost” is key to this whole story because I could still move a bit, so I did, and it changed everything for me when I accidentally found a serious flaw in the safety design.

If I’d looked closely, I could have seen that four of the berths were next to one of two big gaps for the loading and unloading of passengers. I was next to one of those gaps.

When the platform was nearly 90° perpendicular to the ground, the ride spun and looped us up and around, playing havoc with our inner ears and sense of gravity,  I decided to experiment with this new sensation by lifting my feet up to the inner hand rail directly in front of me.  It didn’t enhance the experience much (okay, now I know)  but it was fun thanks to being a minor act of not playing by implied rules, tinting the experience with a bit of nonconformist satisfaction, however . . .

My legs were still up there as the tilt began to come back down. It was time to get my feet back under me but I miss-timed the effort and good old centrifugal force pulled my left leg and foot momentarily through that gap and OUTSIDE the inner wall – out where no body parts belong. On the downward rotation it was too hard to pull my foot back in – and the ground based, non-moving handrail used to board the ride met my fast-moving foot right below the ankle. The sensation of that impact was far from fun. Look at the photo and you’ll see a version of that rail.

On the upward swing, I was able to pull my foot back in, verify that it was still attached but understood immediately that my day at the fair was over.

With the assistance of my friends, I was able to get down those stairs and hop over to where I recalled seeing a first aid station. The ambulance arrived and thus I got my first ride in one, off to Hillcrest Hospital where the mandatory x-rays were taken and I was pronounced, injured but no bones broken (Amazing!) and grounded for about 3 weeks with that foot raised so healing could happen.

My mom knew well how to keep me sitting still and made a quick trip to the bookstore where she loaded me up with anything that she thought I’d enjoy. One of those books was George R. Stewart’s (GRS) Earth Abides, first published in 1949, but my mom had found it in 1968, in paperback with a cool cover that suggested some kind of science fiction was inside. That title and photo caused her to add it to her shopping basket, releasing a force of influence into my life that proved to be so much more than either of us could have guessed.

I am a chronic reader. Hard science fiction is my favorite genre, but left with nothing else, I’d read the backs of cereal boxes and irremovable pillow tags just to maintain the stream of written words slushing through my brain.

I fell in love with this book and began sharing it with both High School and Church friends. In our local library, I found Mr. Stewart had written several other books, and with the assistance of local bookstores, I became a collector. He did not publish hundreds of books, but he was thought to be fairly prolific, and I soon began claiming that I had the most complete collection of his works in the whole state based on my thorough research at the Petaluma Library card catalog. The internet was not yet invented, so I thought my claim was fairly safe.

Several of my friends became hooked with me on his works and we formed our own ad-hoc book club well before book clubs were a thing.

Flash forward now to 1974. By this time, I never – ever passed a used bookstore (or any bookstores actually) without stopping to check their holdings of George R. Stewart titles and adding to my collection as opportunity and money permitted. On several occasions I spent my lunch or tuition money on books. My mom decided that if I was hooked on books, there was a low limit to how much trouble I could get into, so she was an easy mark for money to buy a title if I was low on funds that week.

One day, I found a really old used bookstore, just west of Union Square in San Francisco and this place could have been a book addict’s dream store. Uneven shelves, with dusty, poorly sorted titles, so only the owner and his staff could dependably find anything, leaving grazers like me to wander up and down the creaky stairs to small balconies and nooks just to see what treasures we could find. I was this close to Heaven and not even dead yet.

A dusty, mouse of a clerk with wire-rim glasses asked if he could help. I asked about his stock of GRS works, and he put his hands together and answered, “Certainly sir. Please follow me.” I wondered how long it took him to develop his old-book-seller presence. He had it nailed.

He led me to a dimly-lit chamber and rolled an ancient shelf ladder aside to reveal – “YES” about 2 feet of used GRS books, several that I didn’t (but was about to) own. I’d have to spend some of my tuition money, but mom would understand. I thanked him and asked if I could study the collection. He closed his eyes, put his hands together, nodded and toddled off.

I had selected two volumes from the shelf when a much older and shorter version of the used book clerk found me. He was even more iconic a book clerk than the younger guy – bent and bearded. This guy looked even more “used” than many of his books as he asked if he could be of assistance. “Yes, I’m interested in works by George R. Stewart. I’ll be buying these two but had hoped to see rarer works.”

“Ah,” he responded. “You are a student of Mr. Stewart’s then?”

“Not really,” I answered. “Just a big fan”.

He leaned into whisper, “Then I should show you what I have in my office.”

He took me to an amazing room with shelves and ladders that went up at least six stories all full of volumes that looked like they belonged in a museum.

He led me through stacks of Paul-the-apostle-era volumes to a column of shelves that he had to use the shelf ladder to reach. The shelf was just above my eye level and looking at it, I noticed a large title I’d only heard of via library card catalogs but had never seen. I pulled the book out and found, not only was it the rare title, but it was also a first edition. I had to have it!

“This volume is excellent,” I said as I carefully eyed its condition. I turned to face him as he clung to the ladder and noticed something just short of a frown, “Ah — but — it’s — not for sale is it. . . ?) I slowly said in my most I’ll-be-so-disappointed, voice.

”Oh no my boy. Nothing back here is for sale.”

He began his descent and the ladder creaked like it was going to collapse. I was thinking of how I might befriend this guy, so he would let me borrow that book or read it here.

“You say you are a fan of Mr. Stewart’s works, but have you ever met him?”

What?! I thought?

“Ah. I see you’ve not. I worry I’ve a disappointed you. I’m unwilling to sell that book. Would you forgive me if I could arrange for you to meet Mr. Stewart?”

“You – you know George R. Stewart?” I knew that GRS had been a professor at the University of California Berkeley; right across the bay from where we were standing, still, I was not sure I believed him.

“Certainly,” he answered – noting that I was now gripped with hope. “He’s retired now and living about a mile up Geary Street.” He handed me a blank card and instructed me to, “write your name, address, and phone number and I will see what I can do.”

I was almost afraid to get my hopes up. I had been a fan for several years now and GRS had become larger than life. My friends and I had wrapped a high school ecology presentation around “Earth Abides”. We talked about the iconic hammer from the story and whether events depicted really would have happened. We must have spent hundreds of hours discussing “Earth Abides” alone.

We had read “Fire”, “Storm”, and “Sheep Rock” using the old-school pass-around method and discussed their ecological and social issues. Each were fictional but rooted in some physical force or place with rich histories or implications to consider. Fire and Storm were similar in that they were phenomenon dramas, but Sheep Rock was in a class by itself and today might be called a location alternate-history drama. That story is based on his visit to the remote Black Rock in Nevada and some obscure artifacts that he’d found there to produce an amazing historical fiction of the place.

I also took on his ”Ordeal by Hunger,” the definitive historical fictional account of the Donner Party and their nearly starving to death up near the present Lake Donner near the California and Nevada border. The tale of how these immigrants got caught in a terrible snowstorm near what is now Donner Pass and resorted to cannibalism to survive still sends shivers.

Well, the bookstore owner kept his word, and, in a few days, I had a letter from GRS waiting for me when I got home. Now – those hopes of actually meeting him were about to be realized. It was a dream come true.

I wrote him back and a date was set. I took a bus up Geary a day in advance to know where I was going but he lived in a retirement fortress, a guarded, towering, gated community of condos so there would be no getting in until tomorrow.

I had a slew of questions to ask, things I wanted to know about where he got such unique story inspiration and details of certain story scenes. Was there really a virus that could wipe out so much of humanity and was it really possible that a snake bite in the story could have accidentally made his protagonist immune from such a virus. It was brilliant story telling but how possible was it really?

When he and his wife opened the door to me– all my prep came unwound. My mind went nearly blank, and I collapsed from appearing to be a well-read literary fan to a nearly mindless groupie. It was awful. I managed to get the basics out like why I loved his books and what I’d read and who I’d shared them with and how popular they were in our group and blaa-blaa. My latent shy personality had resurfaced at this worse possible moment, and I feared wasting this meeting, but could not correct the failing trajectory I was in.

The Stewart’s were very cordial. Looking back, I’m sure they sensed my awe and stepped up to make sure the meeting went well.

We talked about very general things related to his work for and then, when I failed to keep up my side of the conversation, he started filling in the gaps with things I might find interesting.

He succeeded. It was all interesting. He had photos of the places where his fictional stories took place, and fascinating details that I failed to ask about.

But the best thing was when he asked, “Mr. Wilson, can I show you something I think you would enjoy?”

“Of course,” I followed him into his office where he opened a desk drawer for me to look into and there it was – the rustic, beat up single-jack 4-pound hammer from “Earth Abides”. I already knew every detail of the artifact, but seeing it in real life, holding it and hearing the story of how he integrated it into Earth Abides were worth all the embarrassment I felt for nearly wasting such an opportunity. I know this hammer, I thought. It feels just like the one Earth Abides left in my mind. I could feel how ridiculous I must have sounded but I also sensed the sacredness of this relic because of how Mr. Stewart had wrapped such a detailed and significant story around it.

George R. Stewart’s hammer.
Photo by Donald Scott; reproduction by permission of Jack Stewart.

Well, the interview wound down. My failure to make more of this once in a life-time chance hung heavy around my neck and shoulders as the Stewart’s graciously walked me to the door, thanked me for the visit and left me to find my way back down the hill to catch my bus for home. I spent the next few days beating myself up for blowing such a great chance, but the Mr. Stewart and his wife really had made up for so much of my brain-black-out. They even added a bit of encouragement that arrived by mail about a week later. A package was waiting for me when I arrived home. Inside, I found 2 books Mr. Stewart had published, bearing titles I’d never heard of. How was that possible? But here they are. Both were signed – making them instant collectors’ items that I’ll only part with via my will.

Did you ever get the chance to meet your favorite author? Hopefully you managed it better than I did mine and I hope your writer was a great a person as George R. Stewart was for me.

If you’ve not read, Earth Abides, why are you still looking at this essay? Go find a copy. I highly advise a hard back if you can find one. This title cycles back and forth out of then back into print and there should be plenty available – this week – if you act fast. It was easily one of the best and most significant and enjoyable books I’ve ever read.

Links to GRS books referenced

Earth Abides: excellent, classic, speculative Eco-fiction set in the Berkeley hills

Fire: Event fiction with a forest fire as the main character

Storm: Event fiction with a devastating storm as the main character

Sheep Rock: Location fiction following stories from multiple eras

Ordeal by Hunger: the Story of the Donner Party – a must read for California history

Yes, you should read them all.

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