Beyond this shelf, the sea floor plunged away for miles. This place was like another planet, strange and new, and I was the very first.

In the Midwest in the '50s, we'd sit in a circle of three or four and run through our entire repertoires—which at most was three or four songs, including our adaptations of Heinlein's lyrics—until we'd done them all; then we'd repeat them, or stray into folk music or Tom Lehrer.

I am weeping for old memories / of my favorite life . . .