My parents gave me my first telescope when I was twelve-years-old. I used to sit on the front lawn of our house in Hollywood and ask the people walking around looking for movie stars if they wanted a look at the real thing.  
      The only time in my life I didn’t have a telescope was the three years I spent in Vietnam. I was a drafted, otherwise I wouldn’t have gone. The last thing you wanted to do over there was look up. No thank you, not with bullets whizzing by my ear. I was damn glad to get out of there, but when I came back, everything that I had was gone, my girlfriend, my job, my apartment. I haven’t had a regular job since then. If it weren’t for my parents, I don’t know what I would have done.
      After I got discharged, I had five hundred dollars saved up, but instead of buying a car like most guys, I bought an old eight inch F7 telescope. I set it up in my parents’ yard and looked at the sky. Mentally, I was out there somewhere. I imagined what a quasar would look like or what it would be like to go through the center of a black hole. They say that black holes are just like a hurricane, if you go through the exact center nothing would happen to you, but if you entered through the walls you’d be devastated....

 

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