Ray Bradbury is riding his bicycle on a different path today. A long life lived doing what he loved, and loving what he was doing. I had just finished re-reading Fahrenheit 451 last month…there’s a post on May 13th.
In the spring of 1950, Ray spent $9.50 in dimes to write and finish the first draft of said book. He had done most of his typing in the family garage, but was driven out by loving children who insisted on coming around to the rear window and singing and tapping on the pane. He had to choose between finishing a story or playing. “I chose to play of course”, which endangered the family income. An office had to be found. He couldn’t afford one. Finally, he located the typing room in the basement of the library at the University of California, Los Angeles. (The following quote from ‘Afterword’ in Fahrenheit 451, Random House edition):
“There, in neat rows, were a score or more of old Remington or Underwood typewriters which rented out at a dime for a half hour. You thrust your dime in, the clock ticked madly, and you typed wildly, to finish before the half hour ran out. I finished the first draft in roughly nine days. At 25,000 words, it was half the novel it eventually would become.
Between investing dimes and going insane when the typewriter jammed and whipping pages in and out of the device, I wandered upstairs. There I strolled, lost in love, down the corridors, and through the stacks, touching books, pulling volumes out, turning pages, thrusting volumes back, drowning in all the good stuffs that are the essence of libraries. What a place, don’t you agree, to write a novel about burning books in the Future!”
wanderer, enjoy the ride, Ray…