Tim and I have been watching Prophets of Science Fiction on the...

Tim and I have been watching Prophets of Science Fiction on the Science Channel.  Or, rather, he has been recording it on the DVR, and I have been watching it with the kids.  Or, rather, one of our kids woke me up at 4 am today, so after I watched the last Conan on the DVR, I switched this on, hoping to get back to sleep.

The problem is, even a dry, recycled show about Heinlein is still about Heinlein.

I'm not going to lie and pretend I'm still super-familiar with this book.  I read it when I was about nine years old (yes, I was one of those kids), and people—that was a long time ago now.

But as I'm watching this show, and they're talking about how the hippies identified with the book, I'm going "Wow."  It's entirely possible I was influenced a lot more by this book on an emotional level than I realized.

See, I remembered the water thing, quite well.  I remembered that the character was a human raised by Martians who didn't comprehend our ways.  And even back then, when I was a mere babe (seriously, it kind of bothers me, thinking of my 8 or 10 y.o. reading a book like this right now, because of where they are in their personal development), I realized the alien metaphor was a way for Heinlein to frame a social commentary about our culture.  I got that.  (And, sweet Jesus, no wonder I was such a lonely kid!  Why couldn't I have been into Strawberry Shortcake like everyone else?  I mean, my mom did my whole room up in it.)  But the Grok stuff…wow.  Just wow.

I was going to post some quotes, but to hell with it.  Just read the book.  Or re-read it.

The show is waxing on about cryogenics, so they've lost me.