A story from Heinlein

This is a story from one of Heinlein's speeches. With his views.

"I said that "Patriotism" is a way of saying "Women and children first." And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely. I want to tell about one such man. He wore no uniform and no one knows his name, or where he came from; all we know is what he did.
In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut straight through it.
One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing these tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her.
But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman's foot loose. No luck —
Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free... and the train hit them.
The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and died later, the tramp was killed — and testimony showed that neither man made the slightest effort to save himself.
The husband's behavior was heroic... but what we expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very instant the train killed him. And that's all we'll ever know about him.
This is how a man dies.
This is how a man... lives! "

The Door Into Summer - the scene I loved

Warning: This post talks about the plot of Heinlein's book "The Door into Summer" in some detail, so if you have not yet read that book and want to avoid spoiling the suspense, don't read this post before you read the book itself.

What can one do when with faced with a single emotion; one strong, focused, simple emotion of love. When a girl says "I am yours" surrendering her all to you in a simple, completely non-reversible manner, you have to take notice and accept it as the ultimate gift which can be incredibly exciting and yet ultimately soothing.

I mentioned while reviewing "The Door Into Summer" that there was one scene which I planned to read again immediately even though I had just finished the book. That scene was where our hero Dan Davis goes back in time and leaves his stock with his corrupt business partner's young daughter Ricky. Ricky maybe young, she's only eleven now, but she and Dan share a special relationship of mutual respect and unassuming friendship. Also, they both love Dan's cat Pete.

In this scene, as Dan visits her in her scout camp and tries to tell her what to do, hampered by his inability to explain the real reasons why he was going away for 30 years, taking the Cold Sleep, the situations grows pensive as Ricky refuses to accept Dan's gift of his stock. He tries to explain to her and make her see reason, but all she is focused on is that he is leaving her and she would never see him or Pete again.

Then Dan tells her that they can meet again, if, when Ricky turns 21, she uses the money piled up from the stock to take cold sleep herself to catch up with Dan. She likes that idea. And then, this 11 year old girl asks our adult hero if he would marry her if she takes the cold sleep. He agrees immediately and willingly, and gives her his old class ring as a sign of betrothal.

I am moved by this scene because under the mundane and quite business-like activities there is an undercurrent of Dan's concern for Ricky, his urgent, frantic, in places risky activities, all motivated by his strong desire to take care of her, secure her future against the tragedies he knows will befall her. On the other hand, there is the rigid, rock-like determination of Ricky to completely ignore all financial and business aspects and focus only on Dan and how she can be with him!

I love this scene and thought I should share it with you! :)

By Heinlein fans for Heinlein fans

Well, we think that that Robert A. Heinlein was the greatest science fiction writer ever. We like to read about him and talk about him, so why not blog about him? This will be a group blog, with Sunil and Melody to kick it off, other reader-slash-writers may join later!

Read on, comment, discuss things with us, the more, the merrier. Funny enough, that was Heinlein's philosophy too! :-)