I’ve been reading Wil Wheaton’s new book. “Still Just A Geek” that just came out a few days ago. He’s going back into his original “Just A Geek” book and doing comments on his writing back almost 20 years ago. It’s pretty much also a history of early blogging and the Internet of the 00s too. All the references are bringing up memories. Like LiveJournal, Geocities, designing websites in HTML. Those were the good ole’ days. It is also reminding me of how we are such different people when we’re younger and how our older selves can be reminded of the growth when looking back.
Point in question. Wil does talk about one of the movies he’s most known for being in, “Stand By Me”. Which of course, is about going on kid adventures and the bonding of friends in our formative years. But it’s also about looking back as well. Which I’m doing as I read his book. Looking back to the almost 20 years of this current century, that still seems to me, new.
I’m also looking back at my kid adventures that inspired a lot of my children’s books. My Crystal Keeper Chronicles has that element of adventure that all children need to kindle. I think that’s how we all learn growing up. I lived in the Silicon Valley before it was that. Then, in the 1970s, it was the Santa Clara Valley. It had creeks and orchards to play in. Tadpoles to catch and cherries to eat by hopping the fence to my backyard. I also lived over the hill from Santa Cruz, which was the closed beach for this Northern California Valley Girl.
On my friend’s Scott’s 13th birthday, we went to Capitola, a small beach town next to Santa Cruz. We were spending the day at the beach, but the best thing about the town was the small stores that you could shop at or best yet, buy a slice of pizza. It was also safe to walk around and explore, which is what we were doing when we found a path leading up to a train trestle that went over the river that emptied into the ocean. We had to check it out.
At the top, we started to walk across the trestle, eradicating our fears that it probably wasn’t in use anymore. But we were wrong. Because when we were a fourth of the way across, a train whistle blew behind us.
Slowly turning, I could see the approach of a freight train heading right for us. I looked at the boards of the trestle that were spaced further and further apart ahead of me, and I could see the drop below to the river. I realized we couldn’t make it across in time before the train came. We would have to go back. I had to convince my friend Scott to do it. Head towards the oncoming train to escape getting hit by it.
After a quick exchange of reasoning, he agreed we had to go towards the train to save ourselves, and we started to cross back over the trestle towards the train. The whistle blew again, more rapidly. I couldn’t think about anything but getting off that track before the train hit us. The train whistle kept blowing, and finally we reached the edge of the trestle and went down the side bank of the trestle bridge. We got back from the tracks as the train passed, realizing maybe it was stupid to have been trying to cross in the first place.
I guess that’s what is so interesting about childhood. You have to have those adventurous mistakes so you can figure a way to get yourself out of them. They make you grow and be a better person. I guess I was thinking that too as I’m reading Wil Wheaton’s new book. He’s going back and commenting on his younger self, now older and wiser from his current mindset and viewpoint.
But part of growing up is realizing mistakes and moving on with new knowledge. We do that at any age, I guess up until we die. So maybe we never grow up. I hope that’s true.
And I wish Wil Wheaton the best in the artistic process and rewards in doing the annotations on his new book. It’s good to read it again with his new perspective in the margins, so to say. But it’s also good to see the Wil of the early 21st century, because I’m looking back at myself too.
Wil Wheaton’s new book “Still Just A Geek” is available at Amazon.com here.
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