[caption id="" align="alignright" width="256" caption="Ray Bradbury 1920-2012"][/caption]
Dear Mr. Bradbury,
I'd call you Ray, but I don't know you. I've never had the chance to meet you, or to hear you speak at any of your appearances over the years. You were writing books long before I was born. Writing books, and making movies, radio plays, and later television as well.
I haven't read all your books.. nor have I seen all your movies and tv shows, nor heard all your radio plays. But your works have changed my life.. they have been touch points all along the way. While children of your generation were raised up on comic books.. mine was raised up on television. Parents who both worked, and I, a single child, like the iconic child of so many of your stories, an outcast.. Movies and TV were my friends. I studied television production in college, and later commercial art.. I wanted to be involved in bringing those great stories to life.
The reality of life soon set in on me, and not all my dreams have gone quite as I'd hoped. Still.. I clung to my movies.. my tattered video tapes, recordings both purchased in a store, and taped off TV. The last time I packed my videos for shipping, it took a refrigerator carton to hold all the VHS tapes.. they were unfortunately all lost.. in a story far too long and personal to explain here.
This last Christmas, I purchased my first DVD player. And on Amazon.com, I located something to buy for myself.
It was the Ray Bradbury Theater series collection.
I have clutched to my heart, like a child with a tattered and cherished toy, my copy of The Martian Chronicles.. that television adaptation from so many years ago.. The one with Rock Hudson, and who knows who else.. And I gripped tightly my aged copy of Fahrenheit 451. And now, I can sit here.. and watch what I always felt as a child, was a television series that exceeded it's bigger-budget competitors of the day.. But perhaps I was biased.
To be able to sit, and watch again, all these vignettes, these glimpses into your works, that have been denied me for all the difficulties I have had in reading books. One of the few happy memories of my childhood is restored, that brief glimpse of your "Magician's Toyshop".. that looked so much like my own room growing up. And when I sit in the night, listening to "internet radio".. replaying radio plays from those decades that held so much promise.. And I hear adaptations of things I know you also wrote.. I smile.
I just wanted to thank you, Mr. Bradbury.. for allowing so many of your works to be presented beyond print. Because even though I may not be able to read through every book.. I can feel the heart of your stories.. I've heard or seen three different Spacemen.. say to three different Martians.. "This isn't Earth.. and you're not my brother"... heard three different Colonels Wilder say to 3 different androids, "but he couldn't make you grow old".
Even though we have never met.. your words, your works, and your stories have been a refuge for me while growing up.
I know you'll probably never see this message. You have handlers, and sorters, and press people who process these things. I don't begrudge you that.. I know what it's like on some level.. after all, you need time for your own life, time to pursue those things that fuel the stories you create.. You can't possibly read every fan letter. But even if you don't see this, I had to write it. Time passes so quickly, and our time here is so short. I've let too many great people pass from this world, without at least trying to thank them.
Myself, I'm just a fan.. not a writer, not a great artist.. just one of those toy-blaster-wielding costumed kids from sci-fi conventions long past.. now I'm just some pixel-pushing hack, who builds computer graphics for a few bucks a day. But all the same, each night when the lights are low, you're right here beside me.. in the radio, on tv.. keeping me going another day, with another story. You played the role of Grandfather, sitting round the campfire of my imagination.. always another epic tale, stories of mystery and wonder, with just a wicked twist
Thank you for all of your wondrous tales. I hope your life is filled with joy, that you, your family and all around you are well. I wish you as long a life as you wish.. and happiness for all the rest of your days. You have most assuredly earned it with all the happiness you have brought into the lives of myself, and so many others. Thank you.
Sincerely,
A Fan.
Ray Bradbury died today. He was 91.
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