This is topic Orson's past in forum Discussions About Orson Scott Card at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Ginosion (Member # 7066) on :
 
I know the basics of his past, but I want detail. I heard that he was chubby. But I want more, was he a nerd with no friends? a rocker? skater? a prepy? Disco Dancer? Emo? well, emo wasn't invented back then...

I just kinda want to know for refrence (and my own evil plans [Evil Laugh] ).
 
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
 
This is what I really appreciate. Fans with tact.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
And she's not even your fan, at that.
 
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
 
I hear he was a child prodigy who got taken to a military institution at a young age, rose through the ranks improbably quickly, won a war, regretted a war and travelled faster than light.

Or something.
 
Posted by ArCHeR (Member # 6616) on :
 
No, that was some other guy...
 
Posted by Joldo (Member # 6991) on :
 
I heard he worked for a while as a janitor at Battle School.

And I think he may just be Mormon. I got some slight LDS undertones reading Saints.
 
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
No, no, no, he's the Overseer.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Fans with tact?

Where?
 
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
*sigh* Everyone knows that he writes both Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken's material, manipulating the American public so as to eventually take over.

Gosh, do a little Googling.
 
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
Wait, I thought Orson Scott Card was a pseudonym for Terry Pretchett.
 
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
*points* rofl
 
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quidscribis:
Wait, I thought Orson Scott Card was a pseudonym for Terry Pretchett.

Well you don't have to insult Mr. Card.
 
Posted by Mindbowels (Member # 7407) on :
 
Sometimes I think people don't realize OSC actually created, reads, and cares about this forum...

And worse, sometimes I think people do!
 
Posted by odouls268 (Member # 2145) on :
 
quote:
This is what I really appreciate. Fans with tact.
[ROFL] [ROFL] [ROFL]
 
Posted by odouls268 (Member # 2145) on :
 
quote:
I know the basics of his past, but I want detail.
He sprang, fully formed, from the head of Zeus
 
Posted by aarand (Member # 8745) on :
 
I don't see anything wrong with the question...

I wouldn't mind if someone asked a similar thing about me, maybe it's for a school report or something?

I don't know.

I find that sometimes a person's just got to get to the point, especially or fora. Of course, subtlety is admired, as is being careful of people's feelings, but I didn't find the post to be intentionally insulting or hurtful in any way.
 
Posted by Brian J. Hill (Member # 5346) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by aarand:
I don't see anything wrong with the question...

I didn't find the post to be intentionally insulting or hurtful in any way.

quote:
I heard that he was chubby. But I want more, was he a nerd with no friends?
It may not have been intentionally insulting or hurtful, but that certainly is the result. Geoff is right. Tact and restraint were certainly shown by that first post.

If the purpose is to get background info for a research paper or project, there are much better ways of going about it. Even though OSC is a public figure, like most public figures I'm guessing he appreciates people who admire him for the work he creates now, rather than try to pry into his past like some kind of creepy stalker. I mean, give the man some space, will ya?
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Stephan:
quote:
Originally posted by quidscribis:
Wait, I thought Orson Scott Card was a pseudonym for Terry Pretchett.

Well you don't have to insult Mr. Card.
Come now. OSC is a fine author, but hardly in the same league as Pratchett. If anything, the comparison is insulting to Pratchett, except of course that both of them being generous gentlemen, they would no doubt feel flattered.
 
Posted by Mindbowels (Member # 7407) on :
 
Wow, if that isn't an inflamatory remark, I don't know what is. I think many here would disagree with your comment... would you expect anything less?
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
I do feel it is possible to admire someone's work without necessarily believing that he is the Greatest Author Ever.
 
Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
 
Right, but you went quite a bit further than stating that you didn't believe he was the Greatest Author Ever.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Did I? I just said that he wasn't as good as Pratchett. Come now, surely you would not be insulted if I said you were a worse writer than Shakespeare, or less heroic than Martin Luther King?
 
Posted by RunningBear (Member # 8477) on :
 
quote:
Sometimes I think people don't realize OSC actually created, reads, and cares about this forum...

And worse, sometimes I think people do!
Mindbowels

that is truly hilariciostic
 
Posted by RunningBear (Member # 8477) on :
 
I would be insulted if you said I was a worse writer than shakespeare, I use real words, instead of making them up. words like... hilariciostic...
 
Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
 
RB-
You are very Lewis Carroll-esc [Smile]

I got the "hilari" but what does the "ciostic" refer too?
 
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
 
I wasn't chubby. I was a very skinny little kid, up to about age 12. Then I got hit with a metabolic change along with puberty that made it possible for me to put on weight if I avoided exercise and ate like crazy. Which of course I did, to a degree. But never the "fat kid." Just not lean or muscular.

Nerd? The word didn't exist then. There WERE no words for smart kids that were disparaging. I got called "Encyclopedia" and me and my friends were sneeringly called "brains," but yeah, hit me with THAT stick whenever you want.

It's only in the last thirty years that it has become embarrassing to be smart in school. Back when I was a kid, we smart ones were envied, yes, but also respected. It wasn't a bad time to be smart in school. I have contempt for anyone who disparages kids who aren't interested in looking like a Gap ad, but instead are trying to learn things and are excited about reading and school.

Don't we have a bio of me on this site? I thought we did. But I guess it's more like a resume.

So I should start posting my memoirs?

My Ray Bradbury childhood:
We had a television, but there were few shows worth watching and in that day of tubes instead of transistors, it was broken half the time, with repairing it a low priority. There was also no air conditioning - that was for the ultra rich - so throughout the good-weather season we lived outdoors. In California that was all year.

So when I was little, in Salt Lake City, we'd take walks and have adventures - climbing around on wooded hills, wandering through parks. But that's when I was little enough somebody was always holding my hand.

In Santa Clara, California, I had a great deal of freedom - a shocking amount, compared to the way we shelter our kids now. I could hop on my bike and ride downtown to the library. I could go to friends' houses after school and just call my Mom so she'd know where I was. I'd climb over the back fence and go wandering in the dry creek beds (which become brim full with every major rainstorm; now they're just huge pipes under the expressways they built over them). I'd dig "forts" in neighbors' back yards (with the neighbor, of course); and even though I was kind of lousy at it, I joined in with pickup games of basketball and softball.

And we had a neighborhood that played tag and hide and seek and cowboys and indians (I got you! No you didn't, you missed, you're out of bullets!) until our parents called us in. Some moms yelled; our dad had a whistle he did to call us in - it carried farther.

Nobody dreamed of being driven to school; if it rained, we wore galoshes and slickers. All these kids in yellow.

I was no athlete, but that didn't mean I was excluded; I was chosen last, but it didn't scar me. Because I was chosen first when there was any kind of academic project or competition at school. Everything evened out. And I had the athletic ability to do what I wanted - I could run for blocks when I needed to, and ride my bike as far as I wanted.

There it is ... a memoir of my life as a child. By no means exhaustive, but that's the idea.
 
Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
 
quote:
It's only in the last thirty years that it has become embarrassing to be smart in school. Back when I was a kid, we smart ones were envied, yes, but also respected. It wasn't a bad time to be smart in school.
I am chartreuse with envy. That must have been an awesome place and time to be in school.
I started school in the seventies, and I spent most of my school career being persecuted by fellow students -- and teachers -- for being bright. (It was especially bad when the TEACHERS were doing it, because they were supposed to CARE about the stuff they were teaching us and one would expect them to be PLEASED with a child who had an intense thirst for knowledge and asked lots of questions.)

My elementary school experiences turned me into the bitter, distrustful shell of a human being that I am today.

[ November 12, 2005, 12:40 PM: Message edited by: Yozhik ]
 
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
 
I just saw the original question as a person who wanted to ask about OSCs more personal past, but not sure how. For me, the way it was asked shows more about the lack of age and maturity than tact.

So, I will ask for the person with more "tact" if that is what people want. I know, I know, I am the last person to correct tact.

"Mr. Card, I am thrilled with your writing abilities. You have been a great influence in my life. There are some things, however, that I am curious about.

"Knowing a little about your past from various sources, I would like to learn some things more personal in nature. What were you like before becoming the famous author you are now? what were your child and young adult years like? How similar and different was it from the youth of today?

"Thank you for answering this most likely presumptuous inquiry. I would be honored by your response.

"Your most sincere fan OCC"
 
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
 
In a more serious response, thanks for the information you did supply.
 
Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
 
You know, "Encyclopedia Card" sounds better than "Encyclopedia Brown". I smell a new series of children's books coming on...
 
Posted by Salah (Member # 7294) on :
 
I, like Yozhik, am envious- except in a different way.

I live in California and it would have been wonderful to grow up with the freedom and fun to explore by going from place to place without worry. I've dreamed of living in an era where there wasn't so much worry about what twisted creeps and unlawful people are capable of causing.

Maybe this trust of others living within your society still exists to a certain degree in some places, but not so much here- and in this era, safe wooded hills for children to play in are something few youngsters (especially in California) will get to experience.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
I'd like to point out that I am about thirty years younger than OSC, and I recognised my own childhood in pretty much all of what he wrote, except for the bits about the TV being often broken. (We got the same effect, though, since in my youth we only got the single state channel, which, let's say, wasn't always that interesting for a child. Or, indeed, for anyone not interested in Finnish theatre. [This is a digression, but lest anyone think I picked my example at random, 'Finnish TV-theatre' is an expression among my parents' generation, meaning 'exceedingly dull, but very virtuous and Good For you. Apparently they ran heavily to bearded Finns sitting about drinking, occasionally drawing their knives to kill someone.])

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes, extolling the virtues of my native country. I would occasionally be dropped off at school by my mother, as a special privilege if she happened to be going into town anyway. Otherwise I walked, or biked when I was old enough. Nobody would have dreamed of objecting if I'd stayed at a friends' for dinner, though usually it worked out the other way 'round. (This, by the way, was in Bergen, which while not exactly the height of urban development is the second largest city in Norway. So it's not an artifact of growing up on a farm.)

In short, all those virtues you're extolling still exist in Europe. [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Steev (Member # 6805) on :
 
Mr. Card, your post caused an extraordinarily high build up of nostalgia for a childhood I whished I had.

I'm going to go away and cry now.

[Frown]
 
Posted by Ela (Member # 1365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Orson Scott Card:
It's only in the last thirty years that it has become embarrassing to be smart in school.

I beg to differ. I am close to your age, and I knew people who were given a very hard time and, as a result, were embarrassed to be smart.

It didn't happen to me, though, cause no one thought I was smart in school. [Wink]

I imagine this sort of thing could have varied depending on where you lived and what the community was like.
 
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ela:

I imagine this sort of thing could have varied depending on where you lived and what the community was like.

I very much agree with you on this, but for different reasons. Where I went to school, it was almost unheard of for people to be insulted for intelligence. That's not to say that people were always nice to each other, but I can't recall intelligence ever factoring into that.
 
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
Yeah, I'm with Ela and ricree on this. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and beyond the "brain, professor, and Einstein"* type comments in grade school, no one ever insulted me for being bright.

*And as Card said, as insults go those aren't particularly potent, bordering as they do on being compliments.
 
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
 
I don't know where any of you are from, but where I have ever lived it was not good to be smart; unless you were a pretty girl. They wouldn't make fun of you for your smartness, but you definantly were going to be considered low on the social totem pole.
 
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
NE Kansas, in my case.
 
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
Heck, I was ostracized for being smart. No friends. That was late 70s to mid 80s. Oh, and I did have some people threaten to beat me up/kill me because I was smart. [Roll Eyes] Whatever.
 
Posted by theCrowsWife (Member # 8302) on :
 
I think it does have a lot to do with where you grew up. I was born in 1980 and I had a similar carefree childhood until I was 11. This was because we lived in a tiny town in northeastern California. I don't recall ever being teased for being smart; the worst that happened was that some kids tried to get me to cheat.

However, when we moved to Arizona everything changed. My parents no longer felt it was safe to allow me to ride my bike all over town, and the schools were a bit rougher. Being smart still wasn't a big problem, though.

My husband grew up in a steel town in West Virginia in the seventies. He was an extremely smart, skinny little boy who wasn't very good at sports (except running). He said that other kids started beating him up when he was four, and they viciously made fun of him for being smart. They all expected to grow up and work in the steel mill, so what good were brains?

Based on our vastly different experiences, we have a hypothesis that children in industrial towns are harsher towards smart kids than those in agricultural towns. It's also possible that it's an east/west dichotomy.

--Mel
 
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
 
I found that often times the intelligent ones were only looked down upon if they were incapable of performing other things at a somewhat average level. So for example, an intelligent, funny person or an intelligent, athletic person = no problem. But an intelligent person that was athletically challenged, lacked a sense of humor, shortchanged in the phsyical appearance category, and lacked the general ability to socialize, then they would probably be made fun of. Intelligence in itself was never a reason to be critical of someone, but was only one of the aspects that was considered.
 
Posted by theCrowsWife (Member # 8302) on :
 
I think that the aspects that are considered also vary from region to region. For example, my friends and I were always working on unusual crafts during school: knitting, origami, etc. The other kids thought this was cool. I know there are other areas of the country where it wouldn't be cool; it would just be another indicator of wierdness.

--Mel
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
>>But an intelligent person that was athletically challenged, lacked a sense of humor, shortchanged in the phsyical appearance category, and lacked the general ability to socialize, then they would probably be made fun of.<<

Um. . . yeah. *I* fit all of those designations and I would have made fun of me.
 
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
quote:
Based on our vastly different experiences, we have a hypothesis that children in industrial towns are harsher towards smart kids than those in agricultural towns. It's also possible that it's an east/west dichotomy.
Interesting Mel. My gradeschool for Kindergarten through 4th grade was a rural school serving mostly the children of farmers. In this school, being intelligent was pretty much a neutral factor in terms of popularity, but small class size meant that everyone knew everyone else, and there wasn't a *whole* lot of room for cliques to form. I spent 5th and 6th grade going to a school in a town with a population of around...oh, at that point 70 thousand, I'd guess. The school's kids came from a mix of lower class and middle class families. No heavy industry to speak of in the area. Being intelligent in this setting gave a person a slight edge in terms of popularity, I think. There were kids who weren't in the gifted program who were popular, but they were the exception rather than the rule. Of course, there were also plenty of kids in the gifted program who *weren't* popular as well, but I'd say that more of them were than not.

In Jr. High intelligence didn't really enter into the equation where popularity was concerned, and in High School I was so completely uninterested in the whole concept of popularity that I can't really tell you how much of a factor intelligence was. I was known as a fairly bright guy, I think, and just generally got along with people, so it didn't handicap *me*, in any case.
 
Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
 
Actually, I found in moving through three highschools, from middle class suburban, to Boise, to a small agricultural town in Idaho, that appreciation and opportunities for my intelligence declined. So my theory has been that smarts are less appreciated in agricultural communities.

My uncle, who is a teacher in an agricultural town, has been increasingly frustrated with the lack of desire for education in both his students their parents. It seems that many of these kids in farming towns don't care if they know how to read well or will graduate since all they are going to do is run the farm or work the paper mill. That, and doing well in sports, is their ambition. Needless to say, the smart kids don't fare very well in that school. Neither do the teachers who care about them. The administration has refused to back my uncle up when he tries to have his students stick with the requirements needed to pass his class. If they do, the parents come down on them.

I guess this just goes to show that it really depends on the make up of the community rather than its population.
 
Posted by tmservo (Member # 8552) on :
 
*shrug* I often wonder why fans worry about such things.

Still, here are some base facts about Card that you should know:

He has a Y Chromosone.
He is in fact, a human being.
He was born.
Some day, he will die.
He tends to enjoy "food"
He is a big fan of "breathing"
Growing up, he learned the necessities of life, including: eating with utensils, using a bathroom, cooking food for himself and cleaning up his room.

[Smile]

You can apply these same facts to most writers (of male persuasion) if you really need to delve into their past. [Smile]

(this is tongue in cheek and I hope no one is offended [Smile]
 


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