Most often, however, we were outside the house. During inclement weather (which happens quite often in Western Oregon) we would play with fire inside the playhouse our father had built for us. My brother dealt mainly with conventional conflagrations - paraffin, wood, and charcoal. I, on the other hand, enjoyed experimenting with oxidizers and other pyrotechnic chemicals when possible. Once, before I learned that sulfur dioxide fumes form an acid upon contact with moisture, I made a fire out of sulfur that sent us running coughing and choking for the house. I thought we were gonna die for sure.
In nicer weather, we enjoyed running water from a garden hose down the walls of a pit we had dug in one of our gardens. My brother and I carved elaborate channels for the water to flow through - I guess we thought we were civil engineers. Later, we learned to roof our excavations, turning them into underground fortresses.
In addition to these games, I learned a lot from my parents. Like most children, I was fascinated by the more dramatic elements of modern science: rocket ships and dinosaurs and lightning, etc. My mother, who was still working in a molecular biology lab at the time, gave me a more direct exposure to science. She brought home a microscope to look at flower parts and protists from pond water. Occasionally she brought me in to lab with her. When I was a little older (around ten, I guess), she bought a decent-sized refractor for the family. You could see the rings of saturn and the four larger moons of jupiter through it. She also insisted that I practice the piano, study Japanese, and work math problems during the summer. This, I think, was less effective. For my father's part, he taught me to garden, and got me interested in reading. For a number of years, before I really got to reading novels myself, he would read to me every evening. I think it is largely thanks to him that I developed good verbal skills.
As I got older, I became clumsily gregarious. At school, I never lacked for friends or playmates, yet at the same time, I was obviously different. The "clumsy" part has to do with the fact that I didn't know how to not be different. I have been working on this problem ever since. At the time, a number of interim solutions suggested themselves, among them participation in team sports (which was problematic, given my poor coordination) and violence. Yes, violence. I didn't grow up in the sort of area where schoolyard violence led to serious harm, but there is a phase sometime between elementary school and junior high during which young boys sort themselves into bullies and the bullied. Being half-asian (in a town so white that many folks thought I was full-blooded Japanese) and cerebral, I was a natural target. Fortunately, I was also bigger than most of my peers at the time. There were a handful of instances in my childhood when I resorted to violence to discourage would-be bullies. In all cases the outcomes were wholly positive, with the result that I am definitely a militarist rather than a pacifist.
From about the fifth grade until enrollment at Caltech, I was guided by a single driving professional goal: to become a physicist. To have found a professional focus so early, and to have understood the necessity of a college education, aided me greatly in my public school career. Unfortunately, my devotion was inefficient. My aspirations spurred me to excellent performance at my small town school; they did not drive me to seek more advanced instruction elsewhere. This lack of preparation (as well as an admitted lack of genius) later forced me to abandon this goal.
Since I survived, I guess my childhood could be termed a success. Still, I do not like who I was as a child. I don't feel that I was particularly sentient until about the seventh grade; I wasn't very human until my sophomore year of high school.