I was a child of Cosmos.

My youth seemed connected to Carl Sagan. When I was 14, I attended my first “star party” by accident, catching a glimpse of Saturn and other attractions in a small reflecting telescope, and that moment changed the world for me. I became active in the local astronomy club in Oxford, Ohio, a small university town where my father was a professor of organic chemistry at Miami University. The local club needed a writer on deep-sky objects – star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies – and recruited me. Soon I was so entranced with writing about these mysterious creatures of the universe beyond our solar system that I started an amateur publication, Deep Sky Monthly, that had its genesis on the mimeograph machine in my father's chemistry office. It was the summer of 1977, and I was 2 months shy of 16.

During the first months of producing a publication for astronomy enthusiasts, while in high school, I wrote Professor Carl Sagan at Cornell University, letting him know about the publication and seeking career advice. He very graciously replied with the first of a number of letters. This was during his time as a celebrated astronomy figure – he periodically shared enthusiasm with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show – but before his production of the legendary Cosmos TV program.

On June 6, 1977, Carl wrote me his first letter. His wisdom, encouragement, generosity, and positive spirit during every encounter we had from that moment on were a major factor in my pursuit of astronomy. “I am delighted to hear from a 15-year-old who is already so active in astronomy,” he wrote, and after paragraphs of advice, he closed with “With all good wishes on your career.”

My admiration for Carl Sagan grew throughout our correspondence and I beamed with pride in knowing Carl during the airing of his Cosmos series on PBS TV in 1980. The show premiered on Sunday, September 28, 1980, and I rushed inside after a busy day, a pleasant 72 °F in Oxford, to turn on the TV just in time for that haunting theme music by Vangelis.

“The cosmos is all there is, or ever was, or ever will be,” said Carl in his opening sequence.