I don't recall any one particular event that gave me my early start in astronomy but my mother was a close friend of the Canadian astronomer Helen Sawyer Hogg and I suppose astronomy was always there in the background of my family environment. In 5th grade I remember being impressed by the book 'Stars for Sam', and interested in explorers and thinking that the sky was the last great frontier. Astronomy was not a driving passion for me when I was young, but I was intrigued by it. It was 'way out' and enormous and utterly fascinating from an explorer's standpoint. My father was the head of the electrical engineering department at MIT and he was also very interested in astronomy. By 7th grade, I had to do a career report and decided to choose the astronomer Annie Cannon whose biography appeared in a book I found in the school library. My mother was also an acquaintance of Cecilia Gaposchkin, a woman astronomer at Harvard, and in high school I did a second career report by interviewing her. I had no real interest in amateur astronomy, but I do remember my father encouraging me to build my first telescope during my senior year in high school. No one ever discouraged me from getting into the technical subjects, especially my parents who had always treated my brothers and me impartially when it came to academics. It was just expected that I would do at least as well as my brothers. Nor did my high school counselor ever discourage me from taking the harder subjects like chemistry, physics and advanced math.
I still feel an enormous sense of awe and wonderment when I look at the night sky, especially where I do most of my observing at Cerro Tololo in Chile. Taking night walks in the quiet, still night air while the sky is perfectly dark and filled with stars, is a delightful experience for me. No matter where I am, I always look at the sky at night. I like to see what objects are up, where the Milky Way is, and to say hello to 'old familiar friends' in the heavens.