On December 22, 1996, I left work early to do some holiday shopping at the Northridge Fashion Center. Among the things I bought was a new book for myself: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. I bought the book, according to my diary, because “I read about it in a recent SCI-AM article.” I was in the middle of James Morrow’s This is the Way the World Ends, at the time, and wasn’t really making progress, so I set it aside and read the new Sagan book instead.
A day later, on December 23, I was taken by the book that when I got into work the next day, I excitedly told a friend about it. In reply he said, “You know Carl Sagan died a few days ago.” I was devestated. I’d read one other book by Sagan sometime in the early 1990s before I started keeping a list of my reading. I’m pretty sure it was The Cosmic Connection. The Demon-Haunted World was the final (and 45th) book I read in 1996.
I went on a Carl Sagan binge after that, something I frequently do when I discover a writer I really enjoy. In rapid succession, I read The Dragons of Eden, Broca’s Brain, and Pale Blue Dot. Later, I read the rest of Sagan’s book that I hadn’t read.
Earlier this fall, I re-read Contact, after watching the movie with my youngest daughter, Ellie, who wants to be an astronomer. I also re-read The Demon-Haunted World and Billions and Billions after that.
I mention all this because when I woke up this morning, I noticed the date and something about it seemed familiar to me. It took a few minutes before it hit me. December 20, 1996 was the day that Carl Sagan died–or what I think of as Carl Sagan Day.
He lives on through his book of course, and in the COMSOS series, and countless YouTube videos. But I can’t forget how I felt when my friend told me that Carl Sagan had died.
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