I started reading "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury. He wrote it over 50 years ago, but it's still fresh today. Great writers are like that. Mr. Bradbury was born in my home town of Waukegan, IL in 1920. Some of his books are about Waukegan when he was growing up. He called the town Green Town in "Dandelion Wine" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes"; two of his more well-known books after "Farenheit 451". Of course, the town was much different back then. There were entire sections of land that were still farm land. The downtown area was thriving, as was the lakefront. Cable Cars were a main form of transportation. Jack Benny, also from Waukegan, and a lot of other vaudeville acts played to packed houses at the Genesee Theater. I believe that Jack actually lived over one of the stores on Genesee Street when he was growing up. He was born in 1894, a year before my grandfather, so it's unlikely that Jack Benny and Ray Bradbury ever knew each other. Unless they met in Hollywood where Bradbury wrote a lot of screenplays and Benny acted in a few films. It would be interesting to hear them reminisce about Waukegan. As Bradbury once said, children don't notice the coal dust and grime when they're growing up. They see the world through much different eyes.