Other kids worshipped baseball players. My hero was a fictional Scottish engineer from the 23rd century.
Before the terms geek and nerd entered the vernacular, we were called
brains, or, more cruelly, weirdos. We built Heathkits, disassembled
televisions and tape recorders, and bribed the librarian to give us
first crack at the new issues of Popular Science and Popular
Electronics, usually by changing the ribbon or switching the golf
balls on her newfangled IBM Selectric.