I just got lucky, my parent were, how you say, very eclectic. Learning was important, encyclopedias at home, 8 years older brother smart enough to enter Lane Technical High School in Chicago, set an impossible standard for me, but his popular science and popular mechanics, were a constant inspiration, Grandma, putting me on her lap, reading out of ancient encyclopedias at their house. Stories of dinosaurs and ice ages and the defeat of polio and one grand scientific mystery after another, with more questions than answers, wet my appetite at an early age, and I became invested in finding out the answers as much as anyone ever was. The plate tectonics revolution unfolded in front of my amazed young mind. The Miller–Urey experiment and discovery of DNA were fresh and still being absorbed, the atom was too small to be imaged, and the moon and planets and our own oceans were more mystery than fact. I dare not forget mom, dragging her brood of three duckling following behind (big bro was doing his thing, baby sis would arrive for many years), to every museum, and more, that '60s Chicago had to offer.
And, all of it fascinated the heck out of me. Other’s loved sports, Hollywood fictions, shopping, etc, me I loved learning about Earth and wanting answers to all the big questions. Happy to say at 65, I’m proud of my life long plodding efforts and all I’ve learned and puzzled together. Never reached beyond the layman level, but dare say it runs pretty deep for the skilled worker ant that I am.
Now if only I could develop a honey tipped pen, instead of being disgusted to puking at the pathetic reality we have collectively created for ourselves and the world, and all the lazy minds and greedy hearts who’ve enabled, and allowed, it to develop in such a pathetic self-destructive manner.
Just for the fun of it: https://confrontingsciencecontrarians.blogspot.com/2017/12/responding-to-malicious-slander.html