First Contact

I first met the inimitable "Rock" Hardy in nineteen forty-six, thirty-one years before I was born.

I was, of course, aware of the man long before we met, though thankfully this has nothing to do with the awkward asynchronous interaction that we are assured could result from a journey into the past. Rather, I had read of his adventures in serialized novella form, published during the thirties and forties.  As I had assumed - like so many before me - that these adventures were pure fiction, and the "based on a true story" preamble a mere affectation or narrative fancy, I was naturally startled to find myself face to face with the formidable gentleman who inspired those tales.

Almost as startled as I was to find myself in 1946 to begin with.

But I get ahead of myself.