Remember the popular kids?

You remember. The ones who used to tease you and your friends in school for being nerds because you liked 'Star Trek', while they headed off to football practice or to compare fashion statements in the girls room. Born with silver spoons in their mouths and all the inquisitiveness of a pomegranate. As if beauty and popularity were ornaments you could choose to wear or not.

Well, they were the lucky ones. Because, as virtually every sci-fi fan can attest, life for us wasn't so charmed. We weren't shy, wan oddballs because we liked science fiction. We liked science fiction because we were shy, wan oddballs longing to escape the cruddy circumstances of our lives.

Or to illuminate the point on a more personal note, I was the daughter of a manic depressive long before I discovered sci-fi.

Seen 'The Blair Witch Project'? My mother could instill that level of terror in anyone with a simple look. Transgress and the next thing you knew you were grounded for a month for bringing home a 'C' on your report card ("I did not have stupid children!"), or standing before her at 11 p.m. on a school night, stock rigid because you didn't dare move and draw attention to yourself, while she waited for someone to confess to having left the little curtain on the back-door window askew. She was Jekyll and Hyde in person, occasionally disappearing into the hospital in ultimately futile attempts to cure her imbalance with drugs or shock treatments. Sometimes the drugs came home and she disappeared into herself -- until the alcohol brought her out again on another rampage. If I flew to my simple, kind-hearted father for protection, war ensued. The police knew our address by heart. I spent a lot of my childhood in my room, sent there by her for one infraction or another...or hiding out. When I did meet other children my age, in school or around the neighborhood, I was so painfully introverted and unsure of myself that I might as well have painted a target on my back and handed out stones.

When 20th Century Fox unleashed Apemania on the unsuspecting public in the early 1970s, I found myself entranced by simian glares and the call to 'Go Ape'. There were Apes books, comics, mugs, collectors cards, lunch boxes, soaps, models, toys, games, figurines....It was an unprecedented marketing blitz and sheer heaven for us kids. But what was this stuff all about? It didn't matter. Something in the struggle between tyrannical apes and human beings, and those caught in the crossfire, had sparked my imagination.

My strange hypnosis was due in no small part to the actor Roddy McDowall and the congenial chimpanzee he made famous -- Cornelius. I became a fan of Mr. McDowall at the tender age of ten, my grandmother even helping me to type my first fan letter in which I asked him to wait for me to grow up so we could get married. When the studios tried to slip another actor into Cornelius's appliance for the second film I would have none of it, and "Beneath" ('70) remains my least favorite of the sequels for that reason.

Of course, Cornelius was nothing without Zira (played by Kim Hunter, unparalleled in female chimp-dom) and vice versa; and it was their film, "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" ('71), that launched me into sci-fi fandom, never to look back.

By the time the movie sequels concluded in '73, I was well and truly hooked on the Apes -- much to my mother's annoyance. Having come of age in the era of 'The King' and bobby soxers, I'm sure she couldn't begin to grasp why her eleven-year-old daughter was riveted on a make believe world where apes ruled supreme over humans.

But therein lay the point. It wasn't real. It was a much-needed distraction from what was real, and what I couldn't escape. As far as I was concerned, Apemania had come along just when I needed it most. And as if that weren't magical enough, the popularity of the Apes films led a year later to the Planet of the Apes TV series -- starring Roddy McDowall, much to my delight, and two actors whose names would become just as familiar to me: Ron Harper and James Naughton.

It was September 1974. And in no time at all, Galen, Alan and Pete became my very first heroes.

Looking back on it now from my 30-something perspective, I can see the attraction was as natural as a bee to honey. I identified with virtually everything about the three main characters: Galen for standing up to authority and sacrificing everything to do what he believed was right; Pete because he was from northern NJ like myself, had a wicked sense of humor and was cute as all get out; and Alan for being so good and sensible, a natural born leader who would do anything to get back to the family he loved.

In the broader sense, my life was essentially the same as theirs. I knew well what living with an ever-present fear of danger meant. We were all fugitives, the shout of "Run!" signaling the start of yet another life or death struggle with the unrelenting Powers That Be.

In my youthful estimation, dodging armed gorillas on horseback would be a cake-walk next to dealing with my mother and her 'moods'. Given the choice I would have gladly traded in my jeans for a homespun skirt and the opportunity to live life on the run with my three fictional friends, even if the last thing they needed was a young girl tagging along like it was a day at the park. I could envision the trouble I'd get us into, and the stern reprimand I'd receive when we were all safe again. But it would be a kind scolding, not venomous and hateful. They'd forgive me. And I'd always be cared for, protected and made to feel secure -- things I rarely felt in my household, where it was usually every man for himself.

My mother, bless her (she died in '82 of an alcohol/drug-related mishap), realized the significance of the show to me before I did, and began using it to her advantage. Now when I stepped out of line I was banned from watching the TV -- on Friday nights at 8 o'clock. And then the true depth of her cruelty emerged; for although she was no POTA fan herself, she nevertheless watched with the volume turned up just so I, alone and crying upstairs in my room, could hear what I was missing. As a result, at least three of the episodes that aired that Fall remained a mystery to me till many years later.

True devastation came when CBS cancelled POTA in mid-season. I was inconsolable for weeks over the loss of Galen, Alan and Pete and never having the chance to learn if they would prevail. You see, short as their visit had been, what they had stood for was far more important to me than ratings. They had opened a window on my gloomy world and beckoned me through, to run with them for a while and learn that survival is sometimes measured in the steps friends help you take.

Many other experiences, events and people would shape who I've become...both real and 'the stuff of dreams'.

But there's nothing like that first, sweet, innocent love.

When Roddy McDowall died so suddenly in 1998, I was reminded of the TV show that had meant so much to me as a child, and my grief was redoubled. Though he had never replied to my ingenuous 'marriage proposal' I remained a loyal fan, and knew from what I had read of him over the years that he was a good person, someone who believed in being positive and wasn't afraid to extend a hand in friendship. Ultimately, through Mr. McDowall and his involvement with this TV series, I had learned at the right age that these are principles worth nurturing and defending.

They were gifts from my friends, the fugitives.