I actually started with Basic, then went to Perl, then Python (which I didn't grok all that much at the time), and finally Forth, which is probably lower level than C in some respects but was somehow easier for me to stick with. I tried picking up C and couldn't get past Hello World. With Forth (specifically the RetroForth project -- which was a bit less smooth at the time) I built my own linked lists, dictionaries, string splitters, and stuff like that, using concatenation that maps more or less directly to machine code. Now when I look back at these other languages I see real stuff going on instead of magic. Maybe this is the equivalent of practicing fencing with a weighted sword.