Indeed Scheme (and SICP) would be a good choice; at least I wish I knew that back when I started out with C -- can be done, but don't do it. Besides Scheme, Clojure (which is also a LISP) provides the added benefit of having full interoperability with the JVM; I'm currently giving it a try, and it does seem worth the time and effort, quite the humane choice I'd say for a first language. VB6 of course does not count.