I've got a special place in my heart for C. It's more challenging than the interpreted languages that we use today because it lets you shoot yourself in the foot. The trade off is that it helps you pay closer attention to what's going on in memory, and should you ever decide you want to develop device drivers, you'll be able to do so. Also, you'll be able to write C that interfaces with perl and vice versa, so you'll be able to expand your perl fu at the same time.
I'll grant that classic C programming isn't as hot an item in the world of IT as it used to be, but it's kind of like learning Latin; you'll almost never use it directly, although the benefits of learning it will manifest themselves in other ways.
If you are interested in learning C, there's two really good books that will teach you the basics. Kernighan and Ritchie's The C programming Language, and Pointers on C, by Kenneth Reek.
