Learning to read - reminiscence

Nothing much happens on weekends. Oh, yeah, on CNN yesterday they spent a lot of time on a tree that fell on a trailer in a trailer park. I will use this down time to reminisce.


My only remaining lifetime friend recently returned a book he borrowed, Rex, a Dog Story for Boys, by Fullerton Waldo, published in 1932. What makes this somewhat unusual and of interest is that I loaned him the book in 1940! Getting it back after only 66 years I guess is better than not getting it back at all. Of course I have long since outgrown such a book. But it has made me think about reading and about how I learned to read. Actually I don’t really remember how I learned to read. Although my parents loved me I do not remember either of them reading to me. But somehow I learned. I guess in school. I vaguely remember a teacher holding up flash cards with the vowels and consonants on them. In any case, I was an early reader and an avid and dedicated one at that. I read voraciously, just about anything I could find: Rex, Silver Chief, Carcajou, Black Beauty, Wind in the Willows, comic books, westerns, detective stories, the works. I remember when I was in the third grade there was a whole series of childrens’ books about various Indians. I read them all so quickly my teacher refused to believe it. I read at school, at home, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I even read after going to bed, using a flashlight under the covers so my parents would not know and insist I stop and sleep.
I was during all of this time a very indiscriminate reader. I read for the stories and, I guess, for escape. Questions of style, genre, or even verisimilitude never entered my mind. I simply vacuumed up prose wherever found. The only thing I didn’t read was poetry. I don’t know why but poetry never appealed to me – still doesn’t, really. My mother encouraged my reading and often bought me books. Books were cheap in those days. There was a series called Big Little Books. They were called that because they were only about 2 ½ inches tall and about 2 ½ inches thick. I believe they cost a nickel. I had many of them (I wish I still did as they are now collector’s items).
It was because of Big Little Books that I finally learned to READ, instead of merely read. It was like an epiphany, but a somewhat embarrassing one. When I was eleven my mother took me to Los Angeles to visit my eccentric Uncle Otto (a candidate for a much longer essay someday). Uncle Otto had attended Stanford University and taken a degree in Engineering. I guess he was a fine engineer but I don’t believe he was much of a reader. Nonetheless, one afternoon he picked up the Big Little Book I was reading, a western, and began to read it out loud. It went something as follows:
Bang! The slender young cowboy jumped to his feet.
Crash! He buckled on his six guns.
Boom! He mounted his trusty horse.
Hiya! He rode off like the wind into the night.

Need I say more? I suddenly realized for the first time there was writing and then there was WRITING. I became from that moment on a much more aware and discriminating reader. In a short time I gave up comic books and then, finally, Big Little Books. I was an entirely new person.
My mother must have perceived the change in my reading habits. The next time I was sick with some childhood malady, staying home with nothing to do, she brought me a chocolate milkshake (my mother had unbelievable faith in the curative powers of chocolate milk shakes), and the Studs Lonigan Trilogy! I think I was thirteen at the time.
Bang! I was off on a new life.

Of course I sometimes backslid a bit. During WWII we had paper drives (most of you won’t remember this). We kids went around town picking up old magazines, newspapers, and such, that we then brought to some designated old garages or houses to be eventually picked up for the war effort. As they weren’t picked up very often (if, in fact, at all) we indulged ourselves in various ways. We built forts out of magazines and threw them back and forth in mock battles. But we also read them. What an education that was! There were “spicy” magazines: Spicy Detective, Spicy Western, Spicy Science Fiction, and I guess Spicy Romance as well. The effect these tomes had on us makes Playboy pale into insignificance. These particular magazines have long since disappeared. Small loss. I’m certain there are others taking their place. Happily, they are no longer on my reading list.
Reading! What a wonderful thing.