THE JOY OF READING

A long, long time ago--62 years to be exact--Mama Bore instilled upon me the importance of reading. Now, I don't pretend to know the name of the book she's sharing in the above picture, but I suspect it was THE NEW BABY, a precious Little Golden Book we had that I think was intended to teach older siblings to adore the newcomer to the family. Beans and Big Sis were more inclined to torch my hair and slam my fingers in doors, but at least Mom tried and one of us kids DID end up loving to read.

Louise Rankin, my first grade teacher, taught me to read via the Up, Up and Away series, starring those three madcap siblings Dick, Jane, Sally and their pets, Spot and Puff. "Look, Dick, look! See Spot run!" And that damned Spot would be chasing poor Puff up a tree. Later came Cowboy Sam and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. In third grade we graduated to autobiographies, with the Little House on the Prairie Series. Then along came Honey Bunch and Nancy Drew and Henry Reed. They became close, personal friends of mine--all of them.

I looked forward to Fridays not because it was the last day of the school week but because it was Weekly Reader day! Hooray! It was a newspaper for kids, with human interest stories, current events, a few pictures, and some word games. On the back page was a reading comprehension test, and God forbid if I ruined my whole week and missed a question.

My funniest reading episode took place when I was in high school and accepted a dare to purchase the XXX-rated, scandalous novel CANDY during a shopping trip to Independence. It was supposedly so tantalizing and "adult" and smutty that I had to pretend I was 18 and ask for it at a drug store counter since it was stashed away and not on display. Well, it was absolute trash--but I milked the most out of my wild ways and passed it around to classmates, mainly because Mama Bore would have popped a vein if she'd found it in my possession. It was so gross that the pages practically dripped. Let someone else's parents flip out.

To be continued.......