I can't remember not reading...

 I do have memories from the time before my mom says I taught myself to read, and there have always been books.Our mom would read to us for hours on the rocking love seat with the Early American print fabric. I would sit with my grandma Dorothy, looking at books and magazines and catalogs. There is no "a-ha!" moment of learning to read. One day, I just could.

I had a wonderful teacher in kindergarten, Mrs. Viola Wiese. While everyone else was play/learning, Mrs. Wiese just worked around the fact I could already read. Then came 1st grade and Mrs. Ruth Schultz. When Mrs. Schultz - the woman can still bring tears to my eyes more than 50 years later - figured out I could already read, she decided it was not fair to my friends who were struggling with, "See Spot run. Run, Spot, run." She removed me from the reading circle. I sat alone in a corner and did math.It was my introduction to being different. And I still hate math.

Thankfully, it did not ruin reading for me.I loved books - traveling to other times and places, making new friends who didn't live in my tiny little town, filling the spaces in my life with adventure and mystery and history and first love. I loved the teachers who read to us after noon recess. Mrs. Shirley Peterson read us Old Yeller and all the girls cried (and I'm pretty sure some of the boys, too). She read us Johnny Tremain and that might have been the beginning of my obsession with history. I loved days when it was too cold to play outside and I could sit at my desk and read.

We lived in a big house built in 1872 with many special places to curl up and read.I would sit in the open window with a warm breeze. I would lie in the attic on the rollaway bed on hot summer afternoons. Put a blanket on the floor, prop a pillow against the cast iron radiator and wander away through the pages on a snowy day. Creep to the bathroom when i was supposed to be sleeping, taking my book with me, until Dad would holler up the stairs to "get back in bed."

I can close my eyes and I am back in the library on Saturday afternoon. It was housed in the city building, along with the fire station and every other community service. There were bookshelves along the outer walls of the big room where City Council met. The cool, smooth marble floor felt wonderful on a hot day. Mrs. Myatt would let me check in returns. I would stay for hours. I read through Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Bobbsey Twins. I can feel those pebbled covers - pink for the Bobbseys, blue for Frank and Joe, green (maybe?) for Nancy. 

I once snuck into the adult corner, with its spinning rack of popular paperbacks . I was 11 and Mrs. Myatt caught me reading Valley of the Dolls. All she said was I should talk with my mom before I tackled that one - she would probably want me to wait.

I loved the day the Scholastic flyers were handed out. I spent hours pouring over the selections, knowing I would most likely get to order only one book each time. Somehow, my folks always found the money. I still have some of mine - Dandelion by Don Freeman, What Do you Say, Dear? by Sesyle Joslin and Maurice Sendak illustrations, Depend on Katie John by Mary Calhoun, Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan. Their covers are brittle, pages yellowed, but they are my treasures.

At one point I was obsessed with Trixie Belden. She was spunky, had red hair and got into trouble - all things I was not.I have some of my copies. I hunt down vintage ones. I wish I had the whole series.

These memories are everything. I found life in those pages. A bookish life.