Yesterday’s Wordle word was “gruff” and I started thinking about the first time I remember the word “gruff.” It was being read the story “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” by my mother when I was very young.
We always had books in the house. I remember many trips to the library in Shreveport and in Austin. Books were often given as gifts in my family, and still are. There are bookshelves in every room of the house except the bathrooms. I often purge books…some go to friends…some to the Goodwill…because more books always come into the house.
And like many of you readers, I have a stack of books in progress. I usually only have one fiction going at a time, but read bits of several non-fiction books at the same time. Here is the current bedside stack:
When I got my hair cut yesterday afternoon, I expected to talk to my hairdresser about what we did for Thanksgiving, the weather, etc. We ended up talking about books. I had my eyes closed most of the time as clippers neared my face and bits of my hair floated down around my shoulders. She talked about Jane Austen’s books and her current interest in Roman history, sparked by a book a client and professor gave her.
Driving home, the radio featured an interview with a British author (I didn’t catch his name) who said that he recently read that the number of people reading for pleasure is down 40%.
I remember a drive home from the library when I was in my teens. I had a brief bout of depression as I came to the realization that I would never be able to read all the books in the world.
I do admit to lots of screen use these days, but always find time to sit and read a book, even if it is only for 20 minutes…sometimes in a chair and sometimes in the tub.
Here is a photo of one of the bibliophiles in my family:
This is my late father. Note the pen in his right hand. He was always marking books with comments in the margins and underlines and exclamation points…as if he were still a young man in college. He always had a book with him. I know he had at least one book in his pack going into combat in Korea. He took books with him on canoe trips and into hospital waiting rooms. On road trips my mother drove while he read.
There is another photo that only exists in my mind’s eye. It was taken many years before his portrait. It shows the front of a ranch style house. On one side of the house is a driveway leading to a carport. In the carport a station wagon is parked. The back of the station wagon is open. There are two human figures in this shot. One is me at 9 years old. I have straight blonde hair to my shoulders and am wearing shorts and have an arm full of books that I am putting into the back of the station wagon. The other figure is my 8 year old brother. He is shorter and rounder than me and has a short crewcut. He also has an armload of books he is placing in the back of the station wagon. We are loading my father’s books into the station wagon for him to take to his new rental house. My parents were separating after 10 years of marriage and my father was giving us the privilege of loading up his books. Many, many books will be left behind with my brother and I and my mother.
We are a book family and always will be a book family.
*Today is Mark Twain’s birthday.
*Photos by B. McCreary
Natural Musings 