Books were always part of my life. I was read to as a child, by my parents and then by my teachers, all the way through sixth grade. I began to read on my own—first, Little Golden books and picture books, then on to Laura Ingalls Wilder. Every month I used part of my allowance to buy Scholastic Books, the beginnings of my personal library. I started working in libraries in seventh grade, further opening an entire world—not just a small classroom library, but endless shelves. School libraries and the bookmobile (we had no branch of the public library near my home) became my candy store. Sometimes I’d take a book out to the clearing in the woods behind our house, which I thought existed exclusively to shelter me. I had my share of teen angst, which I generally escaped by reading fiction. When Simon and Garfunkel released “I Am a Rock,” I played it endlessly on my portable phonograph. “I am a rock…I have my books and my poetry to defend me,” they sang, and I agreed. I went to college as a Bible major before I added English and secondary education in my sophomore year. I wanted, someday, an office like my professors had—book-lined, books spilling off the desk, books piled in chairs, books to read, books to teach. I can’t remember what prompted my sudden insight. One day as I walked across campus the light went on and I said to myself, “Oh, people are more important than books.” Given my church background, and even my school friends, I wonder why it took me so long to figure it out. I continued to buy books after college even though, given my salary as a teacher in a Christian school, doing so was fiscally reckless. Still trying to impress myself and others, I bought books that imitated leather-bound classics as well as the Time-Life World of Culture series. But I did not forget my unexpected, perhaps inconvenient, insight. People were more important than books.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Baptist GirlI was a conservative Baptist girl who grew up to become a career Christian, working first in a Baptist school and then in a Baptist college. For about three decades, it was very good until it wasn’t, and I had to leave. But the Baptists formed me. This is my homage to the good times and good people of the world I left, finally, at forty-three, when I became an Episcopalian. These are my memories; others might disagree with my recollections. So be it. Archives
January 2024
Categories |