On Reading

      One of my first childhood memories is of crying because I could not read. I was 4 years old. I desperately wanted to read. My mother scooped me up in her arms and told me, "as soon as I was old enough to go to school, I would learn to read."  She read the book to me, and I stopped crying. I was not satisfied. I wanted to read and I wanted to read by myself. I have never lost that feeling.

     During the past few weeks, I have received several emails, asking who are my favorite authors and to list my favorite book of all time.  I have really thought about those questions. Picking my favorite book, would be like asking me to pick my favorite child---impossible. I love all three of my daughters. I can honestly say,that I do not love every book that I have read. There are books, however, that made great impressions on my life. Most of them started at an early age. I think they helped shape my personality---or they brought to the surface what was already planted inside.

     I was surprised when I started listing the books that made such an impression on me. Most won't be considered "Great Literature", although a few are all time classics. They are books that shaped my childhood. Books that let my imagination roam and soar. One of the best gifts God gave me was my imagination. I will be eternally grateful. He also blessed me with a sense of humor. It would be awful,to not be able to laugh at yourself or to laugh with others. This is a pretty crazy world--humor helps.

    I was about nine years old when I was allowed to go to the library by myself. Carol Porter, our local librarian , introduced me to the "Nancy Drew Mystery Series". I suddenly had a hero. Nancy Drew was a nosey, imaginative teenager, who was forever getting in trouble and solving mysteries and crimes. I wanted to be just like her! That was the summer I started looking for criminals in our sleepy, southern town. Everyone was a suspect to me. People I had known all my life, suddenly looked suspicious.

   Since I lived next door to the post office and across the street from the jail----I was in a perfect place to spy.  I stole all the" Wanted " posters from the post office. After all, a budding detective needs to know who she is looking for, in case she ever sees a real live criminal.

   Saturday night, was my favorite night of the week. That was the night the town drunks got arrested!!! I kept notes on all of them. Checked my posters--just in case one had slipped through the police lines. My life wasn't exactly a Nancy Drew book, but when you are nine, you take what you  can get. All I had to do was let my imagination run wild and wait for Monday morning when the library opened and I got a new mystery to read.

     A couple of years later, I read "Little Women". Jo was my favorite character in the book. I decided not only did I want to be a detective but I also wanted to be a writer. In fact, I wanted a cold room upstairs and gloves with the fingers cut out so I could write away--just like Jo. Never mind that I lived in  a small shotgun house and it was 97 degrees outside.

    About this time I discovered "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee.  I loved this book--still do. I wanted Atticus for a father and Jem and Scout for siblings. I was pretty sure we had a "Radley" like family living on Beeler Hill.

The family lived in a run down three story "southern mansion". The family consisted of two old maid sisters and their very sick brother. I really can't remember ever seeing these people. But I listened as their brother died a horrible death. Cancer I suppose. I would sit on my grandmothers porch and listen to him yell, scream and cry. I wondered what in the world was going on in that house. I longed to see in that house, but I have to admit, I was scared too. I would slip up to the house and as soon as he yelled ----I was headed home--fast.

    Somewhere in the mix, I met tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. My kind of guys!!

     I cried with "Jane Eyre'. Charlotte Bronte gave me my first glimpse that love could very easily have a dark side that I had never thought about.
  
     Enter "Gone With the Wind". Mama and I went to see the movie. I cried so hard she had to take me out for a few minutes. Absolutely loved it....still do. It would be years before I read the book, but when I did it was magical. I have always loved the South. The traditions, the stories, the language. I could do without the humidity though.....July in Kentucky can be miserable.

     I was in my early teens when I fell in love with Leon Uris' writing. After I read "Exodus", I immediately wanted to become Jewish and move to Israel, so I could live and work in a kibbutz.

     My mother would not agree to any of my new wishes. According, to her--she had put up with my imagination about as much as she intended to do. We were not moving to Israel!!!  It did not make any difference to Mama that Jesus had also lived there---we were not going.  Another dream down the drain. However, it is on my Bucket List.

    I read "In Cold Blood" in high school. That book haunted my psyche for several months. After reading it, I didn't read any books for over a month. I kept rehashing the book in my mind. I remember thinking "what makes people act like this?" This book started me on  my journey of trying to understand mental illness.

    I read everything I could concerning mental health. It eventually became my career of choice. I can truthfully say the only job I ever had, that I really enjoyed, was at a forensic hospital for the criminally insane. I retired from Fulton State Hospital, after 20 years service. I have seen and heard a little bit of everything imaginable...and some things that cannot be explained. I hope Nancy Drew would be proud of me.