“Books fall open, you fall in”
Today is a perfect day. It is warm at 72˚and will get warmer. The sun will shine all day. The breeze is strong. I can hear the leaves blowing back and forth. The dogs are in and out the dog door, but it is just about time for their morning naps.
My dance card is empty, and I am glad for the day of rest as I have been out every day this week. I even went to the dump on what was the busiest dump day I have ever seen. That was yesterday. There were lines of cars waiting to get into other lines of cars. I had a trunkful, and a very kind man hauled my bags out of the trunk to the dumpster.
When I was a kid, I was busy all summer. Most weekdays I went to the playground on the field at the foot of my street. I played softball against other playgrounds, played checkers and horseshoes, learned to play tennis and did all sorts of crafts. I used to buy gimp. I made bracelets, lanyards, key chains and even anklets. I first learned the box stitch then the rest. I remember I made a bracelet with the flat stitch. Many years later, my mother put a lanyard kit in my stocking. It had two colors of gimp. My fingers remembered it all. They made short shrift of that kit.
I have always had books. My mother told me she used to sit with me on her lap while she pointed to the animals on the backs of the Golden Books. I knew all of them. She said my favorite book back then was Chicken Little. I loved the rhyming names of the animals like Turkey Lurkey and Foxy Loxy. It was also my first science fiction novel of sorts. My first chapter books were the Bobbsey Twins. I read the classics, the girl detectives, the Hardy Boys, travel books, the backs of cereal boxes and the bulletin when I was at mass. When I was older, I traveled with books. They were a currency which could be traded. I brought The Autobiography of Malcolm X with me to PC training in Ghana and finished the book quickly so I traded it in what became known as the first of the great trades.
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June 23, 2022 at 12:16 pm
Trading can be great fun. I’m a good little library donor and leave things I enjoyed, often with a short review on a sticky note inside the front cover.
June 23, 2022 at 3:40 pm
Rowen,
The sticky note is a great idea. I’ll put the idea on my little library’s window. I think I’ll use a sticky!!
People do leave books. One of my patrons is a big Norah Roberts fan.
June 23, 2022 at 2:55 pm
Hi Kat,
I won’t bore you with the same old weather, just incrementally hotter. Over the weekend we should have a high of 104°, or 40°C. It just sounds less miserable in Celsius. 🙂
My summers as a kid included a couple of weeks at day camp. We did a lot of the same activities that you participated doing at the playground. I remember making the lanyards from gimp to which I attached my skate key. Like you, I was a real bookworm. I graduated from kids books in about the fourth grade. I remember having the flu and reading Leon Uris’ book, “Exodus”. The movie with didn’t do justice to the book. During one summer I read some of his other books, such as “Mila 18” and “Battle Cry”. I even tackled, William Shire’s, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”.
I rarely went to the library, instead I bought paperback editions because I wanted to have a copy of the book on my bookshelf. I don’t think I ever reread them, but I’m a pack rat. I just enjoyed owing them.
Once I checked a book out of the Queensboro library and I liked it so much I forgot to return it. After a couple of months, I sneaked the book back into the shelf. Then, I claimed to the librarian that I had returned it and that they had made a mistake. In those pre-computer days, I could pull off this ruse. 🙂
June 23, 2022 at 3:53 pm
Hi Bob,
My weather is just perfect. The house is cool while the air is warm at 75˚, the high for the day. We have been lucky with pretty days.
I was both a camper and a junior counselor at our scout day camp.My mother was also a counselor one year. It was surrounded by the tallest pine trees and the woods had all sorts of trails. I enjoyed the day camp.
I remember reading all the classics like Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Little Women and so many more. Robinson Crusoe was one of my favorites. I also used to read all the books by an author I liked. I remember finding Irving Stone’s books and reading every one of them.
I went to the library all the time. I would never have had enough money for all the books I was reading. Fifty cents a week didn’t go far though the Whitman books like the Trixie Belden’s were only 49¢.
I usually returned the books before they were due as I always wanted more.