I began reading when I was 3. I had it easy. My five year-old sister was learning to read and I was just there, doing nothing in particular now that I was potty-trained. So, why not annoy her incessantly by looking over her shoulder and teach myself?
I remember my first “word” book. It had free-standing photos of all kinds of household and everyday things, with the word typed neatly underneath. Fire engine gave me a bit of trouble. For about a day. My kindergarten teacher gave me a copy of the same book as a prize for some reading activity. Here’s one time that I didn’t bug someone with my reading. It was the my first lesson in etiquette. I didn’t let on at all that I now had two copies and was over the hump as far as fire engine was concerned.
The neighborhood bus dropped me at the library whenever I had the 35 cents for the fare. My card allowed me to borrow up to TWENTY books at a time - and I didn’t have to bring them back for two whole weeks, leaving plenty of time to get in a second read of my particular faves. The librarians rolled their eyes when they saw me coming, knowing they would not make their coffee break in time since I always had exactly twenty books and all those date due cards take time to punch and insert. Now the limit is at sixty at our local branch and they’re not due for three weeks. Progress is lovely. Librarians still raise their eyebrows at me but, as a good friend once quipped, our county library is “like having Christmas every day” and it’s a rare week that I don’t have dozens of new “presents to unwrap.”
I was one of those kids you ignored, who whipped through whatever worksheet was assigned in class, then pulled out a paperback and read until you all caught up. (What a dolt, right?) But probably worse - for me, not you - was what I became as a pre-teen: a truant who stayed home with a “sore throat,” in order to finish the book I’d started by the light of the night light I told my mom I still needed due to indescribable nightmares.
And now I’m still one of those horrible readers. I’m the lady who pokes on the overhead light on the commuter bus when you’re trying to sleep. And rustles pages. Again and again and faster at the action parts.
Sheesh. Will I ever learn?
-
I know I annoyed the people on either side of my during my last flight. I insisted on reading (and, thus, had to have my reading light on) during the whole flight instead of sleeping like everyone else!
by Sara
on January 17th, 2008 at 9:20 am
-
No, don’t think of it as your problem - it’s their problem ’cause they’re not doing it, too! My mother always wondered by the batteries in our flashlights were always missing. She never thought to look in my closet for ‘my’ flashlight that I used to read under my covers with.
I also think the library is the true proof of civilization. Ours lets you have 50 items, but I also have a teachers card which lets me have 60, and then a seperate library card for another nearby system, so I could concievably have 160 books out at any one time. And unless it’s a new book, or someone else has requested it, I can renew them 3 to 5 times! “It’s madness, I tell you, madness!” The carpet is furry with dog hair? I’m laying on the leather couch that I brushed any hair off, not the floor - I’ll get to sweeping when I’m done with my book!
by Kate Hathway
on January 17th, 2008 at 11:20 am
-
Can’t be as bad as when I read over a guy’s shoulder throughout the whole of a flight from France - he was reading the same book I’d read on the flight out and I had to keep myself from laughing out loud in anticipation of the funny parts he was about to read!
Kate, I sometimes even max my husband’s card too! And hairless floors? What are those?
We are soooo bad! 
-
Regina, I’m a book nerd too. 
Also learned to read at age 3, but I used a flashlight under the covers instead of a nightlight.
Reading your blog today brought back fond memories of my pre-teen years, spending time after school and during the summers reading with my other “egghead friends” & exchanging Nancy Drews, Trixie Beldens & Clara Bartons on the rooftop of an old shed in an apple orchard. We’d pelt my younger brothers & their pesky friends with apples if they ever followed us to the orchard and tried to bother us!(Only when Jimmy Smith played baseball in the field next to the orchard was I ever really distracted from my reading, in a BIG way. Man, he was cute!)
I carry a book with me just about everywhere now, especially to doctors & dental appointments, and continue to read until the moment they finally show up in the room!
Oh, I’m so impressed (& envious) that your library lets you check out 60 books at a time. Wow, that would be heaven. Here in the boonies of East Texas our closest library only allows 6 every 2 weeks, but I use DH’s card besides my own, so I can get 12 at a time, including 1 or 2 for himself, of course. The other library in the next bigger town lets us check out 10, so that’s some progress! Yep, I still feel like I’ve come home with “presents” after a trip to the library!
by Texas Lynn
on January 17th, 2008 at 11:34 am
-
Oh, I was typing away and didn’t see Kate’s post, now I’m envious of you, too Kate! 160 books, double WOW! 
by Texas Lynn
on January 17th, 2008 at 11:38 am
-
Hey Texas Lynn - we all need an orchard to escape to - too much of my reading is at bedtime.
I can’t wait until (dreaming here, *sigh*) I can have a schedule like Stephen King’s - four hours of writing, four hours of reading…
Oh, and be as prolific as he is…and, uh, make as much money…and…
-
I must’ve been a slow starter - didn’t learn to read until I was four and a bit - and then read upside down (from reading the funny papers across a table from my father) - which really made my first grade teacher nuts. Paperbacks in my possession reproduce until my wife screams “ENOUGH!” and tells me that some have to go, or I can start reading in the shed in the back yard.
Being able to read upside down is occasionally useful - I tell people that I like that I can and that it is their job to keep the desk clear of what they don’t want read since I can’t help myself - I read everything I can see. But this only holds true with English; German is very hard to read upside down and Russian is impossible - I guess I learned cyrillics too late in life.
But books are always good to have around, and there are plenty that have been read many times, just to get a little extra flavor out of some of the scenes, or to relive a particularly delicious bit of prose.
As to hairy floors - is there any other kind?
by Bob
on January 17th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
-
Here’s to hairy floors and reading everywhere and everything!
-
I’m totally bummed now. We only get to take out 25 items at a time, including the DVDs the kids like to watch. So I never have more than - say - 20 books at one time. Admittedly, I could get both kids their own cards, and DH could get a card, and then I could have 100 items at a time… They lose’em, though, and leave’em at home, and we end up putting everything on my card anyway. But I live a block from the library - I can walk there! - so I get to change things out frequently.
by JennieB
on January 17th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
-
I love having a few books on the go at the same time. When I’m driving in traffic I’ve been known to pull out a book and not look up until someone honks for me to go
-
JennieB! A block from the library! Now that’s my idea of heaven!
And Wendy, while I think waiting for the honk gets you inducted into the Annoying Readers Club, I would have to forgive you for that, having done the same myself!
-
The problem I have with libraries is that I forget to return the books. And for some reason people frown on that.
-
Regina, is it possible we are somehow long lost twins? This post made me laugh because I absolutely used to do those same things — ok fine, I still do. I’m not sure what my current checkout number is at the library, but it was up in the high double didgits at one point over the summer (not sure that we have a limit, although you can only have I think 15 at a time on your request list) and I’ve come to think of the library as my Cheers — the librarians don’t even have to ask anymore, they just head over to the holds shelf … Plus, we don’t have late fees so long as you turn it in. Yup, I’ve got the perfect library. I’m I the only one that tested Jo’s perfect day doing nothing but reading (in Little Women) without suffering an outrageous headache? Clearly I’m made of sterner stuff. Anywho, I must say it’s nice to see there are other “book nerds” in the world …
by Katherine C.
on January 17th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
-
Oh, and TexasLynn, I KNEW I wasn’t the only one who carries a book with them at all times (hey, you never know when you might be able to squeeze in a few minutes). Now I’ll have proof the next time my friends tease me about it.
by Katherine C.
on January 17th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
-
God bless librarians and libraries! And I can’t believe there is a library with no overdue charges! Where do you live, Katherine C? I want to live a block from *that* library for sure! Really, I don’t mind paying the fees - it’s my “monthly donation” to support our county branch!
-
that would be the Columbia Regional Library in Columbia, MO
by Katherine C.
on January 18th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
-
And by Columbia Regional Library I mean the Daniel Boone Regional Library
by Katherine C.
on January 18th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
-
Katherine C. - I’ve been to Columbia, MO! We are new to the St. Louis area so I think every thing is just a few hours away. So we should do coffee someday and talk!
But to go back to the subject, my library here my little town only allows 6 for two weeks but you can renew three times. Even with that I pay my share of fines even though the library is in walking distance.
I remember as a little girl going to the big city library when I still had a card there after we moved to the boonies. It was such a treat to sit in the library for hours reading.
Then when I was in Jr High I spent my lunch hours helping the librarian unpack the new books and get them ready to check out so I could be the first to have them.
And when I started going out to bars by myself after the divorce, I always brought a book.
Total nerd. 
by Lynn
on January 19th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Loading ...