HomeI should like to giggle a bit about this entry of mine, started earlier this month. After an upgrade to the blogging software, this entry was redated for August of 1969. (Interestingly enough, many others encountered this problem as well.) It would be interesting to note that at the time of this writing I am in my early thirties, making it impossible for me to write this because I did not know any Proefrocks while my mother was in high school and my father shipped by the Navy somewhere. While my parents knew of each other, they were not dating yet to my knowledge. A few more years would pass before their marriage and I arrived exactly a year and two months after that date. That being said, let’s move along to the intended topic.
I do not have the vocabulary of an English scholar, however, I find that it may be slightly larger than many. As I have listened to the audio books of The Dark is Rising sequence, I understand from whence my impetus occurred. I must have curled up with the books and the dictionary when first I read, though only if I borrowed them from the library during my primary years.
I remember retreating to my room to devour Boxcar Children while in first or second grade. I can close my eyes and picture the children’s section and picture the Science fiction and fantasy area. I know I borrowed my limit of 10 every week and chose only one new-to-me author at a time. Once I returned to the library after discovering a new author, I would inhale every word he or she wrote if I was able to find it. I remember Madeline L’Engle and tesseracts, though beyond her, I remember little of the authors I read, Encyclopedia Brown and my mother teaching me Jimminy Cricket’s song to spell e-n-c-y-c-l-o-p-e-d-i-a, but that part is the only thing I remember from her singing it to me. The author’s name never settled in my mind, Donald J. Sobol, though as an adult, I purchased one of the “two minute mystery” books that my fifth and sixth grade teachers would read to us.
The memories that escape me are from kindergarten. I attended a private religious school, too small to have a library at the time. Our grade levels were combined, k-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-7 though beyond that I would have to dig for my yearbook. I remember recess, nap time, art, gym, the book mobile and phonics. I’m sure the memory is not completely accurate, but I envision the bookmobile not stopping in the school parking lot. Rather, it stopped at a near by corner store and we walked to it. Surely it came to us in our parking lot and I have combined an incorrect location with a fun memory. When I use the word phonics to define that particular memory, what I remember is saying the names and sounds of the letters of the alphabet by looking at the posters on the wall-I swear it didn’t make any sense to me why we were doing that. I understand now that the teachers were trying to teach me how to read with phonics, but someone somewhere didn’t explain that part to me, so I just memorized the words (made them all sight words)and set about guessing what words the letters were supposed to make. My confusion may have resulted from words like the, why, when, that, there and the like-all the words that cannot be sounded out with phonics decoding skills. I think I figured out how to apply phonics when I was in middle school or high school. I remember all the way along being amazed at other students who would read new words flawlessly, while I scrambled for a dictionary to try to figure it out or stare in wonder when I heard a word pronounced for the first time after seeing it in print but not understanding the sounds.
Should anyone remember a bookmobile from Fulton County in the early 1980′s, do drop me a line. I should like to know more about it, since my five year old self has long since left me.
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