A Grand Circle Story
I grew up in a home where reading was more than a pastime; it was a way of life. My parents were readers; my father read novels and after retiring read one a day. Nightly my brother read himself to sleep, and early on I became a reader as well. It was expected, and in the days before television reading was often the only thing to do at night except for Saturdays. I date myself when I tell you we would gather around a black plastic Philco radio in my bedroom and listen to Tarzan, the Adventures of the Inner Sanctum, and Roy Rogers.
We had the classics and the junior classics. My brother and I read the Hardy Boys, Buck Rogers, Mike Hammer, the Brothers Grimm and Dickens. We read the local and the city newspapers. My mother subscribed to a growing selection of women’s magazines, and I would run home from school on the days when I thought my copy of Boy’s Life or Field and Stream might arrive. I do not remember my parents or grand-parents reading to me though I imagine that is how it began.
Our parents expected us not only to gain a successful public school education, but to achieve a classical education at home. Education was “the way out” of the central Pennsylvania coal-mining town. A high school education kept my father and his brother out of the mines. A college education would get us out of the town, and so, we read, questioned and discussed what we read.
As a child my older son, emulated his uncle by reading in bed. Maybe it was due to his mother shushing him with, “Be quiet now, your brother is sleeping.” He read at school and whenever he had time to himself. He began with Seuss, Clearly, and Bernstein. He read the dead dog series including Where the Red Fern Grows, Stone Fox, and Old Yeller. Eventually he moved on to Tolkien, Stevenson and Lewis. He fit the family mold, and occasionally took part in book discussions. Along with many of our friends my wife and I were teachers; book talk was an occupational pastime.
My younger son was a reader of different ilk. He went through school without ever reading a novel. He read his schoolbooks, magazines, and the sports page, particularly the box scores. His chosen genres extended not far beyond “Sports Illustrated.” Like the older generations of men in his family he disdained reading directions, but his true divergence was that at all cost he avoided reading a novel. To prepare for school assignments he would read the Cliff Notes and rent a video rather than read the book.
During a book-filled evening when our friends were gathered, he chimed in with, “What scenes are you talking about? There aren’t any pictures in your books.” He was about eight, and I realized he did not visualize what he was reading. I was stunned. For all my experience as a teacher I was at a loss about how to help him see “the pictures.” How do you get someone to see what isn’t there? A decade passed before the answer presented itself.
My son went off to college. After a year, for reasons apart from this tale he left school, planning to work and return later. Later became much later after he injured himself and hobbled on crutches for months.
Financially cut off from a scholarship and his parents, he was living in a dreary one-room apartment. I did not know how dingy it was until I saw it months later. I wrote in a letter, “When you first described your apartment as small with two windows and no light, I could not picture it.” During a phone call he said he just bought a black and white TV that when attached to an extension cord, “I can take it anywhere in my apartment, not that I can’t see if from anywhere in my apartment.” I began to have a sense for its dimensions. Not until I visited him, did I understand how dismal his space was.
His U district apartment was on the second story interior of a four-story building. The two windows opened onto a central shaft. There was a single bulb hanging from a cord in the center, a small table on which sat the TV, two chairs, and a double bed mattress on the floor in a corner. The need for crutches limited his movement. He was even less able to negotiate the stairs to go outside. He was living in a cave. That became the source of inspiration for how books could reveal their pictures to him.
The previous year I read Trevanian’s book Shibumi, an international intrigue novel. Its protagonist, a spelunker in his off duty days, had a sixth sense that allowed him to feel the presence of the world around him in the dark. When I returned home I mailed the book to my son. It was the right book at the right time. He read it and read others. He had seen the pictures.
His gloomy, postage stamp apartment equipped with the finest black and white TV that fifteen dollars could buy set the scene for him to read. In his black and white world he created the color images. It was the gift of a dark room. When healed he moved into an apartment with light, but continued read.
Until four years ago I thought little about that event. It arose in my consciousness when in the space of ten days the right books came at the right time. The first, William Bridges’ Transitions, I found while rearranging my small library and has a 1980 copyright. I mention the date because my wife bought it before I knew her. At a time when I was trying to make sense of life after her passing and that of my parents, she was still helping me. For all the times I had rearranged books in the house I had never seen that book.
Then a man I had known for only three days at a retreat sent me C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed. It presented a chronicled view of experiences I was having. Within a week an acquaintance handed me Jerry Sittser’s A Grace Disguised, and a friend left a wonderful book, Stories for a Man’s Heart, where I would find it. Those people and books helped me through a period of challenge in my life. Transitions gave me a framework to begin to understand my own changing life. Jerry Sittser’s story of loss provided a mirror and a reason for hope. When I was totally down I gained solace from reading Stories for a Man’s Heart. Sometimes it just helped me laugh.
The role of reading and books in my life had made the grand circle. It took a decade for me to find the opportunity to reveal the images in novels to my son. Years later, in the span of a few days caring people helped me gain new images to redefine my future. The experience reminded me of how often others had thoughtfully chosen books for me. An Irish cuisine cookbook from my brother, a Times crossword book sent by a cousin, and a collection of essays from a daughter-in-law all arrived at opportune moments. I am grateful for the gifts of the spirit accompanying each, and hopefully I will take the opportunity to complete the circle again.
Since that time I continue to receive thoughtful gifts of books from family and friends. More importantly may be the increased consciousness I have about how the gift of a book might impact others. This grand circle has become a series of loops I plan to continue.
Wondering about what to get someone for Christmas? Consider a book. It may contain gifts within it that you would never imagine.
No comments:
Post a Comment