 |
| Childhood photo of my father (at right, in dark shirt) with his father and brothers Harry and Sam |
The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, one of whom had escaped at breakneck speed, my dad had not been able to afford a college education. He talked about having holes in his shoes in school, with classrooms chock full of kids from wall to wall. When he won an award and was asked to accept it in front of everyone, he recalled being embarrassed by his shoes.
My dad was a wizard at math and talked about wishing he could have been a teacher. Infinitely patient, I think he would have been a grand one. Instead, he and my mother opened an appliance store and he worked there until he retired in his mid sixties.
Yet every night that I can remember, he read before going to sleep, and on Sundays read the paper. I don't think he read because he wanted to impress anyone; it was simply his hunger for good stories, well told.
Once, I remember reading a young-adult book and he asked why I wasn't reading "the classics." He spoke at length and passionately about the consequence of missing out on great writers; losing their vision and particular way of phrasing and the discovery of what made something truly classic, versus a book everyone might read and no one remember.
And when a Jane Austen story might appear on our public TV station and my mother would be bored by it, he would try hard to explain the story to her, and I could easily see how engaged he was and how much stories meant to him.
When I write now, I think of him, tracking stories and books through my childhood and remembering them. I think of how much he wanted to be part of an academic setting and wonder what books he would have selected as his favorites.
He read everything he could get his hands on, and taught me to do the same. I think of books like Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch and how that would have resonated with him. Today, I realize that much of what I write is still going out to him.
And... thanking him for teaching me to love reading. Thank you, Dad.
For more on getting kids interested in reading, I found these:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please be courteous and please do not post ads for your business on this blog.