The girl who loved to read

It’s a small town not unlike small towns across the country. Population 900, three churches, one Lutheran, one Catholic and one Baptist. The primary school is an elongated rectangular building with classrooms on each side of a long corridor. In first grade there are a total of 30 children. In the second grade a total of 25. And as you go up the grades, the numbers never change. The commercial district of the city is mainly one long street with a pharmacy, shoe repair, meat market, bank, general store and several “pool” rooms where the residents of the city smoke cigarettes, cigars, beer but mostly play games. to dominoes and billiards. . Without traffic lights, a policeman, a deputy. There are two dance halls, a VFW room, an American Legion room, and in both you can listen to country western music and “Ompah” late into the night.

There is no movie theater (there was one where the girl and her older sister went to see “Tom Dooley” and “The Mummy” and other great monster movies but it closed and the girl and her sister never found out why). No bowling alley, no pizzeria, no Chinese restaurant. Just a great diner and a “joint” that made the best, the best chili where the fat floated to the top and you dipped your homemade bread in it and it was pure heaven. Then, if there was any chili left over, it would turn into the best, the best enchiladas I have ever tasted. In this city stood the greatest of houses. The girl did not live in this house but her grandmother did. And her grandmother lived right next door to her parents’ house. Her grandmother was all soft and full of stories and tall tales. Her grandmother was the best cook of all time. Fried chicken fillet with milk sauce, roast beef with mashed potatoes, fried chicken, peach cobbler, apple cobbler, blackberry cobbler, banana pudding, rice pudding (and that was the girl’s favorite, with red-hot peppers!) The house where his grandmother lived There was a three-story house with a two-story terrace that seemed to wrap its arms three-quarters around the house. The main floor had her basic kitchen, living room, bedroom, hall, bathrooms. It was the second floor that brought magic to the girl. Her grandmother hadn’t changed the decor since before her children grew up and moved out. It was a second story stuck in the ’30s and ’40s. The girl’s grandmother never threw anything away, so she had dresses and hats and shoes and socks and ties and handkerchiefs and suits. But best of all were the Life magazines from the war years. Smoke a Lucky Strike and you’ll have glamour. Ration to save so our troops have the ammunition, the tires, the planes they need to take down the Japs and the Krauts. Another world for the girl. Up here, her grandmother also had her little library. The girl’s grandmother had not finished 3rd grade, but she had taught herself to read. So, during those simmering hot summer days when she could easily reach 100 degrees, the girl would go up to her grandmother’s second floor and she would disappear.

Disappear in those magazines and those few books. What else was there to do? Riding a bike through a city you’ve cycled a million times? Go play on the hay bales you’ve played on a million times? No. For the girl she wanted a book that would allow her to live a life that she could not otherwise live. Or, at least at the time, that’s what she thought. Her grandmother had a strange collection of books, books by Zane Grey, Frank Yerby, and Reader’s Digest Condensed. And Gone with the Wind. The girl would go up to the magical second floor and stay from morning until sunset. She lying on her back in a big old bed covered in yellowish lace with a fan blowing and sometimes she watches the dust float in the air as it passes through the sunlight coming through the open window . This was her world and she loved it. Her world changed from the dry, barren plains of the west, where the men were tough and the women could shoot and ride as well as any man. And she dreamed of Rhett Butler. She then went to the Caribbean where the strong and handsome stranger saves the life of a beautiful damsel in distress and as time passes they finally fall in love and make wild and passionate love. Now this was the part that the girl liked the most. And the girl she read those parts of the books over and over again.

One day, the girl’s mother came in unannounced and saw what the girl was reading and was furious. She blamed the girl’s grandmother for letting her read those books. But, you see, the girl had lied to her grandmother and told her that she would not read them. So, now she was in double trouble and the girl was no longer allowed to read to her grandmother. With a lie, her special world collapsed. But her love for reading never disappeared. As soon as she could, she went to a big university in a big city and started living a life she never thought she could. The girl is now a woman and she has surrounded herself with books. Her husband says that a bookstore for her is like honey for a bee. The girl now owns the first editions of Frank Yerby’s books and has a complete collection of those Zane Gray novels. And she steps into her own magical world created by her love of reading…