I am the fifth of eleven children, my father a fundamentalist preacher, my mother a casserole and cookie baker like most women of her generation. Dad was controversial in his theology (my way or the highway) so was regularly ousted by his congregations. We moved every year to a different parsonage, sometimes “like a thief in the night" as my siblings remember. My mother spun a positive spin on these quick-fire moves by saying, “At least you got to travel.”
I attended a different public school for every grade which included four different high schools, and everyone knows how easy it is to adjust to new mean girls and hormonal jocks. Just as I’d make social inroads—cultivate a new best friend, find a viola teacher, break in my new wrestling shoes—I’d come home to find my blue ribbons, Scholastic Book Club books, and trophies (both sport and academic) boxed up, a U-Haul truck parked in the driveway.
Throughout all those moves the one constant in my life was my great passion for books. They never let me down. The first thing I did in each new town was to find the local library and obtain a library card. I loved the whole experience of being in that space: the smell of books, the touch of books, the card catalog, climbing on a stool in the stacks to reach that special over-sized encyclopedia on the top shelf.
I read all of The Bobbsey Twins, the Beany Malone series, every Laura Ingalls Wilder prairie book. When I was in sixth grade I talked my mother into signing a card allowing me access to the adults only content. I convinced her that I couldn’t check out Shakespeare otherwise. So I read all of Harold Robbins questionable novels and Jackie Collins titillating trash. After I read Dr. David Reuben’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), I was watching the soap opera, The Young and the Restless, with my mother. When Mrs. Chancellor called Jill a nymphomaniac and Mother asked, “What’s a nymphomaniac?” I quickly responded, “A sexually insatiable female.” I’ve never figured out if the quizzical look on Mother’s face was because she didn’t believe I knew the answer to that question or if she didn’t believe that sort of woman actually existed.
I still have a great love for books today. I always travel with at least three in my knapsack. I read the gamut of genres from classic literature to creative non-fiction to pop culture to pulp fiction to tabloid fodder. The only thing I love more than reading a book is talking about the book I’ve just read, so be prepared. Oh, and Mother was right—I did get to travel.
