Words

Hey Scooter, you’ve hit the mother lode. Yers truly has a bunch of them: Die Lorelei, Trees, The Malamute Saloon, The Cremation of Sam McGee, Evolution. That batch, I recite every day during my nomatterwhat. Jeez, forgot The Road to Mandalay. Currently, am trying to re-learn Hiawatha. Back in Mt. Carmel days, I had memorized it completely but now that I’m in my dotage, I am committed to doing it again. Old Nokomis, giving it a retry.

Scooter, I don’t recall any one book. Before I started grade school at Mt. Carmel in Altoona, my Mom bought me Grimm’s Fairy Tales and I taught myself how to read them. When I started in first grade, the nun saw that I could read while the other kids were still learning the alphabet so she promptly put me in second grade. A book I remember fondly is another one Mom bought for me: “Black Beauty”. Don’t remember the author. While I was still at Mt. Carmel, Mom got me a library card at Roosevelt Jr. High here in Altoona, and I’d stop there on the way home from school and get books. Don’t remember anything special. Then when we moved to Larimer, our school, Immaculate Conception had a library consisting of donations from the parishioners. There was a trove of Horatio Alger books and I read them all. At that time I had a buddy, Tom Hensler, who owned a batch of “Bar 20” books by Clarence E Mulford. Later these were made into the Hopalong Cassidy movies. I read these books behind my big Geography book - Tom lent me every one of his books, about 6 or so. Later, in Norwin HS, I acquired more sophisticated tastes and started reading a lot of historical novels. Sabatini was a favorite author. Also read the Victor Hugo books the library carried. Somerset Maugham was another favorite. At Penn State didn’t have time to read for fun. In the Army, a buddy, Gump , introduced me to Thomas Wolfe. One, I liked a lot - think it was Look Homeward, Angel. Maybe I have the title wrong. At RCA, I had a buddy who reveled in Kurt Vonnegut books and I read everything he had. Another I remember is The Chosen by Chaim Potok, plus his follow-up book but can’t remember the title. I was lucky to have these literary buddies at RCA who actually bought books and lent them to me to while away the commute on the El when I wasn’t solving cryptograms.