My mom made a point of reading us all books. They were four of us spread seven years apart. Everybody of my brothers and sisters has a love affair with books. The first thing I do when I go to somebody's house look at their bookshelf. Tells me everything I need to know about the person. And when I was a kid me and my brother Wood both put our little flashlight on and read under the covers into the wee hours of the night. Then we'd wake up exhausted and they tried to stop us reading after bedtime. But we were unstoppable. I read baseball books. If you're not familiar with baseball books you would be shocked at how many baseball books they're actually are. Baseball history, baseball theory, how to hit, how to throw, how to pitch. But also fictional books and stories about plucky underdog overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles and becoming baseball heroes. There was one called digger digs for victory. It was about a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who just wanted somebody to believe in him. And people were mean to him and horrible to him and treated him awfully. Until finally he found one coach who believed in him. Saw how great he could be. And of course in the climactic scene digger digs for victory and hits the grand slam that wins the game and becomes the hero.. Man I love that book. When I was 16 I was sent off to boarding school for my sins so I was the new kit. Again. And our first English class the teacher asked us to write a piece based on our favorite book. Mine of course was Clockwork Orange. That book just rock my world because the author made up a whole language that was so cool. So I wrote a paper using all this made up language from Clockwork Orange. The day we turned our papers in the teacher ask me to stay late after class. And he did it in a way that clearly indicated I was in big trouble. I was mortified. My heart was like a character out of an Edgar Allan Poe story. You made me come up to his desk and ask me why I had plagiarized my paper. How wrong it was. It's wrong to cheat. It's a terrible thing to pretend you wrote something that you didn't write. First I was confused. Then I was mad. I interrupted him and told him and no uncertain terms, in my angry voice I learned from my dad, but there's no way I had made that story up. That was based on my favorite book. And I started throwing all these words at him from Clockwork Orange. Which he had never read. He looked at the paper again. He looked at me. I shot him another sentence full of made up half Russian and half English words from the book. He burst into a big grin. He apologized. He told me what a wonderful writer I was. I was so happy I felt like crying. And God loved this teacher, he really changed my life
I LOVE every detail in this comment - stories within stories with stories! Especially the life changing teacher - I have my own short list on that front, and that deserves its own dedicated Substack post... I'll plan that for back to school timing! PS I 100000000% x infinity agree with this: " The first thing I do when I go to somebody's house look at their bookshelf. Tells me everything I need to know about the person."
I wish 9 to 16 year old me could have known she would one day work on a project with THEE Judy Blume... but that younger me never would have believed it!
My mom made a point of reading us all books. They were four of us spread seven years apart. Everybody of my brothers and sisters has a love affair with books. The first thing I do when I go to somebody's house look at their bookshelf. Tells me everything I need to know about the person. And when I was a kid me and my brother Wood both put our little flashlight on and read under the covers into the wee hours of the night. Then we'd wake up exhausted and they tried to stop us reading after bedtime. But we were unstoppable. I read baseball books. If you're not familiar with baseball books you would be shocked at how many baseball books they're actually are. Baseball history, baseball theory, how to hit, how to throw, how to pitch. But also fictional books and stories about plucky underdog overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles and becoming baseball heroes. There was one called digger digs for victory. It was about a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who just wanted somebody to believe in him. And people were mean to him and horrible to him and treated him awfully. Until finally he found one coach who believed in him. Saw how great he could be. And of course in the climactic scene digger digs for victory and hits the grand slam that wins the game and becomes the hero.. Man I love that book. When I was 16 I was sent off to boarding school for my sins so I was the new kit. Again. And our first English class the teacher asked us to write a piece based on our favorite book. Mine of course was Clockwork Orange. That book just rock my world because the author made up a whole language that was so cool. So I wrote a paper using all this made up language from Clockwork Orange. The day we turned our papers in the teacher ask me to stay late after class. And he did it in a way that clearly indicated I was in big trouble. I was mortified. My heart was like a character out of an Edgar Allan Poe story. You made me come up to his desk and ask me why I had plagiarized my paper. How wrong it was. It's wrong to cheat. It's a terrible thing to pretend you wrote something that you didn't write. First I was confused. Then I was mad. I interrupted him and told him and no uncertain terms, in my angry voice I learned from my dad, but there's no way I had made that story up. That was based on my favorite book. And I started throwing all these words at him from Clockwork Orange. Which he had never read. He looked at the paper again. He looked at me. I shot him another sentence full of made up half Russian and half English words from the book. He burst into a big grin. He apologized. He told me what a wonderful writer I was. I was so happy I felt like crying. And God loved this teacher, he really changed my life
I LOVE every detail in this comment - stories within stories with stories! Especially the life changing teacher - I have my own short list on that front, and that deserves its own dedicated Substack post... I'll plan that for back to school timing! PS I 100000000% x infinity agree with this: " The first thing I do when I go to somebody's house look at their bookshelf. Tells me everything I need to know about the person."
I love this post and loved all the same writers when I was young.
I wish 9 to 16 year old me could have known she would one day work on a project with THEE Judy Blume... but that younger me never would have believed it!
9-16 year old me would never have believed my cousin would invite me to a webcast with Judy Blume <3