The Girl Who Read

Friday August 29. 2008
West Hampton NY
Joyce & Marty's House

I remember the day I realized I could read. I was sounding out the letters of Dick and Jane and suddenly realized they made sense. It was a light that blinked brilliantly on and has continued to light up my life every day since.

What a joy to read! What discoveries to make! What mysteries to uncover! What stories to experience! What thoughts to provoke! What a great excuse to get out of doing the dishes!

I was the eldest of five growing up, and although my mother was an equal opportunity employer and gave all of us jobs to earn our daily ration, it seems to me that dish duty was mostly assigned to the girls. I do recall specifically that I rarely took out the trash, but always set the table.

But our parents put schooling before anything, so I found I could bury my head in a book, tune out the world, and never hear the call to help after dinner. The dishes would be done by the time I looked up. And from the dirty looks and exasperated headshakes I was awarded, I’m sure my sisters were on to me, if nor all four siblings.

“She’s so engrossed in that book, she can’t hear a word,” my Mother would say, passing off the drying duties to whoever was closest to a dishtowel.

Was my mother aware that his was a ploy? As I was growing up, I was sure I was fooling her. Then I decided she knew, but thought it cute of me to be so engrossed I’d rather read than work.

I even harbored the conceit, for a time, that she liked me best of all of her five children, so gave me this reading time as a gift. It didn’t occur to me until I had my own children that she actually wanted me to read and read and read. As much as I could. As often as I could. She, more than anyone, encouraged my scholarship, such as it was.

My mother graduated high school in three years and was Salutatorian of her class. My father thought she was brilliant. But she didn’t go to college because her family couldn’t afford the 5-cent subway fare to NYU, where she was promised a scholarship. This was the Depression and she had to go to work. That’s how it was.

She always talked about becoming a writer of children's books. She never did try, although we always came to her for writing help with our compositions. And we usually got A's a a result. But instead of reaching for her own dreams, she transferred them to her childen.

So if it took standing another half hour in front of a sink full of dirty dishes after she’d already put in ten solid hours, her hands red and rough from her chores, and if it took darning her husband’s socks at ten at night to save money, and if it took scrimping and saving so that every single one of her brood could go to college, then that’s what it took. She was the hardest worker I’ve ever known.

And if the first of these children wanted to bury her head in a book while all this hard work was going on, then this was a blessing and a sign that her dreams would happen. Not a lazy girl. A girl with a book. And that made all he difference in the world.

Thanks, Mom.
Betty