TheBanyanTree: Reading

[Sachet]

This is indeed a wonderful compliment. A magical memory to add to the 
collection of them that have resulted from your reading to the boys. 
What a rich heritage you provided for your sons, Dale.

On 10/23/2011 12:34 AM, Dale M. Parish wrote:
> I got paid a pretty good compliment today by my youngest.  He called to say that he was coming back to Orange County from Houston, and wanted to meet me so I could calligraph an inscription in a book for him.  When he was still living in Beaumont, we used to meet at the barber shop every four weeks and take turns buying the haircuts.  I agreed to meet him at the barbershop, and then we came back here to inscribe the book.
>
> He had a leather-bound copy of _The Hobbit_, which he said had become his habit to give to the first born child of each of his friends.  He said, "Daddy, I still remember all the nights you read to us.  I want to my friends to do that for their kids..."
>
> The rule used to be, when they were still in single digit ages, that if they were *both* ready for bead at 20:30, in their beds--that I'd read to them for 30 minutes.  If either or both of them were not ready for bed-- bath, clothes in the clothes hamper, teeth brushed, room  picked up-- then they forfeited the reading for the night.  They didn't often forfeit.
>
> Over the years, we read most of the classics-- Alice In Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, The Hobbit, Where The Sidewalk Ends, The Light In The Attic, Best Loved Poems of the American People, etc.  I asked him if he remembered squealing on Joe, his older brother.  He'd forgotten about that.  I know Joe remembers-- I've teased him about it.
>
> When I'd finish one night's reading, I'd memorize the page number-- Zeigarnik effect-- and pick up the next night.  One night, during Through The Looking Glass, I opened the book to the page on which I'd ended the night before and started reading, but Luke interrupted me with, "We've already read that part, Daddy."  I knew we hadn't and kept reading, but noticed his older brother Joe staring to squirm.  I kept reading, but Luke kept insisting that we'd alreday read that part, and the more he insisted, the more Joe squirmed. When I insisted that I had not read that part, then Luke exclaimed, "Oh!  That's the part that Joe read with the flashlight last night after you went downstairs!"
>
> The cat was out of the bag.  I couldn't very well chastise Joe for reading to his little brother, and as many times as I'd read under the covers as a child, I had to hold my snickers till I was downstairs again and could share the story with my wife.
>
> But today I felt paid off.  Sometimes you wonder about a lot of the things you did both for and to your kids.  It works out in the end.
>
> Hugs,
> Dale
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> Dale M. Parish
> 628 Parish RD
> Orange TX 77632
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