TheBanyanTree: Reading

[Jodene]

Simply wonderful!

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 22, 2011, at 9:34 PM, "Dale M. Parish" <parishdm at att.net> 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
> --
> Dale M. Parish
> 628 Parish RD
> Orange TX 77632
>
>
>