The Readers
One of my earliest memories is of my father sitting in his old rocker reading the newspaper. The newsboy delivered the paper daily, and we had to place it unopened on the little table by his chair. He preferred to unwrap it himself.
He read it slowly, digesting the contents. My first introduction to politics was his grumble, “Eisenhower does nothing but play golf!” As he read through the obituaries, he might recognize a name he knew. To my mother he would say, “Polly, order some flowers for so-and-so.”
He generally only scanned the sports section unless there was horseracing news. Dad knew I was horse crazy and always made a point of pointing out a horse photo or article.
The “National Geographic” arrived once a month, and that, too, was Dad’s territory. If he found an interesting article, he would show my brother and me the photos. I got introduced to other countries’ costumes and dances and discovered maps inserted between the pages. Dad unfolded them, looked them over, and then taught me how to read them.
My dad was a train conductor. He brought home magazines that his crew left laying around the caboose. What grown men might read versus what children were allowed to see were two different things. My mother vetted each delivery before it was added to the magazine rack. She also purchased the “Saturday Evening Post” and “Family Circle” at the store.
The living room shelves housed her books of fiction. She treasured a volume of Rudyard Kipling’s “Selected Works,” but Dad kept only the copy of “White Fang” by Jack London that his parents had given him on his 12th birthday.
Eventually, I graduated from little Golden Books and began reading children’s fiction. Anything about horses would do. Lincoln’s was an upscale Eureka store that carried expensive dishes and kitchen items, but Mom and I went there to tromp upstairs to the mezzanine and look at their bookstore.
My mother also took me along to the old Carnegie Library at 7th and F streets when she wanted new fiction to read. The library had a room devoted to children’s books, a non-fiction room organized by Dewey decimal numbers and a whole back area filled with fiction. I was allowed to stay in the kids’ room under the watchful eye of a librarian, and even got my own library card.
When I graduated from elementary school, my parents gave me a hardbound Webster’s dictionary. I outgrew the kids’ room and migrated to the “Dewey” room. My horizons expanded.
Once I got busy with schoolwork, I had little time to read for fun. The exception, of course, was anything horse-related. My children’s fiction got donated to the library, much to the delight of the librarian.
Looking back at this time, only now do I realize that my parents had a plan. They were determined to make sure their children ended up literate with an expanded view of the world.
Mary McCutcheon is still reading in Eureka, all these years later.
