Thanks for the warm welcome everyone (except Geoff, who I can forgive because I am a stick in the flood of forty daze, too -- his welcome had to be a bit damp, by necessity).

The trophy above is for my parents, who got me interested in reading. Mama read us A.A. Milne and wonderful European fairy tales. I also remember something called **Beyond the River to Danger** about early European settlers in America (very dated now, I am sure), Bambi, and one I loved about children in South America who made lace. I loved listening to the children's program on the radio called "Let's Pretend," too. At one time, recordings of these programs could be purchased from Publisher's Central Bureau. I wish I had bought some.

But the real trophy goes to Daddy, who read us Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and A Christmas Carol. And I couldn't get enough of Kipling's "Rikki Tikki Tavi." When my first grade teacher asked the kids to bring their favorite stories to school for her to read aloud, I brought Rikki Tikki. I wondered why she never read it. She read the dumbest stories, I thought. But in adulthood, Mother told me that the teacher had called her in a state of shock and explained that there was no way that she could read that story!! The other kids would not understand it, she said.

Daddy said he read those things to us because his father read them to him. My brother was three years younger than I was, and he loved them, too. I have to admit, I didn't like **Kidnapped** as I didn't understand it, but I loved "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest: yo ho ho and a bottle of rum," and Long John Silver in Treasure Island. (My dad's name was John, too.!)

By the way, it was Puff, not Fluffy. And I had to go through the Dick and Jane books twice -- once in a private kindergarten, then again in first grade, ho hum.

The wonderful thing about my school was, though, that when we finished our work, we had free time to read, and read, and read, and read, and read.

Marian



"Prevention is the better part of valor." --Shakespeare/Drake

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves James Matthew Barrie