Go Fly a Kite: some reflections on my childhood

After being unable to get it up a few weeks back, I flew a kite yesterday for the first time in my life. With my kite virility restored, I once again reflected on how having children has allowed me to revisit my own childhood and even to correct some shortcomings, like flying a kite. Another shortcoming was a lack of stories and books.

Surprisingly, I had no books as a child. Perhaps this is why I became a librarian (and, no, I do not sit in some quiet corner and read all day long - that would be an idyllic librarian job, and I think it does not exist). I do not clearly remember bedtime rituals, but I know that there were no bedtime stories. I must have been sent off to bed with a smack on the ass.

I sifted through the piles of childhood stuff that my mother sold at successive law sales, and there were no books. There were toys, lots and lots of plastic toys - most of which took batteries and made high pitched noises - but no books. And, my parents did not have library cards. My mother read. Around her living room chair were ashtrays, Harlequin Romances, and stacks of True Romance magazines.

On the only bookshelf in the house there was a copy of The Happy Hooker, a dictionary, a hymn book, a bible that had long ago fallen to pieces, and a few National Geographic magazines. I also recall a copy of Lorna Dune and a book about growing peas.

Having a child has meant that I have read a good number of picture books (many of them dozens of times). I have just started Alice In Wonderland for the first time. Better late than never, I suppose.

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