How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!
—Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Swing”

While my father taught me to love all modern speed machines, Mother taught me to love reading. A stay-at-home mom (an unexceptional choice in the 1940s), she reared five children in our Cambridge Street home in the orange grove. She created time to read stories to us from the green Thornton W. Burgess books— “Chatterer the Red Squirrel,” “Bobby White,” “Old Man Coyote.” She read from his Mother West Wind “Why” Stories—”The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse” and “Why Peter Rabbit Cannot Fold His Hands.” It seems Peter was once able to fold them, but Mother West Wind took away this ability because he was lazy. “I like these stories,” Mother said, “because they all end happy” [except for Timmy Trout, who disobeyed his mother, got hooked and landed in a frying pan]. I consumed these stories first from her lips and then from my own reading.

I visualize my Southern California childhood, filled with snowless winters, hot summers, and throat-burning Los Angeles smog that dissipates only when the dry Santana winds blow in from the desert. I see myself lying on our backyard grass under our wooden windmill clothesline, gazing up at the clouds and dreaming childish dreams—dreams that Mother feeds. When I tell Mother I’m bored, she says, “Read King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table,” or “Let’s play cards.” Our Fundamentalist church frowns on playing with regular “Euchre deck” cards, so we play Authors, where each suit has a picture of an author and each card is one of the author’s books, such as Louisa May Alcott (Little Women, Eight Cousins) or Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island, A Child’s Garden of Verses). When I call for a card, Mother always insists that I name the author and book title. I learn to love these books long before I read them.

I carry this love of writers and writing into Mrs. Brennan’s first grade class, where I remember the smell of her paper—unlined, manila colored, with tiny flecks of embedded wood pulp—on which we use our #2 pencils to create letters that represent sounds. Mrs. Brennan believes passionately in two things—phonetics and flashcards. She teaches us to read, not by recognizing words, but by sounding out letters. She holds up a card with an “A” on it and the whole class says, “Ahh, ahh.” When the card has a “B,” we say, “Buh, buh.” When she shows us the “Ph” card, she touches her fingertips together and moves her forearm forward and back imitating a long neck and says, “Remember the goose, class.” We all hiss, “Fff, fff,” and then wipe the saliva off our desks.

She reads to us out of oversize Dick and Jane books, with Dick, Jane, little Sally and their dog, Spot. “Dick, Dick, see Jane.” “Jump, Spot, jump, jump.” I think, I don’t know anybody who talks like that. Why do they keep repeating themselves? Yet the stories burn word-symbols into my brain.

When we graduate to our Friends and Neighbors book in second grade, I discover a new universe—the East. Here, all the white children live in tidy houses under huge oak and maple trees and no one is poor. No bullies in this neighborhood—all the kids are friendly. My California neighborhood is different. The Mexicans speak Spanish to each other, bullies (white ones) meet me after school and beat me up, and many of us live in houses where the paint peels from the siding and where the kitchen linoleum shows worn, black spots. In the East, happy boys in knickers sled down snowy hills as squirrels scramble up nearby maple trees. In Orange I never see knickers, squirrels, snow banks or sleds, though Dad assures me that when he was growing up in Minnesota he himself had worn knickers. I still remember that “Friends and Neighbors” town—I imagine I’ve searched for it my whole life.

In third grade I can’t wait for Mrs. Surowick to read to us about Pinky and Blacky, two roguish cats who share great adventures wandering around a museum late at night. I never suspect that these wonderful stories are teaching us world history and the love of reading.

About that same time I discover Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Swing” (above). He has me at the swing. I long for the world over the wall—distant, unknown and far from the groves of Orange, my hometown.

At twelve I get pimples, a crackly voice, body hair and something else—a black-leather King James Bible that I carry to church like a stubby fifth limb. Mother considers the King James Version (KJV) a lifeboat that will bear me through adolescence, protect me from the fierce fires of a godless world, lead me into a blessed adulthood, and finally to heaven. Approved by King James in 1611, the KJV guided the faithful at the time of the Pilgrims. I smell the leather, finger the onionskin pages, and bury myself in it like a wood tick. The Bible looms large at home. When I say, “Mom; I’m bored,” she responds, “Memorize Bible verses.” The Bible introduces me not only to faith but also to great literature. Later, when I read Shakespeare, I am surprised to find a King James English familiar to me.

I soon learn to speak KJV, but not always with understanding—too many strange words and stranger ideas. Fortunately, Cyrus Ingerson Scofield’s notes come to the rescue, notes that seem clearer than the text itself. He outlines the Tribulation, the Millennium and the seven Dispensations—a complete panorama of salvation history—candy for the mind. These notes answer life’s big questions—where did I come from, what does it all mean, where am I going, who is God, and what does He require? (In those days, God was always a “He,” and was always capitalized.) Early on, these answers form my view of the world.

At our Silver Acres Church Pastor Cantrell preaches from the same Scofield Bible and I become a junior expert in the text. I don’t understand all the King James words—mandrakes, begot, shew (I pronounce it “shoe”)—but, like the Pledge of Allegiance that I learned in first grade, these words gather meaning as I mature. I read for prizes. My Sunday school teacher, Mr. Hayden, sets tiny airplanes on tracks running across a map of the world. I read the most, advance my plane the farthest and eventually win a matching pen and pencil set.

I learn Christianity from my pastor, from other men who preach at summer camps and from faithful women who teach in Daily Vacation Bible School, all of them Bible-wise. They mesmerize me with their stories about God, sin, salvation and especially about the End Times, which holds the promise of heaven or the threat of hellfire. To gain the first and escape the second, I walk down the aisle each time a visiting preacher comes to town with his big white tent and sawdust floor. Besides, I want their little red book—a free Gospel of John with important verses underlined. In all these ways the Bible teaches me the English language, forges my reading habits, shapes my beliefs. The Bible also introduces me to history and geography as well as to human greatness and frailty.

Reading gives me a passport to far countries, introduces me to historic figures, lets me witness great events and dazzles me with strange ideas. Reading fires my curiosity to think, to dream, to venture out into the world. Later, when I travel to genuine eastern “Friends and Neighbors” towns, I stomp in the snow and marvel at the squirrels (but never see a boy in knickers). I pilot a plane over distant lands and see the world over the wall that Stevenson helped me dream about.

But Mother read to me first.