i will read almost anything, no matter what it may be

But, my child, let me give you some further advice: Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out. (Ecclesiastes 12:12)

I am a reader. I have read all my life. And I will read almost anything, no matter what it may be.

When I was in school science-fiction was my love, but I also read about everything the elementary school library I went to had. I was and still am, one of those people who would rather read than almost anything else.

It is odd, though, that I would not read my assigned stuff in school. I suppose that was rebellion of sorts – I was told I had to do it so I didn’t.

But it gave me a very well-rounded body of knowledge.

For instance, OA Fleming Elementary School in Freeport, TX, had a large one room library  like many elementary schools did a the time. And there was one section on mythology. It was mostly Graeco-Roman, but it also had a few books on Norse mythology and one on Eastern mythology.

I read them all. I knew not only about the Greek and Roman gods, I also knew all about the Norse gods. I was a little scholar on esoteric stuff, stuff that did me no good and benefited me not at all.

But I loved to read. And I could immerse myself in a book and sit for hours reading it.

In high school, we were assigned Babbit, by Sinclair Lewis, and it caught me. I began reading and had trouble putting it down. Lewis was a good writer.

In fact, I got so immersed in it that I began to read it under the desk while we were doing something else in English. My teacher, whose name I do not remember, but who had really long arms (it was rumored that she had been a pro wrestler) came over and grabbed it up. She was triumphant that she had caught me with contraband – a Playboy maybe or  some kind of pulp fiction.

It was Babbit, the book she had assigned. She looked at it for a moment and then at me in a bit of bafflement. I was doing what she wanted, reading the classics, but at the wrong time. She gave it back to me and said, well, read it later.

I cannot imagine a world without books, or a world with limited reading material. Even though right now, I am reading mostly westerns, at the same time, I have learned so much through books.

All of the Louis L’Amour characters read and learn through their books. They also drink a lot of coffee and eat a lot of bacon. That is good.

But you learn so much through reading. My son doesn’t read anything, my daughter reads only fluffy stuff. And it isn’t like I sit around reading Plato or other Great Books of the Western World (although we had a set for a while and I read an awful lot of them). But I just love to read and I guess I always will.