The Sunday Memory Drawer - It's Summer....Book It!

 

Forget the fact that the kids in this picture are all wearing winter coats.  This is all about summer reading.   And, of course, you are reading this Sunday Memory Drawer in August, so this, too, is considered summer reading.

I frequently hear the children of friends talking about what their teachers are requiring them to read over the summer months.  For some bizarre reason, I never had that assignment growing up in Mount Vernon, New York.  Or maybe the teachers I had trusted us to read stuff on our own. 

So, with fewer restrictions, I read voraciously during the hot-and-humid months.  I've read before about my nightly summertime ritual.  I was a weird kid.   Late at night, I would go into the kitchen and curl up next to our powerful window fan.  I'd wedge myself into this little crawlspace between the fan and the china closet.  There was just enough light to read.  Or maybe there wasn't and that's why I wear glasses today.  Nevertheless, I hunkered down into my personal comfort zone.

And read.   Usually with a book from the famed Mount Vernon Public Library Bookmobile.

It would stop on the corner of First Street and South Fifteenth Avenue every two weeks.   The fact that this relatively compact van was loaded with so many books always astounded me.   Equipped with my trusty library card, I'd peruse my favorite categories.  And they certainly were not books a school teacher would recommend.

I was a fan of Hollywood biographies and autobiographies.  The indoctrination into the world of show business had begun early with me.  Perhaps it was all the movie and TV magazines my mother sucked in over the years.  If there was a new and hot Hollywood memoir on the Bookmobile, I took it out.

For instance, I had seen all those Doris Day movies on television with my mother.  To me as a kid, she was larger than life.  It was natural for me to read up all about her.  I told you I could be a little weird as a youngster.

My mom used to talk about Montgomery Clift all the time and in retrospect.  He was long since dead.  As for me, I knew nothing about him.   This thorough biography was very educational for a 12-year-old.   There were active descriptions of drug use and homosexuality.   This was not exactly "Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine."   I remember reading it right through and then wondering if I should have.  

Another hot genre for my summer reading were novels that were being made into a movie.  I'd begin a race to see if I could finish the book before the film came out.  

This book was a best seller and headed to local theaters.   Some of the plot lines including out-of-wedlock pregnancies and manic-depressive suicides were likely way over my head.   But I gobbled it all up.  Maybe my folks should have been monitoring the book that I was in my paws.   I'm thinking that they were just happy that I was reading.

When I was young, it was a big deal that this legendary movie was going to be shown on TV for the very first time.  So, the summer before, I set out to start my race again.   Even my mom was impressed that I was going to read a novel about a movie she likely saw first run.

"You know, the book is about 1,000 pages long."

Um, gasp, no, I didn't know that.

But I pressed on.  Luckily, that was an extra hot summer with many nights in front of the reading fan.  I needed the whole month of July plus half of August to finish it, but I did!

Er, this one I didn't discuss beforehand with any parent.  This hot novel was already making the rounds of my neighbor.   And all the talk was about the contents of page 27.   An education in itself.  Way too much for our innocent eyes.  Indeed, the actions on that fated page didn't seem too risque when we finally saw it on screen.  In this case, the words told the story better than the actual images.

The other Bookmobile section I would gravitate to was the sports biography and, of course, mostly baseball.  This is how I lived my summers.   Reading and watching baseball.   So, it was natural for me to spend those nights reading about the sport.

This book was a best seller.   All I knew was that it was about the exploits of Jim Bouton who used to pitch for the Yankees.  His big claim to fame was that his hat fell off every time he threw the ball.  But, this book was about a whole heck of a lot more.  I had idolized baseball stars to this date.  Now, with Bouton's tale about life on the baseball road, I realized that my heroes were indeed human. And very flawed at that.  In this book as well, there was a whole lot of "page 27" going on.

Okay, this baseball biography was a little more reverential.  And my very first exposure to the team franchise that would become a major part of my life.  I longed to know what it was like for a team to play in a neighborhood like Brooklyn, which was so far away from me in Mount Vernon, New York. Indeed, it was a borough I didn't set foot in until I was in college.  I was dying to experience hometown New York baseball in the 50s.  This book brought it to me.  And, to this day, it's one of the best books I ever read.

Okay, not everything I read during the summer came from the Bookmobile. One of my annual hot weather traditions was to devour the annual yearbook of my beloved New York Mets.  Back then, these publications actually had written content and not just pictures.  I would dig in for a week or two and chew up all the stories and the stats about my favorite players.  By the end of July, I could recite it verbatim.

Hey, it may not have been Charles Dickens, but all of the above was still reading.   Today, as you know, I don't do it as much as I should.   Maybe it's because it's just not the same.   Nestled in my little breezy nook.

Hmm, maybe I should buy a window fan.

Dinner last night:  Spicy beef lo mein from Chin Chin.