READING, WRITING AND 'RITHMATIC

READING, WRITING AND 'RITHMATIC: Reading: I was an early reader. I do not remember being coached to pronounce words other than “Breakfast” when I was still in diapers. My childhood books were: The Bobbsey Twins,Black Beauty, Beautiful Joe, Little Women, Jo's Boys, Eight Cousins, Huckleberry Finn, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Glenn Balch (Idaho author who wrote about teens and horses), Reader's Digest Condensed books, Junior High Library from which I was once banned until my grades improved, The Emmett Public Library where I discovered “Stranger In A Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein as well as Isaac Asimov. Google “Death of a Foy” and prepare to laugh your arse off. Speaking of Humor, I was at Uncle Paul's house in Boise years ago. I picked up a book lying on the table next to the couch. It was of all things. “The Bishops Jaegers” by Thorne Smith. I giggled, guffawed, snorted, gasped and chortled. At one time, Aunt Wanda asked, “Should Roycie be reading that?” The book was written from the view point of the characters' underwear. My favorite was Aspirin Liz. She wore sturdy cotton drawers held together with a safety pin I collected books for many year. When I moved to Barrow, Alaska in 1989, I sold off my SciFi collection. They were all snapped up family browsed the many cardboard boxes. I did take some of my favorites. When we finally settled in Coquille, I began collecting with a vengence. I also purchased several folding bookcases. I now possess about 3500 books, most downstairs pretending to be a library. There are also bookcases in the hallway upstairs, four or five in the upstairs north bedroom and one bookcase in the dining room. As my cataracts worsened, I was unable to read small print. Doom! I purchased my first Kindle in the 2000's. It was fabulous and had scalable font. The more recent Kindles allow me to make comments on the books as well as highlight a word to get a definition. Boy have a learned a lot of stuff. This year my cataracts were both fixed. I can now read anything including the Klingon subscripts. Turns out they were not arguing about ingredients for spaghetti sauce. AND I can read my physical books. Hooray for technology. WRITING: When I was in the fourth grade at the old Wardwell School, I was started on drawing loops, swirls, tornado things all in an effort to learn cursive. All of the kids taught by this teacher had the same lovely cursive writing, lt was legendary actually. I was left handed and learned to do it all upside down. As a result my palm was perpetualy stained with lead pencil. Finding a left handed school desk became my mission. 'RITHMATIC: I was in the first grade and we were given a test to write out the numbers zero through ten. I distinctly remember whispering to a classmate, “How to you make a three?” My only other instance of cheating was as a Freshman at Emmett High School. The entire class average for one English test was a solid D. So we were told that we would do the test again next week. I did not study. I memorized the letter answers from the last test. The teacher presented the same material but in a DIFFERENT test. I promptly got a second F. Me and arithmatic never did get along, until Algebra, It was like telling a story only with numbers. Geometry was part art form because I typed the theorems and used red and blue ink to demonstrate the figures. I love Turbo tax! God bless who ever invented that program! HAPPY NEW YEARS! Gotta be better than 2020.