Reflections on a 71st birthday

It's my birthday, at my age a time for reflection. And I've been doing some of that.

I'd like to salute my parents for the gift they both gave me -- my love of reading.

Their interests were irreconcilable: he liked paperback westerns and detective stories. She liked best-sellers.

My mother read stories to me at bedtime when I was a young child. When I was about 12, my dad began passing on his detective paperbacks to me. (I was on tenterhooks waiting for him to finish the latest Perry Mason, Bertha Cool or Nero Wolfe mystery. I wasn't all that interested in the westerns.) My mother began to pass on her best-sellers to me at about the same time. (I vividly remember "The Desperate Hours," "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "The Caine Mutiny.")

Teachers followed up on what my parents started. In 2nd grade, I often got into trouble for being disruptive in minor ways. I'll always be grateful to my teacher, Mrs. Campbell, for diagnosing the problem: I was finishing my classwork early and quickly getting bored. Mrs. Campbell began to allow me to bring my paper to her when I finished, and if I had gotten the assignment right, she offered a reward. I was allowed to choose a book from the stack on her desk and read while the other kids finished their work. Problem solved.

Two years later, I was allowed to start a class newspaper. Mrs. Fry would mimeograph it for the rest of the class. Reading had led me to writing, and a career (or several careers) was born. I was a journalist (of sorts) at the age of 8 going on 9. I remember the first story I wrote: it was about bananas. I don't remember why I decided to write about bananas, but I spent hours in the school library researching bananas six ways from Sunday.

When Eisenhower was inaugurated in 1953, I read every article about him in both daily papers. Then I cut them all out and put them in a scrapbook. (No, I don't know what became of it.)

In high school, I worked my way up to features editor for the school paper. Outside of journalism class, which published the paper, I was still a reading nerd. I remember buying my own copies of "Compulsion," "Peyton Place," "Don't Go Near the Water," "Exodus" and "Advise and Consent." As I look back, I see how eclectic my taste was.

In college, I was still hooked on reading, and in addition to journalism, I took courses in the English novel and American lit. I can remember thinking that classes in which reading novels figured heavily were like a vacation from the hard slogging of courses in science and math.

I majored in journalism with a minor in English and eventually became news editor of The Collegian, the U.R. college paper. And still I could usually be found with my nose in a book.

Even in the Air Force in Germany, I found time to read. In 1967, for Christmas, I asked my parents to send me a copy of "Death of a President." They did.

My time in Germany and a 1989 book, "Pillars of the Earth," shaped the next 20 years of my life. I revisited Europe at least every other year and never missed a chance to visit a Gothic cathedral.

I made two careers out of writing, and I wrote a novel of my own, "Summer Blues," which went exactly nowhere. I think I have a copy of the manuscript in a drawer somewhere.

The ability to read runs like a thread sewn into the very fabric of my life.

My parents were the first to unlock a world of adventure -- both on the page and, in turn, in the life I have lived -- by teaching me that reading was fun.

To them, I shall be eternally grateful.

NOTE: What am I reading now? "FDR's Funeral Train: A Betrayed Widow, a Soviet Spy, and a Presidency in the Balance" by Robert Klara, "Watching the Dark" by Peter Robinson, "Captiva" by Randy Wayne White, "Disturbance" by Jan Burke and "Star Island" by Carl Hiaasen.

FOR EXTRA CREDIT: How many of the books I mentioned in this post have you read? How many have you ever heard of?