Apple Pies and Books

Apple Pies: I don't remember if Mom's apple pies were really that good, but washed in the golden glow of memory they were fantastic.

Books: I remember the glorious treat of going to the big downtown library and being pissed off, at the tender age of seven, that there was a limit to the number of books I could check out. What a crock! How could a person pick out of the thousands of tempting choices. Somehow I guess I managed because I always took my six home and hauled myself up the cedar tree to read, soaking up the books, the expansive view, and the blue blue sky with the Oklahoma wind riffling my hair.

I remember reading the Pleasant Hill School library -- granted it was a small country school library, smaller than a smallish bathroom, but I read everything I could swallow. How could I not? All of the orange covered biographies, The Box Car Children, Silver Foxes, books with strange landscapes, mice, bears, tigers, endangered children.

I remember being scared by witches, sad when Old Yeller died, and happy when Pollyanna was finally understood and loved. I was amazed by love, fearlessness, fierceness, and fair play, of working together or surviving alone.

I remember staying up way past bedtime, a speck blended into the back ground, barely breathing, anxiously spying, and waiting waiting waiting while the Encyclopedia salesman finished his pitch to Mom and Dad. The complete euphoric elation when the deal was struck.

I remember the magic I experienced with slow unfolding awareness of the wonder and elegance of classical books; Austin, Bronte, Barrie, Scott. Where had they been? Where had I been?

What a world books are. I still have my collection of library cards from ever city, state, or town I ever lived in. I haven't traveled far or accomplished much, all know is what I've read in books.

The best apple pies ever.