Reply #22: Remember those huge Webster Dictionaries on a stand? [View All]

[dixiegrrrrl]

My grandmother had one.
I started picking out words when I was about 4, I think.
I was reading well by kindergarten.
She also had a huge bookcase of all the books that were popular in the 30's and 40's
Tom Sawyer, Jane Eyre, Alice in Wonderland, etc. I read every one.
If I found a word I didn't understand, I went to the huge dictionary. One word led to another,
I would actually roam the dictionary for hours.
( sorta like I roam the internet today)
Whole family thought I was crazy.
"Always has her nose in a book"
"Put down that book and go outside and play".
Actually that meant my Mom could not put up with someone
"lying around and doing nothing"
House work was important. Reading was being lazy.
I learned to stash books outside, climb a tree, and read away the summer days.

The library had a limit of 2 books back then, so I was there every other day.
That was back in the days when a kid could wander off and be gone all day, and not have to account for their time, as long as you were not caught doing something illegal, and were home by dinner time. No questions asked.
All you needed was a bike, or bus tokens, and a mother who did not want kids in the house during the day. It was wonderful.

My family had smarts, but saw no value in education, they thought a High School Diploma was
the ultimate mark of success.
With one of those, you could go to work at any of the many paper mills in the area and eventually be a foreman, work all your life, and retire with a good pension.
I was the only person in the family tree to go to college.
And at the college, they had a lot of libraries !!!!!
I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I learned to speed read for classes, which almost ruined reading for enjoyment.

Later, I taught both my children the alphabet by the time they were 2.
They were reading well by age 4, and to this day they thank me.

The big Webster dictionary on the movable oak stand sits in my house today.
We still use it.