The First First(Duncan Craycroft) When I was a little boy my mother took me by the hand and led me up the hill from our house in Redondo Beach. She was taking me on a rite of passage that many have done before. My mother rarely singled me out from her large brood of children for excursions such as this so it usually meant one of two things. Either we were going to visit one of her friends that had a child that was roughly my age or we were going to visit the family doctor for one of a my biggest fears, the dreaded shot in the arm. As we passed by my grade school we came upon a one story building surrounded by giant palms and bushes and pulled open the big glass doors. We entered the building and walked up to a counter where a stern old woman glared over her glasses at me. I suddenly became aware how deathly quiet it was and I detected a dusty, stale smell. I squeezed my mother’s hand and looked up at her. She had that smile on her face that always meant, “I got this, don’t worry”. The grim faced woman then turned her attention towards my mother, ”Can I help you with something, dear?” she asked with a sneer in her voice. “Yes” my mother said. ”This is my son, Duncan. He is in the first grade. He has learned his alphabet and is starting to read. He is here to get his first library card”. The woman returned her nasty face to me and said, ”He seems a bit young to read”, and reached for the form to be filled out and signed. When she was satisfied that all the required information had been properly recorded, she reached into a drawer and pulled out a stiff square card and handed it over the counter to me. My name was written across the top. “Take good care of that little boy,” she said as I studied this strange new object. Little did I know that this card was my first ticket into a magical world of endless stories and adventures.

My mother and I walked down the hill towards our house. I was bursting with pride and anticipation for my triumphant entrance into our home. I found my siblings engaged in various activities, playing with toys, reading, and an early form of one our family favorites, teasing somebody until they cried. I held my new card up like the head of a dragon that I had slayed and waited for the admiration that was sure to follow. They all looked at me, nodded and returned their attention back to their immediate engagements. I was stunned. Didn’t they understand the magnitude of this great and life changing event that had just occurred? What I didn’t understand at the time was that they too had taken that walk up the hill with our mother and to them I was just a new kid in a club that still had to earn the respect of it’s members. This journey has driven me and all my siblings on a long, unofficial challenge as to who can consume the most books and what new, interesting subjects could we share with each other. This has continued for over half a century and there is no clear leader in the total consumption category. If I was a betting man I know where I would place my money, but I’ll just not address that here. My family took to reading like the Osmonds took to singing. We had the same number of children but we had better haircuts and three times the sisters.

Our mother was educated by the strict old school nuns in the Los Angeles Catholic schools, elementary through college. They taught her the real foundations of all learning including grammar, history, literature and the classics. One of the most impressive and some would say artistic things that the penguins taught our mother was her flowing, distinct penmanship. It was something to behold. To this day I have never seen pen put to paper done so well. Even her grocery lists a work of art! Alas, this particular skill is not handed down genetically and we her children have been left with scribbles and mish-mash to the point where I gave up on cursive years ago and went to all print all the time. She taught high school English and creative writing for thirty years and at the time of her death at 83, her former students still looked to her for guidance and she met regularly with her Sherlock Holmes group.

In the 60s, she assembled in a small corner of our home a learning center that would rival a modern day computer. In this space we could find so many wonderful and fascinating facts, stories and data that all of us had an edge as we made our way through grade school and beyond. In this corner was a small bookcase. On top of it sat a large dictionary that was always open and ready to use. It came in handy when you needed new ways to call your brother an idiot. Beneath it was our fine collection of World Book Encyclopedias, which were very popular at the time. I remember at school when we gave reports on states or countries and they all sounded the same. Each year we would receive from World Book an edition that was the year in review. I always flipped to the music section to see pictures of The Beatles. (A little jump ahead: A few years ago at a garage sale, I bought a complete set of these books including all of the 60’s yearbooks. How strange to see how those years were looked at while they were happening.)

Beneath the World Books we had small blue books that were the works of Shakespeare. Not an easy read to say the least. Our mother knew one way to get us to open these books. Bribery. She offered ten cents if we could memorize a passage. Done and done! I picked one out and got to work. In short order I was ready for my performance. I let loose a stream of my own form of Ebonics having no idea what I was saying. Just sounds and words. My mother was quite pleased with my performance, the dime was paid, and off to 7-11 I went. I returned with my candy in tow and got to work on my next soliloquy. Next to the book shelf sat our big, giant light up globe. We learned so much about the world from this magical orb. There is only one fun game to play with a globe and I bet everyone has played it. Spin the globe, close your eyes, point your finger, open your eyes. Game over. I know, not an X-Box or a Tickle Me Elmo, but we seemed to do it a lot and I’m sure that I knew more about continents and countries at ten than most high school students do today.

I became a voracious reader. I mowed down books like a Boll Weevil through a Cotton field. Anything that was in my path, I devoured. I even consumed my sister’s Nancy Drew collection and believed she was one of my first crushes, along with Veronica from my Archie comics and Maryanne from Gilligan’s Island. I started reading ”The Joy of Sex” but quickly put it down when I realized that this was some strange language that baffles me to this day. One day our mother brought home boxes full of National Geographics from the 20s and 30s and dumped them on the already cluttered garage floor. What a bonanza! I nestled myself among the bicycles, surf boards and old furniture and dug in. The safaris, photos and maps were mesmerizing. Of course there were lots of pictures of naked tribal women which is a strange way to be introduced to the female body. One particular story I still recall, took place in the 30s. A man fixed a motorcycle in such a way that it could travel across the African continent using the railroad tracks. It had a sidecar to carry his supplies and could also be ridden on the roads. One day he encountered a tribe of violent head hunters who marveled at his strange machine. He was quite nervous for he liked his head the size that it was so he offered to take the chief for a ride. Off they went. The villagers shouted and waved. During the ride the scarf around the chief’s neck became entangled with the wheel of the sidecar. It kept wrapping tighter until it pulled the shocked and confused chief’s head down into the wheel and wore off a part of his ear!! They returned to the village and the explorer awaited his soon to be extra small cranium. The chief stood up and felt the blood running from his ear. The villagers were silent. The chief turned and looked at our shaky pilot. He then let out a big laugh and the villagers joined in. He thought it was just part of the ride!! Our hero quickly made preparations and continued on. Whew!

I developed a strange fascination with gossip magazines. Our grandmother loved following the sordid lives of the stars and mom would bring stacks of them home to us. Scandals, divorces, rumors and gossip, all the latest dirt shoveled fresh from Hollywood. My favorite celebrity was Zavier Cugat, just because I finally found a big star with a stranger name than my own, not counting Englebert Humperdink. The knowledge that I gleaned from the pages of these splashy rags would serve me well later in life when I was quite good at trivia.

My reading subjects may have varied over the years but my search for the next great book never ends. My current obsession is Civil War autobiographies. Because they are so old they are now part of the public domain and are free and delivered magically and instantly into my Kindle. Diaries written by Michigan students who answered their nation’s call, or letters home from Georgian farm boys about how much they miss their mother’s peach pie. My favorites are the writings of the storied heroes and legends of that sad chapter of our past. Names like Grant, Davis, Sheridan and Longstreet. My current book is by the flamboyant and infamous Gen. George Armstrong Custer. He really did distinguish himself in battle during the war but his conduct in the years that followed was vicious and brutal. I guess the universe decided it was time to pay him back in the end. It’s just too bad that he might have taken some good men with him.

The thing that is most fascinating about these memoirs, besides the great minds and the historic events, is what you find in the background. You get a glimpse of life and the world at that time. What they ate, how they talked, where they slept and on and on. It is also a great description of the country all those years ago. The geography, the transportation and the wildlife. The era comes alive in my mind more vivid than any movie ever has. But then, that’s what books always do.

I realized that since my move back to California I haven’t gotten a library card yet. I think I’ll go down and get one. When I do I’ll remember my mother and this great gift she has given me. Thanks mom.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY
DC Rambler 5-9-2014

---