I didnt even learn to read until I was in second grade..
When I was five years old I got sick, really sick, ending up having emergency surgery sick.
And back in the seventies when you went into the hospital, you stayed in the hospital for months.
So I missed the alphabet portion of my learning, and managed to breeze through first grade completely illiterate as well.
So when we moved to a new state, my second grade teacher and my new school were less than to discovered I could not read.
Enter the woman who changed my life. Mrs. Schaeffer. She not only taught me to read, but she taught me to love reading.
(so if you're out there somewhere Mrs. Schaeffer, wondering if any of those hooilgans in remedial reading ever "got it" I did!)
From that fated moment on, I was sunk...I read books all the time.
In fourth grade I had to special permission from my parents to ready 6th grade books.
As luck would have it, fate had another emergency trip to the hospital in store for me in 5th grade.
I got bit by my family dog and had to spend two weeks at home recouperating...
So, bored out of my mind one day I wandered to my moms bookshelf...(imagine this kittens, no cable, no computers..it's was books or soaps)
And picked up a little literary gem called "The Flame and the Flower"
Now of course its infamous for one of those seventies romance plot nuggets...."The Hero Rapes the Heroine (who's a clueless virgin of course) because he mistakes her for a whore...
No matter, a love affair was born (an interesting aside here, what my 10 year old self remembered from this book, not the rape, nor the any of the other plot nuggets. I remembered her dresses..and pirates)
After burning through the rest of the trashy seventies romance novels (Hi Shanna, and several others)
I moved onto those teen romances by silhouette (numbered..I have them still hiding in the basement somewhere) and with the exception of one long summer at my grandmothers (middle of minnesota, grandpa had control of the tv -still no cable or computers kiddies) where one of my grandmothers neighbors gave me an entire washing machine box filled with Romance Novels.
(this was sort of like going on a bender with Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort and then just drinking virgin coladas for a few years..followed by Jack and Southern Comfort bender..back to virgin coladas..frankly it explains a lot)
Next up...the dark years of tortured psychological thrillers and "serious literature"
-Tanya
