Nov. 05, 2001 - 22:55 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Strange Folk

Way, way back in my memories probably after Mom and Dad had engraved A Child's Garden Of Verses on my heart by their beautifully spoken rendition of the same, my love for reading and poetry was sowed and grew. So it was a bit after that when I was introduced to the examples of Good and Bad.

Mom took me to the Sarah Platt Decker library two blocks from our home. I think I have the first two names correct and am sure the last is right on. In the young childrens section Mom chose two books off the shelf for me to take home and read.

The first one was The Goops, a story about a slovenly, slobbish family that seemed to do no right. They didn't intentionally harm anyone, just bumbled along messing things up like goofers do. I learned some table manners from reversing things the Goops did, not too well as Heather will attest. I learned to not slurp soup, smack my lips and sip silently and a boon to others was learning to chew with my mouth closed. I read it, and gained some knowledge of right and wrong ways of living -- mentored by my Mom.

The other book was about the Brownies. It was about elves who did things for people secretly at night. Their exploits fascinated me and the numerous drawings of the Brownies made them almost real to me. I think Mom renewed the Brownie book twice for me and it was pretty worn when it was returned.

Of course some of my later manners came from the copycat procedure, using the same table untensils in the order and for the purpose that others did.

As an only child I learned so much from reading that other kids with brothers and sisters to live with learned naturally. I carried my reading to great lengths, learning about the vagaries of people and the many shades of gray in this world which became mine as I grew up.

I read so extensively that I was reading adult books while still in elementary school. I took a book off the folk's shelf, the high one, called The Lady Of The Camellias by Dumas. It was the story I believe that La Traviata was centered around. I read it and understood it, and caught hell when Mom found out that I had read it, I was thankful that she didn't find out that I understood it. What the heck else could an only child do at home ?

Through my later years I read Adam Smith's -- Wealth Of Nations and between that book and some of Dicken's books already read I gained the understanding of the plight of poor people everywhere.

The Boy Scout Handbook was a prime textbook for me, I learned much from it on my own. Our local Scout Troop I guess was an abortive attempt of a church to make a Troop an arm of that congregation. When I got in was about the time the kids got tired of memorizing Bible verses instead of doing Boy Scout stuff. Anyhow about the time I went in the troop went out like a candle in the wind. But Boy Scouting was in my mind and dreams.

So there has been on one of my shoulders a Goop showing me how to goof and on the other one a Brownie showing a way to be kind and gentle, to do things without blowing my horn. Which I feel rather guilty about tonight. In trying to remember about books and reading, I have told the truth. Even so it seems like a bunch of bragging, for which I apologize to you and to myself.

Those Goops and Brownies were indeed very Strange Folk . . . . .

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