A BOY READING IN THE LIBRARY
From Kindergarten to Doctorate
“American History” is the serious side of this writer’s website. It is intended to balance the poetry, blogs, and fictional stories.
I’ve loved reading since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. In the cold freezing temperatures of a Lake Erie winter, I discovered a public library on my school-to-house walking route. I needed a warm place to hang out for a couple of hours after school and the library had a lovely collection of books for a fourth grader to peruse.
I started with the shelves for young kids and devoured all of those books, reading 4 or 5 at a time. As soon as I finished one book it got returned to its proper place on the shelf and the book next to it was taken down. It seemed foolish to waste time walking to and from a table so I sat on the floor in front of this four-shelf bookcase which was near the front door. I sat on the lee side of the bookcase, naturally—the side farthest from the door through which cold winds came howling each time a patron entered or departed.
I read dozens of books for the younger grades in this manner: illustrated books full of funny or whimsical tales. I then began advancing toward books with more text than pictures and a slow but steady increase in the sophistication of vocabulary and thought.
Initially, I was burrowing my way through books intended for the primary grades; some were simple and some quite ordinary but I read them all anyway to get a sense of the writer’s style and imagination. If there were any gems a-hiding, I didn’t want to miss any by not knowing what titles to seek.
The only exception to this rapid pace was when one of the books was so beautifully written that it created a deep emotional response. That became the last book for the afternoon’s reading session. I knew it would take time to digest and I was not about to ruin the moment by rushing into another book. I have been that way ever since; a really good book creates its own period of rest afterward so it can be fully absorbed and appreciated.
Then it was time to go home, which in the winter months in Cleveland often meant walking home through the late afternoon’s darkening skies. Graying clouds formed solid masses and hid the sun for days, even weeks at a time. Sometimes it meant sheets of rain or hail-and-sleet or howling winds and Arctic-blown freezing snowstorms!
After having gone through the kids’ books, I skipped ahead to 4th grade reading and higher. I usually checked out four or five books at a time which I planned to read and return in a day or two; it was a big responsibility running home across slippery ice and snow-drifts piled high while trying to live up to my personal pledge to keep all the books unharmed, warm and safe inside my sweaters and jacket.
Eventually, I got to the shelves containing biographies of famous Americans. What a find—better than a gold mine! By now I had worked my way up to books with two hundred pages or more so I changed my reading habits accordingly. I would read one or two of them in the library and sometimes start a third . . . for next time.
I was a fast reader and could polish off a 200 page biography in an hour. I thus would spend about two hours in the library between the end of the school day and the time when my mom and dad would be getting home from work—and I would go home with my head full of fascinating tales of Washington and Adams, Jefferson and Paine, Daniel Boone and Kit Carson, Sitting Bull and Geronimo, and the heroic adventures of lots of other famous Americans.
My dad would attempt to debunk the exaggerated mythic status of some of these famous characters but it was too late: I was smitten with a love of American history.
Best of all about the library, there was a heating vent in the floor right in front of my new favorite shelves! Rather than seek a faraway table, I sat down cross-legged on top of this vent. In the cold bitter winters, the heated air kept me happy and relaxed.
I read great words about American history while warm and comfortable. Here I met General George Washington at Valley Forge and many other heroes from the days of the Revolution, stories which made for chills and goose-bumps. Fabulous children’s authors explained to me the Founding Fathers’ courage and resolution in face of insuperable difficulties—stories which amazed and delighted me!
Who knew then that a quarter of a century later the boy reading on top of a heating vent would be receiving his doctorate in U.S. History? Plainly, it was love at first sight. I started reading stories of America and never stopped.
One of my U.S. History students once asked me if it was hard to get a PhD? I had to stop and think of a good answer. The question caught me off guard so I made a couple of false starts trying to give a worthy reply–one that would balance the (not-to-be-mocked!) rigorous academic hurdles with encouraging words that would describe fairly the heady excitement that accompanies all such graduate level work. I thought about all the requirements but realized such an answer would sound too complex.
Finally I counseled myself to stop, take a deep breath, and answer in as simple a fashion as possible. I told the class I liked to read and write when I was in school; that I started reading when I was young and I just kept on reading until one day someone handed me a piece of paper which said I had earned a PhD.
I told my students that it never seemed like hard work when it came to studying the story of America; it was like learning one’s own family history and roots. The class liked my answer and I think it inspired more than a few to aim high, as I knew a fair number of them were already contemplating graduate school after receiving their college diploma.
At a subsequent class meeting, I set aside a few minutes to tell my students what was really required as I did not want to leave the impression that a doctoral program was easy. I described entrance exams and prerequisites, course load, papers, teaching assignments, oral and written exams and of course the dissertation. “You just take it step by step”, I told them, “and keep going!”
I circled back to my original point: that a doctorate is quite achievable if you put your mind to it. I also pointed out that I was describing the field of history which demands quite a bit of research and writing (I carefully avoided the term “anal retentive”) but implied that other disciplines might not be quite so demanding in that regard.
The doctoral program was easy for me but it would have been wrong of me to minimize the time and effort involved when talking to my class. I told them “I’ll skip the lists of all the classes, books, and papers required in graduate school, other than to say ‘there was a lot’.”
No university gives away a PhD on demand: you have to earn it. Luckily, I had great teachers along the way who inspired me! They strengthened my resolve to become a history major at the University of California Berkeley.
I never seriously considered any other field but hewed to the straight and narrow: BA in History at CAL followed by a Masters in U.S. History (SJSU) and finally the PhD (U.C. Santa Barbara) in U.S. History with certain sub-specialties and the like.
FROM STUDYING TO TEACHING
Subsequent to the doctorate, I added three teaching credentials–although the only one I ever really used was the Multiple Subjects credential to cover both elementary school and Adult Education teaching. Then, after a stint of fifteen years in the public schools, I found my place in the sun teaching at a small private college in San Jose, my beloved National Hispanic University: alas, it is no more!
Looking back, I can honestly say I loved teaching students of all ages and grade levels. I enjoyed my time as a public school teacher and will always treasure all the good memories.
During the second half of my teaching career, I enjoyed equally well my years as a university professor just about as much as a person possibly can. Yet throughout all these years, if there remained one passion that was stronger even than the call to teach, it was my desire to become a writer.
Once retired, I finally turned my attention to this lifelong ambition. That’s how this “Roger’s Library” website came into being and why it contains both works of fiction and nonfiction as well as a few literary rambles that defy ready classification . . . all of that is balanced out, hopefully, by my serious side: my love of American history and my devotion to America’s democratic ideals.
In some ways, I feel like I am still that young boy sitting on top of a heating vent in one of America’s countless public libraries, reading stories of adventure and courage from the days of the American Revolution.
Having reached man’s estate (actually, the Estate of an Elder!) I concluded it was time for me to share some of my own thoughts about what America means to me . . . and hopefully to millions of others!
