For many years, the
only books in my grandparents’ home were the Bible, the Yellow Pages, and
catalogues from Sears and Montgomery Ward. My grandmother only skimmed the
Bible or back issues of Our Daily Bread
late in the evening when her favorite television programs bored her, her
eyelids drooping despite her best efforts to stay awake. My grandfather was
barely literate and always demanded that someone read all of his correspondence
to him.
When I was about
eight years old our local grocery store began selling encyclopedias for
children. They were long slim volumes about half an inch thick and featured
Peanuts characters. Titled Charlie Brown’s ‘Cyclopedias, each
volume focused on topics including animals, transportation, holidays, health
and wellness, science, and clothing. The books cost ten dollars each, a small
fortune for a family as poor as ours, but whenever Granny and I went to the A &
P, she managed to set aside just enough money to purchase a book for me. My
mother gave her the money whenever she could spare it, and sometimes one of my
aunts would accompany Granny and me on our trips to the grocery store and buy
the book for me.
Of the fifteen
volumes in the complete set, I managed to collect twelve of them. I kept them
stacked in order on the small white desk in my bedroom where I did my homework.
I’ve no idea what happened to these books. I assume, as I began to mature, the
books started to mean less and less to me, though now, as an adult, I wish I
still had them in my possession, if only for sentimental value.
Thinking of those
encyclopedias now fills me with tremendous affection and sadness. Maudlin
demonstrations aside, those encyclopedias symbolize my early experiences with
reading and my grandmother’s intrepid self-sacrificing nature more than any
other material possession.
Granny was
wise. She knew books were as
valuable as food and that in order for me to achieve anything worthwhile in
life, I had to acquire as much knowledge as I could and remain forever
intellectually curious. Poverty has the ability to stomp this feeling out of
individuals. Wealth, I believe,
has the same power. Yet my mother, grandmother and school teachers refused to
allow me to get caught up in the anti-intellectualism that robbed so many
African American boys of their chance to obtain knowledge and success.
Their efforts
yielded great results. Today I am a professor, a reader, and a writer. I think
of the bookshelves that line the walls of my home library as vaults securing
treasure, arsenals housing weapons, future lovers and old flames. I lust for
books the way others lust for nubile bodies. I will never read all of the books
I own, nor write all of the books carelessly piled in the shadowy realms of my
mind. Yet I know wherever there are words there is possibility, hands
reaching across the foggy distance as comforting as those of my grandmother.
--------------
Jarrett Neal earned a BA in English from Northwestern University and a
MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His fiction,
poetry, and essays have appeared in Q Review, Chelsea Station, Copperfield
Review, Nolos, Lucid Moon and other publications. His essay, “Boys’
Dolls,” will appear in the forthcoming anthology, For Colored Boys,
edited by Keith Boykin. He lives in Oak Park, Illinois.
No comments:
Post a Comment