This is the original post by Joe Posnanski, who I would have had the pleasure of seeing on a panel last month if Washington University didn't have twenty identical buildings and my roommates wouldn't have broken my Internet. Joe is one of my favorite writers, but is in all ways not like me at all. He's a journalist, he meets deadlines, and as he mentions often in this story lacks imagination in the sense of fantasy and science fiction. I am a man who hates deadlines and deals so much in imagination that his real life always pales in comparison to the worlds I create within my head. But this story is familiar to me because it is my story, except I was the nine year old child.
My parents are pragmatic people, at least from my view. My father worked over thirty years as a teacher. He worked late nights coaching Junior Varsity and Junior High sports, putting on musicals, putting together a yearbook, time keeping basketball games, and grading papers. I don't want to make it seem that my dad wasn't there when I was young, but I seem to remember quite a few nights where he wasn't. This isn't typical complaints as you will see. But if you have six kids someone has to put food on the table, and teaching by itself will never do that in America. Then again, he was there almost every night to tuck us in to bed; we never do anything quite like the normal family
My mother taught as well, but not that much. She occasionally did work when I was young. I remember her teaching GED classes before I was in school. Just like my sister, she had six kids and worked hard every day to be the best damn mother she could. Given how we turned out, omitting professionally, I would say she did a fantastic job, but most sons look at their mothers with such praise. Both her and my dad have incredible senses of humor and are incredibly social people, but I don't think they ever really were the social creatures their children became. The funny thing was I think they raised better friends than I will ever find.
My parents raised their kids and set them on straight paths. We all went to college. The eldest children graduated and moved on. The middle ones took a while and found their callings or at least a place to call home for a while. Ryan and I are still stuck in interesting quagmires, certainly for different reasons. None of us are bad people, though we all have our faults. As I write this, I really have no idea how our parents did this. I don't remember them ever really getting angry with me or teaching me, although as I get older I can hear sighs across the state. Then, I remember subtle things that others wouldn't notice. My parents wouldn't let me sleep with the lights on, even if I was terrified of the dark. They got angry with me for getting a ride from a "stranger" once. It was my brother's aide. They didn't make me get a job in high school, because I was a decent kid who didn't kill them financially. They sure as hell "implied" that I needed one once I became a worthless leech in college. These are small things that don't really mean much to me, but just simple parenting tips for everyone: don't talk to strangers, make something of yourself, conquer your fears, you pussy (Don't curse). Then, I think back to the one thing I'll never forget about my parents: they read to me.
My parents read to me every night for so long that I don't remember them starting or stopping. I could be laying in a bunkbed right now listening to the stories with my brother. Particularly, I remember them reading me four books, "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Back in their frivolous days (if my parents ever did have such), my dad belonged to a science fiction book club. I remember this distinctly because science fiction books will always have distinct and completely moronic looking covers. Usually, half-naked men hold aloft swords while three-quarters naked damsels cling to their massive calves while fire, brimstone, and hydras dominate the background. None of these books were suitable for children, and I was an above-average reader by this point so children's books were my domain for personal reading. So my parents started with the Hobbit, an afternoon stroll of a book to start off my science fiction adventure.
*I remember listening to tapes in seventh grade on the bus, and this album while reading "The Hobbit"
Every night, my pragmatic parents would read a chapter of a book to me, and take every ounce of pragmatism away from us. We became part of the world for a while, immersed in the story, so much that I can sing the dwarves song about breaking Bilbo's plates. But I don't remember my parents singing, and the books are full of songs. Maybe my father, ever a closeted poet, read the lines poetically, making the Elven songs even more somber. Maybe my mother actually sang them, because she's the one who would. Or they both snag; people who have a dance night probably sing as well.
However, this is where the story departs from Harry Potter. After the Hobbit, there is no more happiness, no more jest. In all honesty, it is a tale of despair, failure and struggle until the ring is destroyed. The wonder of the story of elves, dwarves, hobbits, and wizards has all come and gone, and now it is a war. I was always fascinated by war as a child: plastic army men, color maps in encyclopedias, gray faces on PBS, and now good and evil. Now, I have no fascination, because that same imagination that can picture orcs carrying hobbits to Saruman can picture Japanese soldiers carrying women through Nanking, the Russians in Germany or Americans committing the same atrocities in Vietnam. It's sad to think of the innocence that is lost to us and the wonderment to be found in fiction.
With every chapter the chances became bleaker even as the destination got closer, evil got stronger as good strives farther. I think sometimes this was my parents gift to me, not the creativity. I think the book teaches you that the right thing becomes harder as you try to achieve it. It's so true, that it is a generic saying. The road traveled had been walked upon and paved by better men, but none had ever done what he was doing. However, these were things I picked up later when I read the books. At the time, it was wonderment, sadness, elation, and confusion (There is a lot of stuff in those books).
I think about Christmas and don't really find my gifts to have been memorable (because they were toys and toys have expiration dates), except my dinosaur that was cruelly kidnapped by my nephews and will be repossessed at a proper time. Birthday gifts are the same; I just grow less enamored with material wealth by the day. But when I sit and listen to music, drift off into daydreams, suffer from delusions of grandeur, and put pen to paper, I realize that my parents reading to me was the greatest gift a child could ever receive.
My dearest possession sits ten feet from me right now: three books my parents bought me for my sixteenth birthday. From the outside, they appear to be in pristine condition. Truthfully, the pages are coming away from the binding; perhaps, I shouldn't have slept with the books in my bed or read them so often. I'm sure there are stains from water, beer, or snow that blotch some of the pages, but the books are there, a permanent reminder of the gifts my parents gave me and of the wonderful parents I was blessed to have. For that, I will be proud for every day that I live to be called a nerd and thankful that at least in one aspect of my life, I am one of the luckiest men alive (despite having to share that luck with five others).
