Reading to Leif - July 1976 - Manhattan, Kansas - Age 1.5 years

I loved to read to my sons. Ever since I learned to read in the first grade it has been one of the joys of my life. I read passionately and voraciously as a child. I grew up without television, so my stories came from books. I've always treasured reading time, and most especially, all the years I read to my sons.

Of course I read to them at bed time, but not just then. We also shared books just about any old time. And not just when they were little fellows. I read to them until they were in junior high, and only quit when homework, sports and other things intervened and made it impossible, though even then I continued to read things aloud at the dinner table or in the car. I remember reading Judy Blume's "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" to the boys in the airport in Hawaii, or at least that's where we started it.

Reading together was always a special time, a teaching time, and learning time, a fun time. We read all kinds of books, fiction and nonfiction, picture books and novels.

My sister Sherie took this photo of me reading to Leif in July 1976 when she and her husband DeWayne drove down from Michigan to Kansas to see us just before we moved to Charlottesville, Virginia.