I’m not sure how old I was when I started to read, maybe 5 or 6 in first grade. All I know is that for the past 72 or so years, I have read everything that I could find. I’ve written about the books, but there were also magazines and newspapers all around me. We didn’t have television until later and we certainly didn’t have computers, smart phones, the internet, and all the other ways to get information these days. I guess my parents didn’t know what I was reading – at the least, they sure weren’t worrying about it.
Magazines started with Highlights for Children and clipping Betsy McCall paper dolls from the monthly McCall’s magazine my mother received. My parents subscribed to Life, Look, Reader’s Digest, Saturday Evening Post, Newsweek for general reading. My mother subscribed to McCall’s and Ladies Home Journal and my father subscribed to Field and Stream and Argosy among others. As I grew older, I subscribed to Seventeen and my brother had Boy’s Life. We had both the morning and evening local papers delivered to our door, which I also did when I went to college and later had my own home.
I started early by looking at the stunning photographs and then reading the articles. I was reading articles about being a homemaker, a hunter and seeing what was going on in the news of the world. I was reading stories by famous authors and combing through the papers, after I read the comics, to see what was going on in my community. Nobody ever said a word.
By the time I reached junior high, I had read most of the books in my house, my grandparents’ homes, and my own bookshelves. My mother subscribed to Reader’s Digest Condensed Books for several years, so I was reading popular novels in that format. Nothing was out of bounds. An article I remember from one of Daddy’s magazines was about Errol Flynn and his raucous lifestyle aboard his boat. It was shocking but definitely interesting. Nobody cared if I read this. It didn’t mean I was going to become one of the wild women on his boat.
When I had my allowance, I bought movie magazines and paperback books. “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” was pretty risqué for my age of 14, but it was certainly a peek into something I sure didn’t know anything about. Nobody said a word.
I still read all the time, although I have to admit I read a lot online along with my books and a few magazines. None of the literature I read, from children’s books that featured characters from other cultures to biographies to histories to crazy fiction has ever made me anything more than an educated person who sees the bigger picture in the world around her, empathizes with problems other people encounter in life, relates to things that happen to people that have also happened to me, and is constantly curious to find the truth and the goodness in the world.
Sure, I have lot of prejudices that I absorbed from various sources, but I read enough to help me grow beyond them to be a better person. Reading and watching movies and television shows and news shows help.
Years ago, I taught a class for the American Red Cross called Facing Fear. It was a curriculum developed after 9/11 for students from kindergarten through high school to help them comprehend what had happened. A teacher friend asked me to come to her 6th grade class at the school I had attended and where my children and, later, grandchildren, had been students. We did a unit on the news and I was shocked to hear what came from the 12 year old mouths. They were totally parroting their parents with lots of prejudices, who mainly watched about 10 minutes of the local news a day. Cable wasn’t a big deal and the internet was in its infancy. I encouraged them to go to the library and read from a variety of sources in order to make up their minds about subjects. The words from the great song from “South Pacific” echoed in my head. “You have to be carefully taught…” These little minds were absorbing only one view.
Children and students today have amazing choices in ways to get their information. Librarians and teachers have processes to determine which items are allowed in the libraries and do a great job of being objective. We should be the best educated population in history, but we’re not.
My friends are horrified to see the things happening in our schools and communities today. One person can object to a book and have it banned for all children to read. Why have we given anyone this much power? When I was serving as PTA President many years ago, I told the Principal that I understood advocacy because I saw so many parents who always thought their child was right and didn’t care what was good for all children. It wasn’t quite as frightening because there were parents who stood up for the big picture of what was best for the community. There are ways to protect your child without stomping on the rights of others.
In my case, I have no doubt that, if my parents had chosen to censor what I was reading at any age, I would have found a way to find it for myself. With the internet, bookstores, libraries, there are always sources. I have to shake my head at the books that are being banned that are available in movie form. I would be exhausted trying to shut my children out of everything available to them. And, I would be doing them a disservice.
There are people who don’t even have children in schools who are working to ban books and make the job more difficult for teachers and librarians. Maybe these people should take the time to read some of the books and meet some people who are different from them and widen their own perspective.
The Bible is often quoted in battles, but not banned or censored despite the cruelty, sexiness, and crazy laws in those pages. Everyone should be reading Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” which is the story of a society which outlawed and burned books. Rebellious citizens memorized whole books to preserve them, walking around reciting them to remember. It is a powerful image of how people will find a way to preserve and protect words that stimulate and enrich our lives.
In today’s world, we all need to be involved, write and call our legislators on all levels from local to national and make them take a step back to see what is happening in our schools and libraries. There is nothing good that can come of censorship and banning books. Nothing.
and my youngest daughter catching goldfish in the wading pool. 
Here is my husband playing with our son in the wading pool:
and my middle daughter feeding her brother the wonderful pool water (yikes!)
and my oldest daughter diving from the board. 
Life went on and the kids grew up and I probably didn’t spend as many days poolside until the next generation appeared and we were once again gathering there in the summers. Here are my daughters and the oldest five grandsons at the wading pool:
and then there were a couple of more grandkids at the pool.
And before I knew it, they were growing up.
And then there were improvements at the club and by 2012, the old pool was gone and the new pool was in. This time, it is a spa design with a diving area, a slide, and a beach type area for wading, complete with fountains. My grandkids were bigger
and still doing races in the new pool.
By this time, we had lost my son, who was the kid that hung around the pool and knew everyone behind the scenes and everyone knew him by name. We are lucky to have his daughter, who has now grown up at the pool, following her cousins, aunts and father. And me, of course.
My three daughters are now the mothers of grown children, but still like to hang out at the pool together.
My grandchildren are growing up, with seven of them in college or beyond. In 2020, it’s just my last granddaughter, turning 11 soon, and me by the pool on this sunny day. Some things are the same. The lifeguards are watching the kids, who are calling to their mothers to see what they can do. Kiddos are asking for snacks, running when they should be walking, doing belly flops off the board, diving for objects, making up fun pool games and making new pool friends. The parents are more diverse and have their electronics with them to read books or check their messages. Now they have their drinks delivered to poolside, where they visit and relax. They look younger all the time to me, as they should.
The family moved to Oklahoma City at some point, where my grandfather started his automotive parts business, J. C. Hamilton Co. Here is a photo of the family during that time. My father is on the front fender behind his brother, Ed. Bill stands on the running board between his sister and parents. It’s the only photo I can find of the whole family together, but you get the idea. 
Years passed, the children grew up and the boys went into the family business. Sarah married my other Uncle Ed and started their family. When the United States joined World War II, all the men went into service. Here is my Uncle Bill with my grandfather. 
My grandfather was about 5’8″, so Uncle Bill was the smallest of the brothers in the family, besides being the baby. I still don’t know where my father got his height of 6’2″.
And then this article from the local paper.
All I had ever heard was that he was shot down while parachuting into Germany and was buried there, far from home. Then I found this touching letter, written to my father. I’m not sure how this got into this group of papers, but it showed a big brother trying to find more information about his little brother, probably trying to get answers for my grandparents.
The letter shows they didn’t know right away if he was killed or captured, as this letter was written well over a month after he must have been killed, according to the newspaper clip above.
It looks like my family has made it. You can just look at the way we dress and see that we are successful…not to mention on trend, with it, cool.
My grandmother kept my mother’s dresses to make quilts. I have a few well worn quilts and some unfinished quilt tops from then that show the thinness of the fabrics. There was no waste in those days. They couldn’t afford it.
My mother always looked stylish after she started working. Here she is when she was young.
I only have photos of three of my great-grandmothers. This is my father’s paternal grandmother, shown with him. These were their everyday clothes. They weren’t poor, but they had lots of children to keep dressed.
This is my mother’s paternal grandmother, shown with my mother and her brothers. My mother may be wearing one of the dresses that ended up in a quilt. My mother told me her grandmother dressed the same way until she died, wearing layers of clothes as they did in the late 1800s. The earliest information I can find out about her is that she worked as a house servant in Texas when she was 14. Later she married and traveled to Ardmore, OK by covered wagon, where they set up the West Wagon Yard and did pretty well, although she always lived very simply.
This is my mother’s paternal grandmother. They were poor, living on a farm in southern Oklahoma. Both she and my grandfather ended up, literally, at the poor farm. I’m not sure if they were suffering from dementia or just couldn’t afford to live on the farm anymore, but I learned that they both died at the home in Vinita, OK. She was buried there and the family managed to bring him home later. 
So, I stand in the middle of the generations, looking back at my great-grandmothers who lived difficult lives, but managed to patch their children’s clothes and keep the families together, to my grandmothers, who both were poor as children, but worked hard and raised their families, to me, who was born to a comfortable lifestyle, which my husband and I worked hard to provide for our children.
Our family has made it, if you look at the generations. I have grown children and grandchildren who can afford to buy expensive, torn clothing to show how well we are doing. I think I understand why I haven’t embraced this trend. I’m stuck in the middle of those who had nothing and those who have much. I look back and I look forward and I appreciate the progress. These are my people and I love them all.
Confetti Thoughts 