When I began going to school I found most everything there was interesting. Since it was all new to me it played a big part in the interesting part.

Clermont County’s Rick Houser has released a second book, this one titled “Memories from the Heart.”
Soon as I became familiar with the items and topics, I began to draw opinions as we all do even though we really should not. I liked working with math and learning how to print my name and even spelling some. However, my first response to reading did not excite me. To learn how to make words into sentences and pronounce them as they were supposed to was not too easy for me. In fact, it seemed very much like work and even at a young age, I did not try to find work at something I did not care for.

So as we would sit down to the reading table and open our readers, I to tell you the truth really did not care if Spot the dog ran or not. I mean there were pictures in the book so I could see what Dick, Jane and Sally along with Spot were all doing. So what purpose could there possibly be in learning to put those words into sentences? Now Mrs. Warden my teacher did not give up to me. She kept on and pushed me forward as best she could. In the first grade classroom, there was a shelf of books along the wall under the window and here was where I think I might have figured it out a little. The books were interesting but I found that in some I was going to have to pronounce that word to learn more about the topic. Slowly and begrudgingly, I began to learn more and more about reading.

As the years passed, I never thought much about liking to read. It never occurred to me but I was growing up in a family that was all good readers and enjoyed reading. We had a small book library I guess you could call it. I know my sister Peg did and most of the books were hers. The one that sticks to mind was “Gone with the Wind.” This book Peg read so many times that it got to the point she would pick the book up and let it fall open and begin reading from whatever page it opened to. She said she knew where she was in the story. My mom would read from James Whitcomb Riley a writer, poet who had lived in Indiana in the late 1800’s and wrote very much about farm life, and mom liked the poems. We kids enjoyed a few, as mom would read them to us. “Little Orphan Annie” is one that comes to mind.

My dad never said much about the reading but he would read from a book entitled “Song of the South” by Joel Chandler Harris”. It was about the Deep South, a man named Uncle Remus who would tell this little boy stories about animal characters such as Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and would entertain the boy with his stories and as my dad read them to me, I was entertained. Now Ben would read books about sports and legends in sports like Babe Ruth and Jim Thorpe. It seemed that he would put sports in and then add some history into it.

I was slow to understand at first but as I began to read more, I realized that my family passed their time by reading and thought it fun. (I just had no way of seeing that to be fun.) Up until then that I enjoyed was them reading to me. My dad and Ben also would read me stories being told by Uncle Remus and read them in the country dialect. My mom would read from Whitcomb Riley in the farm dialect of Indiana. My mom was a great one to read a book to you as she could put the feelings in at the exact time. One winter she read Charlotte’s Web to me one chapter a night at bedtime. She did it so well that I cheered for Charlotte as the hero and savior of Wilbur the pig. She did it so well that when Charlotte died I fell to pieces. I mean just how the writer could have killed off the main character and let the rat live.

For a good while, I had gotten comfortable to be read to. It finally came to me that in no way was I going to have this luxury forever. However, picking up a book like Gone with the Wind, which is very huge, was beyond my grasping. What I was not grasping was in the years we all lived at home the mail carrier delivered many magazines to our home. There was Look and mom’s favorite Readers’ Digest. Dad got the Farmer’s Home Journal, which I loved looking into. Peg subscribed to TV Guide. Even Ben had subscribed to the Mickey Mouse Comic Book. (This of course was a must to read.) Now I would look at all of these magazines and we also got the daily Cincinnati newspapers and all the County weekly papers. I do not think at the time I realized it but I was reading almost all the times when I paused.

In the years of my growing up reading was a big part of our entertainment. There was three hours a night of prime time television and the rest was news or soap operas and they were not not of my interest. Now at the time of my youth there were no video games like Xbox or play station etc. and must confess I would have enjoyed them. In addition, it was ill advised to go to a parent and whine we did not have anything to do. (Although I tried it some with poor success.) Therefore, we entertained ourselves. Since those years, I have learned to read more and like it. I by no means am a fast reader but I retain what I take in.

From those early years, it is safe to say I enjoy reading if it is to my liking. My wife has created a library out of one of our rooms as she has read that much. The room is lined entirely with bookshelves and even that cannot hold what she has consumed in words. I am envious as to her talent and am still a slow reader in comparison. So if you are reading this I guess you have figured out that I like to read and write. Another source I have found is right here on the pages of our local papers. So now folks I know why Spot was running. He was running to fetch this paper for his masters to read.

Rick Houser grew up on a farm near Moscow in Clermont County and loves to share stories from his youth and other topics. If interested in reading more from Rick he has two books for sale and you can contact him at [email protected]. Also can write to him at P.O. Box 213 Bethel, Ohio 45106.