I was just reading some poetry online and I suddenly had a flash of memory – a card game called “Authors.” I don’t know that I ever played the game, and I don’t remember the game being around my house when I was growing up. Nevertheless, I do remember the game cards and they bring back fond memories for some reason. Perhaps a relative or a neighbor had the game and I used to play with the cards when I visited.

I know that my first exposure to the names of several authors came from that game. Trying to send my mind back to that long-forgotten memory, I recall that the names seemed unfamiliar, and yet important; names like Longfellow, Tennyson, Hawthorne, Dickens and Cooper – thirteen names in all. Perhaps this card game was a forgotten inspiration for my love of reading and writing.

I have four other memories regarding literature that have meaning to me, or at least that’s all I can recall at this moment. The first one is sometime when I was in later grade school, perhaps fifth or sixth grade. I recall my mother (perhaps it was both of my parents, but more likely just my mother) taking me to the town library. I don’t know if it was the first time I was at the library or not, but it may have been. All I really recall is feeling very happy about having checked out a book, and it was not some “kid” book. I wish I could remember the title, but that memory is just a shade too foggy.

Another memory is the book fairs we had in grade school. I believe it was Scholastic Books that used to run these (this would have been back in the early 1960’s) and it appears that they are still doing so. I remember all the books, and wanting to have so many of them. My parents were not able to afford a lot of books, but I never went home empty handed.

The third memory is of one of my junior high school English teacher. I wish I could remember his name more clearly – perhaps Mr. Whitmer? (Ellis Junior High School, Elgin, Illinois). He was the first teacher I had (and perhaps the only one) that made English fun. My peak experience was when he read The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service, out loud to the class. It was at that point that I decided I wanted to be a poet. It was years of poetry writing later before I finally laid that pen down with the realization that I didn’t have the chops to cut it as a poet, but even still, an occasional line or two runs through my head accompanied by the urge to write them down.

My last memory is also from junior high school. It is where I discovered Robert Heinlein. The Door Into Summer was a seminal book for me – it sucked me into the world of science fiction, but more importantly, it introduced me to Heinlein. He was no small influence in the development of my own personal life philosophy, along with Ayn Rand at a later date.

In college I struggled to figure out what my major should be. I think my first major may have been Theology, later followed by Chemistry, and my final farewell from college saw me enrolled as an English major. Out of all the possible majors I considered, English was where I felt most at home. Unfortunately, I ran out of time, money and enthusiasm for college, so I’ll never know where an English major would have lead. I know that I questioned the usefulness of that major at the time, too. In hind site, I wish that I had followed that path, but you make your choices and you live by those choices.

Good memories. I wish I could remember more, and remember them more clearly, but that was never my strong suit. Guess I should just be making good memories now, eh?