I just finished the daily Cryptoquip in the newspaper. I never do one of them without thinking of my grandmother. I have to credit her with my initial love of words and reading and writing.
My grandmother lived in Okmulgee, Oklahoma when I was in grade school, and was probably the first person I wrote a letter to. (I know, proper grammar would be "to whom I wrote a letter," but that just sounds uppity.)
She also introduced me to cryptograms/cryptoquips, which are substitution ciphers in which one letter stands for another. By recognizing common letter patterns in words and trial and error the puzzle is solved. I came to love solving cryptograms and used to go through whole books of them at a time.
My grandmother and my mother encouraged me to read by their example, both being avid readers. My mother spent hours reading to me, first nursery rhymes from my (now lost) Mother Goose book, then classics such as Tom Sawyer, Heidi, and Little Women, and mysteries (which came to be my favorite genre) including the Happy Hollisters and Bobbsey Twins.
My grandmother took me to the huge (at least in my eyes) library in Okmulgee where I was amazed by the selection of books. At the time our Snyder library was in its early years with only four or five total shelving units occupying a corner of a room at City Hall, shared with the nightwatchman's desk. The
children's section of the Okmulgee library was larger than that!
I spent a week or two every summer with my grandmother, and one of my clearest memories is the summer I discovered the Raggedy Ann and Andy books at the library and read all they had. Books were often birthday and Christmas presents from my grandmother.
I'm here to tell you that when you read or hear what a great gift reading to a child is, it is very true. I cannot imagine a world without books!
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