The gift that keeps on giving

[rolanni]

For my sixteenth birthday, my father, who was not a great reader — he had dyslexia, back before its name was known; the only things the nuns knew was that the boy couldn’t read, though he was pretty quick with numbers, so they sent him to vocational school, where he learned to be a carpenter before he was drafted, came back home, married, realized that a ‘prentice carpenter wasn’t going to make enough to support his small family of three, and sold himself to General Motors’ beautiful daughter, Fisher Body — all of which is another story.

But! For my sixteenth birthday, though he had extreme reservations about this whole writing thing that I seemed to be set on — my father gave me The Random House Dictionary of the English Language: The Unabridged Edition. When I unwrapped it, he said proudly, “There! That’s the only dictionary you’ll ever need.”

As it turned out, he was wrong, but for a long time, he was right. The dictionary and I were inseparable. It got a lot of use, so much use that the spine cracked and pages started slipping. I stopped using the dictionary, though it still remained in its place honor on the floor next to my office chair, and Archie the cat repurposed it into a co-pilot’s station.

Sometime after we came to Maine and Archie had crossed The Bridge, Steve bought me Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary as a replacement, but I couldn’t bear to get rid of the Random House. It sat on the bottom shelf a bookcase, camouflaged by legal pads, and file folders.

Until this morning, when I realized that my bad shoulder had been starting to kick up again and I took a good, hard look at my desk and decided that the screen was sitting a little low.

I pulled the old dictionary out from the archeological drift of folders, dusted it off, and put it back to work.

The screen’s at a good height, now. Yeah.

So! This is a long weekend, here in the US, and much of it is going to be dedicated to The Book Currently Known as George. I’ve gone through what I have, marked it up, and noted places where the action needs to be expanded. Putting in those changes and additions should help get me back into the story. It’s possible I’ll even break new ground this weekend.

Wouldn’t that be something?

To the new folks who’ve joined us over the last couple of days — welcome! Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge, and mind the cats. They’ve got the sleep rays on HIGH today.

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestion, Sharon! I got the lecture from my therapist about posture, and that I'm hunching my neck/shoulders, so I tried the dictionary-under-the-monitor trick. (In my case, a Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary ... the Collegiate is the high school graduation gift I still go to, despite its ratty condition, because it's more wieldy.) I can tell already that I'm sitting straighter.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

Your father sounds like a wonderful man. Being supportive of of a child whose gifts and ambitions you understand is a relatively easy thing. Doing the same for a child whose gifts and ambitions are a great mystery to you is a heck of a lot harder.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

That is a splendid story. <3

[(Anonymous)]

You’re talking about the one with the white cover, right? That was my first dictionary. These days it’s been displaced, mostly by the online OED.

I built a little bench to hold my monitor. I can slide my keyboard underneath the bench to gain some desk space.

Raymond

[(Anonymous)]

Your Dad reminds me of mine...and that's a GREAT thing.
Our house had an old, battered OED on top of the fridge
and it was brought down any time there was a disputation
of spelling of definition. And every time our teachers
complained of our British English, my Australian mother
would sweep down to talk to them. :)

Lauretta@ConstelaltionBooks
PS I still get into trouble with British English.

[adriannem.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful story.

I went out to Office Depot and got a pair of drawers to put under my monitor. Hooray! Room for pens and stickies.

Good luck with George!