Reading, reading and more reading

I cannot remember a time that the boy didn't have a book in his hand. I think I already mentioned the medical books we read as children. They were my mothers' from nursing school. He taught himself to read at three and my mom discovered it because he asked her what a fallow-pean (his pronounciation at three) tube was? She asked him where he got that word and he responded in the book. Which book, this one. It was on human anatomy.

That was just the beginning. He read everything. If it wasn't nailed down, he was reading it. I remember going through the Dick and Jane books in a couple of afternoons with him. He read encyclopedias! Comic books. Everything. And then he discovered those awful books. Those ones that boys read. Not those kind! Come on! This is not a full disclosure blog. Sorry. to mislead your imagination. The book/magazine I'm talking about was MAD magazine. He was hooked on them. I swear he could repeat every passage. Spy vs Spy. Those fold-ins! The back cover would be folded over itself to reveal this months message. Then there was the ever challenging Don Martin. I swear Mr. Martin contributed more sound effects to the ever growing vocal library that was my brother. Glork! Gloop, gloop, gloop. etc. He and his friend Steve would race to the Red and White to pick up the latest copy and they would spend the better part of a day laughing and joking about that silly magazine.

It was the beginning of the division between he and I . I had Seventeen and he had MAD. I knew guys were wierd and he confirmed it with reading that magazine. However, there were times, when I would pick up a copy to see what was so intriguing between the pages. Some was funny, other stuff just dumb. Kind of like the Three Stooges. Now don't get me started on them!