First Book Loves (Question of the Month)

         Voting is still open for my current Battle of the Bands post.  If you haven't voted yet please visit this post.

     The Question of the Month is hosted by Michael G D'Agostino from A Life Examined. The first Monday of each month I'll be answering a question posed by Michael prior to event day. Click on the link to his blog for more participants. 

Question of the Month

“What was the first book (or book series) you really fell in love with?”

         If I were to include coloring books and the Little Golden Book series then those would be the obvious choices.   Those do not seem to be legitimate book choices for a question like the one posed for this month.  What kids don't like coloring books?    I'm not sure if the Little Golden Book series is formatted in the same was as it was when I was a kid in the 1950's, but the stories were for the most part timeless.   Too basic and innocent for today's kids?  I can't say for sure, but I spent many hours of my early life looking at the Little Golden Books that I had in my collection.

         But let's get book serious here.  The first book of real substance that I fell in love with was the King James Version of the Holy Bible.  I'd grown up fascinated with my father's giant sized Bible.  He would sometimes read from it or quote from it.  Sometimes he sounded like a preacher when he'd recite Biblical passages.

          I received my own personal copy of the King James Bible in 1958 when I was seven years old.  This Bible was given to me by Frank Van Valen,  the pastor at the church we attended at the time.  On a blank page near the front of the book he inscribed, "This book will not keep you from this book, but sin will keep you from this book."  I still have this copy of the Bible.  The cover is coming off, but the book is in remarkably good condition considering the wear and tear it has undergone.

          Now, if we are thinking about secular books then I'll go with two series that were published by the same company and in a sense went hand in hand.  The Tom Swift, Jr. books was a series of science fiction novels and the Hardy Boys series were mysteries.  I had complete sets of both at the time I stopped collecting them, though I think more were published after that.  Those collections were my pride and joy sitting on a bookshelf in my bedroom for many years.  I've gotten rid of most of that collection over the years, but I've managed to hang onto a few of each.   In recent years I've even actually reread some of those books and they weren't half bad even now reading them as an adult.  I guess that's one reason why I loved them so.  

          

          Do you remember Little Golden Books?    What was the first book that you ever received where someone inscribed a message to you?   There were many books series like the ones I mentioned:  Was there a set that you owned as a child?

Dream Imagery: The Baby Skeleton

          On Friday December 18, 2009 I posted an article about dreams .  Dreams have alway held a great fascination for me since childhood and I sometimes have journaled them or at least thought about them. Rohini, who has a blog called MY WEIRDEST DREAMS ,  commented with a request that I post some dreams on my blog.  I have decided to do this on occasional Fridays since I try to post about mysteries and mysterious things.  Dreams certainly fall into the category of the mysterious.  I am hoping that my blog friend Dr. Harris Stern will be there to lend his very astute observations about dreams.  Dr. Stern has also posted some fine articles about dreams.

         As I had mentioned in my December article, dream symbolism is very personal and can vary from one person to the next or even in our own dreaming life from one dream to the next.  Sometimes the meanings can be very concrete and they are exactly what has been envisioned in the dream.  Other times what we see in our dreams symbolizes something else entirely.  I don't think we can read a dream account in most cases and completely understand it because we need to know a lot more background about the dreamer's past and current situations.  But we can dabble and play around with it.

        The dream I am going to present today is one that I call THE BABY SKELETON .  This is a dream that I had when I was between 9 and 12 years old.  It was so vivid that I remembered it to the extent that it became a favorite story that I used to tell my kids when they were growing up.  Now you can enjoy the story and perhaps even play psychoanalyst.

         To begin with I will provide some background information as I recall it.  During the time of this dream it would have been between 1959 and 1963.  My family was living in a sprawling new housing development on Clairmont Mesa in San Diego, CA.  Our home was a block away from the large undeveloped Tecolote Canyon.  As children my sister, my friends, and I would often spend much of our non-school time playing in and "exploring" the canyon.  Bear in mind that this was a time when kids had a much greater reign to roam without some of the fears we have today.  We would often wander the canyon imagining that we were discovering things.  A bird feather was a remnant of a past Indian tribe, an unusual stone was an artifact of some primitive culture, or a dirt road was a pioneer trail.  We were full of imagination and adventure.

        Life seemed pretty simple and unthreatening to us children despite the news reports about possible attack from the Russians and the duck-and-cover air-raid drills that we would sometimes practice at school.  My family led a pretty routine suburbia life, my parents were just normal good parents, my sister Joy was one of my best friends, and my twin brother and sister were still very young.  I enjoyed watching THE TWILIGHT ZONE and scary movies on television and my reading primarily consisted of The Hardy Boys and Tom Swift.  Stamp collecting was my main hobby.  Life was good.

        In my dream I am in the canyon with my sister and perhaps some other friends.  We are exploring like we normally would be doing.  We are in what I would presume to be the western part of the canyon not far from the school where we attend, James Whitcomb Riley Elementary School.  Our group is following a trail on the eastern slope of that part of the canyon.  We come upon some ancient ruins that are much like Greek or Roman ruins.  Stone buildings are crumbling and fluted columns that are broken in pieces lay on the ground.  I am very excited that we have found such an amazing place in the canyon.  As I explore the site looking for artifacts, I find something about 20 inches long that is wrapped in an old blanket.  Unwrapping the parcel I find that it contains the skeleton of a baby.  I am very excited and feel that I have found something that is very special and even powerful. 

        Keeping my find a secret from my companions, I wrap the skeleton back up in the blanket and hurry home where I place the skeleton in one of my dresser drawers.  At this time I awaken, feeling very excited.  The first thing I do after I wake up is jump out of bed and check all of my dresser drawers to find the skeleton.  It's existence is very real to me in my initial wakefulness, but then I come to the realization that I have only been dreaming.   I feel somewhat sad and disappointed.

       Now it's your turn.  What could this dream have meant?   Have you had dreams that you were convinced were real when you woke up?  If you remember your dreams, I'm sure you have had dreams that have had this effect upon you.  How do dreams of childhood compare with those we have as adults?  Are you or were you a fan of TWILIGHT ZONE , The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, or Tom Swift?  Do you think my sister and I should have been using those canyons as a playground and wandering the neighborhoods on our own (everybody did it back then and none of us ever felt unsafe)?