Page upon pageuponpage upon pageupon

That's how it started - our story time. Always, Tori and me, Dorothy and Dewey. Some times, Mary was here, too.

Before I knew it, we had gone through the classics -- Bronte and Dickens and Elliot and Shelley; we read and discussed all of Woolf, one of Tori's favorites; we had romped through the early 20th century masters - Parker, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, O'Hara, Powell - Powell, whom I had never heard of until Victoria demanded I find her among the top-shelf books.

"Think top-shelf beer and you ought to be able to find her. Powell, like O'Hara, just never got her due," Victoria said. "And you know who else they're starting to appreciate?"

"No," I answered as tried to reach for a book while balancing on the tip of my toes on Victoria's stepladder. "Who?"

"Arnow, that's who. We'll get to her."

We had cried and debated through Oprah's selections. And all that reading and talking came after the Hazleton Standard Speaker, and The Republican and Herald, the local morning newspapers, the U.S. News and World Report and The New York Times Book Review.

I learned the difference between a roman a clef and a bildungsroman. I will not admit it to Tori, but I think I like knowing these things. I feel, well, almost bookish.

Spring became summer. August nights took on a chill. Squirrels raided oak trees. Frost killed the last of the morning glory. Coal stoves were stoked for the season.

A nor'easter blew in and wore out its welcome after 24 hours and 48 inches of snow. On we read.

My myopia worsened and I had to get new glasses, with bifocals. Victoria said this was not from all the reading. My age, she said, was to blame.

Next