sivilization

The pregnant missus and I have a nightly routine. We sing songs in French and I read (in English) a chapter of a children's book to her belly. I have a list of the books on the sidebar of the baby blog. Right now we're reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

SPOILER ON
The other night, I read the scene where Injun Joe murders the grave-robbing doctor, not knowing that Tom and Huck are hiding out in the graveyard and witness his crime. Nathalie fell asleep and missed my dramatic reading.
SPOILER OFF

I've never read Tom Sawyer before. I was recently remembering the first time I tried.

My father had taken me along on a business trip to Chicago. Don't picture anything involving airplanes or hotel suites. Picture a van and cheap motel rooms. Now picture the man away all day trying to make sales while the boy sits in the motel room and watches Bozo the Clown. (I'm sure Bozo's show didn't last all day, but it's the only thing I can remember specifically from 1970s local Chicago TV.)

After a few days of this, my father, in an attempt to steer me away from zombification, asked me to read a book -- Tom Sawyer -- during the commercials. I did exactly as he requested. When he got back from business, he asked me to tell him about what I had read. I said I didn't really understand much of it, that something or other was going on, and that there was some woman or girl or something, and I didn't understand what she was saying to Tom.

Looking troubled, he asked me to show him what I'd read. I opened the book and pointed to the beginning of the page, and then spent a while figuring out exactly which word I'd gotten up to ... on that same page.

I guess I need to explain that I never read a whole book until I was 14. This story takes place when I was closer to 10, give or take a year.

In 8th grade, I tested at a 6th-grade reading level when everyone else in my class (private school) tested at a 10th-grade level.

Anyway, my dad told me I couldn't watch any TV the next day. Enough Bozo, time for a day of Tom Sawyer. I had to spend the whole day reading the book. So while he was wherever he was, selling whatever to whomever, I left the room to make sure the TV couldn't tempt me.

I went and lay underneath the diving board of the motel's unused swimming pool and did my best. I think I got through the first chapter, possibly more. I eventually enjoyed it, and thought maybe I should try reading on my own when I got back to my regular life ... but I never did. Or rather: I did eventually start reading, but only several years later, and I never did return to Tom Sawyer until now.

Huck Finn, on the other hand, I read and loved my senior year in high school.

I quoted it on my page of the year book:

But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it."

I was sick the day yearbook proofs came in, but I phoned my girlfriend and asked her to go in and double-check that "sivilize" was (mis)spelled (in)correctly, which she did.

But then the yearbook editor (who was an all-A student in my English class, and was supposed to have read Huck Finn at the same time I did) incorrected it back to "civilize" -- making me look less illiterate to almost everyone, but more illiterate to anyone who mattered.

She wasn't allowed to change the proofs after they had my official approval, but she thought she was doing me a favor, saving me from embarrassment.

- papa