My parents made a special effort to bust out the books and newspapers in front of me early on. Literacy is important, and as with most things its importance is learned in the home. By reading to me and demonstrating their eagerness for it, my mom and dad hoped to instill an appetite for the written word in their firstborn son.

Their tactics worked, to a degree few would expect. I was reading within sixteen months.

That makes it sound like I was a prodigy. Honestly, at such an early stage it was all identifying letters. And as with most children, I had my favorite books memorized and could "read" them by turning the pages and associating the tale with the illustrations. But I do carry an early memory (after my brother [tune in tomorrow] but before day care) of turning the pages of Where Does the Butterfly Go When It Rains and actually understanding the assembled letters.

It's a passion that has not waned with time, nor from its associated trials and tribulations. In day care, the classroom, the playground, I was the kid Hollywood portrays as having his book dropped in a mud puddle just before the bullies pants him. In our cross-country move, our library weighed nearly as much as all the furniture in our bedroom.

But today, I have fourteen books checked out from the public library. You have to get them in bulk, after all, when you read them three at a time.

As a fan of the stuff, creating literature (or even just a reasonable facsimile thereof) is the only thing I can remember ever wanting to do. The strained hyperbole and metaphor herein (not to mention overwrought vocabulary) illustrate just how far I have to go, but it's a road worth traveling.

And it has its useful side trips as well. My daughter, unless she tries really hard to be defiant, can do no less than super-literate. In fact, she now has her own copy of my favorite book from childhood to learn by heart.