Reading and Life Lessons in a Tabloid Gauntlet...

I was thinking about the clutter of cheap magazines and Hollywood tabloids that scream for attention when we stand in the checkout line of almost any grocery store, Walgreen's or Walmart. A wild gauntlet of absurdities.

I happened to be standing in such a line. Did you know that Al Gore is actually a woman?

Apparently Hillary Clinton is an alien, and every Hollywood star over the age of 50 is dying a horrible death. Each rag has the exclusive pictures. Although the publications themselves come and go, they take me back some 30 years when I was standing in that same line with a little blonde girl who was just learning how to read.

Carla home schooled Ruth, with my blessing, as long as an emphasis was put on reading and writing. To me, that's the key to anything else someone may want to do in this world. While Ruth was just starting to learn, she read the billboards, traffic signs, the names of businesses, anything and everything. She would sound them out bit by bit until the whole word popped out, accompanied by a joyful recognition and awe at her own growing ability.

But the checkout line was special for us. That's where we could pick up a National Enquirer, The Weekly World News, or whatever the trash magazines were that I no longer remember. “Dad, can we get the one about Bigfoot?” One of the tabloids always made it to the belt, a special treat. On the drive home, we both looked forward to the time that we would spend together after the groceries were put away...nesting in a big chair, or maybe soaking up the sunshine out on the lawn with Ohio the Wonder Dog rolling on her back nearby. Ruth would read to me from the National Enquirer, pausing as I helped to clarify words and meanings. Asking lots of questions in that funny, unfiltered dialect of a very young child. All those alien adventures, the Kangaroo that gave birth to a human baby, the people that were discovered living 1000 miles below the surface of the earth. We laughed and talked about the stories, her eyes wide with joy at her own discovery of what was and wasn’t real. She loved to bust the stories, like finding treasure, explaining to me why they were fiction and why they made no sense. 

Ruth learned a healthy skepticism early in life, to question everything and to decide for herself. The very same lesson my father had taught me 30 years prior when I was shocked to discover that an article in our local paper wasn’t the truth. Ruth learned that lesson well and she also learned to read.

For me? I knew then and remember clearly now, that there was no better way for me to spend my time on this earth, than cuddled up in a big overstuffed chair, reading, pointing, and laughing... with a little blonde girl who had a purple tongue and breath that smelled of Gummy Worms and Skittles...