READ, READ, READ!

It was Dr. Seuss's birthday this week!  Read Across America! 

 Imagine the difficulty in being the only curmudgeon in a building full of fun people.  The threat to my quiet and reserved demeanor began with a door decorating contest.  It was decided that the Reading Department would decorate with Thing One, Thing Two, and several other Things.  I obediently traced the Things onto paper with the aid of an overhead projector, but being an individual and the only male in the department, I deviated from the request to be one of the Things, and traced the Grinch to represent myself.  

    

The Reading Room Door
Guess who's the Grinch?!

The work week was chock full of fun things for the students and staff to do to make it a fun week.  Monday was Silly Sock Day.  I had been ill throughout the weekend, and needed Monday to fully recuperate, so I missed Silly Sock Day.  I figured that on Tuesday, I could wear the silly socks, and unless I lifted my pant legs, no one would know I was belatedly participating in the fun. 

Unbeknownst to me, Tuesday was Striped Shirt Day.  I felt well enough to return to work, and put on my silly socks.  Temperatures outside were milder on that day, so I donned a short sleeved striped shirt.  Imagine the wonder and awe when my coworkers thought I had actually worn a striped shirt to support their cause.  Anyone that noticed my accidental homage to Striped Shirt Day was treated to a lift of the pant legs, and a view of my daughter's mismatched soccer socks, one bright red, and one blue.

Wednesday was Dress Like Your Favorite Character Day.  Oh yes, this sounded like something I would love to be a part of.  My favorite character was a gray haired old curmudgeon, and as such, they got just what they wanted...no costume necessary!  I do have a tee shirt with the Grinch's picture on it, and I wore it under my shirt that day.  Whenever a coworker asked where my costume was, and if there were no children around, I lifted my shirt and showed them the Grinch.  This was almost getting to be fun.

Thursday was the most comfortable day of the week to this point.  All I had to do was wear a shirt with words on it. I wore my lovely daughter's Temple Owls tee shirt.  Oh, the spirit those kids thought I had now!  I knew better.

It was finally Friday.  I was starting to feel this spirit of f-f-fun in the air.  It was Hat Day.  That morning, I went through my collection of hats.  All my favorites were there:  the one from Wildwood, New Jersey, making me yearn for a vacation; the one from Lackland Air Force Base, where my son Kevin graduated from basic training; a Father's Day gift hat boasting, 'Aged to Perfection';  another Father's Day gift hat lamenting, 'I Can't Take It Anymore!'; a beanie with a propeller, reminiscent of my days of watching Beanie and Cecil as a kid; my personal favorite, my 'Greatest Grandpa' hat from you know who; and, finally, the ugly plain yellow one I bought at a Dollar Store on the boardwalk because I'd forgotten all my other hats on that particular vacation.  I couldn't decide which to bring, for they were all so much fun to wear when I was indoors, and they all looked so stunning on me.  Well, not only am I the proud owner of so many fun hats, but I also have a collection of Walmart's plastic bags in my pantry, and I think they multiply right there in the pantry, so I stuck ALL the hats in one of those bags and alternated them throughout the day, and by the end of the day they all had been worn. 

HATS!

In the end, it was time to put all the amusing visuals aside and do something that would define Read Across America for me:  entering a classroom as a mystery reader.  I knew I wanted to read a Dr. Seuss classic, but the choice was difficult, given that there were so many to choose from.  I had read in an article that Dr. Seuss's first book was And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, and lo and behold, it was included in a Dr. Seuss Treasury book right in my home, and in my children's bookcase,  right in front of my eyes.  With the book chosen, I wanted to give the students something to take from the experience, so I wrote a poem in limerick form just for them, leaving a blank space in the last verse for their name, and gave a copy to each of them.  I told them of my love for writing, and of the importance of reading in anything they were interested in doing in their lifetime.  Their undivided attention, as well as their enthusiasm and response for the phrase I saw it on Mulberry Street whenever they heard the cue made this a fun fifteen minutes for me.  They may forget tomorrow my little poem about the importance of reading, but for a short time, they followed it, they understood it, and they shouted their names in that last verse.  

It was Dr. Seuss's birthday this week!  Read Across America!  Things have come full circle.  As a boy, I would read Dr. Seuss classics over and over again.  When my own children were young, I read the same classics to them.  Now, I have had the chance to read one of them to a new audience of youngsters, and the enthusiasm hasn't been diminished by the passage of time.  I had fun this week.........