Last night, I was hanging out at Cafe Coco with a new acquaintance, a Nashville-area writer with whom (among other things) I was discussing the first novels we remember reading. I was talking about a book my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Vaughn, read to us. I’ve never been able to remember the name of the book, but I was able to describe in some detail what the cover looked like. As best I could recall, it was a story about time travelling. My friend suggested perhaps it was “A Wrinkle in Time.”
So, today, I did a little amazon.com sleuthing, and it turns out that the name of the book is actually “The Phantom Tollbooth,” by Norton Juster.
I can’t think about this book without remembering the moment when, at the tender young age of seven, my life flashed before my eyes. Once a week, Mrs. Vaughn had us bring our lunches into the classroom from the cafeteria so we could eat while she read aloud to us (out of this book, I mean). One day, as she was reading, I was going to town on some pineapple chunks, and one got lodged in my throat. I couldn’t breath, and started to flail my arms about a bit. She rushed over, gave me the heimlich maneuver, and the pineapple chunk went flying. In short, she saved my life!
I should mention that Karen Vaughn has been doing business with my mom for a long, long time. What’s more, she later became the school district’s gifted & talented coordinator and teacher. My brother was accepted into the G&T program (I was not, {sniff, sniff}), so he had Mrs. Vaughn, too, when he was in fifth grade. She took his class on a trip to Washington, DC, and my parents went as chaperones. The next year, my parents went back with the next bunch of students; this was my first year at GW, so I also joined up with them and toured DC with a bunch of fifth graders and my parents. It was terrific fun.
Every time I’ve seen Mrs. Vaughn since that fateful pineapple-chunk incident, she has mentioned it. Suffice it to say, I made something of an impression on her.
At any rate, I’m thrilled to have rediscovered this pivotal book in my development as a reader, and was endlessly amused to be reminded that the main character’s name is Milo. Yeah. That shit is funny, dude.