On this, the 58th anniversary of Buddy Holly’s death, I finished reading The World We Live In.
My great-grandmother, who had owned the book for over thirty years, gifted me the large, heavy, rust-colored book on this day in 1991. She was visiting from her home on Long Island, and she had gifts for her great-grandchildren, all twelve of them.
I still remember the rush of all the kids – of which I was oldest – and adults. Her visits to Minnesota always brought my mom’s entire family together at my grandparents. And I can still remember her curly white hair and her scent when we hugged – a slight mothball aroma infused with a strong tea. “Here you go, dear,” she said, handing me the big book. She always called me dear, though, come to think of it, she called everyone dear. She had an eastern accent – the kind my mom, and even I – had when I was little. So the dear was more like deaaa. Like most of my New Yorker family, she tended to erase Rs that were supposed to be spoken, and then insert them into words that didn’t otherwise have them.
Her mannerisms and accent actually reminded my sister and me of someone we saw regularly on TV. Diane and I often compared our family members to famous people, usually on account of looks, but sometimes we ascribed a doppelgänger based on mannerisms, too. One uncle reminded us of Brian Wilson. Steven Tyler inexplicably looked like one of our aunts. But our great-grandma, whom we called Grandma Kopp (since that was her last name, after all), embodied Jean Stapleton.
“I wrote your name in it,” she added, as I kissed and thanked her. I opened the front cover and, true to her word, she had written “To James D. Zimmerman • Love Grand Ma • 2/3/91.”
For years, the odd-sized book languished on my shelf. Once the computer age was in full swing, I recruited it as a laptop desk. At the approaching of the twentieth anniversary since I was granted possession of it, I contemplated finally reading it cover to cover. Its very size posed a challenge; I couldn’t lug it work to read during break, and I couldn’t leave it sitting on the toilet tank for that other time I devote to reading. As the date approached and I realized I was too busy with a six-month old child and a new college course beginning that very day, I satisfied myself with simply reading the introduction.
Over the next five years, I read about five percent of the book. Then I hit upon the idea of finishing it on the 25th anniversary, but that eclipsed, too.
During my holiday break in December, I pulled it off its shelf – a narrow shelf on which it sits horizontally with two other unwieldy tomes – and committed myself to at last reaching the back cover by the marginally remarkable 26th anniversary since Grandma Kopp put pen to front free endpaper.
Done.