The Linen Closet Library

THE LINEN CLOSET LIBRARY 

"You need to read so you'll know about life." That's what mama told me and my sisters. And that is why the last three shelves the hallway linen closet (from the floor up) were made our family library.
My Best Girl! Mama graduated from Dunbar High School in Broken Bow, Oklahoma in 1954. A single mother twice by that time, she still loved books and believed they were the key to life. She moved from her grandparents home in Eagletown, Oklahoma, the last stop of the Choctaw Nation's March of Death from Mississippi at the insistence of the United States Calvary, when she tuned 18 and lived, for the first time in her life with her single parent mother who had since married and was living happily ever after in River Rouge, Michigan.

My mom met, married and was divorced from my dad (there's a story there), during which time she birth 3 girls, a boy and then finally a girl. After a rocky marriage, struggling for her and children's survival, she moved her five children with her to the two bedroom apartment in the rear of her mom and stepfathers home, which also boasted a two bedroom apartment at the front of the house, and a two bedroom apartment over the garage with an underground passageway from the Big House Basement to the detached garage behind the house.

Still my mother and her children were poor despite her mother's semi-affluent status (there's a story there). Finally, applying for and receiving public assistance to secure her independence and improve the welfare of her children she moved to the projects. Always Mama told us, "Just because you live in the projects don't mean the projects have to live in you." And she reared the perfect gentleman and 5 exquisite young ladies. At the heart of our training is epitomized by out linen closet library.

Sheets, pillowcases, blankets and the like filed the top three shelves. The forth and fifth shelves as well as the floor were filled with school text books, a set of encyclopedia Britannica and a small assortment of Bible story books. In addition to her mandate that we learn from these tools, she encouraged and instilled in us a love of books. This love was exhibited as me and sisters each had personal libraries on the top shelf of each of our bedroom closets. We were never afraid to read. And, mama taught us to use a dictionary when we ran into words we didn't understand.

In retrospect, she reared autodidacts (self-taught persons). In this revelation I have discovered that my love of law and success in defending myself in criminal cases successfully (the only cases I lost is when I allowed the public defender to set me up... I mean represent me). I have also successfully represented a number of others across the country in Administrative Courts where a license to practice law is not required, which is good, because I have never had one. Not to take anything from my father, who represented and won in a suit against the Worker's Compensation Commission of Michigan, but Mama trained me to read!

While I am college educated and applaud those who have and do follow that course of study, I believe, and this quotable me talking, I believe, "True learning is not what you've been taught, but the knowledge that you have independently sought." I argue that formal education merely requires rote memory: Rote learning is a memorization technique based on repetition. The idea is that one will be able to quickly recall the meaning of the material the more one repeats it. Some of the alternatives to rote learning include meaningful learning, associative learning, and active learning.

It is my belief that Mama made us active learners, which is why we have never had any trouble finding or creating paid work. God I love my Mama. She not only gave us treasures. She made us treasures! Any treasure hunters out there? :-)