Father gave him the world

By Thomas Leibrandt

Of all the presents I've ever been given, the most memorable one came when I was a boy. It was a book.

Not just any book. It was the story of King Arthur, Merlin, and the knights of the Round Table. The timing and the choice were perfect. I understand how young readers today get hooked on the

Harry Potter

series. My book was also filled with heroes, villains, wizards, magic, loyalty and betrayal. It was the first book that I truly owned all on my own, and it was a present from my father.

In college, I revisited the classic tale through Sir Thomas Malory's

Le Morte d'Arthur

and later through Bernard Cornwell's masterful interpretation, but nothing ever rivaled the excitement and sheer delight of experiencing the Arthurian saga for the first time.

Reading is a passion I learned from my father. A truly self-educated and self-made man, he never finished his second year of high school. But no day passed without his reading something, always a novel, usually a mystery. But good mysteries. Rex Stout, Ellery Queen. He read his newspaper on his way to work on the train, but he reserved his novels for when he was relaxing, lying in bed or on the sofa.

Having gotten my interest with that first book, he then introduced me to some of his favorite novels, ones he had read as a young man. Sure, I had the same television heroes as the other kids on the block: Wyatt Earp, the Rifleman, Paladin. But I had special friends who were even more heroic: Captain Peter Blood, Edmond Dantes, D'Artagnan, Scaramouche. I fought the Normans with Wilfred of Ivanhoe, and the Hurons with Hawkeye, Chingachgook and Uncas. When Long John Silver said in

Treasure Island

, "I never seen a better boy. He's more a man than any pair of rats of you in this here house," I knew he was talking about me.

In graduate school, I joined those bleary-eyed devotees of the novel at its epitome as an art form (certainly if you measured it by page length or sheer volume weight): the Victorian era.

I've spent my professional life working with the English language, editing scientific articles, chapters and books. I've even written some articles and chapters of my own, and several years ago, three surgeons and I had a book published. I gave my father a copy I had proudly inscribed: "To Dad who taught me the love of books."

The day after he died, it was the book I found on the top of the stack of novels beside his bed.

The other day, I realized that my personal reading is now restricted almost exclusively to novels, usually mysteries, and I do it now horizontally, with my dog commandeering the lower part of the sofa, a tight but comfortable fit. It's the time of day I treasure most.

That present of long ago, my copy of a tale of epic deeds and legendary characters, became dog-eared and spineless from use and is long gone. But the real gift, the one that came from watching a modern-day hero and his daily reading, continues to last.