"Nandy"

 

“ Nandy”

There is a psychology theory that one’s character and behavior are predetermined by the genetic makeup that he inherits from his parents. There is another theory (behaviorism) that his character and behavior are determined by his experiences. Both of these theories failed when applied to me. Neither of my parents displayed an exceptional interest in the things of the mind, or of learning, in general. My father completed an eighth-grade education, and my mother dropped out of school after the sixth grade. Neither of them pushed me to excel in school. They both worked hard, and they were happy when I played with friends or entertained myself as long as I didn’t get into any mischief.

However, my maternal grandparents lived nearby, and my grandfather would bounce me on his knees while I sang the “ABC song” when I was two years old. Then “Nandy” taught me to count. I was a kind of hobby for him, to pass the time away after supper and before bedtime.

But often he would spend that time after supper sitting alone in the unlit living room in an armchair, with his right hand over his eyes, quietly praying, but with his lips moving in tacit communication with the Almighty. He read the Bible from beginning to end once every year, and he loved to engage in theological discussions with some of his patent medicine customers. But he never displayed that side of his personality to my cousin Billy and me. Billy, who was a few months younger than I, also lived nearby, and he shared my interest in exploring. We lived near the southeast outskirts of Roanoke, and there were large tracts of undeveloped, and even wooded, land within easy walking distances. Apparently'', Nandy also liked to explore, because he sometimes joined us in these forays into the unknown – taking us for hikes along the railroad track for miles – much farther than we would have ventured on our own. He also shared another love with us: ice cream. At that time, we could buy a pint brick of ice cream for fifteen cents. He would give us the cash to get the ice cream at the corner grocery. Then, while we were gone, he would surreptitiously sneak three saucers and spoons from the kitchen and meet us at the end of the backyard walkway, where we were hidden from view of the house by the grape arbor and fruit trees (which were another one of his interests). Then, using the large blade of his pocketknife, he would divide the ice cream into three equal parts, and we would enjoy our delectable treat, made twice as tasty because it was our shared secret.

I don't mean to imply that my parents were not a good influence on me, because they were. They taught, by word and example, a strong work ethic, and they enforced a strict discipline: consistent but fair, and in the long run forgiving and patient. But it was Nandy that taught me the basics of reading and arithmetic.

When the weather made outside activities impractical, I would laboriously work through a child’s fairy tale book, slowly deciphering the longer words by stringing together the sounds of individual letters. After reading many fairy tales, I graduated to comic books before I started in grade school. It may seem strange to say that comic books were a good intellectual influence, but they were a great influence on me in two ways. First, they provided the motivation to work through writings that were more advanced than that of children’s books. The vocabulary in the comics was far beyond the normal reading level of a typical first grader.

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