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This wasn't so much to motivate the other kids to read?

I don't remember that as part of her motivation. I just remember it as putting me on the spot, in terms of her own interests.

And by the way, I liked her. But I was always concerned with the fact that she seemed so insensitive, and I was supposed to be pleased with this, You know, displaying of my reading ability. I wasn't pleased, because, first, I knew that she was really misleading the visitor; and second, and maybe even more important, she was marking it necessary for me to have to fight Brennan. And I was smaller; by being younger I was always smaller than my classmates all up through high school.

But these are the things that sort of dominated my early memories -- the involvement in, not only at home but at school, and even on the block, I got the reputation for being lousy in terms of playing games, you know. I was always the last person, if it all, selected for the team, if they were going to play stickball or box ball or anything of that sort. But I was always looked upon as the person who would do well in school.

And I guess, eventually I got tired of it, in a way. I liked my teachers who had standards. I liked my teachers, all through elementary school, who respected their students and respected them to the point of requiring them to meet certain standards, of penmanship even. I remember a teacher I had in the third grade, fourth grade, by the name of Miss Maguire, who taught me to write. Although my mother had been teaching me to write in early years, Miss Maguire was systematic about it. You know, we had to make the curlicews and what not,