Grampa's Books

A fist connected with my face and down I went.

Somebody shouted, "_fight_" and suddenly the whole playground surrounded him, standing and gloating at me on the ground at his feet.

I started to get up, but before I could, he kicked me hard, squarely in the stomach. Down I went again, out of breath and crying.

"Teacher coming," someone said. The crowd vanished like ghosts. Bruised and crying I went off to the nurse's office.

"There's a new book on your desk," Mom said as I came up on our porch after school. "It came in the mail today from your grandad."

I didn't see him often. He wasn't much for letters, but every so often, Grandad sent me a book. It was uncanny the way those books always seemed to be a mirror image of what was going on in my life at the time. On that day, the book, _Aviation Stories For Boys_, told how Slim Tyler, famous aviator, overcame bullies to become a hero.

50 years later, my grampa is gone, but the library he gave me still remains and I revisit it more often than you might think.