... for sure. I remember when I was in elementary school, my bedtime was always way too early. After I was supposed to have the lights out, I used to crawl under the covers of my bed and read by flashlight. Got my earliest exposure to novels that way: Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Kidnapped, Little Men and (yes) Little Women, Black Beauty and so on (those old Whitman books with the slick color covers). And, of course, the Hardy Boys and lots of science fiction (I was a member of the Science Fiction Book Club as far back as 1955, I think, and still have the card they sent me which entitles me to buy one fare on the first commercial flight to the moon!). I still read every night when I go to bed, no matter what time. Even last night, for example, I read for about 15 minutes before turning the light off just before 5:00 am.

BTW, how did you get a girl to bite you in the 8th grade? <g> The closest I ever came to that was getting socked by one after I ran over her while chasing a fly ball in a punch ball game on the school yard one morning before school. She came around a corner of the building at just the wrong moment, I was looking at the ball rather than where I was going, and she and her books ended up all over the place. She was particularly upset because I chased after the ball rather than help her up. She spent the next four years (after belting me that day) never giving me the time of day, though we were in mostly the same classes and I was eventually interested.

----- jim o\-S