So I’ve just inhaled an order of peach French toast at Denny’s. I ordered it on a whim (note to Fuzzy: you still owe me a cheeseburger), and wow, it was fragrantly peachy. Would have been better with vanilla ice cream instead of maple syrup, though.

Speaking of peaches, as a second-grader at Georgetown Elementary School in teeny Georgetown, CO, we still had story-time. GE was an open school, with places to sprawl and read, and hex tables instead of individual desks, and I learned more in that school than in all of my other education combined. (Well, not really, but it was my FAVORITE school.)

One of the books I first encountered during story time was Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach, which I think sparked my love of fantasy and science fiction, because what could be more fantastic than living inside the pit of a giant peach? I wasn’t all that thrilled with the talking insects James found himself spending time with, but then, I got the creepy crawlies from reading Charlotte’s Web the first time, as well. I don’t DO insects. Or arachnids.

Anyway, I have special memories of lying on my stomach, with my Buster Brown-shod feet kicked up behind me and a small pillow wrapped in my arms, for resting my head while we worked our way to the center of the story, and the center of the peach, one chapter at a time.

I get impatient, now, when people read to me, because they take too long, but as a seven-year-old, I was still completely a thrall of the human voice.