At age 6, I traveled all over Tulsa, by streetcar and by foot, purchasing the buttons, snaps, hook-and-eyes, elastic, thread, and other items needed by my dressmaker mother. I became particularly adept at matching thread to a swatch of cloth, which later gave me an appreciation of "the palette" of some painters. (I still remember sitting on a curb around twilight, crying disconsolately. A kindly policeman asked, "Are you lost, Little Boy?" "No! I live at 1728 Columbia Avenue. But I've gone all over Tulsa trying to find thread to match this swatch of magenta cloth!" "Well, that's the first time I've heard that one!")

So I was able to procure a library card at the Main Library, downtown, during the first week of entering First Grade. And I made a wonderful discovery. Any child who had read 15 books (as verified by a Librarian) got a bootiful certificate. I'd discovered the Lucy Fitch Perkins "Twins Series" about boy-and-girl twins of various nations and times -- with perhaps 30 titles. I'd arrive home with 4 or 5 books, which I finished in a couple of days, to return for more. I was just about to receive my 13th certificate, when the Head Librarian snatched it away, saying "No more!" "But that's not fair!" Didn't they really want to promote literacy?

My "insatiable" reading was soon to support me in my next unique educational adventure -- extensive standardized testing.

This was still in the experimental stage in America. And some psychometrician decided that we kids in the Midwest constituted a representative sample of American kids (euphemism for lab rats), for trying out these tests. (As a statistician, I say, "Mebbee. Mebbee not.")

I took 6 standardized tests in the First Grade; 6 in the Second Grade; 7 in the Third Grade. I soon became facile at fielding these word and number tricks -- and contemptuous of them. And the following years confirmed my contempt! A psychometrician (as the "expert" in this field is called) gets away with the kind of fudging that school kids are punished for!

As a result of my First Grade scores, it was recommended that I be "skipped" a year. But Mother wouldn't allow it. (I'd be in with kids who might tell me about sssssexxxxxxxxx!) In the Second Grade, I was recommended for skipping another year. No go! Ditto in the Third Grade.

My success in school worried my mother, who said that "Schools are the invention of The Devil!", but "You need a piece of paper to get work!" My school records also riled my mother's relatives. "Any boy who gets A's in school and reads all the time will become a Queer and kill somebody!" You see, I lived under the shadow of the infamous 1925 Leopold-Loeb Murder Case (which inspired Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film, Rope, starring Jimmy Stewart).

My outside reading gave me "lead-time" in class, so I had plenty of time to refine my imitations of the Teacher and to practise that ancient folk-art, Whispering-in-Class. I also indulged in the dangerous activity of creating nonsense words to whisper or write to amuse the girls. Dangerous, because sometimes my made-up word sounded like baby-talk for a private part or private act! "Teacher, did you hear what Sonny Hays said to me?", whispering in the Teacher's ear. "He said that? Sonny Hays, go sit in the corner!" Later, an acquaintance would make a trip to the pencil-sharpener and whisper, "Hey Sonny! What did you say?" "I don't know. But it must have been pretty awful!"