My Grandfather

Every summer my family visits my grandparents in Buffalo, NY. Of course they never had Disney Channel, ABC Family or Nickelodeon but they always had plenty of books. After awhile sitting around in someone's house gets boring, so I would always start to wander off with a good book I'd found on the bottom shelf. The car rides were excruciatingly long as well, 5, 6 sometimes 7 hours long. Just the journey there was always a reading experience in itself. But like I said, a good amount of the time there too was spent reading. My grandfather would always ask what the book was about, note a children's book review he'd read in the Times and every visit we'd take one extra long walk to our favorite book store on Elm Street. The coffee shop right next door gave it its charm, but its magic came from the book shelves themselves. Filled to the brim with mysteries, biographies and A-List books (my favorite at the time, unfortunately) it was the best place to get carried away in. So throughout the year my sister, brother and I would be sent books that we'd told our grandfather about with the Elm Street bookmarks stuffed inside. Thanks Grandpa.