Stephen King

For me, it all began with the classic novel Firestarter. I was going to be in 7th grade after the summer was over. Our church group had a two week long trip to John’s Island, South Carolina. I knew I could make time go by faster riding the long bus trip with some good books. Reading on long car trips was a usual for me. I loved to curl up to a good book while the car went many miles. So, before the long bus trip, I went to the bookstore.

Being 12 or so.. I was at the age where the "kiddie" and "teen" books seemed beyond me. I wanted a REAL book. It just so happened that Firestarter was out in the movie theater. From the previews, all I could tell was that it was about a little girl who had the ability to start fires by thinking about them. Now, at that time, that was a "new" type of fiction. There were no aliens invading, there were no monsters fighting to the death.. but a young child able to melt a payphone?

And of course.. I happened to notice the rating was rated "R". No way was I going to get to go see that in the theater. At that age, I was barely a teenager. I had never seen an "R" rated movie, and there was no way my parents would take me to see it. Not even if it was about a little girl.

So, I did the next best thing. I bought the book. 

I must have been glued to the pages for hours. I read the book in one sitting all the way through. I cherished that book! It was like nothing I had ever read! It was fiction, but it wasn’t horror. It was about things I had never dreamed of. Of course, after reading it, I could not understand why it was rated what it was. The concept and the language gave it a bad rating.

But, that is what started it.

I liked this author! He had some neat ideas. He had original ideas. The sentences and paragraphs seemed to flow from one page to the next. I never got bored. I didn’t find myself skimming through dialogue. I read it over and over.

After having read that book, I decided it was time to find some more books by Stephen King. 

Pretty soon, I bought Cujo, Christine, the Shining. 

Even though I never saw any of these movies till well after 10 years later.. I always had an ever growing collection of Stephen King books. 

I would check in with bookstores and find out when the next book was coming in. I would reserve them ahead of time. After I had well over 20 books in paperback, I found some hardback ones going on sale in bookstores for less than the paperback ones were. I being a new collection of hardback ones just so I could have a collection in hardback.

My parents knew at that time some of the best presents to get me were books. I was so proud of my collection! And I still have it today…