The voice echoed from behind my right shoulder and I was surprised to hear my name.
“Uncle D.J. is going to read you a bedtime story. Go pick one out.”
I stopped and spun around. My friend Justin was walking his youngest son Jude to his bedroom. Not knowing much about four year olds, a bunch of questions raced through my head. How long do you have to read before a child falls asleep? Can’t they read themselves? I couldn’t recall a memory from my childhood where someone read to me. My earliest memories of life start at six years old, and I had been reading on my own for a few years at that point. My mother brags that I taught myself how to read at age four. And I guess now I’m bragging to you. Anyway, since I couldn’t recall a personal experience of being read to, what came to mind was Peter Faulk reading to that boy in The Princess Bride. And that movie was two hours long, for chrissakes. I can’t read aloud for that long. As a self-centered adult without children, if I spend more than ten minutes with one, I get nuts.
