I Love Cs Lewis
Here is my introduction to C. S. Lewis:
In the fall of 1973, I was getting ready to fly to San Jose, Costa Rica to student teach at the Costa Rica Academy - an American K-12 school - through the COST (Consortium of Overseas Student Teaching) Program.
Since Costa Rica was a Spanish speaking country, I assumed that it would be hard to find books in English, so I bought about 40 or so to pack into my luggage.
I tried to buy books that I had always wanted to read, but had not yet gotten to. I had read Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Ring" series the summer before, and had loved them.
In the process of reading up on Tolkien, I had also discovered his fellow Oxford don, and so bought "The Chronicles of Narnia" to take on my trip.
I was flying down to Costa Rica on January 5, 1974. The previous Thanksgiving, I was finishing up undergrad classes and I had no way to get to my parent's home 250 miles away for the holiday, so I decided to glance at the first book in the Narnia series - "The Witch, the Lion, and the Wardrobe".
I began looking at the book around 5:30 PM Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, and was soon deeply engrossed. I stopped periodically to answer calls of nature, feed my cat, or to grab a drink or a bite to eat for myself.
However, I did not sleep - at all - until around 12:00 Noon on Friday, at which time I laid down the seventh and final book in the series, and finally went to bed.
Over the years, I have reread the series - although never again nonstop - about every ten or so years. I also bought and devoured many other of Lewis's book - my next favorite ones being the three book Perelandra series.
I bought some other books - volumes by William Burroughs and Anthony Burgess and George Orwell (he had many great books besides the two - "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four" - that most literate Americans know) - to replace the now useless-for-the-purpose Narnia books.
I had a huge shock after settling in at the school where I taught, as the parents of a couple of my students were from England and owned a bookstore - The Book Shop - in downtown San Jose. Thus, my carting all of these books to Costa Rica had been totally unnecessary.
In fact, being English, they had large numbers of books from the British publisher, Penguin, which, at that time, were not available in the States, and were much less expensive than books published or sold here.
I became a very good customer of their bookstore and bought many, many books from numerous authors.
I had kept my apartment in the States and simply sublet it while I was in Costa Rica as the rent - furnished with utilities - was $72.50 per month, and the landlord never raised your rent as long as you kept the apartment. He only charged new tenants higher prices as they moved in.
When I moved there in 1970 to begin college - I never lived in a dorm - the rent was the aforementioned $72.50 per month; when I moved out in 1983 to get married, my rent was still $72.50 - though new tenants were then paying $150.00.
I had planned initially to only stay in Costa Rica for my student teaching in the spring of 1974. However, having loved the country, I decided to stay and teach as a salaried faculty member. The school where I student taught did not need a teacher, but another K-12 American school across town, the Country Day School, did, so I taught there for two years before returning to the States for law school.
During the two and a half years I was there, about once a month, I would box up books - all paperbacks - and mail them to my apartment in Lexington, Kentucky. The boxes could be up to five kilograms - or 11 pounds - and cost about four dollars American - or around 16 colones - to ship. When I got home, my closet was stacked full of boxes of books.
That is my C. S. Lewis introduction story, and I am sticking to it.
Quakertrucker
In the fall of 1973, I was getting ready to fly to San Jose, Costa Rica to student teach at the Costa Rica Academy - an American K-12 school - through the COST (Consortium of Overseas Student Teaching) Program.
Since Costa Rica was a Spanish speaking country, I assumed that it would be hard to find books in English, so I bought about 40 or so to pack into my luggage.
I tried to buy books that I had always wanted to read, but had not yet gotten to. I had read Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Ring" series the summer before, and had loved them.
In the process of reading up on Tolkien, I had also discovered his fellow Oxford don, and so bought "The Chronicles of Narnia" to take on my trip.
I was flying down to Costa Rica on January 5, 1974. The previous Thanksgiving, I was finishing up undergrad classes and I had no way to get to my parent's home 250 miles away for the holiday, so I decided to glance at the first book in the Narnia series - "The Witch, the Lion, and the Wardrobe".
I began looking at the book around 5:30 PM Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, and was soon deeply engrossed. I stopped periodically to answer calls of nature, feed my cat, or to grab a drink or a bite to eat for myself.
However, I did not sleep - at all - until around 12:00 Noon on Friday, at which time I laid down the seventh and final book in the series, and finally went to bed.
Over the years, I have reread the series - although never again nonstop - about every ten or so years. I also bought and devoured many other of Lewis's book - my next favorite ones being the three book Perelandra series.
I bought some other books - volumes by William Burroughs and Anthony Burgess and George Orwell (he had many great books besides the two - "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four" - that most literate Americans know) - to replace the now useless-for-the-purpose Narnia books.
I had a huge shock after settling in at the school where I taught, as the parents of a couple of my students were from England and owned a bookstore - The Book Shop - in downtown San Jose. Thus, my carting all of these books to Costa Rica had been totally unnecessary.
In fact, being English, they had large numbers of books from the British publisher, Penguin, which, at that time, were not available in the States, and were much less expensive than books published or sold here.
I became a very good customer of their bookstore and bought many, many books from numerous authors.
I had kept my apartment in the States and simply sublet it while I was in Costa Rica as the rent - furnished with utilities - was $72.50 per month, and the landlord never raised your rent as long as you kept the apartment. He only charged new tenants higher prices as they moved in.
When I moved there in 1970 to begin college - I never lived in a dorm - the rent was the aforementioned $72.50 per month; when I moved out in 1983 to get married, my rent was still $72.50 - though new tenants were then paying $150.00.
I had planned initially to only stay in Costa Rica for my student teaching in the spring of 1974. However, having loved the country, I decided to stay and teach as a salaried faculty member. The school where I student taught did not need a teacher, but another K-12 American school across town, the Country Day School, did, so I taught there for two years before returning to the States for law school.
During the two and a half years I was there, about once a month, I would box up books - all paperbacks - and mail them to my apartment in Lexington, Kentucky. The boxes could be up to five kilograms - or 11 pounds - and cost about four dollars American - or around 16 colones - to ship. When I got home, my closet was stacked full of boxes of books.
That is my C. S. Lewis introduction story, and I am sticking to it.
Quakertrucker
70-79, M
