My Bookshelf Speaks, by Jean Benning
Jean Turner Benning
Creative Nonfiction
March 2025
My Bookshelf Speaks {Autobiographical Notes of a Teacher)
A new year brings thoughts of downsizing and purging—two words that I detest. At eighty-three why should I feel pressure to ‘downsize’ ar ‘purge’ my life? Makes more sense to ‘augment’ and ‘save’ what life I have left. However, I did approach the many bookshelves in our home with the intent of giving at least twenty books to various friends, family, and a thrift store. In our small home there was no room for the twenty new books I would probably buy or receive in the new year. However, as I sat down before the first and largest shelf, the bookshelf spoke to me.
Look for the thirteen books that define who you are. You will be surprised. They will not be the books you expect, think out-of-the-box and be honest. These books made major changes in the direction of your life, and you should honor them—not downsize or purge.
I never heard another word, but took the advice and what a revelation—to look at myself with new eyes at my age. Oddly enough, because I read mostly fiction, most of my thirteen books are non-fiction. The first book I was drawn to was BEST STORIES FROM THE BEST BOOK—a 1923 edition of a book with easy reading lessons for children with material from the Bible. My mother bought it for me in 1945 when it was determined that the family could not afford to send me to private kindergarten and so my live-in grandmother became my first primary teacher. I learned the alphabet, reading, and writing at her knee from this very book. When I entered first grade, my background was more than equal to all the children who had paid for the first private kindergarten in my hometown.
The next book I picked out is relatively new but part of seventeen years of memories I have of my hometown, Coshocton, Ohio. I bought a two-volume picture-book set, COSHOCTON COUNTY, THE EARLY YEARS, from the local newspaper several years ago and can look through the books over and over and relive the first two decades of my life. There is a picture of my father’s Uncle Jess making candy in the shop he and my great-aunt owned. I never met Jess, but Aunt Nonnie lived with us for the last five years of her life and she was the sweetest woman I ever met. Mother vowed that Uncle Jess was a ‘son-of-a-gun’ who did not deserve a woman like Nonnie. I ignored her words until! read wealthy, childless Uncle lass’s wilt in which he instructed his banker to give most of his estate to charities and institutions and only 4 meager amount to Nonnie each month. Mother said he was trying to ‘buy his way into heaven.’ In the will he states Nonnie is incapable of managing money and would give it to her niece and nephew (my beloved Aunt Elsie and my father). Aunt Nonnie gave a gold pocket watch to mother on her deathbed with the instructions, “Give this to Jeanie when she grows up.” There is also a picture of my English grandfather standing on the half-built Trinity Episcopal Church which he helped to construct because he missed the Anglican worship from Tunbridge Wells, England. I was baptized, confirmed, married in this church and buried my parents from there. These books spark my memory and tie me to my past and Uncle Jess’s will warned me of the mean-spirited people I would encounter in life.
My college career, ending in a Liberal Arts Degree in Literature, fills my shelves with classics. However, the next book I chose is a photo book given to me by a fellow teacher at John C. Freemont High School in Los Angeles where I began teaching in 1963. Freemont was, at the time, the largest 10th through 12th high school in the United States-—a black high schootin the Watts section of L.A. My friend told me not to read the book until I was home in my apartmentin all- white Hollywood. That night l opened I WONDER WHY by black photographer Shirley Burden (who, despite the name Shirley, is a male) and I cried. The book contains several lovely black and white photos with the caption “I like” and then a picture of a young African American girl who “wonders why some people don’t like me.” After teaching a month at Freemont High, I no longer noticed skin color, but my roommate and I were asked to leave our Hollywood apartment after having one quiet party for which she invited some friends from her workplace, CBS, and I invited friends from Freemont. There was only one reason, and we felt helpless in our protest. Real empathy had entered my life.
Oddly enough, I, who never even considered teaching primary or elementary children, have a collection of children’s books mainly given to me by my husband. Two of my favorites are PINK AND SAY by Patricia Polacco and PIGGYBOOK by Anthony Brown. PINK is the true story of two teenaged Union soldiers who get lost behind Confederate lines and what happens to them. I could never read this to my grandchildren without crying because of my emotional response underscoring why I am a pacifist and a civil rights proponent, Jimmy Carter once said, “We will not learn how to live in peace by killing each other’s children.” Buy this one for your ‘grands and great grands.’ PIGGYBOOK is simply the best illustration of emerging woman power that I ever read. Also, a keeper.
LOVE, SEX AND TRACTORS by Roger Welsch is my husband's, Itis here to remind myself that I married a man who sees the world from a different perspective than I and that has made all the difference. Who wants someone with the same eyesight as yourself? He has shared with me an entirely different world and I have shared a different one with him. Last month we finished sixty years of sharing fun, excitement, and wonder and we are never bored. That’s a ‘bad’ word in our marriages.
I met Joan Didion in the crazy ‘60's. I only met her in her early collection of essays, SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM. Absolutely loved the title—I slipped away from my Christian teachings in the early ‘60’s and then slowly ‘slouched’ back for the next decade. All that reading of the great thinkers and philosophers, asking questions, critical thinking and the common sense instilled In me by my parents probably caused me to end up asa very democratic Christian—I had no choice. Didion’s THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK also impressed my mind and philosophy. Her writing has probably had the most influence on mine. Can’t toss this book!
The next three books are on my shelf because of thirty-two years in the classroom. Since I also have a history degree, schools used me as a half history teacher to fillin that extra one or two classes when school populations were exploding. I loved it and preferred the extra lesson planning over the monotony of teaching several classes with the same content all day. TEXAS DEATH ROW by Light and Donovan is a very raw, realistic book about the death penalty in Texas. It was a gift to my husband and me because we invited Sam Shepherd’s son to my school and our home to discuss his famous father’s trial. I used that Cleveland murder case in my history class to highlight our justice system and our right to protest as a part of free speech. Sam, Jr. and his publicist stayed at our home as he walked across Ohio and right across Warren County protesting the death penalty. He answered questions from my students, and they could honk their horns at him as they passed him on the highway on their way home from school. A few years later, the publicist sent me a note stating that all the men in the book had now been executed. No child hates history if you show him/her the immediacy of it.
The second book from my teaching years is a gift, THE MEANING OF LIFE by Bradley Greive, given to me by a former student when I retired. Here, I print with humility, Brian’s own words inscribed in the book: “Mrs, Benning, Thank you for being a true inspiration to all your students. You made us think. You taught us to ask why. You showed us we could challenge ideas. You showed us how to refine our thinking. You taught us how to present our ideas. You showed us we could reach inside ourselves and bring forth a light for imagination that we didn’t know we had. Your desire to teach and your method of delivery will carry you through life in the hearts of your students. You gave all of yourself in hopes we would become free thinkers of tomorrow. To the Career Center you were an English teacher. To us you were a visionary teacher with the lifetime of experience. Your desire to mold our minds will be your legacy and I am proud to say I was molded by the best, I will always consider you my teacher and friend. I am truly glad that our paths crossed. Thank you for everything and I hope you have a wonderful retirement. May God bless you and your family. Brian Leslie Rice” ‘Nough said. My gain was at least equal if not more to my students’ gains.
The last teaching years book is a little diary given to me on my retirement with thoughts from colleagues written in their own words. I had not read this since 2003 when it was given to me. These words plus those of Brian above were worth more than the multiple million dollars not paid to teachers over the years. The millions would be gone but these words will be on my bookshelf and in my heart forever.
My dear friend, Jean Cork, introduced me to the Dayton Woman’s Literary Club after I retired. I wrote thirteen academic papers for the club and read hundreds of books in preparation for those papers. Most of those books have come and gone on my shelves but two have stayed: A CRIME SO MONSTROUS by Benjamin Skinner and JUST MERCY by Bryon Stephenson, both Dayton Peace Prize winners. Skinner’s book dealt with human trafficking and Stephenson’s researched the cracks in the American justice system, I spent nine months studying and writing on each subject and each moved me to walk the walk instead of just talking. When a member of the club asked if she could usé the trafficking paper to start a real movement to recover children who had been stolen, I could not believe my good fortune. This venture has been unbelievably successful. One rescued person has even spoken to our club. In response to my feelings about justice, I continue to write to a prisoner in an Ohio prison who struggles daily to survive the injustices of our system as a forgotten person. Dostoyevsky in the 19" century said, The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. Our democracy needs humane, just, and compassionate prisons to reflect the caliber of our society. No prisoner should be forgotten no matter his crime or what is the worth of forgiveness? Now [ hear rumors of shipping U.S. prisoners to Guantanamo or foreign countries.
My thirteenth book is one you have never seen. It needs a backstory to understand its importance. My cousin Delores Lou Hickenbottom (Yes, her real name!) was five years older than me and I adored her, She treated me like her own age, took me with her to exciting places and I wore her cute store-bought hand-me-downs. She was extremely bright and graduated at sixteen because there were no more classes available for her at Newcomerstown High School. During her last year she taught trigonometry to a small class as the only math teacher did not understand it. The only difference between us was that she attended a Christian church that believe the Bible literally and I was a cradle Episcopalian encouraged to ask questions and believed Biblical stories figuratively. She earned a BS in math education in the South at a church sponsored school and married a man of the same denomination. I love them and would do anything for their family. They love us in the same manner. However, there have been times when those differences surfaced in embarrassing ways. Once at their home in Delight, Arkansas, I was watching a television show about the Easter Islands and Charles Darwin’s trips there. This is a particular interest of mine. Delores was cooking in the kitchen. The television suddenly went dark and I looked up to see Delores with the remote in her hand and she said in her acquired southern drawl, “We don’t watch ungodly programs like that.” Detores and her husband chose to go the Republican path, and my husband and I went in the other direction. Fast forward to the 1992 primary election when Democrat Bill Clinton from Arkansas was running for president. We received this book in the mail from Delores and Wallace. Wallace’s family own a printing company for worldwide books and literature for their church denomination. The book inside was BILL CLINTON: A THOROUGH STUDY OF HIS CHARACTER, ABILITIES, ACTIONS AND ATTITUDES THAT QUALIFY HIM TO BE PRESIDENT. (The book contains empty pages.) I learned for all eternity that Love will always vanquish differences, diversity, and disunity and nothing can dissuade me from that belief. We CAN all live in unity with our wide and varied beliefs. That’s my understanding of all religions and democracy.
That’s thirteen, my friends. I have written with the utmost sincerity, but I do have an unusual postscript. This little book was given to me by a member of my Literary Club, and I love the idea behind the book and cherish that friend. She and I have conversed about most of the topics alluded to in this paper. The book? ON BULLSHIT by Harry G. Frankfurt, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University. Professor Frankfurt attempts to define and pin down this very elusive quality but at the end of his essay he states “there is nothing in theory, and certainly nothing in experience, to support the extraordinary judgment thai it is the truth about himself that is the easiest for a person to know. Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to skeptical dissolution. Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial—notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.”
And so, did my bookshelf really lead me toward the true story of my life and character, or is it all bullshit? Philosophically, the answer is yours. What’s on your bookshelf?
