There’s very little written down in my actual baby book, but the pages are stuffed with church bulletins, greeting cards, dried flowers, a pair of tiny white gloves, and more of the bits and pieces of childhood that my busy mother collected and tucked away in there.
I have a new grand baby on the way, so this week I was looking for the heirloom baby clothes I saved to give my children. There aren’t very many things in that box—just a few handmade bonnets, booties, and blankets—but it does contain my baby book with its associated ziplock bag of treasures.
The last time I went through all this was in fall of 2023, when my grandson Elliott was born, so today I found several more delightful items to enjoy.
My mother taught me to read very young, and I took to reading with pleasure and a bit of ferocity that stuck with me to this very day. And here’s early evidence.
My Smokey Bear Vacation Reading Club certificate, issued to me in 1972 when I was 6 years old.
Smokey Bear was a brand most everyone recognized in my childhood years. Beginning in 1944, Smokey was part of an ad campaign (the longest-running PSA in history, in fact) to educate the public about the dangers of wildfires caused by human carelessness.
The effort it took to deal with and clean up after wildfires was drawing energy from World War II. In fact, the slogan I still remember from when I was little—”Only YOU can prevent forest fires”—was actually coined by the Wartime Advertising Council.
If all the little animals gathered ’round on the certificate look familiar, it’s because they are. Walt Disney’s Bambi had just come out in movie theaters, and Disney allowed his characters to be used in fire-prevention public service campaigns.
This certificate reads:
“Lisa Ellen Creech has read ten books on nature and conservation during the past summer and therefore is accepted as a permanent member of the Smokey Bear Vacation Reading Club.”
It was signed by our local librarian, Edwina Wheeler, who also gave me my first library card when I was four, and who taught me to shelve books after school during my elementary school years.
You might note that it says quite clearly on my certificate, “a permanent member.”
So you know. I’m still in.
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