On a similar, semi-"shoot" vein, both my parents were teachers (at one point; my mother left it, when we came along). There were always books around and my parents invested in a set of World Book Encyclopedias and Childcraft Library. My hometown did not have a public library; but, we got weekly visits from the Bookmobile, from the Rolling Prairie Library System. They came out in a converted bus, once a week and we would go down and check out books. My earliest memories are picking out picture books, like the Dr Seuss books, Babar, Madline, Robert McCloskey's picture books and similar fare. That was also where I first saw Flash Gordon, via the first volume, from Nostalgia Press and where I encountered the World Encyclopedia of Comics. I discovered Tarzan Alive!, Phillip Jose Farmer's "biography" of Tarzan, which created his whole Wold Newton Universe, connecting various literary characters together and tying them to an actual meteor crash, near Wild Newton, in the UK.

My elementary school library brought me into contact with Frank Baum's Oz books, via these illustrated versions we had. It also brought me into contact with some reference books that had long piece on Special Forces, or jet aircraft, and similar things.

My dad read constantly. His school year time meant a lot of prepping classes and grading papers; but, for his down time, when he wasn't building something, gardening, fixing something, fishing, hunting, or just going for bike rides or hiking, he read. Anything and everything and, to different degrees, he passed that on to us. Me more than my two siblings. We had 5 people and one bathroom and all had to get ready for school at the same time (and my mother to go work, in Decatur, in real estate). I learned to get out of bed quickly, in and out of the bathroom and eat breakfast, if I wanted hot water and some privacy. So, I usually was waiting for everyone else. I used to pull out the encyclopedias and flip through them, until an article caught my attention. World Books were heavily illustrated, which helped make the articles attractive. My school made great emphasis on using a library and we learned to find things in it. Like my dad, if a subject interested me, I would find any book I could on that subject. So, I was constantly looking things up, in encyclopedias or finding reference books, reading biographies, history books or whatever. I have been blessed with a pretty good recall; so, when I read something, it tended to stick, especially if I read several books or articles on the same subject.

I did well in school, in large part, due to a good memory, as well as pretty good problem-solving skills (something that seems lacking, in modern education). I tended to finish at the top of my class, though I never felt I was that much smarter than any of them; just more curious about things and I had a better recall. I had a head for trivia. When I was in high school, we started a scholastic bowl team and I joined. I ended up tying with a kid from another school for most points earned during the season, for our conference. I just remembered the stuff, though various people on the team had their specialties. I was more of an all-rounder.

It helps that I tend to get obsessive about subjects that interest me. When I first discovered there were books reprinting comics and talking about the history of them and different titles and characters, I read every one I could find. I got lucky that I went to the University of Illinois, which is the leading school for library sciences. It has one of the largest collegiate libraries in the US; so, you could find information on anything, if you searched. I discovered it had a lot of stuff on comics, like the Don Thompson and Dick Lupoff books, All In Color For A Dime and The Comic Book Book. It had Fred Schott's Manga, Manga Manga!, the first English language survey of Japanese comics. It had a few comic strip reprint books, like Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. At the same time, Jeff Rovin started publishing his Encyclopedias (of Super Heroes, followed by the Super-Villain and other ones), Will Jacobs & Gerard Jones did their Comic Book Heroes, about the Silver & Bronze Ages, from a fan perspective, and Ron Goulart had his first history of comics. I also stumbled into a copy of Jules Feiffer's Great Comic Book Heroes, at a local used book store, near campus.

Whenever we were in a city and came near a book store, my dad and I went in there and poked around, and usually left with at least one item. For years, I used to poke around used and new bookstores, looking for interesting books, which helped lead to 20 years with Barnes & Noble.

When I was in school, classmates called my a computer, since I retained things (especially facts and trivia); and, they nicknamed me Betamax 5000. That usually led to even more grief as whenever they called me that, I would point out it was a video recorder, not a computer, which led to retorts that "Only a computer would know that!"

I also thought about being a teacher and started working towards that, when I eft the military; but, I found I hated sitting in a classroom for 2-3 hours, taking the required classes for certification (I had my bachelor's degree, in Economics, already) and the whole bureaucracy in becoming a certified teacher (especially given that schools were hurting for teachers with degrees in things like business and math). I decided I didn't want to jump through those hoops, to be underpaid and frustrated, which described every teacher I knew, at Barnes & Noble (and we had many work there, part-time). So, there was always a family history of learning and reading and sharing it with others. My dad's family, when we got together, spent much of our time telling stories and sharing experiences and everyone was a big reader. My cousin, who is the same age (we were born 11 days apart) read just about every major sci-fi and fantasy author you would find in bookstores, in the late 70s to mid/late 80s. He had a ton of comics, to my paltry stack, which he gave to me, when he outgrew them and I continued reading.

The long windedness comes from a passion for the subject/ When I had to write answers to essay tests, in college, it was like reading a newspaper article, as I stuck to Who, What, When, Where and Why/How, instead of paragraphs of detail, as I knew they didn't want to read all the clutter hiding a lack of grasp of the material and I didn't want to write all that crap, by hand (typing is different). It was usually a good strategy. Studying economics for 4 years (and discovering it was all smoke and mirrors, by the end) taught me to be analytical about things. We were encouraged to write long analysis about things, especially in my Urban Economics class, where we spent time studying a subject to then explain the bleeding obvious, like why roads are congested and then write paragraphs explaining that there are too many cars. That was followed by multiple volumes explaining that water is wet. This is why I don't work in government or academic research and the Navy Supply Corps was as close as I got.

So, blame my dad and the school librarian.