I remember the first time I saw a book about Tarzan written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was a paperback with a drawing of Tarzan, half clothed, on the cover. It was laying on my mother's night stand and I thought as a child, "My mother is reading something wild! Something about a half naked man right here in her bedroom. How can that be?"
I asked her about it and why she liked it and she told me all about it and about the author and I realized it was more then my little brain thought. Later when a movie came out about Tarzan, we saw it together and she and my twin sister had a code word we could say to one another ... "Ray-zore" or we would just put our head down and lift the other person's hand to the top of our head so that they would have to pat it and while they did we'd go "oooh oooh" imitating a quiet ape sound. If you saw "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, 1984" you would understand.
As my mother was dying I lifted her frail hand up to the top of my head and patted it for her on my hair and did the little ape sound hoping she knew what I meant. That I loved her and I would miss her and that we were and would forever be connected.
This little book I picked up somewhere ages ago and it sat on my bookshelf for ages as well. I the embossed letters on the red cover. The "Z" especially. They don't seem to make them like this anymore. It's a work of art. Then inside the cover are beautiful drawings of Tarzan. I have another Tarzan book on my shelf waiting for me to peruse. Of course when I read them I think of my mother and how she opened my eyes to many books.
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