"When I was a kid, we didn't have a lot of money, so we often shopped at thrift stores. What I loved about that was you could get 10 books for a dollar, so I would plant myself in front of the book section and make piles of which ones I wanted to get and I would decide after I'd gone through them all.
One day, an older lady saw me sitting with my piles and asked if I liked to read. I told her I did and showed her a few of the books I found that I liked.
A sweet memory!
She smiled and then pulled a dollar out of her purse, handed it to me and said, ‘Promise me that you’ll keep reading.’ I was so happy and immediately stood up and said that I would. She smiled and walked away and I went back to my piles able to pick out an extra 10 books to take home.
It was just a small act of kindness for her, but for me having a random stranger encourage my love of reading and making me promise to never stop definitely had a lot to do with my continued love of reading. This was over 20 years ago, but I still think of her whenever I buy a new book.”