Richard Kyte is the director of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin. His new book, “Finding Your Third Place,” will be published by Fulcrum Books. He also cohosts “The Ethical Life” podcast.
I became a reader when I was 12 years old.
It happened during the first and only out-of-state vacation my family ever took, a road trip from Minnesota to western Montana. In those days, long before smartphones, iPads or Gameboys, books were about the only thing to keep a child occupied during long car rides. Other than teasing one’s younger sister, of course.
On the first day of the trip, tired of sitting in the back of our Mercury station wagon with my sister and baby brother, and bored with the view of the seemingly endless North Dakota prairie, I climbed over the seat and nestled down among the suitcases, the cooler and the sleeping bags. (Those were in the years before seat belt laws.)
