"To Kill A Mockingbird" turns 50

I married into a Monroeville, Alabama clan, and I learned early on that you can't talk about Monroeville without mentioning Harper Lee and her culture-changing volume, To Kill A Mockingbird, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of its publication today.

My mother-in-law, Barbara Lucile Hendrix, grew up in Monroeville and knew Harper Lee. How well, I don't know. But well enough to introduce her children to Miss Lee as they passed on the sidewalk. My husband says he was 10 at the time.

Miss Lee (and any Monroeville-ite will correct you if you call her Harper - she was known as Nelle by her friends, thank you very much) continues to live the reclusive life she has lived since Mockingbird's publication. Birmingham News writer Kathy Kemp, in her column titled "Let us now praise Harper Lee" joked, "Not that I'm waiting for her demise, but if Harper Lee shows up for her own funeral, it will be a surprise."

Ms. Kemp is amused and intrigued by the enigmatic Lee, who still signs copies of the book, rarely appears in public or grants interviews, but spoke to Ms. Kemp and told her she had "bad manners." Which didn't seem to bother her. She wrote, "And so we adore her - for not seeking the spotlight, for not going on "Larry King Live," for not selling the lunchbox rights to "Mockingbird." and especially for not wanting to be our friend.

"Thank goodness somebody has some scruples."

Mockingbird was required reading in my high school, but I really don't remember reading it then. It was many years later, when my husband and I found leather-bound copies for sale at a bookstore and bought four (one for ourselves, three for Christmas gifts) that I finally decided to read it.

The movie is wonderful, one of my very favorite films. The musical score is on my iPod and moves me to tears each time I hear it.

But it is Miss Nelle's writing that pierces my soul. My first reading as an adult was like a revelation. Her sense of Southern place, time and people is so very true to life.

In this passage, Scout has just had a discussion with her father about a schoolyard fight she started when a playmate insulted her father for agreeing to defend Tom Robinson.

"Atticus, are we going to win it?"
"No, honey."
"Then why--"
"Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win," Atticus said.

"Come here, Scout," said Atticus. I crawled into his lap and tucked my head under his chin. He put his arms around me and rocked me gently. "It's different this time," he said. "This time we aren't fighting the Yankees, we're fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they're still our friends and this is still our home."