Read Me A Story – If You Can

“The end of reading is not more books but more life.” – George Holbrook Jackson

EVENING – INTERIOR – ANYWHERE IN AMERICA, U.S.A

It’s just after dusk, another work day done. The sun dies in the west, its blazing orange arms stretch once more and  disappear beneath the horizon. Mr. Dad lumbers through the door, his hard hat tucked under one arm. It’s sheer will that puts his feet one in front of the other.

What a day.

He shuffles into the kitchen, reaches into the fridge. There’s a plate of food waiting – thank God.  He consumes the cold fried chicken and colder green beans sopping up the juice with a biscuit, too tired to make a move for the microwave.

By the time he’s scarfed his meal and vegetates over a few reruns on TV, he heads for bed, where his wife is already asleep. He can see her expression and the dark shadows under her eyes, her face soft.  He tiptoes toward the bathroom, just past the tyke’s bedroom, when said tyke, in full pajama-ed regalia, appears in the doorway.

The big deep eyes smile into his own and a broad grin broke across the horizon of his face. The dawn had come early for Sunshine had risen from her rest. Tyke is holding a big picture book, almost as long as Tyke is tall. She holds it up and in a so-loud-they-can-hear-you-from-Mars stage whisper she inquires:

“Daddy, will you tell me a story?”

“No baby, not tonight. Daddy’s tired.”

The eyes took on a soulful expression, “K”, she grumbled. Daddy was ALWAYS tired.

A tiny plume of annoyance rose within, “What you doin’ up sweetie?

Sunshine reached up a tiny hand to take his gritty larger one.

“Wanna hear a story, pleeeeeease?”

Her hopeful rosy face, tempered his annoyance. He sighed and smiled tiredly, “Alright, let’s go.”

Sunshine crawled excitedly back into bed, pulled up the covers and waited.  Daddy pulled up a pink teacup chair and sat down,  knees practically to his chin.

He took the book and flipped it over. There a little red engine on the front. He opened it and began to recite. He squinted his eyes and held the book away.   He changed the characters voices as they appeared on the page

Sunshine’s smile grew as her eyes drooped. When Daddy finished,  he extracted himself from the teacup chair and hobbled lightly toward the door.

“Daaaddy?”  she whispered in a soft sing-song.

“Yes, baby?

“You’re funny. Thaaaaaat’s not the story.”

“Huh? Whaddya mean honey?”

Sunshine rolled over, eyes at half-mast. “You told the story wrong, she giggled. It’s okay.   I like that one too.” Still smiling,  Sunshine snuggled in and dozed again.

As Daddy flipped the light switch,  only the wall could tell the tale of his stricken face.  His eyes dropped to his boots and then to the book still in his hand. He looked again at the red engine and his eyes slid across the letters of each word in the title – red bold letters that mocked his eyes. It could be Greek or Chinese – either way, he wouldn’t have known the difference.  Then he muttered to the already sleeping child:

“Sure, munchkin, anything for my girl.”

- END -

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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines LITERACY as ” the ability to read and write with understanding a simple statement related to one’s daily life; involving a continuum of reading and writing skills [coupled with] basic arithmetic skills (numeracy).” [paraphrased].

Illiteracy is hardly a new subject but it often discussed under the table – if at all. It’s a big pink elephant in the living room of society. In families, its dirty laundry, often a generational tradition that surprises none of its participants. It is wedded to poverty. They are the parents of crime.

But that’s only an issue in the Third World nations right? Looking at recent statistics, there is little to no difference. I won’t hit you with those numbers just yet. You wouldn’t think in the modern world, in industrialized nations like the U.S., that literacy would even register as a problem on the social Richter scale.

Oh, but it does.

It is a silent earthquake of socio-economic proportions. Those of us who have attained literacy wrongly believe we are not affected, that it’s somebody ‘over there’. Truth is, you are acquainted with someone whose potential is held in check by an inability to obtain and appropriate new information.  Maybe it’s you.

There are hundreds of Mr. Dads, Ms. Moms, Jackie Jobholders alive and not so well in America.  Their life roles are diverse. I knew one on a personal basis. I was an eyewitness to the struggle, the stereotyping and the social stigma.  My ringside seat makes it insanely ironic that I (myself) am a person of highly proficient reading and writing literacy.

Literacy is a learned skill. It isn’t something one is ‘born with’. That’s the good news. EVERYONE has the ability to acquire the skill – though there are several challenges that can hinder or even impair one’s drive to do it.   A learning disability, a negative classroom experience, having the wrong words spoken over you from a young age.

I’ll be taking a closer look at each of those reasons in upcoming posts.

Illiteracy’s long whip of an arm reaches across generations and leaves a  stinging inheritance of frustration, disillusionment and poverty. I wouldn’t be discussing it now except for this: As a blog writer, I have an obligation to write about things that matter to me. This is a hard subject that evokes a gamut of responses from pity to derision, from anger to apathy.

Most of all,  it makes me sad and angry that, if they so desired, there are scores of people who couldn’t read enough words in this post to even recognize themselves here.

That’s enough for me to write the hell out this subject. I have to say something.

WHAT SAY YOU?

Weaving Word Tapestries

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