reading

i don't remember anyone ever reading to me ...

perhaps they did, i have no memory of it.

but i remember the first time i read a word

  ...  a sort of a word.

looking out from the backseat of my dad's car,

i saw a sign.  7 Up

and knew what it meant

i had discovered how reading worked

i was excited, and pleased with myself ...

but, i didn't tell anyone about my discovery.

    i wanted to protect that feeling.

in the 4th grade

we had reading groups:

            group A, group B, and group C.

... labels, worn like a kind of badge of honor.

the teacher would call for group A

and all in the group A kids would go up to the front of the room

and sit with her,

    ... in a circle of chairs,

       ... and read aloud.

we all knew that the smartest kids were in group A,

and,

well, you know... on down

there were a few left-over kids,

a no-letter group:

      a kid who was just learning to speak English,

      a skinny girl with pale freckles, nervous with a scared smile,

      a kid, with an open, friendly smile ...

         who didn't realize what was going on ...   or didn't care,

      a retarded kid,

        (

          on the playground, kids liked to tease,

          and called each other retard when someone made a mistake

          but nobody called the retarded kid retard.  they liked him,

            ... even though what he wasn't was a little scary ...

            and in their own clumsy ways, they tried to protect him.

            nobody wanted to see him hurt.

        )

      and me.

we weren't called the D group

(an omission meant to be a kindness, I suppose).

instead,

our teacher told the rest of the class to practice silent reading,

      and then, with a kind-of-kind-smile, she called out our names

             ... for all to hear,

                 ... one-by-one,

                     ... every day,

followed by a soft, "it's time for us to read together"

  and in the quiet classroom ...

      and in our shame ...

               the other kids listened ...

to the dumb kid's struggle to read.

in the summer after 4th grade, Judy Purdy took over.

she was older.

she had already turned ten. i was still nine.

she was my next-to-next door neighbor,

and she was a very good reader.

there were three tall, old sycamore trees in her front yard.

they had been planted too close to each other,

so as they grew, they leaned away from each other,

creating the perfect quiet place to sit in the shade and talk

    (each having our own tree trunk backrest to lean against).

she was determined that of course i could read

... so every day, during the heat of the day

     ... we sat in the shade,

         ... in the privacy of the sycamores

                                   with words and books

and she taught me how to read,

never having doubted that she could and i would.

everyday for hours, during the last weeks of summer,

under-or-in my favorite climbing tree - a big old avocado

i could be in my own world ...

    (

      it was spacious on the inside, with comfortable branches,

      easy to navigate, with a canopy of big shiny green leaves

      - unlike it's neighbor, the orange tree, which was impenetrable

    )

and read my big, green, cloth-bound book,

                           with gold embossed letters,    The Wizard of OZ

it was a real book,

   (old and a little worn)

   with small line drawings at the beginning of each chapter

   ... and several glossy color plates.

it was not a picture book,

and finishing it made me a real reader,

... a person of substance.

by hook and by crook - not quite accidentally -

i found my way into a famous university,

                                   (with very A group kids)

... but,

i couldn't read fast enough to keep up   -

so i went to the learning center for help.

they tested me and asked,

       "how did you get here?

        you are dyslexic ... (originally known as word blindness)

                     on the far end - not the good end - of the spectrum

        your comprehension is good, but

        you read at the rate of the average 5th grader."

        (thanks to you, Judy Purdy :-)

bennies, i answered.

it was clear

i could no longer be a history major ...   way too much reading,

(more even than benzedrine could conquer).

... but,

i was told philosophy majors had to learn to deep read,

to read very slowly,

            (at about the speed of the average 5th grader)

while pondering the meaning of the ideas encrypted on each page.

i was a natural.

... i'm old now.

i spend most of my days reading-and-sometimes-writing.

time is less crowded, there is space to rummage around in history

  ... visiting thinkers.

reading is still slow,

but when an idea rises up off a page     ... and takes flight ...

beckoning for my imagination to come along,

i am still struck,

by the wonder of wonders,

seeing  7 Up  on a signboard

            ... and knowing what it means.