Reading Books as a Last Resort

The clock ticks on. And on. And on. And sometimes, our lives go on unhappily, unless we do something to change the things we don’t like.

I hear the ticks clicking toward next Monday when I’m voluntarily going through a series of neuropsychological evaluations. No, I don’t have ADHD or Autism Spectrum Disorder (that I know of!). No, I don’t have headaches or Traumatic Brain Disorder, thank goodness. What I do have is a strong determination to better understand my lifelong headache of poor reading and comprehension skills. I’m sick of them, and sick of not knowing why I have either. If testing at this late stage seems desperate, it’s less desperate than the years spent floundering in school – and at work, still – dealing with my secret problem.

Cases in point:

Mrs. Johnson’s first grade reading period.

“All right, everyone. Read the first five pages silently at your desk and when you are done, we will talk about the story.”

The race begins. I blast through five pages, snap the book shut, cross my arms, and lean back in my chair.

A few minutes later, old Mrs. Johnson says, “Class, raise your hands if you’re done.”

My hand takes flight far over my head; all other hands appear grounded in comparison.

“All right, Michael. So. What color shoes was Jane wearing?”

Jane wore shoes?

“Speak up, Michael. Weren’t they the same color as the lamb?”

What lamb?

I look around. Every hand in class is waving hysterically, as if trying to peel the cracking paint chips off the ceiling.

“Michael, please sit down. Ellen, do you know?” This Ellen girl, with right arm nearly pulled out of its shoulder socket from spastic hand swaying, jumps to give her answer.

Her response is muted by a menacing white noise, like the sound I hear inside a conch shell. Such is the deep echo I encounter whenever I’ve done something wrong.

Finally, reading period is over. On to the all-purpose room for Friday art class.

Creating popsicle stick houses with glue, I am free. I’m an artist, not a reader. Right? Who needs library cards and late book fees? Who needs reading when TV’s around. Thank God for the weekend.

I start Saturday morning by viewing Captain Kangaroo and cartoon shows. During the afternoon, it’s movies – the simpler the better. After dinner, Mom and Dad switch the mood to serious evening news. Most interesting is the set decor, what the anchorman looks like, the pictures that magically pop up behind him. And commercials are the ultimate bonanza, always surefire entertainment!

Mrs. Marcotte’s eighth grade English class.

“So, Michael,” she says, catching me off guard. “What do you like to read at home?”

I’m astonished how many thoughts can flash through my mind in a split second of time to answer this question: The Flintstones / easy to follow TV show / no complicated character development / no deep universal themes you keep hitting me over the head with in class / love TV / hate your class …

“What?” I ask.

“Michael, I said, ‘do you watch television?’”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, I think you need to watch less TV and start reading more. After all, what’s going to happen when you have to read things like Faust, Oedipus the King, and Pippi Longstocking?”

What? Who? Pippi Longstocking was a movie, but what movie were those other people in?

My guidance counselor’s office and my first plea for help.

“I don’t like to read.”

“Why?” Mr. Sexton asks.

“I just don’t. Mrs. Marcotte says we’re reading timeless landmarks of literature, but they’re really the most boring stories ever told …”

“Oh, no they’re not …”

“Oh, yes they are – of all time. And why does everyone and everything have to be so symbolic to something, and then symbolic to something else? If authors knew we had to go through all this in reading their books, they’d never have written them in the first place. Everyone else in my family is smart. Mom said we all came from good Scandinavian stock, so what happened to me?”

“Ha!”

“What?”

“If you want to see some really stupid people ….”

Mr. Sexton spins around in his chair and leans toward the floor between the wall and a cabinet. He returns with a big cardboard box that he dumps on his desk.

“Now t-h-e-s-e kids ….”

The box is filled with a carnival of confiscated classroom items: fuzzy dice, chains, novelty false teeth, yo-yos, cap guns, rubber knives, real knives, spray paint cans, “Car Mechanic” magazines, and a copy of Iliad with a giant “X” knife-gouged into the cover.

“Michael, you’re not dumb, unless you don’t use what you have. Learn to use what it is you do have – and always use it to its fullest. Perhaps you have a learning disability. Do you think so?”

“I dunno. What’s that? Other teachers just say I have the inability to learn, period if that’s what you mean. Guess there’s nothing symbolic about that, is there?” I say quite emphatically.

Sure, I’m smart enough to scrape by, but what about getting into college?

The mailman delivers a cream colored letter, postmarked “Princeton, New Jersey.” It couldn’t be the Princeton University New Jersey people, could it? Could it?

I rip open the envelope. It’s the SAT Princeton New Jersey people, and they have my score. 742. Out of 1200. It has to be a misprint. I look again. 742. It can’t be. My life is doomed – the SAT proves it. After all, isn’t that what tests are designed for, to find out if you’re stupid?

Good Scandinavian stock Mom had said. Good Scandinavian livestock maybe.

Why would college be any different than high school?

I’m having trouble absorbing any textbook with less than forty percent charts and graphs. Ones without two-page photo spreads every three pages put me to sleep. Even my art history book is ninety-five percent text, a huge disappointment. I’m bamboozled reading long paragraphs, especially those containing clauses with double negatives. And reading the pamphlet, “Gaining Better Concentration and Command of Written Material,” at the college learning center is of no use. Deciphering all its outlines, checkpoints and checklists seem more complicated than reading itself.    

With so much catching up to do, I take a seat in McKelden Library one early Saturday morning and spread all my books out on the table.

By lunchtime, I’ve completed only one reading assignment. By two o’clock, I’m asleep in my chair. By four o’clock, all books are opened to pictures, graphs and colorful pie charts. By five, I’m asleep. By dinner time, I feel achy. I plan to skip eating and study some more before realizing I’m too tired to concentrate on anything, let alone read.

Preparing to leave, I strap on my knapsack. Stuffed with so many books, the weight hurts my back. Unable to carry the load, I retake my seat. Freed from assigned readings, my mind engages the real world. Questions abound. Why does my reading malady remain such a mystery? When did it begin? What explains it?

I exhale hard. Many characters, settings and dramas have led me here. But feeling so incomplete, there has to be more to the story than this.

Perhaps the neuropsychological tests are the rest of the story, or at least a beginning. Beginnings are hard, but I must unravel the conundrum that is my reading problem, not to mention anything associated with my slow learning, poor short term memory and difficulty understanding instructions.

I don’t expect anything to appreciably change just because I’ve been tested. It’s more about wanting to know what makes me tick.

 

Italicized sections are excerpts from Chapter Two, “Reading,” in my memoir, Maybe Boomer.

Not Reading the Book, Buying CliffsNotes, Then Watching the Movie Instead

Walk into a bookstore and you may see a familiar wire rack filled with screaming bright yellow and black-striped manuals. Known as CliffsNotes, they were written to help students better understand great volumes of literature. Not. I was most disappointed in them. Understanding CliffsNotes was harder than reading the assigned books.

As of this particular September many many years ago, I hadn’t yet discovered the uselessness of CliffsNotes. I could almost hear the page turning in that direction.

“Class, class, settle down now. In accordance with our standard eighth grade English curriculum, we start a new unit today on the contemporary novel, Flowers for Algernon.” 

Yes! Finally something from this century. And finally – no more poetry.

Three weeks later, Mrs. Marcotte returns our culminating exam on the novel. I’m summoned to her desk.

She swivels in her chair toward me, taking off her black-framed glasses to reveal the dark, intense eyes I’d never seen this close before.  

“Michael, remember your poetry unit report, how you said you were going to do better? Well, there must be more to Flowers for Algernon than this. It seems you haven’t read the novel at all.”

“But I did.”

“Flowers for Algernon. All of it?”

“Yes.”

“All of it?”

“The CliffsNotes, too.”

“Oh. You should never substitute them for actual reading, Michael.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Yeah. ‘Cuz they were more complicated than the book was. I mean, I needed CliffsNotes for the CliffsNotes. And I would’ve used them, too, but they didn’t sell that kind.”

“So, you really didn’t read the book then, did you?”

“Well … not really.”

“Then how did you answer the question about Charlie’s retardation?”

“From the movie.”

“What?”

“Except it was called Charly, Mrs. Marcotte, not Flowers for Algernon, but Charly with Cliff Robertson and Claire Bloom and …”

“Never – never – watch the movie instead of reading the book. Now go back to your seat.”

Walking to my desk, I spot a big F on the last page of my test.

I’m a hair away from failing English. I never thought I’d have to do it, but the time has come to see my guidance counselor.

“It’s not fair, Mr. Sexton. The day before the test, she goes on and on about symbolism. Then about scenes I’d never seen before. Movies aren’t allowed to leave whole scenes out of a book, are they?”

“Well, Michael, you’re going to learn that … well … it seems to me if you’d read the book …”

“CliffsNotes didn’t help either …”

“That if you’d read the book you wouldn’t have needed either the movie or the book guides. Why didn’t you read it?”

“Because I don’t like to read.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t. Mrs. Marcotte says we’re reading timeless landmarks of literature, but they’re really the most boring stories ever told to teenagers and  …”

“Oh, no they’re not …”

“Oh, yes they are – of all time. And why is everything in them symbolic to something, and then symbolic to something else? Why doesn’t she just tell us or make a list on the blackboard of symbolisms we can choose from?”

“Well, what do you think authors might be trying to show us in their …”

“If authors knew we had to go through all this in reading their books, they’d never have written them in the first place. Everyone in my family is smart. Mom said we all came from good Scandinavian stock, so what happened to me?”

“Ha!”

“What’s so funny, Mr. Sexton?”

“If you want to see some really stupid people ….”

He spins around in his chair and leans toward the floor where, between the wall and a cabinet, a big cardboard box sits. He dumps it on his desk.

“Now these kids ….”

The box is filled with a carnival of confiscated classroom contraband: fuzzy dice, chains, novelty false teeth, yo-yos, cap guns, rubber knives, real knives, spray paint cans, “Car Mechanic” magazines, and a copy of Iliad with a giant “X” knife-gouged into the cover.

“Michael, you’re not dumb, unless you don’t use what you have. Learn to use what it is you do have – and always to its fullest. Perhaps you have a learning disability. Do you think so?”

“I dunno. Other teachers say I have the inability to learn, period – all of ‘em – if that’s what you mean? Ha. Guess there’s nothing symbolic about that, is there?”

This is an excerpt from the chapter entitled “Reading” in my memoir “Maybe Boomer.”

I read this excerpt in its entirety at op. cit. Bookstore in Santa Fe, New Mexico on September 10, 2015.

 

Remember This? New Math and the Old Wooden Desk

Let’s see. Let me figure this out.

How long have I sat in a chair-desk combo contraption like this one throughout my years of sixties public school education? (The answer, of course, is probably infinity, or something ethereal or endlessly mathematical like that.)

But to be sure, let’s try answering  the question by looking at one classroom subject – math. Based on the average 183-day academic year, and assuming I had a math class every day since first grade all the way through high school, that comes to an average of 183 hours times twelve years, or 2,196 hours end to end, or ninety-one and a half days without stop, or – worse yet – three months straight of summer vacation. Then, assuming there were six other periods a day I was strapped into one of these chairs – and I have no reason to doubt I wasn’t – that adds up to a total of 13,176 hours, or 550 days in a row, or an entire year and a half. My back hurts just thinking of all the hours spent in one of these straight back electric chairs.

But maybe it was worth it. As you can see, this baby boomer learned some pretty good math skills. Math came much easier than learning English, a subject I needed a whopping 2,214 hours to get me to read and write (2,196 hours of regular English class plus 18 extra hours of various after school remedial help). There’s no doubt reading was my biggest hurdle. For every hour teachers asked me to “Read quietly at your desk,” there was another wasted hour re-reading material, discovering I’d read passages three times already, or nodding off (attesting to reading’s serious narcotic effect if I nodded off in one of those hard chairs). In fact, even though libraries have far better chairs to sit in – even sofas! – I continue to get chills just walking into a library. Read more about my bibliophobia in the excerpt from chapter 6, “Reading,” from my memoir, “Maybe Boomer.”

 

What It’s Like to Read Your Work on Open Mic Night For Two (and a half) People

Thought of the Day:  The only certainty is that nothing is certain.  —  Pliny the Elder

I enter the bookstore early, prepared and excited about reading a passage from my memoir. Thirty folding chairs are set up around a raised stage complete with microphone and overhead spotlights. The store conducts only one open mic night a month, so I immediately sign my name to be the first one to read to the masses at precisely three o’clock.

Trying to kill the thirty minutes left before my opening oration, I wander through the store, perusing the new memoirs that couldn’t be nearly as good as mine – that is, if my memoir were published.

A few minutes before three, I rush to the stage area, but stop when I see all the folding chairs still empty. Worse yet, the sign-up sheet has one name on it – mine. Two chair backs have coats on them, but no one’s around.

Maybe if I rotate through the entire store again, I’ll return to find people anxiously waiting to hear performers from a long open mic list. I make my circle, but no such luck. The only good news is that the owners of the coats have sat down, apparently the only two people in Santa Fe who’ve heard about this “event.”

The host arrives to tell me if I prefer not to use the microphone, it’s okay. What’s the point of a mic? After all, there’s two people here. They could hear me whisper my reading, even from the back row. In fact, I’m too embarrassed to use the stage and stand directly in front of the two women. Since they were kind enough to show up, and have basically saved my day, I’m happy to give them a customized reading.

I read an excerpt from Chapter 13, “Health,” of my memoir, Maybe Boomer, about the day my doctor of oriental medicine told me I had Lyme disease. I recite a few pages that act as build-up to that big moment in my life.

Reading along, approaching the part where I talk with my DOM, I glimpse the silhouette of another person entering the store’s doors. Maybe it’s a third person to hear me read! The silhouette stops, lingers, and listens to my big oratory finish: “Mike, I’m sure now. You have Lyme disease.” I pause, then read on. So, just to be sure, I get tested for Lyme. And what do you know? The results come back positive. My DOM was right.

The two women are almost on the edge of their seat in anticipation about what comes next. What else could I ask for (except to not have Lyme disease)? What could possibly top this?

I look beyond them to see the silhouette in full – my DOM.

“Oh my ….” I exclaim. “It’s my DOM.”

Coincidence. Smiles. Thrills. Laughs. The two women even ask my DOM for her business card. Happy endings all around.

It’s probably the best reading I’ll ever have.

Reading as a Four Letter Word

Quote of the day:  It is better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot. –– A. France

Well, here I am, at age one, and I already look bewildered. No wonder. There’s a book in my lap.

My left arm is twitching now. My eyes are glazed, and my hair’s curling. I don’t like all the grey lines I see stacked up on this page. What happened to the happy-go-lucky deer and the pretty forest I enjoyed on the previous page? And why do I get the sneaking suspicion there’s going to be a test soon on the information buried inside all these greys lines that Mom calls words?

This sums up what my reading experience has been like as a sluggish reader. Information goes in slowly and leaves quickly. No wonder I majored in art at college. Of course, I learned there was no such thing as college without reading, only the school of hard knocks if I didn’t buckle down and read my assignments. And when I say buckled down, I mean strapped to a chair to get through things like my 300 page Sociology 101 textbook.

Fortunately, after several decades, I’ve learned the greater purpose for words in my life: words need to go out of me, not in. Reading is too much information at once. What stress. Writing, on the other hand, feels right, a process in which I can work with words at my own pace. Writing – yes, writing.

My struggle with reading has been such a big part of my life that I devoted an entire chapter to it in my memoir, Maybe Boomer. If you buy the book (when it becomes published), I invite you to dig into that chapter, that is, if you enjoy reading. If you can’t wait for the book to be published (like me), read the opening to Chapter 6, “Reading” now. That chapter may remind you of your own struggles with reading. So, please, chime in with your own account.

It always helps to know you’re not the only one.