186 - Thoughts on Waking

SHOW NOTES...

We’ve been talking a lot about Education of late, and the insurmountable problem of getting kids interested in reading if they aren’t already. Two clear thoughts have emerged.

     One, I think the tired but all-too-accurate metaphor that American society is an Allegory of High School (jocks, cheerleaders, druggies and criminals in the making, nerds, and disaffected sub-groups, etc.) is becoming more concrete and congruent with each passing year. The only new element I see is the School Shooting. Telling.

      But as I was thinking about reading in this context, I realized I don’t recall learning to read myself very well. I vividly remember the discomfort of learning to handwrite (print and cursive). The pencils always seemed too big for my hands. What I do recall about early reading is that it meant Independence. I didn’t have to rely on my grandmother or older sister. For me, reading was an expression of masculine self-determination—stepping out from the females who both dominated and positively directed my young life. How many people today would see reading as an expression of masculinity? How odd. Only a short while ago, our most important poets were men like James Dickey, James Wright, and W.S. Merwin. Those days seem long ago.

     The second thought to reveal itself from this stream was The Bicycle. I used to ride my green Schwinn 3-speed to a bookstore in a strip mall to purchase the next Hardy Boy book I hadn’t read. One rainy day, I realized I’d eventually run out of Hardy Boys…so I feverishly began creating my own deeply imitative series The Benton Boys. My real, private passion about writing came out of Fan Fiction. I openly borrowed characters. I just didn’t want to run out of story.

     I paid for the Green Bike myself…with the money I earned cleaning toilets and vacuuming floors for an industrial dry cleaner, starting at age 9. The job gave me more than $ and work ethic pride. It was a place to be after school in the strange days following my violent rape in 4th grade. The Green Bike was what I needed. The rape would never have happened if I’d had a bike. I made a major correction of reality. The Hardy Boys entered in…and then the Benton Boys. Reading + Green Bike = Independence.