Editor’s note: This column originally published April 8, 2016
I recently received an email notifying me I need to download an important update on my Kindle.
What I find so amusing about this is the 25-year-old me would have NEVER owned a Kindle, had they even been invented. Heck, back then the only books I owned were the series of children’s books I subscribed to for my son.
I’ve only been a “reader” for the last 12 years or so.
You see, I was one of those kids that nearly slipped through the cracks.
Oh, I could read. I didn’t struggle with the words. I was actually a very fluent reader, or as my mom says, “I read beautifully.” But my mind tuned out the meaning part of reading and I merely went through the motions of saying the words I saw on the page. I was pretty good at it too.
I loved the idea of books. We always had books at home. My siblings and I would also go to the basement of our town’s public library designated for the children’s library.
I enjoyed going there. In the hall leading to the little room, were shelves lined with old newspapers and magazines. Once inside, I’d sit quietly in the little chairs, looking through book after book. I’d look in the card pocket to see who had read the book before me — for some reason that was always important. I’d read the dust jacket ... thumb through the pages. And after I’d picked out just the right books, I’d head to the desk where the elderly librarian would take the date stamper, tap it on the ink pad and then date my books.
However once I’d get those books home, I don’t remember reading a single paragraph.
My friends all had their own books stacked in corners of their bedrooms or on bookcases. As much as I wished to be like them, I just didn’t find the joy in reading.
Yes, I had apparently fooled many people over the years. Being a year younger than most of my classmates, my teachers would use that as the explanation to my parents as to why I had to work so much harder to be on par with the other children. The problem with that was I did eventually keep up with the other kids ... I was right there in the middle. There were no red flags. I was an average student.
So anyway ...
There came a point when someone, I don’t know who, eventually caught on. Of course, by that point in my life, I needed more help than a regular classroom schedule could provide.
In the 70s, society wasn’t as cautious about using terminology that might be deemed inappropriate in today’s world. So, without as much as a note to my parents, let alone a face-to-face discussion about the challenges I was facing, off I was sent to the “Special Reading” room for classes when I was in junior high school. Contrary to how it sounds, everyone knew that didn’t mean “the room for exceptionally gifted readers.”
The teacher was Mrs. Hunter, a slender, middle-aged woman that always smelled of coffee and cigarettes — like I said, it was the 70s. She taught me to slow down and learn to interact with the words I was reading. I credit her for saving my education.
Granted, I finally had the skills to implement new techniques into everything I read, but it was work. Plain and simple, at that point, to me reading equated work. But thanks to my year of instruction with Mrs. Hunter, I graduated with honors. I’ve also spent the last quarter of a century working in the newspaper industry. Ironic, isn’t it?
Fast forward 30 years. I eventually discovered pleasure reading. In fact, I enjoy reading so much, I finally have bookshelves of my own full of hardcover books.
And a Kindle that needs an update.
Contact Dana King
at dking@shawmedia.com