My Reading Journey

"I hate reading!" I shouted at the top of my 11 year old lungs. 

My parents had just dropped the news I would be in a reading remediation program when I started the 6th grade in 1986. It was true I struggled in reading. My parents and grandparents had tried for years to get me to read a book, but they were met with repeated failure and resistance. 

In my little kid brain, I was thinking, "I just got out of speech therapy." Yeah, I had to do that as well. I had a hard time with "sh", "ch", and "s" sounds. Turns out I was placing my tongue in the wrong section of my mouth. Once, I figured it out, then I was pretty much golden after that - at least in speech. 

In my defense, I honestly believed reading was boring. My whole reading journey so far had only included elementary school reader books (See Dick Run books), and I was never able to buy anything at the book fair even if I saw something interesting. Instead, reading was despised activity I did everything possible to avoid. 

During the 6th grade, I endured the reading classes. I would read the stories and answer the questions. I would read aloud when asked. I read about Crops, World War I airplanes, Nepal, and several other topics that I had absolutely no interest in knowing about - much less reading about. By the end of the 6th grade, I hadn't made much progress on my reading goals. My time in reading remediation was extended into the 7th grade.

The summer between 6th and 7th grade, I was given the opportunity to spend the summer with my grandparents in Harker Heights, Texas. Since I lived in Tyler, and disliked the town with the passion of a thousand burning suns, I jumped at the opportunity to flee and spend the summer elsewhere - even if it was Harker Heights, which to me was a huge step up from Tyler.

We drove to Harker Heights after school ended. My family spent the weekend. My mom, dad, and brothers drove back to Tyler, and I started to settle in for what I thought would be an easy summer of hanging out and chilling with no responsibilities what so ever.

Over the following week, I settled into a routine at my grandparents. We had plans for a quick three day trip to Aransas Pass, Texas. My grandparents vacationed there almost every year, and me and my family would always go with them for a week or so. However, they wanted to check out a new hotel and thought a weekend stay would be a good way to check it out.

The drive from Harker Heights to Aransas Pass was lengthy. In 1986 there were no smart phones, smart watches, tablets, or anything like that to pass the time driving. I didn't own a Walkman much less a CD player, and DiscMan's weren't even on the horizon. About the only things you could do on a Texas road trip was try to fall asleep, so when you woke up, with any luck, you'd arrive at your destination just as you opened your eyes.

I tried that and actually fell asleep. When I woke up, I was dismayed to see that only 45 minutes had actually passed. 

I could listen to the radio, but my grandparents didn't like that "Rocking and Rolling" music. So, instead, it was AM radio.

I could look out the window.

Last option to pass the time on a long drive - READ.

In desperation, I agreed to take a Sherlock Holmes collection on the trip to read. I had a slight interest in Sherlock Holmes because my dad and I watched the Sherlock Holmes Mysteries on PBS' Masterpiece Theater. So, I was like, I'll give it a shot.

On the day of the trip, my grandparents handed me $5 dollars to go to the 7-11 down the road and buy a couple of snacks to eat. The 7-11 door chimed and walked in, turned down what I thought was the candy aisle, but was actually the magazine aisle, and that's when everything changed. 

Front row. Upper tier of the magazine rack. Lined up and overlapping were that weeks' comics. Bright primary colors burst on the covers. Big jagged word balloons proclaimed, "Shocking Issue", "This issue EVERYTHING CHANGES!", "First Issue Collector's Item." My eyes scanned the entire shelf, and I pulled an issue of Marvel Tales (reprints of early Amazing Spider-Man comics) with Spider-Man locked in a fight with Captain Britain. Then there was another issue with a Grey Hulk fighting X-Factor (I'd later learn they were the original X-Men but with a new name because they were secretly pretending to be humans to go after mutants and protect them...anyway, that's a whole other story), and Batman, and Superman, and Green Lantern, and Daredevil, and all of them. Right there in front of me.

Instead of buying the candy or snacks, I bought those comics. When I got back to my grandparents, they asked what snacks I bought, and I told them that I had bought the comics instead. I thought they'd be made at me since I didn't do what I'd been asked to do, but they shrugged unconcerned.

Now, my reading speed was obviously not up to par because, well, I wasn't and had been refusing to read. That first comic took me almost 30 minutes to read. There were words I didn't know and had to find out what they meant. "Sentient" was one of the words. Like, what 11 year old knows that word?

I made it through the rest of the comics I bought, but it hadn't been enough to make it through the whole trip. So, I did the only thing that someone could do in that case.

I begged. I pleaded. I promised heaven and earth. If my grandparents, would just stop a gas station, I could take another $5 bucks, get a few more comics to read, and we'd be on our way again. I promised it wouldn't take long. In and out. Quick as a flash. Oh, man, The Flash. I need to get a Flash comic next time.

Despite my pleas, my grandparents refused to stop, and I finished the ride sulking and pouting.

But I was hooked. I actually wanted to read now. I wanted to find out the secret of Wolverine's adamantium skeleton and who he was before joining the X-Men. I read Batman comics and pretended the woods behind the house were Gotham City. I climbed trees and crept out on branches pretending to be Batman on patrol.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to swing like Spider-Man using some rope I found in my grandfather's stable. I gave up after some serious rope burn - and learned that must be why superheroes were gloves. 

I spent the rest of the summer going back to that 7-11 and buying comics. My grandparents never asked. Each week during that time, I'd ask if I could have $5 and go to 7-11. Each time, they gave me money, and I bought comics. I would return and spend the next couple of hours reading. 

As with all things that are cool, my time with my grandparents came to an end. My parents came for a visit and carted me off back to Tyler. I was able to take the comics back with me, and I reread them on the trip back to Tyler.

7th grade started a couple of weeks later. I trudged into the reading room. I knew why I was there at this point. The kids who saw me walking into the reading room knew. It wasn't my fault that I didn't like reading. We sat down and class started. 

Over the next couple of weeks, something weird started happening. I knew almost all of the words in the readers. Actually, the stories in the readers were kind of basic and simple. I started reading them quicker and quicker. I could answer all the questions. Somehow I had become a super-charged reading machine. I continued to go through the readers quickly climbing up the difficulty scale. 

Then, one day, the school counselor showed up and asked me to come with her. Back then, kids didn't really ask a lot of questions like, "Why?", "Where are we going?", or "Am I in trouble?" Typically when an adult showed up and said come with me, I went. She walked me down the hall to another class room that was full of kids. I mean, there was only one single unoccupied desk in the room. She motioned for me to go sit down, quietly spoke to the teacher, and left.

The teacher came over to me and said, "Welcome to 7th Grade Language Arts. We're reading..." and handed me a class copy of the book they were silently reading. "We just started reading a little bit ago, so you should be able to catch up pretty quick."

I opened the book and started reading.