Non-Reader

"The man hasn't read a book in years."
I keep hearing that about the current occupant of the White House.  Maybe that's as it should be because recent studies say that claim goes for over half the population of this country.  Scary but true.  It's obvious that the President doesn't know the history of this country.  Examples abound. Even for those who can forgive him for inventing the African country of Nambia (he referred to that the other day) the fact that he knows very little about American History doesn't seem sway his followers.  Either they know nothing too or they simply don't care.  Probably both.  Yet, the notion of ignoring history and repeating mistakes looms large all the while.
A former colleague of mine, who taught Language Arts for a lifetime used to have a large banner in her classroom. When kids came into this learning environment they saw a sign which read, "Unless We Read, We Live But One Tiny Life."
I'd love to hear a discussion among a group of non-readers relating to that quote.  How do we measure the size of a life?  The character Mr. Antolini in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye told Holden Caulfield, "Maybe one day you'll find out what size mind you have."  For the American people, that day has come.
I get that reading is problematic for some folks.  It's either about time or learning disabilities, or missed opportunities. But is that an excuse for not knowing our country's history or keeping apprised of current affairs?

What President hasn't read biographies of former Presidents?   This one, no doubt. I wonder if he eve writes anything more than his infamous Tweets.  I love the quote, "How will I know what I think until I see what I write."  No wonder he doesn't always know what he thinks.
I have a suggestion for the next Voter Information Guide.  How about we ask prospective candidates to make us a list of their reading in the last year.  I'd love to  see that.  Maybe even some politicians would extend their lists to local libraries and we could have town hall like reading groups.
I'm confident that instead of arguing political theory or the polarization of our current population, we might actually refer to historical examples grounded in documentation.
So what do I think would come as the most profound revelations.  That's tempting.  If non-readers read, they might know more about the reality of the slave trade, or the wording of treaties like Guadalupe Hidalgo.  Maybe they'd learn about immigration or the fact that "race" is a human construct and that archaic words like Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and Negroid, were inventions that mean nothing.  Most non-readers don't know that Caucasian refers to the Caucasus Mountains not skin color.  Would they be surprised to know that all humans have the same 6 genes for skin tone?  That the greatest genetic differences between human beings has to do with how tall they are.
There is a lot to be said for informing yourself through films, provided that they are on the level of the current Ken Burns Lynn Novik "The Vietnam War" production now showing.  But something special happens in the mind when we read.  We make pictures, we think in quite a different way.  We encounter ideas in a much more active way.  To sit and let the images tumble at us, we have no choice to accept what we are given.  Unless we read, we don't think too well.

Sound Track

Something about a song lyric, popping up in your ear at just the right time and your life can flash by.  Maybe not your entire life, but certainly a few segments.
One of the things that keeps me exercising regularly is the ability to listen to music while doing so.  I move around on Pandora a lot and ultimately settle on a genre.  Usually it's blues music because I know that will keep me awake and to the task at hand.  But occasionally I wonder over to Neil Young or Dylan, or even Jonathan Edwards, a lesser known country rock artist whose sounds often sooth better than a cool drink of water.
Today, a combination of all three took me back to lovers and friends from decades past.  I realized that you never stop loving someone unless you work at it.  There were a couple of times, OK maybe even more than two, when a relationship in my back pages ended and I was feeling undone.  We've all been there but when Dylan sings "If you see her, say hello..." a stone cracks inside me and the beauty and pain and gratitude as well as regret pours out.

As I get older I'm amazed by how often I hold images of people I've known in my mind.  It doesn't matter how many years have transpired since we last saw one another.  True with social media, we have the ability to peer into windows that are open for all.
I've come to believe that we all have a sound track to our lives.  Just as the things we see and experience at certain ages stay with us, the emotions tied to certain pieces of music or places or the artists that accompanied both hold a key to our emotional literacy.  We tend to remember what is held together by strong emotions.  The research supports that, but it doesn't take a study to realize that emotion is thicker than most all else.

Houston Then and Now

It's difficult for me to watch the grim footage coming out of Houston, Texas without thinking about the year I spent there as a VISTA Volunteer.  I knew very little about this 4th largest city back then and in full disclosure, even as a recent college grad, I was heavily influenced by the stereotypes, positive and negative, that focused on TEXAS.
I wasn't even sure I could spend a year in Texas back then.  But, as often happens, when you immerse yourself in what you are doing and keep an open mindset, you often find that the result is pleasantly surprising.
I found plenty of decent people in Houston.  There was Carl Adams, the former trumpet player for such notables as B.B. King and Ray Charles, who wanted with all his heart and soul to run music workshops for kids who lived in under-privileged neighborhoods.  Houston had plenty of those, and when I see much of the footage today of the flooded homes, I wonder what it looks like where I once say large projects for low-income families, and the dismal parts of 3rd and 5th and 6th Ward neighborhoods.

Much of Houston's poverty back then reflected the images of classic Southern poverty.  Lots of "shot-gun shacks" and plenty of old wooden homes up on cinder blocks.  High water is nothing new to Texas and the history of the region is peppered with "great floods" of various years.  The wonderful blues music of some of the regions best clearly illustrates this as well.
I wonder, too if some of the people I met over 40 years ago are still there.  Many of the children would be in their late 40s and 50s.  I'm sure the old redneck who rented us a dilapidated home for $100 a month is long gone as well as the used appliance salesman who sold us a $10. refrigerator and then responded to our address, "You mean you live in colored town, with all those colored boys?"
He and his ilk are not part of the new Houston.  The fact that there is now aa African American Mayor and a Latino Chief of Police show progress and that real change did come to Houston.
Still, he the media reports on and from Buffalo Bayou, I still see it as the place where more than one victim of police brutality was taken to receive justice, Texas style.
Houston will recover and continue to be the home of a diverse community of pioneers, ethnic cultural workers, and loyal Texans.