Making A Reader

I've been volunteering at my neighborhood elementary school.  There is a program called SMART, an acronym for Start Making a Reader Today.  I read with and to kindergarten kids for an hour.  I have three charges, all girls, and I spend 20 minutes with each, one day a week.  It goes quickly, most of the time.  These kids can't read yet, but they are learning to love books.  We read together whatever they choose from among hundreds of titles distributed around the small classroom.  Most of the books are clever little titles that can be read in about 5-7 minutes.  I did read one last week that was 48 pages long.  It took almost the entire 20-minute segment.
My three "Smarties," as they are called, couldn't be more different.  The first little girl is very quiet and shy.  But she smiles freely and responds to my occasional questions with bright, alert, answers.  I've learned her favorite foods, animals, and colors.  The third child I see each week is more of an extrovert, but equally as bright and alert.  With her two front teeth missing, she smiles freely and seems to be able to read a bit.  I'll find out more as the weeks go by.  She also tells me how she likes to read with her daddy, so I know there are books at home there.

The middle child is the most challenging because she's most often distracted.  I could call her hyperactive because she often needs to move around when we are reading a book.  She is antsy, likes to move around the room and visit others during the 20-minute session, and sometimes gets easily off task.  She's also very tactile.  She likes to touch my arms, and will spontaneously give me a hug.
We're not supposed to touch the kids in any way and do not play the role of teacher as far as discipline or classroom environment goes.  I thought that might be difficult for me since I', a grizzled veteran of the high school classroom, but no, I just try to reel in the distracted moments and keep the focus going.  Nevertheless, I'm wondering about the differences in the behavior of these three kids.  Maybe someday I'll be able to talk to their teacher who might provide some insight; maybe not. What kind of readers will they actually become? So many ways to read today, what will come from these early attempts to make readers?   For now, I'll do my best to help make these kids readers, whatever that may be in the changing literary landscape.  I recall a colleague of mine used to have a poster in her classroom that read: "Unless we read, we will have but one tiny life."  I wish all readers very big lives.

Glovely

I used to explore the theme of childhood with my Junior English classes.  In literature, it's very popular...also a winner.  Everybody has one.  Everybody loses one.  The stories are important and valuable.  Usually, when teaching the novel The Catcher in the Rye, I'd ask my students to bring in an object that represents their childhood.  I'd do the same.  This exercise came early on in the year and would work as an ice-breaker and help us all get to know one another better.  Of course, there was all manner of Barbie dolls, and model cars, airplanes, rocket ships, and superhero toys.  Some kids would bring books and others went conceptual, like the student who poured a container of water through the air into a container and said that water represented his childhood because he almost drowned.  One of the most memorable was the student who brought in some clothing from her native Iran and proceded to tell a story about how she and her mother escaped a repressive regime there and when they landed in a U.S. airport they changed their clothing and tossed the more traditional garb into the first trash can they saw.  Powerful stuff.  Lots of laughs and lots of tears all around.  But then, that's childhood.

I'd usually bring in my Little League baseball glove and tell the story of how I grew up a Giants fan in L.A. and wanted a Willie Mays glove.  My father took me to the biggest sporting goods stores in the city and we found one!  I'm convinced that glove helped me make a few plays just like my idol.
I was thinking about that glove the other day when I recalled the story of another glove.  Like my signature model, it was made by the MacGregor company.  Only this other glove, which belonged to a neighbor kid  I regularly played baseball with, was even more special.

My friend's glove was solid black and came to him suddenly and accidentally.  He was riding along with his father in Hollywood, Ca one afternoon.  His dad worked at Technicolor and he often went in with him on Saturdays to gather scraps of film left on the cutting room floor.  He'd bring home small rolls of discarded film with scenes from such classic movies as "The Robe" and "Sparticus."  Bigg stuff for 10-year-olds.  Anyway, as they were riding along they noticed a large bus in front of them.  Just about the time they noticed the logo of the Hollywood Stars baseball team on the bus, a glove fell from an open window!  A beautiful, all black, MacGreggor glove.  Stopping the car, my neighbor fetched up the glove, but the team bus was long gone.  I think they made an attempt to re-unite the glove with its owner, but that never happened.  That glove played its remaining days in my neighborhood and at our local Little League field.  We all knew it was special.  Even though the Stars were a minor league team (Part of the Pacific Coast League) they were a farm team of the Pittsburg Pirates.  That glove belonged to a real baseball player.  We all took turns wearing that glove when its new owner allowed.  It'll never replace the feeling and pride of my Willie Mays glove but as neighborhood legends go, the black MacGreggor is one of the better ones.

Uniform

I'm seen as an old man
named after an uncle I never met,
If promise was a flood, and fire was frost
Twilight would be more than life-like dreams
 that bubble over the ledges of time

Give me the uniform of a minor league team
that exists only in the mind,
Just one more look to hold dear,
with colors that make this life half as hard.

As a young man, my lovers came mostly
from ancient cultures but others from those busy being born,
Most were restless within own their own boundaries,
If I never wandered through dark woods the most beautiful
would never have appeared.

 Eventually, I moved on and away as they pushed years along like
a noisy shopping cart.

Old photos bring new smiles.