Summer is a time of travel and vacation. This summer, I have taken a trip to Alabama, where I spent time with an old friend who had grown up, and I discovered that I know longer like her as much. She is kind of annoying, and her loveable and endearing naivete is gone. Later, I made a pass through Tennessee, through a land of low mountains and caves, small towns and family farms. I discovered that this part of our country is apparently inhabited by some deeply disturbed individuals. Deeply disturbed. Right now, I am on a trip through the mountains Mexico, making the trip on horseback from New Mexico south. It has been an interesting journey, and I am anxious to see what lies ahead. It reminds me of last summer when I made another trip through Mexico and spent time on a wide hacienda. I have been on some amazing rides, let me tell you.
In years past, I was blessed to peer into the lives of some amazing men, including the greatest football coach of his time, a man once approached during the same elections season by both the Democratic and Republican parties about serving as a vice presidential candidate.
Now, if you know me, you are incredibly confused at this point. You know that I would rather spend a summer working football camps and painting than paying for any type of vacation. My family sees a trip to Wichita as an adventure, and hitting Krispy Kreme while the Hot and Fresh sign is flashing is a major event. So what is up? Bear with me.
In the remake of the classic football/prison movie, The Longest Yard, the character played by Chris Rock and known as Caretaker tells a fellow con, a massive manchild who cannot read, that he should not worry; reading's for rich people. Now, I put a great deal of thought into the literary value and the poetic truths that can be gleaned from cinematic offerings. This movie, while a fun 90 minutes or so of jokes, innuendo, music montages, and football footage, is not a masterpiece. However, this line actually carries quite a bit of meaning despite its comedic intentions.
Reading is, in fact, for rich people.
That can be taken a number of different ways. First, reading makes a man, makes any person rich. Knowledge currency, and knowledge is power. Reading allows the acquisition of knowledge. To read is to learn. This summer, I have read blog entries on teaching strategies, flexible seating, engaging reluctant readers, motivating today's young athletes, defending the no back, and so many other topics. I am growing more professionally now than at any time on my career as a teacher. Twitter, reading in 140 character bites, has opened up a world of learning opportunities for me, and I am invigorated. I am rich.
Reading also allows me to experience moments that I would never experience otherwise. That trip to Alabama? I booked that through Harper Lee (RIP). The disturbing jaunt through the mountains? Cormac McCarthy guided me down those dark roads, as well as the horseback rides rides through Mexico. A few summers back, I met Vince Lombardi in a somewhat intimate way through a volume titled When Pride Still Mattered. Each time I read, I go somewhere, I experience something, I meet someone that is most likely far beyond my pedestrian reach. But through the pages of a book, through the artfully crafted words of masters, I can go anywhere, and I can experience almost anything. I am rich.
The way I look at it, I was given my inheritance early in life. My earliest memories include books and newspapers. My dad, a carpenter whose best high school yearbook picture showed him drooling and asleep with his head on a desk, was one of the most educated men I have ever met. Sure, he took some college classes through Barton County outreach over the years, but that is not even part of what makes him such an impressive individual, education-wise. At any given time. anywhere from three to seven books would be stacked up next to Dad's chair in the living room. Biographies, historical accounts, and political texts would sit open, marking the page where Dad had paused in his reading. Each day's newspaper was scanned by eyes that absorbed ideas and rhetoric from text and filed it away for discussion and consideration later. I do not remember sitting in Dad's lap as his finger tracked the words of the Mobile Ledger, but I do remember having my own spot on the floor, where those papers and my books would be scattered. Mom's chair had its own mountain of reading material; historical fiction novels were more her style, but the stacks were no less impressive, and the turnover was just as consistent and constant. If Dad was busy reading in the evening, it did no good to go to Mom; she was reading too. My parents opened an account for me and my siblings early in life, and they made deposits faithfully as we grew up. The reading habit was own trust fund, and, believe, me, we were rich.
I have done my best to give my daughter and son the same type of early inheritance I was granted. Their mom's side table usually has a book. Heidi reads the daily paper before I get up each day, and Heidi and Emily pass magazines back and forth. I was third on the list when Go Set a Watchman came in after Heidi pre-ordered it. Emily has her own blog and many of her paintings and drawing as inspired by her reading. Dylan reads and writes an hour each day this summer because he wants to be a writer, and that is his summer workout. His Christmas list was a bookstore shopping list. My hope is that their inheritance can be even close to the one passed to me.
In addition to my blessed progeny, I am also blessed to work a number of other young people who each year become "my kids". It is my duty to do whatever I can to pass on a love of reading to them. Unfortunately, I do not have a lifetime with each of them. So, what we do has to be powerful, and it has to effective. That is the rub, as the Bard would say. How can I help each student who passes through my door make deposits into the trust fund that reading provides. Some have wealth when they walk in. I need to help them invest and build their capital. Others are nearly broke. I have find a way to help those young people invest. It is vital that they do so.
I want them to be rich.
