Is that I get to write a lot, which makes it really easy to have stuff to post. This is my literacy autobiography that I turned in for LIT313- Literacy Assessment and Intervention. It sounds really boring, but the class is really fun, and I think I did something pretty interesting with the autobiography.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost
I looked around the house for any stray books I might have forgotten. There were two in the living room. I managed to stuff them into my bulging backpack and zip it shut, the seams screaming and holding on for dear life. I lifted the bag onto my shoulders with a grunt. I was ready to begin my trek.
That bag was always heavy. It must've weighed at least twenty pounds. That might not seem like a lot, but when you realize that twenty pounds was a full fifth of my 100 pound, fourth grade body weight; it gets put into perspective real quick. It's a burden I carried with pride.
Every week I would make a trip to the library. I had to walk because my babysitter couldn't drive. I was fine with that; I generally enjoyed the walk. I began the journey around nine or ten in the morning. The backpack seemed lighter then. Maybe it was because the temperature and humidity hadn't spiked yet.
Nelly, my babysitter, would help me cross the street right in front of her house. There were no sidewalks for the first block and a half, so I had to be careful. I stood as far right as possible, walking on the grass of front lawns when I could, and the dusty gravel shoulder when I couldn't. I picked up the sidewalk as I entered the well ordered residential outskirts of downtown Baldwinsville. I lost the sidewalk again as I passed the Moose Lodge and the decrepit, crumbling train station. I smelled seafood and hamburger grease as I passed the seafood restaurant and then the Burger King. There was the run down dive bar, Mickey's Tavern. After the Sunoco gas station was the beat up Gould's Pumps warehouse. Next to the warehouse was the cleaner, white brick Gould's Pumps office building where my father worked. I hung a right at the dark brown Baldwinsville Commons office building. A block up the street was the long rectangular building that was the Baldwinsville Public Library.
I made that trip every week. I loved to read. It wasn't until recently that I began to realize what really drove me to take that literal walk, and later, many figurative ones. For me, it's always been about the stories. Stories do so much for me. They entertain me. They educate me. They let me connect to people.
My earliest memory of stories is with my mother. When I was a toddler, she told me the stories of Little Ludwig and his dog named Bow Wow. These were characters that were used by her father when she was growing up. There was never a set story, she would jus think of something when I climbed up on her lap and said, both adorable and annoying at the same time, "Mommy, mommy, tell me a story!"
And she did, every time, without fail. Ludwig and Bow Wow went to
I was also able to get closer with my father. Every week, on the walk back to Nelly's house, I would stop in and see my dad. We'd sit in the lobby of the Guild's Pumps building and he'd listen to me talk about the books I picked out. Looking back, I feel bad about making him listen to me ramble on about books he had no interest in. His patience was an encouragement, though. A few years later, when I began my science fiction kick, I would raid his book collection. Anne McCaffery and Piers Anthony were my favorites from his bookshelf. The favor was returned a few years later when he lost his job and suddenly had a surplus of free time to raid mine. I turned him on to Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind. I'm a little disappointed I couldn't do the same with Tim O'Brien and Hunter S. Thompson (yeah, right), but c'est la vie.
Of course, other people's stories were only good enough for so long, and reading is only one half of literacy. For a long time, I was only interested in stories from other people. It didn't occur to me that I had my own stories to tell that other people might find interesting or useful. Not only has writing allowed me to share my stories, it's given me another avenue to connect with other people.
My hobbies, more than most other hobbies I think, are very community oriented. The biggest one is probably a game called Magic: the Gathering. It's a strategic collectable card game that is dynamic and ever changing. There are players all over the country, the world even, and we communicate primarily through internet message boards. That alone opens up many doors for literacy. Not only do I need to know how to read and write, on top of needing to know how to work the bulletin board software. All of this in addition to being literate of the rules of the game and the every changing trends within the game.
Of course, the game being so community oriented, there's much more to be written about than just strategy and ideas. There is a lot of writing to be done for and about the community. Many of us have traveled hundred of miles to meet and play against each other. There's really no other reason for doing that than being able to say, "Yeah, I drove to D.C. and met up with the Elgins and the Hatfields and had a blast," or, "Dude, it was so awesome going to
There is a genre of writing that's fairly unique to this hobby called the tournament report. It is part box score, part fishing tale, and part bar story. Most tournament reports are just the facts of what happened to the writer in the tournament. The good report writers describe what they learned about the game and their deck. What the great writers, and what I try to do, is write about what we've learned about ourselves and the community. The great writers chronicle the happenings of the event that take place away from the game itself; it is in those moments that connections are forged.
It was through these that I really began writing. Writing allows me to look inside myself and learn something new. I don't flatter myself and think my story is all that important on a large scale, but I like to share it anyway. I write for myself, but I post it regardless. If anyone can take anything from what I write, then I am flattered. It means I was doing something right.
Books have taken me all over the world- this one and others. They've taken me to the past, and through them I have seen the future. I've sailed around the world and across the galaxy. Writing has served as the impetus to create my own stories and to tell them. Both reading and writing have allowed me to interact with numerous people on a meaningful level. Literacy for me has been a journey. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that the journey is what is important. The journey is where the story is. As I stand on the verge of a great adventure, both literal and metaphorical, I can still feel that backpack. It's not getting heavier, but it is getting fuller. I wouldn't have it any other way.
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