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Old 10-11-2015, 12:22 AM
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Reading and Damped Oscillations

Why do you read?

I don't know when I started reading or how. I know that I had a difficult time of it. An early memory hangs. Maybe fourth grade: maybe Gelnhausen.

The teacher gave me an opportunity to pass a quiz. I was a shy reader and all she wanted me to do was read. Just read out loud. That was it. I was too afraid.

She gave me a choice. Read, which was option one. Or eat saltines and whistle Dixie, which was option two.

As a kid I was mentally fucked. I was too shy to read out loud and had no idea what Dixie sounded like. Mentally I flipped middle fingers to the room, ate the crackers, and blew dust without making any kind of whistle, let alone Dixie.

That is honest to God where my association with the Dixie flag is rooted. It is rooted in trying. Trying to whistle Dixie.

After years of reading I wonder how many human struggles could be focused by learning to whistle.
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Old 10-11-2015, 06:22 AM
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I'm pretty sure that is the most random story I've read this week.
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Old 10-11-2015, 07:29 AM
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I read because I don't like being ignorant, which also has a connection to the rebel flag. You see as a young lad I was also shy, yet quick tempered.

In the 1960s/ early '70s, we still had a lot of folks migrating to Ohio seeking work in the mines, mills and car factories. Most of these folks were coming up from the south.....WV, TN, VA, KY....you get the picture. One fine day another young lad of equal age, ~10 with a distinct southern accent approached me and asked me if I had been "Saved". This was an unfamiliar term to me as it wasn't commonly used among northern Methodists. So, I said "Saved from what?".

"The devil you idiot! You don't believe in GOD?! You need to git your ass to church!"" was his reply.

"We're Methodists. I'm in church every Sunday. I've been baptized."

"If you aint saved, yer gonna burn in hell! All of you Methodists will!"

I beat the shit out of him.

We ended up going through school through graduation in the same class and I watched as he bloomed into a full blown redneck asshole; guns, rebel flag, latent racism, xenophobia, homophobia, religious bigotry.......the complete package. A well rounded contradiction, masquerading as a Patriotic American and devout "Christian" who cursed like a drunken sailor as he spit tobacco juice into a handy drool bucket.

A couple years back he sent me a friend request on FB. I approved it, just out of curiosity.

Yep, he's still an idiot. Fat, drunk, diabetic, on his fourth marriage and missing a few teeth..........Praise Jesus. His profile pic is a bust of Donald Trump. If the south should rise again and people such as this are our future? God help us all.

I read because I don't want to be like him.
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Last edited by BlueStreak; 10-11-2015 at 07:32 AM.
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Old 10-11-2015, 07:34 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by donquixote99 View Post
I'm pretty sure that is the most random story I've read this week.
I loved it. It made perfect sense to me.
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Old 10-11-2015, 11:07 AM
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OK, sure. Now that I'm less cornfuddled by the unexpected, I'm seeing what it's saying. Thats one of the cool things stories do--take you into the worlds of others.
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Old 10-11-2015, 11:31 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ebacon View Post
Why do you read?

I don't know when I started reading or how. I know that I had a difficult time of it. An early memory hangs. Maybe fourth grade: maybe Gelnhausen.

The teacher gave me an opportunity to pass a quiz. I was a shy reader and all she wanted me to do was read. Just read out loud. That was it. I was too afraid.

She gave me a choice. Read, which was option one. Or eat saltines and whistle Dixie, which was option two.

As a kid I was mentally fucked. I was too shy to read out loud and had no idea what Dixie sounded like. Mentally I flipped middle fingers to the room, ate the crackers, and blew dust without making any kind of whistle, let alone Dixie.

That is honest to God where my association with the Dixie flag is rooted. It is rooted in trying. Trying to whistle Dixie.

After years of reading I wonder how many human struggles could be focused by learning to whistle.
Another take on it is that, rather than trying ( to read aloud to the class), you chose defiance. This is a narrative direction more consistent with the whole "Dixie" mythology.
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Old 10-12-2015, 07:09 AM
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Some people are really clueless and insensitive.

There are kids who just dread reading aloud. The teacher has to recognize this and take different approaches.

Recently my family was invited to a small religious meeting. The lay preacher instead of asking for volunteers, asked each person to read a verse in a section of the bible.

A young man declined. The possibilties...the guy was shy...the guy could not read.

I did not like reading until I was about seven. Then I was an avid reader. My thing was newspapers and magazines. This aided my world geography. I remember reading in the fifties about Arbenz in Guatemala. For some reason that really stuck with me.

Every time I meet a Guatemalan I would ask about Arbenz. To my surprise some did not know who he was also to my surprise some did not speak Spanish.

I have some favorite books which I have read many times.
Ivanhoe, Treasure Island, Ben Hur, First Circle, Things Fall Apart.
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Old 10-12-2015, 07:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by donquixote99 View Post
I'm pretty sure that is the most random story I've read this week.
Thank you.

I had to revisit the thread to refresh my memory. It is surprising to see memories that would otherwise fade away. When old memories resurface I write them at whatever is at my disposal. That helps keep them alive and, if they end up in forums such as this, then hopefully someone can use the spark or seed for their own story.
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Old 10-12-2015, 07:14 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Boreas View Post
Another take on it is that, rather than trying ( to read aloud to the class), you chose defiance. This is a narrative direction more consistent with the whole "Dixie" mythology.
At that age I was unaware of the "Dixie" mythology. I did not learn about that until much later, maybe age 25.

Some defiance I have, no doubt about that. But it exists in my chemistry, not in American history.
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Old 10-12-2015, 07:24 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dondilion View Post
Some people are really clueless and insensitive.

There are kids who just dread reading aloud. The teacher has to recognize this and take different approaches.

Recently my family was invited to a small religious meeting. The lay preacher instead of asking for volunteers, asked each person to read a verse in a section of the bible.

A young man declined. The possibilties...the guy was shy...the guy could not read.

I did not like reading until I was about seven. Then I was an avid reader. My thing was newspapers and magazines. This aided my world geography. I remember reading in the fifties about Arbenz in Guatemala. For some reason that really stuck with me.

Every time I meet a Guatemalan I would ask about Arbenz. To my surprise some did not know who he was also to my surprise some did not speak Spanish.

I have some favorite books which I have read many times.
Ivanhoe, Treasure Island, Ben Hur, First Circle, Things Fall Apart.
Dondilion,

I agree. As I recall, reading comprehension was a big part of my fear. The piece that I was asked to read was fiction. At that age my mind was still rooted in fact. I loved airplanes and would have read pages of facts about them with enthusiasm. But fiction was out of my scope of comprehension.

Shortly after that event, maybe even with the same teacher, I recall reading my first fiction book and understanding it. The teacher sat with me and explained the Newberry Award? for children's fiction, and the book was an award winner. What struck a chord with me in the book was the characters voices were written with dialect -- they were spelled wrong. The dialects helped me "hear" the characters and visualize them. That was an interesting learning experience.
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