My Million-Dollar Donkey

by East, Ginny;

  “I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.”

  —Henry David Thoreau

  THE ABC’S OF STARTING OVER

  For years I dreamt of a life where work wasn’t the central focus of my days, but doing nothing of consequence was not the vacation I imagined. I constantly had a feeling that I was supposed to be somewhere, doing something more important than washing clothes, cooking meals, or walking in the woods. I missed feeling necessary and productive. I missed working. I missed training dancers. I missed our former friends. I missed my husband being an interactive part of my life.

  The very work you long to escape shapes your life in ways you never understand until your purpose is gone. Homemade fried chicken dinners served under the canopy of an elm tree are nice in a romantic Martha Stewart sort of way, but personal pleasure doesn’t replace the sense of accomplishment gained from meaningful employment when your work affects the lives of others.

  Needing to apply my energy to something positive and life affirming, I dug into writing and my MFA studies. If I didn’t have to work, I could at least work at something. With my focus now on reading, writing, and the power of words, I stumbled upon an article about the ongoing problem of illiteracy in the Appalachian region. Inspired, I called the Georgia Literacy Commission and volunteered. Perhaps teaching a new reading student might help fill the emptiness created by the twelve hundred dance students we’d left behind. The effort would be my offering to the writing gods, which I felt would establish good karma and perhaps help me find success somehow.

  The director of the program, Donna, called to welcome me aboard. She explained that learning to read is a daunting process, and as such, few illiterate individuals have the courage to step forward to tackle the task. Interestingly, a forty-year-old woman had come in just two days prior, so my timing was perfect.

  Her name was Kathy, and her assessment test revealed she could recognize all of the letters in the alphabet and could sound out most of them, with the exception of a few vowels. The problem was she didn’t recognize any full words—not even a simple “it,” “me,” or “cat.”

  This information should have intimidated me, I suppose, but I was delighted. Kathy would be my very own Eliza Doolittle makeover project. My mind spun with images of the two of us sharing great literature, like Moby Dick and A Farewell to Arms...after I’d exposed her to the rest of the alphabet, of course.

  I agreed to meet my potential student at the nearby literacy center to determine whether or not we were compatible, like blind dates meeting for a quick cup of coffee before daring to commit to dinner. On the day of the meeting, I dressed in casual jeans and a sweater, trying not to look too eager or too square. I even wore my glasses, a small tribute to intellectualism that I hoped might gain my student’s confidence.

  I heard Kathy’s steps long before she entered the room. She had long, silky, blonde hair pulled neatly up into a perfect ponytail, and the kind of delicate bone structure I’ve always envied, accented by well-applied, understated make-up in the pink tones that are so lovely on blondes. A nice pair of jeans and a stylish top made it obvious she’d made an effort to look nice.

  I don’t know what I expected a non-reader to look like, but for some reason, I was taken aback by how normal she seemed. Then she smiled, and instantly things were put into perspective. Kathy had only three front teeth on the upper bridge of her mouth and none on the lower. When comedians blacked out their teeth in skits on television shows, I had laughed at the silly portrayal of “hicks from the sticks” like everyone else. But now, sitting across from this beautiful woman whom, despite all the good aspects, looked older than she should because her cheeks were sunken in and her lips were curling inward made the romance of teaching someone to read slip away as the reality of her situation crashed over me.

  Who was I kidding? This woman was so disadvantaged that basic dental hygiene was beyond her resources. I would never tweak this woman’s mind with grand literary masterpieces. I’d probably never even get to expose her to the commercial novels I sometimes read for fun. With luck, I might just help her to function in the world with a modicum of competency. Was I really up for that kind of project?

  “What’s made you want to learn to read?” I asked, knowing it was a pretty lame question, but I had to say something to break the ice.

  “I have a son with A.D.D. I was hoping someday I might help him with his homework. I’m also awfully tired of being dependent on others. I just want to be able to do things for myself.”

  “Such as?”

  She picked at the nail polish on her short nails and shrugged. “You know, everyday things. I feel stupid in the grocery store because I always have to ask for help. I try looking at the pictures on boxes or cans to guess what things are, but then I go home and open a can thinking I got tuna, but something else is inside. Sometimes I get nervous and throw whatever is in there away. Don’t want to feed something to my family that might not be good for them.”

  I listened as she gave more examples of life as a non-reader, nodding as if I understood, even though I couldn’t put myself in her place any more than I could relate to a man’s experience as a linebacker for the Green Bay Packers.

  “Did you ever attend school?”

  “Sure. I went to school up to ninth grade. I never even learned the alphabet, but my teacher was very kind.”

  I could make a case that kindness wasn’t served when Kathy was passed from level to level without mastering basic skills, but I kept that opinion to myself.

  “Do you have a driver’s license?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “There’s a law that says the test questions have to be read to anyone who can’t read ‘em themselves. I studied the rules with my husband and passed that part, but failed the sign test three times. I memorized the shape and colors, but couldn’t seem to remember the words. At last, on the third try, I guessed good enough to pass. Been driving ever since.”

  Kathy’s lack of teeth made her pronunciation peculiar. As unkind as it sounds, she sounded like a 6 year old with a lisp and an old woman with a mouthful of mashed potatoes at the same time. I could follow most of what she said but was distracted by her overall persona as I tried to sum up what I was feeling about her.

  “So your husband can read?”

  “Only enough to get by. Not as well as he’d like.”

  Kathy spoke of her husband with true tenderness, telling me he drained septic tanks for a living, and she was constantly worried about his having to go into them with only the Dollar Store masks she bought him as protection from the fumes. Nevertheless, she insisted he made great money—ten dollars an hour. Unfortunately, the other men working at the company were getting fifteen, but her husband knew better than to ask for a raise because...She leaned over to whisper the rest of the sentence as if the confession was a secret just between us, “He doesn’t have other skills to rely on if the company ever chooses to let him go.”

  I fought the urge to explain equal opportunity and fair play, and instead, nodded supportively, admiring her tenderness, her trust, and her positive attitude despite what I considered dire circumstances.

  “I don’t know if I can, but I’d sure like to learn to read. I worked with a tutor once before, but after two months, she quit. I figured if the teacher didn’t care, maybe it was because I wasn’t worth the effort so I didn’t want to try again after that.”

  I stared directly into her eyes. “I won’t quit.”

  She sat up straighter. “Then neither will I.” Leaning forward, she put her chin in her hands. “So, why are you doing this?”

  I decided there was no reason not to be honest. “I didn’t go to college until I was 35, and now at 46, I’m finally tackling my dream of graduate school. It got me to thinking a lot about reading and writing and I started thinking that teachi
ng someone else to read might help me learn some important things too.”

  “Doesn’t seem like a woman like you would have anything left to learn,” she said.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “If you already have a college degree, you probably know an awful lot.”

  “Believe it or not, I often feel just plain stupid.”

  “Stupid is going to school for nine years and not being able to read,” she said.

  “You don’t seem stupid to me. The problem is you have 40 years of thinking of yourself as a non-reader muddying your perception of what you can be now. It’s the same way with me. For years I taught dance for a living. Now, I feel like a dancer inside, no matter what else I do. Maybe we can both change the way we think and feel about ourselves and discover that we’re more than we realize.”

  She smiled then, covering her mouth with her hand in a subtle gesture that revealed her self-consciousness. Every instinct in me screamed to just write her a check. Our cash flow was tight once again, but still, I could afford to offer help in a case like this. The problem was I knew what this woman needed most were the tools to open doors of opportunity. To tackle the task at hand, I needed this woman to relate to me so I could become her teacher and the friend I sensed she needed. I needed to be more like her than unlike her, and if she knew I had just come into a million dollars, even if I now felt financially stressed, I doubted she’d feel a common bond. I simply asked, “When shall we start?”

  “I can meet you anytime, except when I am busy doing community service.”

  “No problem. I admire people who commit time to community service, church, and helping others.”

  She cleared her throat. “I’m not a do-gooder or anything. Three years ago I started hanging out with a bad crowd of people and got into trouble. Meth... When they caught me, I was given the option to go back to school or do a month of prison time and community service. Since I couldn’t read, school wasn’t an option. That’s when they took my son away and I knew I just had to try to learn to read again. I still have to volunteer 100 service hours and report to a parole officer.” Her eyes were downcast. “I just want you to know the truth, before you find out later and quit because you decide I’m not worth your time.”

  I understood her now. Motherhood was the hand guiding Kathy to the altar of reading rather than a desire to enter the world of philosophy and great works. Motherhood would be our common bond. I would do anything for my kids too and, instantly, I wanted nothing more than to help her be a better mother as well as a more functional female in general.

  “Are you clean now?”

  “Absolutely, and I plan to stay that way.”

  That was good enough for me. We made plans to begin the following week.

  Driving home, I couldn’t help ruminating over how normal Kathy seemed and yet so different. I stared at my neighbors going about their business. That man closing the gate on his pasture of cows: did he know how to read? How about that woman picking beans in her garden? She looked Kathy’s age. If she grew up here, she probably went to the same school during the same years. Was she capable of reading? On the other hand, I’d met more than a few lifelong Blue Ridge residents with accents as thick as Dolly Parton’s who were not only literate, but had even gone to college. Was Kathy the exception or the rule?

  I felt a small itch of worry. Had I moved my children to a place where education and intellectual stimulus from peers was less than it should be? Mark and I had chosen to simplify life, and if that included simple acquaintances, so what? A fair number of the intellectual people in the city I left behind seemed pompous bores anyway. I could probably learn more from Kathy than I could from any one of them.

  That night I told Mark about Kathy’s past, explaining that, in my opinion, a person who volunteered to be a tutor and then quit, leaving the poor non-reader with worse self-esteem than when she started, had to be pretty irresponsible.

  “But I can see how that happens. After all, this is going to be at least a year commitment, don’t you think?”

  For the first time I considered the time frame of my little project. The entire point of our life reinvention was to spend more time together as a family and I’d been looking forward to celebrating my leisure hours as a mother, and when not in service to the family, contemplating lofty, intellectual thoughts. I wanted to be free for that trip to Paris when Mark got over his obsession with building. Teaching a person to read would undoubtedly involve a tedious hike up a mountain of words. Was I up for that? I had no training for this sort of thing and I was going to be awfully busy with my MFA studies. So why was I taking on an unnecessary pet project that didn’t support our new life mission statement?

  I came up with a dozen selfish reasons why I shouldn’t take on this project but there was a name and a face on my cause now. I no longer wanted to help with literacy; I wanted to help Kathy with literacy.

  I spent the rest of the weekend studying the different techniques used to teach reading and phonetics, trying to understand how the human mind processes words, connects sounds, and associates meaning to them. I wasn’t a trained academic teacher, but certainly I could figure this out.

  Mark came home to find me poring over reading books, taking notes. “You’re not ready? I thought we were going to drive over to our land and pick the perfect location for our dream home. Ronnie and I are ready to apply for a permit.”

  I shoved the papers aside. “I’m sorry. I was so busy I lost track of the time. The English language is more complicated then you’d ever guess. I’m not qualified to be a reading tutor, you know.”

  “You know how to read. Kathy doesn’t. That makes you qualified enough. I think it’s great. Teaching someone to read will keep you busy while I work on the house. Come on, let’s go pick a site.”

  I followed, sighing under my breath. More and more, I felt like I was trying to run with shoelaces knotted together while Mark was marching along, confident and inspired by our changing world. I just kept tripping along behind him, wishing he would turn around and offer an arm so I could keep up. Had he paused to notice how alone or lost I felt, he might have, but a man busy building a house doesn’t have time to pause. Besides, his arms were filled with tools and house plans, and there was no room for anything else, least of which would be my hand.

  “But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal.”

  —Henry David Thoreau

  THE TRANSFORMER

  A month later, I stood on the porch of our cabin holding an empty Diet Coke can, deep in contemplation.

  “What’s up?” Mark said, leaning on the rail beside me. “You look troubled.”

  The bottoms of his jeans were covered in mud, which meant he’d been crawling around inspecting the underside of the cabin again. I sighed, thinking about wasting yet another afternoon at the laundromat.

  “I don’t know what to do with this,” I said, waving the can in front of his face.

  “It might make a nice planter, or perhaps a Christmas ornament.”

  “Very funny. But really, what am I supposed to do with it?” I threw the can into a bag at the corner of the porch that was already brimming with other empty soda cans.

  Deep in the heart of rural living, they don’t provide residents with recycle bins. They don’t even provide local trash pick-up. You have to bury or haul your trash to the dump and pay for the disposal. All that lovely yard art, the rusted cars, and the stacks of broken household items that we saw stacked on, around, and under porches wasn’t there because farm folk are lazy, you see. Country people are just economizing. Without free trash removal or the convenience of having a Wal-Mart a stone’s throw away, people make do with what’s on hand. Items with any
potential utility are not dumped in the country, but stored...usually where they can be seen and not forgotten, like in your front yard.

  So, given that we were not in Oz, or even Kansas, anymore, I accepted that in order to consider myself “planet-friendly,” I had to find a way to live in harmony with the land without having to rely on tax-supported county services doing most of the work.

  I located a recycling center and started saving recyclables, purposely avoiding any acknowledgment that the greenhouse gasses I’d emit driving the twenty minutes to get to the recycling center defeated the purpose. Mark explained that we were expected to dig a huge hole on our fifty acres for a burn pit and whatever I didn’t want to recycle, we would simply burn.

  “We’re going to need a tractor to dig a hole,” he announced. “How much is a tractor going to cost us?”

  “About fifty grand.”

  “Well, by all means, let’s purchase a 50 thousand dollar machine to dig a hole so we can save 15 dollars a month on trash pickup fees.”

  Mark did not look amused. “You know I’m going to need a tractor to lift the heavy logs I’m using to build the house. I also will need to bush hog the fields, dig holes for fence poles, uproot the garden when we get around to planting one, and all kinds of other tasks connected to maintaining such a large piece of property.”

  So we went tractor shopping. Our previous budget-driven life had conditioned us to buy used big-ticket items whenever possible, but in this case we had no clue about how to repair, maintain, or even drive a tractor, so we decided to purchase a spanking new one with a solid warranty and an operator’s manual. Thankfully, tractors don’t come with sunroofs, so we didn’t have to wrestle with issues of “extras,” except, of course, the slew of attachments available. Mark claimed he needed a hole-digger, bucket excavating attachment, fork prong, bush hog mower, and a few other extensions that made the machine a very pricey big boy’s Transformer toy.