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Prereading
I was born into a house with three generations of my family living together. My grandmoither was a nurse, my grandfather was retired from the railroad, my father was a hot-dip man at AllSteel, my mother worked in the home and my older brother was starting junior high. I had someone around to read to me all the time. Even quiet time involved books, I remember pretending to read when I was a toddler. -
Turned away from elementary school
I learned the ABCs early and was eager to learn to read. In 1971 the school board changed their age policy: instead of needing to be 5 years old by the end of the school year, entering kindergarten students now had to be 5 years old before January first. I was inconsolable. -
Little Rock Public Library
A wonderfull place when I was a kid. They let you read as many books as you wanted. They even let you take a few home with you for a week at a time. Once a week they showed old Abbott and Costello or Marx Brothers movies. -
Bait and Switch
I finally got to kindergarten. I was ready toi learn to read but all they taught us was the ABCs (which I already knew!), how to get in line and how to skip. Kindergarten was a magor disappointment for me, I thought reading would be revealed to me all at once. I didn't realize that literacy is a lifelong process. -
I needed glasses
One night while heading homework, my brother noticed I was holding my book very close to my face. He thoughrost I might need glasses and I did. Getting glasses turned out to be a critical point in my acuiring literacy. In retrospect, it's kind of amazing to think about all i missed by not being able to see the chalkboard. Stock photo -
Dungeons and Dragons
In february of 1984 I got involved with a D&D gruop. Being in this group and playing the game, I found myself with a whole new vocabulary to use around these new friends. I started reading a lot of science fiction/fantasy and referencing the characters and plotlines within this group. -
My first attempt at Freshman English
I enrolled in Christine Hamilton's Freshman English course at Waubonsee Community College. I learned how to organize a five paragraph paper and construct a thesis. I wound up dropping her class when I dropped Speech class due to social anxiety. English was right after speech in the room next door, I couldn't keep going to one and not go to the other. It made sense at the time. -
Student Senate
After working in a work-study job assisting the student activities Director for a year, I allowed myself to get talked into running for Student Senate at Waubonsee. In spite of severe anxiety, I performed all my duties and even was able to talk into a microphone a couple of times in public. -
Working at Toys R Us
I got a part time job at Toys R Us where I learned to communicate with coworkers with different backgrounds and education levels as welol as customers in various states of agitation. I sold an awful lot of bicycles for those people. -
Uarco Inc.
I started working at the Uarco warehouse in the pick/pack department. We picked and packed mail order computer and office supplies. We had to literate to be sure we where sending out the correct items in each order. Within a year I moved into the imprint department, where I started to learn about the printing industry. -
TMC Graphics
After spending a few years learning how to run a printing press, I went to work for a small startup printing company in an effort to learn how to run a small business. For many years, Jan and I worked together to grow the business and increase sales and improve quality. I learned there was a big difference between the way I thought business worked and the way it actually works. -
Historical Wargaming
While I was working at Uarco I met a guy named Len who rekindled my interest in gaming, specifically historical wargaming. I added history and biography to my reading list to better understand the battle simulations I had started playing. I eventually got connected with Dean Essig and The Gamers. Dean was the publisher/designer of The Gamers, a company that designed and distributed games that covered several diffrerent historical periods. -
Truck Driving
In February of 2004 I started truck driving school. I spent about five years driving over the road. I learned new paperwork systems, a new vocabulary, and had to document my time more thoroughly than I had before. -
The Beam Team
For several years, I worked for a company called The Beam Team that subcontarcted with Home Depot to perform overnight resets in Home Depot stores. I had to access learning materials from several different mediams and use those resources to train my team. I had to communicate and document progress and issues with all of our various projects not only with The Beam Team management but, also with local management. -
Started DBT therapy
I started DBT (Dialectic Behavior Therapy) to learn to deal with my emotional issues. DBT is a set of practices designed to create an inner dialog to help gain a additional perspective on issues being dealt with and find alternate remedies to situations that arise. I've been reading about physhology and Buddhism as a result of DBT therapy. -
Back to school
After feeling adrift for a long time, I've reenrolled in college in an effort to finish my bachelors dergee and refocus my energy toward deciding on a new career.Some of the things I'm reading are altogether new while in other areas I'm finding the same information but, examining it with a direrent perspective than I approached it with the first time I was in college.
