In many ways, 2012 is a year we would like to forget.
It was a year of too much horror and heartache, a year that saw the legends of a generation pass and that left us reeling with questions about random violence rocking our sense of security.
Not since 2001 and the terror of 9/11 have we felt so hopelessly victimized as we did twice in 2012.
The world didn't come to an end on Dec. 21, as the Mayans predicted.
Instead it came to an end a week earlier on Dec. 14 for 26 families who lost their children in the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn.
The massacre was the second mass shooting of horrendous proportion, coming five months after a deranged lone gunman killed 12 people and injured dozens at a Colorado movie premiere.
We saw the venerable educational institution of Penn State University rocked by scandal that began in 2011, resulting in 2012 in the trial of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on charges of sexally abusing and raping young boys.
Again, the horror in headlines.
The scandal included a sad chapter, as legendary Coach Joe Paterno died of cancer early in the year.
JoePa, Whitney Houston, Nora Ephron, Etta James, Dick Clark -- all legends to different groups for different reasons -- all giants in someone's world, now gone.
Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on New York City and the Jersey shore, leaving in its wake death and destruction, forever altering shore towns that for many held their fondest memories of summers gone by.
Part of the sadness of 2012 is that the things destroyed were the very things we held dear in our hearts -- a Jersey shore memory, a first grade class, a night at the movies.
I am a Penn State alum so I add the happiness of Nittany Valley to that list.
In the December buildup to the Mayan calendar tale, there was a lot of talk that it didn't mean the end of the world, it meant a change in the world.
2012 was a year that turned upside-down many things we believed were stable and safe.
In so doing, many of our fears were laid bare.
As we head toward 2013, the hope is that we have a place to start.
Perhaps the awful events of 2012 were a way to turn the directions of violence and hatred in a different direction.
A local leader who I respect said to me recently: "All our agendas have been exposed. Maybe that's the first step to figuring out how to change society and make it truly about goodwill toward others."
That seems at least a way to look at the year past beyond just regret.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Successful show of support for literacy
About one in six adults in the U.S. is not literate, as defined by reading and writing above a fifth grade level.
Low literacy costs the nation more than $200 billion a year in lost productivity.
More than four million Pennsylvania adults lack the basic literacy skills needed for gainful employment.
Those statistics are listed by the Pottstown Adult Literacy Center among "Literary Fast Facts" to highlight the need in Pennsylvania and in the Pottstown tri-county area for support of adult literacy programs.
The center, part of the Pottstown YWCA but located in its own offices in the lower level of 1830 E. High St., offers classes and tutoring for adults and students in reading, writing, citizenship and math.
The center has a small staff, using resources of volunteers and materials bought through grants and limited funding.
Like most service agencies, the center has experienced cuts in funding and grants from county and state government due to budget constraints.
Despite the cuts, the need for training is increasing. The center served more than 400 adults last year and expects to see that number go higher this year. Many are English as Second Language students who need help mastering English to continue education, workforce training, or to get jobs.
Others are students who need extra help to master college courses or pass tests necessary for education or work.
Some in the program are older adults who never learned to read well enough to read to their grandchildren.
Increasing literacy in our local adult population is important to the community and to our nation's economy. It is certainly important to the newspaper industry which depends on people reading.
Those are among the reasons our staff and our TownSquare network of bloggers joined forces with the literacy center to raise money and awareness about the need for adult literacy training. Tuesday marked the wrapup of a monthlong campaign in which an anonymous donor gave $1 for every name of a person who signed on to support literacy programs.
The effort raised more than $900 for the tri-county center.
Literacy support does not stop here. The program needs volunteers and continued sources of funding to buy materials.
For those who read and write every day, it's easy to take literacy for granted.
Such is not the case for everyone.
Helping our community raise the level of literacy is a goal in which we are proud to take part.
Low literacy costs the nation more than $200 billion a year in lost productivity.
More than four million Pennsylvania adults lack the basic literacy skills needed for gainful employment.
Those statistics are listed by the Pottstown Adult Literacy Center among "Literary Fast Facts" to highlight the need in Pennsylvania and in the Pottstown tri-county area for support of adult literacy programs.
The center, part of the Pottstown YWCA but located in its own offices in the lower level of 1830 E. High St., offers classes and tutoring for adults and students in reading, writing, citizenship and math.
The center has a small staff, using resources of volunteers and materials bought through grants and limited funding.
Like most service agencies, the center has experienced cuts in funding and grants from county and state government due to budget constraints.
Despite the cuts, the need for training is increasing. The center served more than 400 adults last year and expects to see that number go higher this year. Many are English as Second Language students who need help mastering English to continue education, workforce training, or to get jobs.
Others are students who need extra help to master college courses or pass tests necessary for education or work.
Some in the program are older adults who never learned to read well enough to read to their grandchildren.
Increasing literacy in our local adult population is important to the community and to our nation's economy. It is certainly important to the newspaper industry which depends on people reading.
Those are among the reasons our staff and our TownSquare network of bloggers joined forces with the literacy center to raise money and awareness about the need for adult literacy training. Tuesday marked the wrapup of a monthlong campaign in which an anonymous donor gave $1 for every name of a person who signed on to support literacy programs.
The effort raised more than $900 for the tri-county center.
Literacy support does not stop here. The program needs volunteers and continued sources of funding to buy materials.
For those who read and write every day, it's easy to take literacy for granted.
Such is not the case for everyone.
Helping our community raise the level of literacy is a goal in which we are proud to take part.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Children's story hour (with cookies!)
Below is her blog post; as a note from me, please join us for homemade cookies and story hour with our Mercury and TownSquare readers.
The Mercury is hosting a free story time for kids this Friday as part of the holiday events happening throughout the month of December in downtown Pottstown.
The Mercury's holiday story hour will be from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Community Media Lab, located adjacent to our main entrance at 24 N. Hanover St. in Pottstown.
Special guest readers Mercury Editor Nancy March, who writes The Editor's Desk blog; Reporter Evan Brandt, who pens the Digital Notebook blog; TownSquare blogger Mandy March from So Much To Do, So Little Time; and Community Engagement Editor Diane Hoffman, author of the Lessons in Triathlon blog, will read selected holiday-themed books to children and their families during the hour.
The book selections include "The Polar Express," by Chris Van Allsburg, which will be read by the beguiling Mandy March.
Fresh, home-made cookies and hot chocolate will be available for all children in attendance. (I'm hoping there will be some free cookies and hot chocolate for random adult book bloggers who also plan to visit the story hour.) There will also be a holiday coloring activity for children.
If you can't make it to story hour, be sure to stop back and visit The Mercury's Community Media Lab during its regular hours. The lab is free and open to the public Monday to Thursday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and is located inside The Mercury at 24 N. Hanover St. With three computers, a microfilm machine in which to look up archives of The Mercury that go back to 1933 and free WIFI for those with their own lab top, the lab is a great place to sit and relax. There's also a free lending library that includes all kinds of books, from "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer to a vast collection of Anita Shreve novels, available for borrowing. Coffee and water are also available for $1. The Media Lab is also available to community groups looking for a free space to use.
For more information about the holiday story hour or The Mercury's Community Media Lab, call Diane Hoffman at 610-323-3000, ext. 156, or email dhoffman@pottsmerc.com
Friday, November 30, 2012
Teaching offers lessons in literacy
The Reading and Writing for Literacy project we are taking part in at The Mercury and with our TownSquare network of bloggers has meaning beyond raising funds for the Pottstown Adult Literacy Center.
The project, in which bloggers are writing about what literacy means to them, also raises awareness to the difficulties our newer citizens have in becoming skilled at the quirky language they must master to succeed in schools and in jobs in this country.
The majority of us for whom English is our first language tend to forget that it isn't for everyone. We are in many ways English-language snobs.
Read Sound-Off on a regular basis and sooner or later you'll detect the resentment at having to "press one" for English in a phone menu.
Some believe English should always be the default language, no others allowed, everyone else get in line to learn it.
But we're not that nation anymore. According to Census statistics, 8.3 percent of American households speak a language other than English at home. Many citizens in our region were born in places or in households where English was acquired, not native, as a language.
When we speak of literacy in our town and our nation, we're talking about the ability to read and write in English. That's what's needed in schools and workplaces in the U.S.
Many immigrants or children of immigrants can speak articulately but have not been afforded the learning necessary for mastery of reading and writing in English.
The difficulty, particularly in writing, can plague an adult taking college courses or applying for jobs.
I witness this firsthand, as I teach writing at Reading Area Community College to adult learners who do not test high enough for freshman English. Many of them are ESL students.
Three years ago I started teaching at RACC as an adjunct two nights a week, initially to help pay the bills for my own children in college and to explore teaching as a possible second career if I ever retire from the media business.
My classes are made up of high school dropouts coming back after getting a GED to give college a try, adult learners changing careers, parents who work in service industries or manual labor and want to improve their future job opportunities. Some are recovering addicts or ex-prisoners on parole living in halfway houses.
Ages range from 18 to adults in their 40s; some are parents of infants, and some are grandparents of teenagers.
What they have in common is a desire to improve their ability to read and write so they can succeed in college. I help with the writing part.
Their patterns of errors map the path of difficulty in writing in English. I can follow the trail from pronoun antecedents to singular verbs that end in "s", to family becoming families and child becoming children to see the struggle.
I tell them to read aloud and listen for their mistakes, and they stare back at me. They don't read with the inconsistencies that our language of exceptions provides.
Working with my students is among the most rewarding tasks I accomplish. I tell them there are two things I want them to achieve in my class: the first is to find their voice in writing and express themselves in a way that gives them confidence; the second is to learn the rules and basics of grammar and spelling so they can write effectively.
The second frequently interferes with the first.
My students are an inspiration to me as they work to learn to read and write at a level that allows them to be successful in their lives. Some of them want so badly to master the academics, while roadblocks like unfamiliarity with computers and poor training in the literacy basics get in their way.
They keep trying, and I smile at the unmasked honesty in their journals and their essays.
Without learning, they couldn't read or write their stories. That's why I teach.
***
The Mercury and TownSquare Reading and Writing for Literacy project is raising funds for the Pottstown Adult Literacy Center.
We are asking our readers to simply add your name to those who support the Adult Literacy Program.
A donor will give $1 for every signature as submitted on the following form.
The project, which lasts until Dec. 11, has thus far collected 721 signatures which translates to $721 to help fund literacy efforts in Pottstown.
Help us reach $1,000 by signing the form.
These dollars will go a long way to buy materials and help people learning to read.
Sign on to support our program: Pottstown reads.
The project, in which bloggers are writing about what literacy means to them, also raises awareness to the difficulties our newer citizens have in becoming skilled at the quirky language they must master to succeed in schools and in jobs in this country.
The majority of us for whom English is our first language tend to forget that it isn't for everyone. We are in many ways English-language snobs.
Read Sound-Off on a regular basis and sooner or later you'll detect the resentment at having to "press one" for English in a phone menu.
Some believe English should always be the default language, no others allowed, everyone else get in line to learn it.
But we're not that nation anymore. According to Census statistics, 8.3 percent of American households speak a language other than English at home. Many citizens in our region were born in places or in households where English was acquired, not native, as a language.
When we speak of literacy in our town and our nation, we're talking about the ability to read and write in English. That's what's needed in schools and workplaces in the U.S.
Many immigrants or children of immigrants can speak articulately but have not been afforded the learning necessary for mastery of reading and writing in English.
The difficulty, particularly in writing, can plague an adult taking college courses or applying for jobs.
I witness this firsthand, as I teach writing at Reading Area Community College to adult learners who do not test high enough for freshman English. Many of them are ESL students.
Three years ago I started teaching at RACC as an adjunct two nights a week, initially to help pay the bills for my own children in college and to explore teaching as a possible second career if I ever retire from the media business.
My classes are made up of high school dropouts coming back after getting a GED to give college a try, adult learners changing careers, parents who work in service industries or manual labor and want to improve their future job opportunities. Some are recovering addicts or ex-prisoners on parole living in halfway houses.
Ages range from 18 to adults in their 40s; some are parents of infants, and some are grandparents of teenagers.
What they have in common is a desire to improve their ability to read and write so they can succeed in college. I help with the writing part.
Their patterns of errors map the path of difficulty in writing in English. I can follow the trail from pronoun antecedents to singular verbs that end in "s", to family becoming families and child becoming children to see the struggle.
I tell them to read aloud and listen for their mistakes, and they stare back at me. They don't read with the inconsistencies that our language of exceptions provides.
Working with my students is among the most rewarding tasks I accomplish. I tell them there are two things I want them to achieve in my class: the first is to find their voice in writing and express themselves in a way that gives them confidence; the second is to learn the rules and basics of grammar and spelling so they can write effectively.
The second frequently interferes with the first.
My students are an inspiration to me as they work to learn to read and write at a level that allows them to be successful in their lives. Some of them want so badly to master the academics, while roadblocks like unfamiliarity with computers and poor training in the literacy basics get in their way.
They keep trying, and I smile at the unmasked honesty in their journals and their essays.
Without learning, they couldn't read or write their stories. That's why I teach.
***
The Mercury and TownSquare Reading and Writing for Literacy project is raising funds for the Pottstown Adult Literacy Center.
We are asking our readers to simply add your name to those who support the Adult Literacy Program.
A donor will give $1 for every signature as submitted on the following form.
The project, which lasts until Dec. 11, has thus far collected 721 signatures which translates to $721 to help fund literacy efforts in Pottstown.
Help us reach $1,000 by signing the form.
These dollars will go a long way to buy materials and help people learning to read.
Sign on to support our program: Pottstown reads.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
A really cool idea, or two
"Do you know what would be really cool?"
These words from Mercury reporter Brandie Kessler were usually followed by:
"I know you probably don't want to do this, and you can say this is a dumb idea -- you're the boss, you do what you want, but I was just thinking wouldn't it be cool if ..."
A soliloquy along those lines preceded a number of really cool ideas that we have embraced at The Mercury and turned to successes for this newspaper and the community of the Pottstown area.
We collected more than 16,000 food items for area food pantries and nearly 1,000 containers of laundry detergent by joining efforts with TownSquare bloggers to spread the word about dwindling food supplies last winter.
Cool idea.
We created a Pinterest board of Most Wanted criminals in area police departments, getting pictures out to the public on a platform they use. Tips have led to arrests, which make police happy and make us proud.
Cool idea.
We are posting cards with donors' names to Operation Holiday on the window of The Mercury Community Media Lab as a colorful display and a thank you to the readers who send us thousands of dollars for our holiday giving program.
Another cool idea.
Brandie's coolest idea, at least in her mind, was raising money for the Pottstown Relay for Life by taking donations to pie a Mercury employee in the face at the Bark for Life event. The 2008 collection raised $2,700 and gave Brandie the opportunity to throw a banana cream pie in my face.
I have had some cool ideas for Brandie, as well. One of them was sending her on the river with the Schuylkill River Sojourn last summer to live-blog four days of the river journey, traveling in her kayak, tweeting and taking video along the way.
Dedicated police reporter that she is, she fought me on leaving the office for a week to enjoy the outdoors.
I prevailed, and the blog was a gem.
Another idea I recently had was that she apply for a reporting job at our larger sister paper, the York Daily Record/Sunday News. I had learned about the job from colleagues at York, and I told her it was an opportunity she should not pass up. At least go for the interview, I insisted.
Again, the retorts that there are too many stories in Pottstown still to write, too much work still to be done.
But she went, and the rest, as they say, is history. Sunday was her last official day at The Mercury. She stopped in Monday though and I expect to see her again this week.
Brandie is one of a kind.
Her passion for reporting, her dedication to this craft, her persistence for excellence and her fearsome loyalty to her colleagues and others around her is unmatched.
That's why we already miss her.
There's a warning here, too, for our friends at YDR: Get ready for cool ideas.
And watch out.
You could end up with banana cream on your face.
These words from Mercury reporter Brandie Kessler were usually followed by:
"I know you probably don't want to do this, and you can say this is a dumb idea -- you're the boss, you do what you want, but I was just thinking wouldn't it be cool if ..."
A soliloquy along those lines preceded a number of really cool ideas that we have embraced at The Mercury and turned to successes for this newspaper and the community of the Pottstown area.
We collected more than 16,000 food items for area food pantries and nearly 1,000 containers of laundry detergent by joining efforts with TownSquare bloggers to spread the word about dwindling food supplies last winter.
Cool idea.
We created a Pinterest board of Most Wanted criminals in area police departments, getting pictures out to the public on a platform they use. Tips have led to arrests, which make police happy and make us proud.
Cool idea.
We are posting cards with donors' names to Operation Holiday on the window of The Mercury Community Media Lab as a colorful display and a thank you to the readers who send us thousands of dollars for our holiday giving program.
Another cool idea.
Brandie's coolest idea, at least in her mind, was raising money for the Pottstown Relay for Life by taking donations to pie a Mercury employee in the face at the Bark for Life event. The 2008 collection raised $2,700 and gave Brandie the opportunity to throw a banana cream pie in my face.
I prevailed, and the blog was a gem.
Another idea I recently had was that she apply for a reporting job at our larger sister paper, the York Daily Record/Sunday News. I had learned about the job from colleagues at York, and I told her it was an opportunity she should not pass up. At least go for the interview, I insisted.
Again, the retorts that there are too many stories in Pottstown still to write, too much work still to be done.
But she went, and the rest, as they say, is history. Sunday was her last official day at The Mercury. She stopped in Monday though and I expect to see her again this week.Brandie is one of a kind.
Her passion for reporting, her dedication to this craft, her persistence for excellence and her fearsome loyalty to her colleagues and others around her is unmatched.
That's why we already miss her.
And watch out.
You could end up with banana cream on your face.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Blessings of near-misses, minor crashes
I had a bad start to my day today, as this photo clearly shows.
Untreated roads were covered with an icy mix of rain and snow, and I headed out with an extra measure of care. My mistake, however, was wanting a second cup of morning coffee, taking Old Reading Pike to Dunkin' Donuts instead of staying on the more heavily traveled business Route 422.
Snow was falling pretty steadily; the KYW traffic report was noting minor crashes in those ever-popular northern and western suburbs.
I was coasting along about 30 miles per hour on a straight level stretch of road when the car started skidding -- sideways, then the other way, then sideways again.
The car was on its own, me helpless as I experienced in slow motion my red convertible making its way off the road.
Into a tree.
The front right corner hit the tree before the car slid sideways into a large bush. The air bags didn't go off; I wasn't jolted or hurt in any way.
We are firm believers in our household in the coincidence of threes, and indeed, this was our third car mishap in five days.
The first of those three bears retelling:
Four of the five members of our family were driving home together Thursday evening after a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at our son and his girlfriend's apartment in New York.
Our younger son was driving, his twin sister the front passenger, my husband and I in the back seat.
Traffic was light, and we were two-thirds of the way home on I-78 approaching Allentown.
As we passed the Hellertown exit, the unthinkable happened. My son saw it first - a car coming the wrong way up the ramp onto the interstate, crossing lanes, and speeding toward us in the passing lane.
The car was barreling full-on at us, both vehicles going at high speeds in the passing lane.
Scott swerved the car slightly to the right but couldn't get completely out of the way because of cars alongside us.
The approaching car also swerved and went partly onto the grass median, narrowly avoiding the head-on collision that would have killed us all.
We were shaken, to say the least, thankful for the blessings of quick reflexes and angels watching over us.
We later learned the driver was arrested for DUI after going five miles in the wrong direction on I-78. The news report said nothing of crashes or near-misses, so we can assume he avoided hitting anything.
Those who know me well know incidents with cars are my plague and probably my greatest annoyance.
But today I am thankful for the near-misses and skids that end slowly. They remind me of how close we come to tragedy and how remarkable the forces of fate are in sparing us.
Be careful out there. Always.
Untreated roads were covered with an icy mix of rain and snow, and I headed out with an extra measure of care. My mistake, however, was wanting a second cup of morning coffee, taking Old Reading Pike to Dunkin' Donuts instead of staying on the more heavily traveled business Route 422.Snow was falling pretty steadily; the KYW traffic report was noting minor crashes in those ever-popular northern and western suburbs.
I was coasting along about 30 miles per hour on a straight level stretch of road when the car started skidding -- sideways, then the other way, then sideways again.
The car was on its own, me helpless as I experienced in slow motion my red convertible making its way off the road.
Into a tree.
The front right corner hit the tree before the car slid sideways into a large bush. The air bags didn't go off; I wasn't jolted or hurt in any way.
We are firm believers in our household in the coincidence of threes, and indeed, this was our third car mishap in five days.
The first of those three bears retelling:
Four of the five members of our family were driving home together Thursday evening after a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at our son and his girlfriend's apartment in New York.
Our younger son was driving, his twin sister the front passenger, my husband and I in the back seat.
Traffic was light, and we were two-thirds of the way home on I-78 approaching Allentown.
As we passed the Hellertown exit, the unthinkable happened. My son saw it first - a car coming the wrong way up the ramp onto the interstate, crossing lanes, and speeding toward us in the passing lane.
The car was barreling full-on at us, both vehicles going at high speeds in the passing lane.
Scott swerved the car slightly to the right but couldn't get completely out of the way because of cars alongside us.
The approaching car also swerved and went partly onto the grass median, narrowly avoiding the head-on collision that would have killed us all.
We were shaken, to say the least, thankful for the blessings of quick reflexes and angels watching over us.
We later learned the driver was arrested for DUI after going five miles in the wrong direction on I-78. The news report said nothing of crashes or near-misses, so we can assume he avoided hitting anything.
Those who know me well know incidents with cars are my plague and probably my greatest annoyance.
But today I am thankful for the near-misses and skids that end slowly. They remind me of how close we come to tragedy and how remarkable the forces of fate are in sparing us.
Be careful out there. Always.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Learning value of education from those who missed out
I was raised with the importance of reading and writing drilled into my life by two people who learned the hard way.
My parents, both born in the middle of large families, had to quit school after the 8th grade. My dad had to work full-time on the family farm; my mom was needed at home to help care for younger siblings and to start earning a wage doing housework for others.
Both families were poor in dollars, rich in lessons that my parents passed on to me and my brothers.
Education was a privilege denied them, and that made its value so much greater. As parents, they never let us forget it.
I've seen the emphasis passed on among my cousins, a message strengthened through my parents' generation by the hardship it took to acquire it.
I didn't realize until much later in my life that my parents were fortunate in what they took from those eight years of schooling, in both cases taught in rural one-room schools of the early 1920s.
My dad had flawless spelling and could write a good letter when he needed to; he was quick and adept at math, and served as president and treasurer of nearly every group he joined, including being an elected school board president and the treasurer of the Boyertown Area School Board during the era of expansion that included building the junior high west center.
He was surrounded by people much more learned than he, and yet he was often at the head of the table in clubs, the church consistory and sports teams.
Although he worked at Doehler-Jarvis as his day job, he ran his own taxidermy business in our basement, having learned the trade through distance learning by mail.
My mom's lack of education showed in her spelling, but it didn't stop her from communicating well. She spelled things phonetically, a trait that brings a smile upon reading her handwritten recipes for "punkin" pie or "dumplins."
She had insights and an understanding of people and situations coupled with a desire to keep learning. When my brothers were in college, she borrowed some of their textbooks as leisure reading. She particularly liked psychology courses.
She emphasized always that we have books in our home and in our lives as children. But even more important to her were "educational" toys, as she called them. Of course I had my share of dolls and my brothers had plenty of sports gear, but she made a point of insisting that blocks, puzzles, word games, and books were more important.
We were raised knowing we would go to college. It was a rule that my mother enforced. Although I didn't know it until my parents were in their twilight years and I was settled into my adult life, my dad had at one time thought a college degree wasn't necessary for me because I would "just get married and have a family."
My mother prevailed with her philosophy: "You can lose the people around you; your job can end. But no one can take away your education."
Her strong stand molded my future.
My parents knew from experience that education does not come easily to everyone.That's what the Pottstown adult literacy program is about. It benefits people whose lives did not start easily, and it has the potential to further those opportunities we know come from education.
Pottstown's literacy effort needs your help.
With just a few minutes of your time, you can sign on to support the Adult Literacy Program. A donor will give $1 for every signature as submitted on the following form.
Those dollars will go a long way to buy materials and help people learning to read. My mother would call this effort "educational;" I call it a second chance.
Sign on to support our program: Pottstown reads.
My parents, both born in the middle of large families, had to quit school after the 8th grade. My dad had to work full-time on the family farm; my mom was needed at home to help care for younger siblings and to start earning a wage doing housework for others.
Both families were poor in dollars, rich in lessons that my parents passed on to me and my brothers.
Education was a privilege denied them, and that made its value so much greater. As parents, they never let us forget it.
I've seen the emphasis passed on among my cousins, a message strengthened through my parents' generation by the hardship it took to acquire it.
I didn't realize until much later in my life that my parents were fortunate in what they took from those eight years of schooling, in both cases taught in rural one-room schools of the early 1920s.
My dad had flawless spelling and could write a good letter when he needed to; he was quick and adept at math, and served as president and treasurer of nearly every group he joined, including being an elected school board president and the treasurer of the Boyertown Area School Board during the era of expansion that included building the junior high west center.
He was surrounded by people much more learned than he, and yet he was often at the head of the table in clubs, the church consistory and sports teams.
Although he worked at Doehler-Jarvis as his day job, he ran his own taxidermy business in our basement, having learned the trade through distance learning by mail.
My mom's lack of education showed in her spelling, but it didn't stop her from communicating well. She spelled things phonetically, a trait that brings a smile upon reading her handwritten recipes for "punkin" pie or "dumplins."
She had insights and an understanding of people and situations coupled with a desire to keep learning. When my brothers were in college, she borrowed some of their textbooks as leisure reading. She particularly liked psychology courses.
She emphasized always that we have books in our home and in our lives as children. But even more important to her were "educational" toys, as she called them. Of course I had my share of dolls and my brothers had plenty of sports gear, but she made a point of insisting that blocks, puzzles, word games, and books were more important.
We were raised knowing we would go to college. It was a rule that my mother enforced. Although I didn't know it until my parents were in their twilight years and I was settled into my adult life, my dad had at one time thought a college degree wasn't necessary for me because I would "just get married and have a family."
My mother prevailed with her philosophy: "You can lose the people around you; your job can end. But no one can take away your education."
Her strong stand molded my future.
My parents knew from experience that education does not come easily to everyone.That's what the Pottstown adult literacy program is about. It benefits people whose lives did not start easily, and it has the potential to further those opportunities we know come from education.
Pottstown's literacy effort needs your help.
With just a few minutes of your time, you can sign on to support the Adult Literacy Program. A donor will give $1 for every signature as submitted on the following form.
Those dollars will go a long way to buy materials and help people learning to read. My mother would call this effort "educational;" I call it a second chance.
Sign on to support our program: Pottstown reads.
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